Antichrist [DVD]

I guess this product doesn't really need another Review - there are plenty here already - but I "loved" this film so much I just had to say what I feel and think about it.

It should disturb people - I presume it is meant to. But only in the sense that it is crying out to people's denial of our terrible human condition here; the Evilness of planet earth. So much that is generally hidden or denied or labelled pathological, but which is actually normal. And of course to say such things is to immediately invite people's wrath, even if it is the Truth.

For me there is only one error in the movie - and that is the equation of nature with women only; and somehow men representing the mind/intellect/rationality. Because, in Truth, of course, man and the mind are as much a product of nature as everything else on the planet. There is the battle to try and rationalise an emotional event - and the portrayal of the fact that that is just not possible. Nor can it be. And ultimately the body and emotions win, as Dafoe himself finds out.

There is nothing shocking about any of the sexual scenes; nor has it got anything to do with mental illness. Nor is it a horror movie, though it is of course horrific in certain scenes. People who want to take those lines are, again, missing the more distressing point that pain, grief, sorrow, anger and "madness" are major parts of our life as humans on this planet.

The primal scream is actually shown visually, as is the cruelty of nature. The images of the half-born, dead baby deer still trapped in its mother's body for example; the almost-dead bird eaten up by other creatures and so on. This is an exploration of von Trier's idea that "nature is satan's church". And although I wouldn't use the word "satan", I can see what he is driving at and wholly agree.

At least he has dared to look at many issues and aspects of our lives straight in the eye - in a world which prefers to pretend they don't exist.

I totally recommend.

If it hadn't been for the vociferous praise from a friend, wild horses couldn't have dragged me to watch Lars Von Trier's latest controversy. Not only did it seem to be thoroughly unpleasant but having recently been joined by our second son the timing couldn't have been any worse for a film which follows the tortured path of a couple grieving after the death of their toddler. It doesn't matter who you are though, or what your familial setup might be, Antichrist is always going to be an uncomfortable and uncompromising watch. Deeply troubling, controversial in the truest sense of the word and as admirable as it is repulsive, I'm still not entirely sure how I feel but after a week or two I am at least ready to get something out there.

It is an uncompromising start, Von Trier seems keen to set out his stall early. The first few minutes of the film, shot in beautiful slow motion black-and-white, show Willem Defoe as 'He' and Charlotte Gainsbourg as 'She' making love, including a close-up shot of a thrusting, erect penis so that you can accuse him of pornography and the simultaneous, slow, almost balletic sequence events that leads to the couple's son falling from their apartment window onto the snowy street below. We are then into Grief, the name of this first section, which has hospitalised and medicated her and left him, who is a therapist, with the cold detachment of a professional, searching for the best way to help her through her grief. At first we feel huge sympathy for Gainsbourg, crippled by her grief, lashing out for some kind of purchase on her emotions, whilst at the same time being repelled by Defoe's clinical and arrogant treatment of his partner. You sense that there can only be danger once the barrier between lover and therapist has been broken down and this feeling only intensifies when the couple leave the oppression of their apartment for the rural retreat they call Eden.

After Grief come sections entitled Pain (Chaos Reigns) and Despair (Gynocide) where rural retreat becomes a place of frightening isolation, Eden becomes Hell, and the couple embark on a course of tortured treatment, recrimination and confrontation. Von Trier's landscape is dark hued and frightening, populated by totemic animals like a doe with a stillborn fawn hanging behind it, and a rank fox which even speaks to Him ("Chaos reigns!") a horrible visual representation of Her assertion that Nature is Satan's Church. The increasingly nightmarish feel to the film continues as the violence escalates and all is enhanced by Anthony Dod Mantle's amazing cinematography; Eden is fecund and rotting, a harsh light cuts through the night and the black and white sections are deep and textured.

The torturous violence meted out wouldn't look out of place in the rash of horror flicks from the Saw stable but it isn't that or the explicit sex that worry me. It is of course the sexual politics and the inevitable accusations of misogyny. I've already mentioned our differing sympathies for He and She and these shift through the film with Von Trier providing revelations that alter our perception particularly of her. She had been working on a thesis of historical violence against women (Gynocide) but her endeavour stalled in the face of her unacceptable conclusion. Human nature is evil and therefore women are evil, a conclusion dangerously close to 'she asked for it' and one rejected emphatically by He. But those revelations about her would seem to support her thesis and the last of these is such a paradigm shift that it risks alienating part of the audience entirely. This is what I'm still struggling with. Von Trier can't really be suggesting that women are evil, their sexual desires perverse and murderous, and their relationship to their offspring ambivalently abusive; so what is he trying to say exactly? The final scene in which a crowd of faceless women surge over the hill on which He now stands alone, baffled, is perhaps an indicator of Von Trier's own bafflement and certainly a neat symbol of mine. What I can say for sure is that the film is a work of art rather than pornography of sex or violence. It is uncomfortable and difficult, challenging and unique. There is no right time to watch it but it would be a mistake to dismiss it out of hand.

From the opening scene Anti Christ let's you know this film isn't going to pull any punches. I wouldn't watch it with your grandma, put it that way.

The film is sexually explicit, gruesome, chilling, spooky and in several places had all of us who were watching going, "Oh my God!", "What the ffffff....!" or just plain hiding behind our pillows.

It'is brilliantly paced and makes good use of sound and film techniques to build an eerie atmosphere, and the main setting only ads to this feeling too, as the bulk of 'the horror' takes place at a log cabin in the woods.

There are some truly twisted ideas in this film which will make your jaw drop and your tummy turn, but this only ads to the films affect.

I found the story to be riveting. The acting solid. The horror palpable. And I thought that, for once, this was a horror that really did leave me with a chill.

The Blu Rayicture quality is excellent and there are a good deal of extras ont he disc too, which talk about the animals and animal trainers, the look and design of the film, the research that went into it, the techniques used and all manner of other things. There are cast a director interviews and, even though this film will create mixed options amongst it's viewers, all will agree they didn't scrimp on the bonus material.

For me, Anti Christ was a brave film that slapped me around the face and demanded my attention. Once the ride was over I was
Eft feeling like I'd been sucker punched by Satan himself.