Antichrist [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Lars von Trier Lars von Trier

Overview

"This enormously controversial psychodrama-cum-horror film from Danish enfant terrible Lars von Trier charts the degeneration of a marriage into apocalyptic violence, chaos, and insanity following an unthinkable domestic tragedy. The film opens with a prologue. While they make love in their apartment on a snowy winter afternoon, a husband and wife known only as ""He"" and ""She"" (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) fail to keep an eye on their young toddler. In a horrific turn of events, the child wanders over to an open window, entranced by the snow cascading down, and falls two stories to his death. Von Trier then divides the remainder of the film into four chapters, beginning with ""Grief."" In that segment, the woman finishes a month's hospitalization, and accuses her husband of apathy over the child's death, but proceeds to take responsibility for it herself; he calmly and rationally guides her through this process. In the second segment, ""Pain,"" she confesses to him that she's most terrified of their property in the forest, because she spent time with her son there over the preceding summer; as a form of therapy, he takes her to that locale on a wilderness retreat. She appears to grow more calm and rational over their first days in that milieu. Yet the recovery, it seems, was only illusory, and the subsequent two chapters, ""Despair (Gynocide)"" and ""The Three Beggars,"" depict the woman's shocking and abrupt regression into unbridled insanity, culminating with grotesque sexual violence against herself, gruesome acts of destruction against her husband, and an apocalyptic climax."

Product Details

Release Date:	11/09/2010
UPC:	0715515063517
Original Release:	2009
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Language:	English
Time:	1:48:00
Sales rank:	351

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Charlotte Gainsbourg	She
Willem Dafoe	He
Storm Acheche Sahlstrøm	Nic

Technical Credits

Lars von Trier

Anders Thomas Jensen

Lars von Trier	Director,Screenwriter
Anders Thomas Jensen	Screenwriter,Executive Producer
Meta Louise Foldager	Producer
Peter Garde	Executive Producer
Karen Maarbjerg	Special Effects
Peter Hjorth	Special Effects
Leo Davis	Casting
Victoria Beattie	Casting
Antoinette Boulat	Casting

Editorial Reviews

Courting controversy has always been the de facto artistic goal of writer-director Lars von Trier. With Antichrist, he pursues that goal even more single-mindedly than ever before. The hubbub surrounding Antichrist appeared in forms both internal and external to the actual film; internal, because it contains some of the most graphic sexual violence ever to hit mainstream cinema, and external, because von Trier proclaimed himself the greatest director in the world while doing publicity interviews. The former transgression might logically nullify the latter assertion, but Antichrist is, in fact, quite beautiful, in its way. Anthony Dod Mantle's camerawork is gorgeous, entrancing us through dreamy slow motion, watery palettes of color, and unconventional framing, all of it augmented by the haunting sound design. Furthermore, von Trier's examination of the paralysis of grief is as thought-provoking as it is, in most respects, earnest. The million-dollar question, then: Did he really have to show such brutality in order to get his point across? And if so, what was his point, exactly? The act in question -- or multiple acts, depending on your personal tolerance level -- begs us to consider whether von Trier actually hates women, a theory that has always seemed credible, given the punishments endured by the female characters in his previous films. But his biggest problem is not the imagery itself. You can justify almost anything if you can demonstrate its narrative purpose, or if the outcome of events flows logically from what came before. That's not the case here. Grieving may turn Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg -- who give bold, unflinching performances -- into deteriorated husks, but von Trier needed to consider whether A plus B equaled C, if he really wanted to sidestep accusations of misogyny. Then again, being who he is, such accusations probably only fueled the director's sense of rebellious iconoclasm.