2009, Denmark/Germany/France/Sweden/Italy/Poland
Drama, Horror, Thriller
Director Lars von Trier is no stranger to the wicked depths of mindplay. Bold in style, whether stripped down to his Dogme 95 vow of cinematic chastity or oozing with excessive symbolism, his films portray an internal vision about as delicate as a kick in the teeth. His latest film, Antichrist, opts for pulling each tooth out by hand, with some of the imagery about as palatable.
That is not to say that the often violent, disturbing images do not have their place. Beautiful in their artistry, the creative team of von Trier and frequent collaborator and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (who nabbed an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire) builds a dark world that neatly envelops their cursed characters.
The film begins with fantastic pretentiousness. A libretto from Handel's opera Renaldo laments "Leave me to weep over my cruel fate," playing behind a slow motion, black-and-white scene of a husband and wife making forceful love while their toddler son follows billowy snow out of his bedroom window, falling to his death. Charlotte Gainsbourg (I'm Not There) and Willem Dafoe (Shadow of the Vampire) portray this unnamed couple who spend the rest of the film swallowed by the despair of losing their young son.
At least, the wife is absorbed by the tragedy. The husband -- who is also a therapist -- focuses all of his energies on assisting his wife through her grief, who he feels is currently being numbed by unnecessary prescriptions. Removing the artificial aids, he plumbs her mind and soul for the true source of her fears. Physician, heal thyself, not your wife.
Leaving the cold, sterile environment of their sanitarium-like home, they head away from society to their woodland retreat known as Eden -- even going so far as to refer to a garden there (hint, hint). As the husband forces her to face her fears, he is blissfully unaware that he is quickly approaching his own. As her demons quiet, his become louder.
This, of course, is no ordinary tale of woe. From the title card that utilizes the female Venus symbol to the wife's study of tortured women through the ages, the snake slowly creeps from the tree, producing no shiny apple but rather bruised and worm-holed fruit. However, man is not picky, and in his arrogance will assume that a good dusting will make the fruit edible again.
When things become emotionally tricky, the wife aggressively attacks her husband for sex. There is no love in the action, but rather it becomes a distracting replacement for pharmaceuticals, numbing her from her own racing thoughts. Nudity is used in a graphic manner, where bodies no longer appear soft but instead are angular and raw. As he attempts to heal her soul, she presents a hopeless stack of bones and skin, unable to alter their inevitable chemistry.
Fate falls to the female of the species, the sex with the power to procreate in spite of the other's tendency towards destruction. In a film driven by tragedy, a seemingly controlled and identifiable microcosm becomes a grandly twisted interpretation of man and woman, free will and fate, good and evil. Human nature is presented for examination, and according to von Trier's Antichrist, it is a bloody chaotic mess.