Every year, at the Cannes Festival, you can guarantee that there will be one film that will gain notoriety, over and above every other entry. For 2009, it was Lars Von Trier's beautifully shocking arthouse drama ANTI-CHRIST that caused the world's press and media to go into a frenzy, especially with the British Daily Mail journo's, who were disgusted at this latest affront to censorship! But have journalists been fair to the controversial Danish director and this, his most intensely personal film to date?
If you have been keeping yourself well-informed over recent weeks, one film has been on everyone's lips. From the director of THE IDIOTS, BREAKING THE WAVES, and THE KINGDOM (aka RIGET), comes a thought-provoking masterpiece that deserves most of its nasty reputation. ANTI-CHRIST stars character actor Willem Dafoe (THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, SPIDER-MAN, MISSISSIPPI BURNING and AMERICAN PSYCHO) and Charlotte Gainsbourg (THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP, 21 GRAMS and THE CEMENT GARDEN), playing a married couple who lose their young son, in a tragic accident at home. As they try to come to terms with their loss, the husband copes surprisingly well. His wife, however, does not. The film follows their attempt at processing the death of their only child, and how human beings can deal with grief in radically differing ways.
Von Trier's films are never the easiest to comprehend by any means. For anyone who has worked through films like THE KINGDOM, you will know he loves to confound his audience, with subliminal red herrings, bizarre characters, and offbeat themes. This film is no different. After the title screen - a simple blackboard with the title in pink chalk writing - the film begins with an ambitious sequence entitled "Prologue". To the haunting melody of Handel's "Rinaldo", and shot in monochrome, it starkly depicts the couple showering and having sex. Within this scene, and in less than 30 seconds of the film's start, a brief shot of explicit sexual penetration is shown. If Von Trier wanted to get the audience's immediate attention, this is one way of doing it. As the scene continues, we travel through their home, and meet their young son, Nic - barely more than a year of age.
As the couple continue making love, Nic escapes from his cot, and wanders around the home. Unbeknownst to his mother and father, he manages to get onto the ledge of an open window, and whilst trying to grab snowflakes falling from the wintery sky outside, plunges dramatically to his unwarranted demise. This entire sequence has the camera following everything in hyper-real, slow-motion, just as with the descent to death of baby Nic. With the audience unable to circumvent the events unfolding on-screen, and with shock in our hearts, we see his little body plummet towards the ground. We watch his face and body react completely nonchalantly, not knowing that death is mere seconds away, as the operatic music comes to a crescendo. The youngster's body hits the pavement below, and displaces the fallen snow from around it. At once both artistically sensual, and yet horrifically grim, this is one heck of a way to begin a movie. The music ends, as does this scene-setter, leaving the audience mortified.
The film continues, through five further "Chapters" ("Grief", "Anxiety", "Pain", "Despair" and "The Three Beggars" respectively), exploring the couples reaction to the gaping hole that Nic has left in their life together. It culminates with an Epilogue that rounds-off the film just as it began, in ravishing monochrome. Each of the five "Chapters" are in full-colour, and the stunning photography is a joyful canvas, framed perfectly for the Cinemascope format. Never has a movie looked so luscious on the big-screen as this one does. Kudos must therefore be awarded to cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, for his sterling work. Sadly, some of its beauty will be lost on DVD.)
Throughout, the film attempts to theorise on humanity's own frailty, and on how we all cope with trauma. There are hints scattered throughout the movie. Gainsbourg plays a woman undertaking a thesis on grief, and she discusses wanting, nigh needing, to be allowed to visit the imaginational land of Eden. (Eden being an anagram of the word "need".) It is clear that she has a "need" for something or someone to replace baby Nic in her life, and that her husband is not going to be it. Retreating from their home in the US, to a remote log cabin somewhere unnamed, he works with her in a professional capacity. Yet as a husband, he fails to understand or empathise with the affect the loss that the young child has had on his wife, and their relationship as a couple begins to disintegrate dramatically.
One memorable moment, is at the end of "Pain", when a fox turns to Dafoe's character and tells him that "Chaos reigns"! In some aspects, this is very true, as we all know that there is no cure for grief. It is through the chaos of ordinary, hum-drum life, that we learn to come to terms with the death of the people who touch our lives. Later on, the couple are awoken in their forest cabin retreat, to the sound of acorns dropping onto its roof. Is Von Trier alleging that acorns are supposed to resemble "new beginnings"; the start of something new (the acorn itself) from something old (the oak tree it falls from); that life can continue after death? I believe so.
At Cannes, the film was met with jeers of derision and booing. None moreso than the closing end-credit dedication to Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. I feel that this is distinctly unjust, as whilst Von Trier may not be in the same league as him, nor necessarily can he claim to be the "best director" as he boldly announced at the Cannes Press Junket, there are definitely links with Tarkovsky's work to be found.
One of the most obvious - to me, at least - is more of an unintentional homage to his 1971 sci-fi, eco-drama SOLARIS. Those of you who have watched the opening sequence, (where the camera pans over a river, and follows the lead character as he gets caught in a heavy rain-shower), will notice similarities with Lars's monochrome opening scene in ANTI-CHRIST, and to other parts of his movie too. I don't believe this was accidental, if we are to believe the dedication. If not, then Von Trier is classifying himself rather dubiously with a very highly respected director of world cinema, which in all honesty, can't be truly justified. He is a great director, for sure, but not really in the same class as Tarkovsky.
ANTI-CHRIST was also met with large numbers of people walking-out, due to the graphic nature of on-screen violence and explicit sex: something not seen since Gaspar Noe's 2002 shocker IRREVERSIBLE. Von Trier is never one to worry whether his films are understood by the public at large, nor is he concerned if they are palatable. Once more, he pushes the audiences buttons. For SGM-readers, it will be the horrific elements that will be the highlight, and they are truly horrific. If the penetrative sex doesn't get under your skin, the sight of Dafoe being masturbated until he ejaculates blood over his wife's dress certainly should. (His penis having previously been broken with a heavy wooden log by his wife, just moments earlier, as the first real scenes of madness make themselves known.)
Failing that, there's always the sight of a stillborn baby deer, hanging from its mother's anus, or the fox that tears its own body open for viewers to come to terms with. And that's not counting the finale of a crow repeatedly being bludgeoned, or Miss Gainsbourg's now notorious scene of genital self-mutilation with a pair of scissors! (Yes, it really is shown in full!)
If you are an animal lover, you will be happy to know that all these scenes have been understandably faked (with an extremely potent mix of puppetry and CGI-FX), but their presence in the narrative, is still deeply distressing. The two scenes involving human genitalia, will have equal numbers of men and women crossing their legs, groaning in disgust, and potentially exiting the cinema - just as happened at the premiere I attended. (The finale, with Miss Gainsbourg had one poor woman vomiting in disgust in the auditoria!) But cinematically-savvy viewers who watch closely, will notice a rather abrupt edit, which removes some of the potential offence. At least, in this reviewer's opinion, it does.
So, what kind of film has Von Trier delivered to us? Is it a treatise on emotions linked to death, or just a smart-arsed attempt at being "clever" by the "Great Dane"?
Well, it's not a horror movie by any means, although it contains several horrific moments that will not be acceptable by many ordinary members of the public, in spite of the detailed BBFC warning on their website. Nor is it a run-of-the-mill psychological drama. In fact, it is both of these, and yet neither, at the same time. The film is too artistic for the mainstream moviegoer, and yet, it may be seen as being too pretentious for many arthouse buffs. For once, we have a film that is not literal in any sense of the word, but it is an experience and a worthwhile experience that will haunt you long after its 108 minutes have passed by. Ultimately, it's difficult to rate the film, because it is so unique, yet I feel that despite much of the critical derision it has received from the media, there is much to admire and respect in the work, if you accept it for nothing more than a unique cinematic vision.
The film is not for everyone, and not everyone will want to see this film. However, if you enjoy strange, baroque cinema, this film will offer you a profound and memorably twisted experience. Something that I am happy to endorse!
Review by 'Pooch'
ANTI-CHRIST is released on 24th July 2009 in selected cinemas
| Released by Artificial Eye |