Antichrist

Antichrist
2009
Directed By Lars Von Trier



SYNOPSIS

After their young child dies accidentally, a couple us thrown into turmoil. The mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) suffers the hardest. Her husband (Willem Dafoe) is a therapist and tries to help her with her grief. The head to their cabin in the woods... and then things get weird.



MY THOUGHTS

More than a half hour has passed since watching this film and I'm left almost in a state of shock and unsure what I've seen.... and how to react to it.

Antichrist is highly unpleasant and disturbing... and certainly not for the feint of heart.
The gruesome violence and unsettling images (many involving injured animals) are stomach churning, as is the disconcerting and very un-sexy sex scenes. Even the seemingly normal scenes create an ominous, dreadful feeling in the viewer.

The only film I've ever seen that has left me with such a bad case of the willies was Pasolini's Salo or The 120 Days of Sodom. Both it and Antichrist are not bad films at all. They just embrace the darker and more depraved side of humanity and present it in a stark and unsettling way.

The cinematography in Antichrist is beautiful. Especially the black and white footage in the 'prologue' and 'epilogue' segments. The acting is also outstanding. Gainsbourg and Dafoe give stellar performances. Without the strong performances, the film wouldn't have any of it's impact.

There was so much symbolism throughout nearly each and every scene that I got a headache trying to decipher each one while following the story. It's definitely one of those films that you would get more out of each time you saw it... if you could stand it.

The film is certainly not for most people... but if you understand that some art must be grotesque, in order to make the pretty stuff seem beautiful... you might want to check out Antichrist.

The film is not yet available on DVD in the U.S.A.