review by Vinoo
Language : English
Director : Lars Von Trier
‘Antichrist’ is very painful watch but then a must-watch. I don’t claim to have understood the film in its entirety but here is roughly what it is about. The film begins with the brilliantly choreographed high-speed shots of Him (Willem Dafoe) and his wife, Her (Charlotte Gainsbourg) making love. While they are between the act their little toddler son, Nick, walks past them and climbs onto the table and reaches for the snowflakes outside and falls out of the window to his death. She (Nick’s mom) registers their little son walk past but is seemingly lost and does not, rather cannot, do anything to save him. Their son’s death will haunt her no end and almost makes her a lunatic. He (Nick’s dad) who is a Psychotherapist, brings her home from the hospital and takes her to a cabin in the woods. Rather than ask his wife to forget her trauma he asks her to imagine her worst nightmare and believes the best way to get over it is to reinforce it to the point where it becomes a blind-spot. I hope that made sense J. The film is divided into sections: prologue, grief, pain, despair, the three beggars and the epilogue. I’d rather not mention some of the scenes that reek of Masochism and Sadomasochism. In the woods He discovers some things about his wife from the research she had done on Gynocide and witchcraft. The surreal elements like an almost defiant and fearless deer with a dead fawn hanging out of its back, the abrupt finding of a fox in its burrow, a live crow buried in the soil, all these visuals totally psyche you out. The acorn seeds falling on the roof and the accompanying music is used to devastating effect. Nietzschean influence can be seen even in some of the dialogues ‘tragedy is an affirmation of life’. That calls for some Nietzschean reading. A fair understanding of the Bible and Christian philosophy, which I don’t claim to have, would help when watching this film. Brilliant performance by the entire cast, which is just the two of them, He and She, and of course flashes of Nick the kid. Just watch this one and send me a review.
Shot on digital film using Red One cameras the monochrome and colour shots are used to brilliant effect. Anders Refn, who also edited ‘Breaking the waves’ has done a brilliant job. It is a surprising shift though from the Lars Von Trier regular editor, Molly Marlene Stensgaard.
Definitely makes me want to revisit the other films by Lars Von Trier ‘The element of crime’, ‘Dancer in the Dark’, ‘Dogville’, ‘Manderlay’, ‘The boss of it all’ etc. Haven’t seen the rest but hope to access them all soon.
Watched ‘Quickgun Murugan’ – not outrageous enough if you are used to Rajni Annai flicks. ‘Sankat City’ was disappointing, even on the ‘Hindi’ yardstick, and seemed like a take on one of them Guy Ritchie films to me. Expected much better from Pankaj Advani who wrote ‘Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa’ which I really loved. ‘Kaminey’ was very very disappointing. Very bad characterization after his brilliant ‘Maqbool’ and ‘Omkara’. Cannot blindly walk into a Vishal Bharadwaj film anymore. Couple of songs are good though with lyrics by Gulzar.
Also read Jose Saramago’s ‘The gospel according to Jesus Christ’. Brilliant like all his other work.
Useless trivia : The title is from Lars Von Trier’s reading of Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘Antichrist’ a copy of which he always kept at his bedside. “My films are about ideals that clash with the world” says Von Trier. ‘Antichrist’ sure will live up to that.
The end credits mention that the film is dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky. Before filming, both Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg were shown Tarkovsky’s ‘Mirror’ to get them in the right mood for this film.
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