"Nature is satan's church": Antichrist review

Antichrist (2009)
D: Lars Von Trier
Cast: Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0870984/

"A grieving couple retreats to their cabin in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse." --imdb.com

Antichrist begins with grief. The loss of a child sets in motion a series of horrendous events, that culminate at a cabin the only two characters call simply 'Eden'. Like Adam and Eve, there's nobody else in this dark world that their loss has sent them to. Nobody has names, there's only fear, sex and despair.

Willem Dafoe puts on a great performance here. He appears to be a psychologist, who attempts to help his wife, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg cope with the loss, and during this healing process they tap into something that nobody and nothing can explain. Medieval woman-hating pagan mystics and a forest coming alive to kill man who's strayed a far from the garden, Antichrist is a horrendous experience.

The film weighs on you like a tonne of bricks and never eases up. It contains an element of constant horror, but unlike light teenie-horror flicks, the tension never eases up and gets worse the further you go. This is horror the way you never want it: unrelenting and unentertaining. You need to be somewhat of a masochist to go through this one.

Von Trier suffered from depression before doing this film [1] and it shows. I think only a depressed mind can constitute to this kind of charcoal-black, manic story of evil. There's nothing to like in this film, it repulses you every single second of the way and there's no avail during the experience. In all meanings of the word, Antichrist is a terrible film.



The artistic touches are simply superb, though, and in it self, creating such powerful unease in the viewer can be considered an artform in it self. For me, Dafoe's performance really did it for me here, but I'm a long-time fan so that obviously influences it. I can't say I enjoyed what I saw, because if I could say that I'd feel I've lost contact with my humanity. However, the prowess of Von Trier can't be denied and he truly is a master of moving picture.

What is beyond me, is how someone capable of Antichrist can direct something like Dancer in the Dark. I just hated that film and really doubted Von Trier after that one. I thought Dancer in the Dark was simply appalling to the point that I felt sick. I didn't experience that with this one, though. Maybe it goes to say something (about me?).

It's menacing, haunting and incredibly difficult to watch. See it.

(c) Chris 2010