Lars von Trier's 'Antichrist'

[Nordic]

Iraqi boys are being sodomized by American soldiers to coerce their fathers to give information that will allow an invading country to successfully overtake their native country in a war that is unjust in almost every sense of the word, that was built on lies and has been justified by corrupt elitists who use religious dogma to manipulate those same perpetrating soldiers who are probably there in large part in the first place because their home country is built on social violence having left them without privilege and with limited opportunity and in the process 100s of 1000s of people have died.

I should be able to hang with that over my espresso every morning.

But a movie like this might be hard to watch.

Ok.

You made me laugh out loud. Dark laughter. Very dark.

Extremely well put!

[MacCruiskeen]

"it should be called "Breaking the Wind".

I managed to sit through all seven hours of that masterpiece, watching much of it through splayed fingers.

Synopsis: Rough-hewn Scandinavian roustabout marries sweet innocent Scottish Holy Fool and enjoys a brief but ecstatic honeymoon before returning to work on a North Sea oil-rig populated almost entirely by French male models. In a moment of mental abstraction while struggling with a recalcitrant bit, he breaks his back and is paralysed from the neck down, whereupon he insists, being selfless, that his wife start fucking other men. This sends her into a steep but inordinately lengthy decline from which she eventually expires, not least because the windswept Hebridean island she lives on is ruled by a grim Calvinist sect for whom loose women are the spawn of Satan. (She would have been fine in Glasgow.) At her funeral everyone is very sad indeed, but then bells start ringing in the sky, a clear indication that her soul has gone to Heaven. This makes everyone very happy again.

Lars von Trier should get out more.

[professorpan]

I finally got to see this film.

It is a truly unique, disturbing, fascinating dream, but I would only recommend it to those who can deal with very, very dark (and occasionally gruesome) themes and imagery.

You know if that's your thing -- if it is, see this film. You won't forget it.

[Wombaticus Rex]

RI people might be interested in his very very odd horror/comedy/hospital drama TV series The Kingdom, not to be confused by Steven King's lame american remake.

Personal conspiracy theory: that was so good they had to do an American version to cover it up ASAP. It's really the most perfect vehicle for his weirdness.

[lightningBugout]

SPOILERS BELOW

I finally got to see this film.

It is a truly unique, disturbing, fascinating dream, but I would only recommend it to those who can deal with very, very dark (and occasionally gruesome) themes and imagery.

You know if that's your thing -- if it is, see this film. You won't forget it.

I also loved Antichrist though my companions hated it. Interesting to see your response Pan, as I felt much more that the notion Antichrist was particularly disturbing was wildly overblown. Almost laughably so. Apart from one graphic genital mutilation scene, (a clitoris is sliced off) the actual formal elements of the film are much less graphic and/or disturbing than nearly any Hollywood slasher film.

I took the film to reflect Von Trier having a studied interest in, for lack of a better word, "the" Gnostics and the issue of heresy. In that context, the ire at Cannes when the film concludes with a dedication to Tarkovsky, is much more interesting to me as Tarkovsky is sort of a patron saint of metaphysical exploration in (European) films. I think it's a very meaningfgully heretical film completely misunderstood if identified as a cheap experiment in shock value. The usual charge that Von Trier is a misogynist strikes me as particularly odd if the film is taken as a real meditation on the Gnostic metaphysics of nature, including women's bodies.

Whatever. It comes highly recommended by LBO. Its very intellectually provocative and, to my thinking, well within the manageable zone of anybody who spends much time on this board. Not to mention, anyone who is overtly disgusted by the auto-clitorectomy seems to miss the point of the film - it is a visceral experience/representation of self-discipline and auto-repression and the denial and repression of natural hedonistic pleasure through one's estrangement from the natural world. Works for me.

Great film.

The Kingdom is spectacular too.

[Peregrine]

Alright, lbo, Your post has officially inspired me to see it. Gonna grab a bottle of wine & rent it with a good gal pal of mine as soon as it's out on dvd. She's a big fan of Lars von Trier, so I suggested it to her.

[Metric Pringle]

lightningBugout I think you hit the nail on the head with your expresso in the morning talk. I was thinking the same thing when reading everyone's concerns about viewing it. It really isn't a patch on the reality in which we live, and consume on daily basis. Plus the film has a resolved ending of sorts, unlike our world!

I watched it with a friend a few weeks back, and it's definitely in my top ten. The cinematography is absolutely impeccable. it really is strangely perfect. And yes, the graphic parts were hyped to such an extreme that I went in thinking it would be full to the brim with the stuff, but in fact it really doesn't have much, at all ! It is so harrowing that the small sections of graphic imagery hit you that much harder, as they are somehow done in a way that you totally accept that they had to happen. I realised that the most affecting element of the film, was the sound. The actors lines have been dubbed afterward, none of the film uses location sound. Then their voices have been put through a reverb effect making them sound like they are constantly in big hall, their sound echoing subtly through it. Then they have only foley'd (created location sounds, such as a door opening etc that needs to be recorded after film is done) certain elements of scenes. so it creates a very empty space that that these two characters are in. locked together hopelessly.

Yes. see it. it is quite something...

Also, i would highly recommend "The Boss Of It All". It is one of Lars' only comedies I think... just straight down the line funny film. it's brilliant! if concerned about Antichrist, get The Boss Of It All to watch afterward to bring you down... basic synopsis, a man who starts a business doesn't think he can handle being the Boss, of it all. so he pretends he is number 2, and that the number 1 is in America. When he gives his workers a raise, he tells them. When they need firing, the fake Boss of it all does the dirty work... ha!

[lightningBugout]

SPOILERS, AGAIN

lightningBugout I think you hit the nail on the head with your expresso in the morning talk. I was thinking the same thing when reading everyone's concerns about viewing it. It really isn't a patch on the reality in which we live, and consume on daily basis. Plus the film has a resolved ending of sorts, unlike our world!

Thanks! That's a very good point, about resolution. And the sound of that film is resolutely well-executed.

On reflection, something else strikes me about Antichrist - when has anyone, ever seen a clitoris in a non-pornographic movie? Even most of the porn films I have seen rarely show the clitoris as much of an entity. If it shown it is nearly always relationally defined. To what degree is that heretical representation what not-so-consciously draws out the utter revulsion and horror of someone like Roger Ebert?

Why haven't I seen a single piece about this film that talks about, well, genital mutilation. I have a feeling there is a piece of criticism to be written about Antichrist that frames it as a strongly feminist film.

[Metric Pringle]

SPOILER ALERT, sort of

Why haven't I seen a single piece about this film that talks about, well, genital mutilation. I have a feeling there is a piece of criticism to be written about Antichrist that frames it as a strongly feminist film.

Yes for sure! It could certainly be seen as a big fuck you to men with its Auto-Clitoridectomy. good piece here on it, one bit stood our for me in particular-

"I wonder how the common effort to protect all of us delicate female flowers—whether from the ego-bruising of criticism or the potential psychological damage of bearing witness to a movie clitorectomy—doesn't qualify as its own kind of misogyny."

http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/wh ... orror-film

This from The Guardian's good too -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jul ... r-feminism

The most shocking film I have ever seen though would have to be Pasolino's "Salo". An interesting similarity is the sound. In Salo, all the voices are dubbed, purely out of necessity, it was just always generally done in that time with the italian films. And the dubbing is quite roughly done, not perfectly in sync, and again, no location sound was recorded I don't think. So like antichrist, you have a strange disconnection between the visual and the sound.