Anticristo

OK...so I just finished AntiChrist, there has never been a movie that made me feel the way I do after viewing it...it was one of the most emotionally draining, horrific, beautiful films I have ever seen in my life...after watching it I feel like I just watched a loved one die. it took ten minutes for me to calm down and stop crying...this might be one of the greatest horror films ever made. So if you see it, be careful. It is really powerful. I know a little about Von Trier and have seen a handful of his films...this one, for me, takes the cake, over many movies out in the world. If you do get to see this, and are ready for a crazy ride, just remember, think about who you show this to before you do it, it is not for everyone that is into horror.

Controversial, much lauded and horrific to watch, ANTICHRIST is Lars von Trier's showpiece film. It tells the tale of an unhappy marriage that breaks down due to grief, and the extremes that follow. It's a film that plays out as a two-hander for the most part, with Dafoe and Gainsbourg acting it up in a remote woodland cabin and taking out their rage and anger upon each other.

The film's simple storyline allows von Trier to concentrate on the things that interest him most. His intelligent, thoughtful script goes deep into the psyche of his characters, exploring the ways in which therapy can – and in some ways, cannot – help a parent to get over the loss of their child. The first half of the film is packed with foreboding that gives way to visceral horror in the second half.

Everything you've heard about this film's explicit nature is true; nothing much makes me squeamish anymore, but ANTICHRIST did. I can't stand sexual violence in films and von Trier incorporates it to chilling, disturbing effect, made all the more powerful due to its brief nature. In many ways, the second half of this film becomes HOSTEL in the woods, except it's all the more frightening because violence comes from a loved one rather than a stock villain.

Dafoe and Gainsbourg are both very good; they couldn't not be, seeing as what von Trier asks of them. Dafoe plays the more sympathetic role and Gainsbourg's character is a little shrill on occasion, but neither of them disappoint. Von Trier directs in classic art-house style with beautiful shots interspersed with grotesque imagery and true left-of-field interludes.

It's certainly not a film for the faint of heart or an experience I would choose to put myself through again, but I think that ANTICHRIST is a great example of a director following his vision without compromise.

This movie drained me...

Without a doubt the most unpleasant and despairing movie I've ever watched. It's not just the graphic imagery that got to me, but the overall tone of the movie was incredibly dreadful and you could almost feel a presence of some sort of "evil".

This is a hard movie to review. It crosses all barriers when it comes to movie making...ALL. It makes you question yourself about what art is and if there's anything as going "too far"?

But don't dismiss this. It's certainly much more than just being graphic for the sake of it. First off, the cinematography is absolutely flawless. The opening scene had me in absolute awe. Beautiful... And my deepest respect to Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsburg. I could only imagine how much this would drain the actors both mentally and physically. They are amazing and deserve Oscars.

I have to mention the violence too, since it's a critical aspect. This isn't "torture porn" of any kind. It's natural (it's looks almost too realistic), physical sexual violence. That's why it works so effective on the audience. You can almost feel their pain. Never before have I watched a movie where I felt the urge to look away. You would think that, in the end, all this violence and self molestation is just a shock tactic, but I assure you it's not. There is actually a plot and a sensible progression of the movie. I of course won't say too much. People need to see it.

I can understand why some people wouldn't like it, and that's okay. This is most definitely not for everyone.

It may not be a movie that made me feel good, but it made feel something and had an effect on me. It's beautiful, sad, poetic, horrific and in the end, oddly uplifting. A genre masterpiece.

A must see.

10/10.

Down the road from me is a coven of Christian filmmakers. It is a school and the purpose is to make films that evangelize. This fascinates me; generally their stories are about fighting the devil, a narrative that encompasses both what is in the film and what surrounds the making of the film. Some day, they might make engaging films and who knows what will happen.

This interests me because most movies are made by professional storytellers. Scorcese and Fincher (for example) not only makes a wide variety of stories, but they deliberately do so. The connection with their lives is — with few exceptions — with the art. Most singers are this way as well. Connected with this is films that have a love story that features a woman the male filmmaker is in love with. This often grabs me.

Now here we have a man deeply depressed, possessed. He makes a film painfully pulled from his soul, so difficult in the making that he is suicidal. It works. It is so deeply disturbing that I caution you to stay away from it. I was a bit vulnerable when encountering this world and it affected me.

Lars von Trier has built a life making films that exploit experiments in convention. I find them interesting, but there is always an academic distance that keeps them from connecting. They engage for how they are made, not what they are. At each juncture, I wonder how powerful a film might be if he used what he knows to communicate, rather than to practice. Now I know. He was so depressed he simply made. Looking at the usual areas where he is disciplined, you can see he is sloppy. Everything is imprecise. There is no theory at work here. Where it is technically competent, it is only temporarily so. That is what makes it so, so very powerful. His gush of expression floods past his constraints of Danish discipline.

The story is identical to "Don't Look Now." We as viewers think we see a child lost, and follow a couple in a grief that swallows them. But we see it from the husband's untrusted eye. He is confused, haunted, magically twisted through the sexual magic he and we see but which permeates and guides the narrative. This is a tornado of witchcraft, like the Roeg film, but from a filmmaker within it. Causal mechanics are not what we think we know from the beginning. The shoes are reversed. I do not know from outside sources what caused his depression, but it is pretty clear from this desperate message from within.

There are some pretty powerful images here. Some involve genitals, an ordinarily off-limits zone. Some involve a graceful death of an infant, made more terrifying by the beauty in which we receive it. Some involve damaged animals. Each of these is amplified by the rush of emotional confusion, the onanistic waterfall of acorns on the tin roof. Experience this at your peril.

The actors are incredible.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Much as I hate to see personal heroes go down, this was a letdown in every way.

I'm betting that just about everything filmed in slo-mo, black&white & set to a classical tune is likely to seem wonderful. It's such a cheap trick! How can people say that the prologue is wonderful/brilliant etc, when it's a mere legerdemain of the lowest kind? I mean, get together a cute baby, a washing machine and a couple having explicit sex, and you have not a brilliant scene, but a brainless, comfortable attempt at stirring emotion. Bah.

In fact, the entire movie suffers from a lack of creativity: the ominous atmosphere is suggested by heavy fog (I mean fog machines), a fox speaks (everybody burst out laughing, no wonder!), a crow refuses to die despite being hit over the head repeatedly. How much must we suffer for von Trier's shortage of original artistic vision!

As for the rest, a friend explained it had to do with seeing women as intrinsically threatening because of their sexual drive. I recommend Odishon for that - more intelligent, less cheap.