Antichrist
Lars von Trier has dedicated his latest provocation to Andrei Tarkovsky, the Russian auteur I’ve mentioned frequently as one of my faves. Indeed, there are moments in “Antichrist” that resemble the work of Tarkovsky, but I gotta say, he never told such a bleak story as this.
It starts off- as is well known by now- with two events. One constructive- a man and woman making love- and one destructive- a child falling to his death. The man and woman are known only as He (Willem Dafoe) and She (Charllote ), and it is their child who falls to his death as they make love. This series of events, shot in stylized slow motion & black and white, that is the catalyst for the rest of the film, as the couple try to deal with their grief.
Von Trier, whose other films include “Breaking the Waves,” “Dancer in the Dark,” and “Dogville,” does not tell easy stories but complex and sometimes difficult morality tales. To say “Antichrist” is no different is a gross understatement. He takes his characters to the outer limits of their psychological selves until they go over the edge. He, the Dafoe character, is a therapist who trusts no one else to know what is best for his wife, while She is a college student who wrote her thesis on Witchcraft and the Wiccan religion as it applies to nature.
Both of these ideas come to blows when He takes his wife to an isolated cabin, where She can face her fears head on and, He hopes, She can work through her grief and demons completely. The location is called Eden, not without irony. Von Trier lights it not as a paradise but more as a place beset by demons, more than we realize when first they make their way there.
The performances are something to be seen- Dafoe and Gainsbourg show these characters cracking at the seams psychologically, emotionally, and- eventually- physically. These characters have no real arcs, but are seen plainly, vividly, as the are after their son’s death. He is too overcome by a compulsive need to help her. She is too overcome by grief to be helped. The best thing for both would be to focus in on their own pain and own it, and accept it.
Adam and Eve thought better than God, as well, and they were expelled from Eden. Von Trier’s film is provocative and pulverizing, difficult in spades, but boy does it drag. The beginning is compelling, as is the end, but the middle really lost my interest. That said, it nonetheless deserves note for what it does right more than criticizing what (little) it really does wrong. But enter at your own peril- though not nearly as outrageous as its’ reputation, “Antichrist” is still a difficult and bold experience.
