Antichrist

I have a confession to make.

I don’t like Lars Von Trier.

Like at all.

The reason is simple. Von Trier is someone I don’t trust. And as the old truism goes, without trust there can be no love. Now let me be clear here, when I say trust I don’t mean I don’t trust Von Trier to give me a safe experience. Many of the filmmakers I cherish most Herzog, Jodorowsky, and Afronsky are filmmakers dedicated to making unsafe films.

But they mean it. And that to me is the core of the problem with Von Trier. I don’t trust him to mean what he makes. There is never a moment in any Von Trier film where I am sure that Von Trier is not simply fucking with me.

Once again, this is not so much a problem in and of itself. I could spin off a list of filmmakers I delight in, who take nothing but the greatest pleasure in fucking with me. The problem is Von Trier combines his terminal insincerity with a ponderous solemnity that makes them night unbearable for me to watch.

I think you can boil down my problems with Von Trier to one film, Breaking The Waves. Ironic because it’s the film his defenders usually flock to. But look at that film, really look at it. Von Trier cheats, by making God literally a big scary voice he makes it a story of madness not faith (the line is true exceedingly thin). So when the big moving Bergman on steroids climax comes, the one that breaks so many hearts, I sit arms crossed unmoved. Because I can’t shake the feeling that he is. Just. Fucking. With me.

And sadly this is the case with so many of his films. It is not simply enough to execute Bjork or stage the version of Our Town they play in hell, you must have some reason to do it, beyond the love outrage (and this is where Michael Haeneke that other ponderous titan of European cinema gets the one up on Von Trier for me. I at least believe Haeneke buys his own ponderous bullshit). Von Trier’s entire career, his invention and abandonment of Dogme, his empty provocation, his occasional experiments with genre cinema, the fact that he let a fucking robot direct The Boss Of It All, seems like one long nasty mean spirited prank. The joke is of course directly on us. Because we’re dumb enough to care. Not just because we dare to care about his films, but any film. And that’s a punchline where the laugh catches in my throat.

So why am I even bothering to watch Antichrist? Because critics I like and respect have been fascinated by it. Because I’m drawn to filmmakers I don’t understand always hoping to find the window that’ll let me understand them. Because the batshit craziness of the Chaos Reigns Meme intrigued me. Because Willem Dafoe is one of my favorite actors. And because its been sitting there, a challenge a major film by a major filmmaker.



How was it?

Well at first it seemed like more of the same. Even the infamous opening, featuring a baby plummeting to its death seemed like empty provocation. A dare to stop watching, little more then the world’s classiest dead baby joke, (What’s the difference between a dozen dead babies and the despair and hopelessness of the human condition? I don’t have the despair and hopelessness of the human condition in my garage.)

The film continues merrily on, making a vague allegory of therapy’s uselessness, and the desire for male dominance, more exploitive pieta like suffering from his women and yada yada yada, There’s a deer with a dead fetus hanging out its backside, and I’m just about to give up when this happens.



This particular instant meme marks a shift in the film and in my thinking of it. What follows, is less of a planned out film then a psychological purge. Its like what The Shining might have been like if Kubrick had woken up every night shrieking from a reoccurring night terror. As the film spiraled further and further into the realm of performance art, I thought “Holy shit he actually means it this time.”

Because make no mistake, The last forty minutes of Antichrist is as primal and unguarded a piece of film as I’ve ever seen. By the timee you have Willem Dafoe burrowing his way into the Earth only to be dug out by a shrieking frothing Gainsborough, you can’t help but wonder just what the fuck is going on.

Antichrist, is a film that’s more or less useless to write about, since watching it is almost a physical experience. There’s nothing passive about it. I can for example say that I find it odd, that the scene in which Willem Dafoe has his testicles mashed with a large block of wood and then is given a handjob until he comes blood has gotten more attention then the scene in which Gainsborough severs her own clitoris. But what does that even mean?

Antichrist almost seems beyond film criticism. Sure Gainsborough and Dafoe give fearless performances but, trying to judge them against is an exercise in futility. The film is a genuine… well a genuine something, but its less a film then an object. Criticizing it feels like trying to criticize a rock. It just kind of is.

Of course, maybe all this means is that Von Trier has fooled me at last. Well if so more power to him. I can’t help but think that someone who’d make this as a lark, is in some ways even more disturbing then someone who’d make this as a primal scream.