Antichrist - Lars Von Trier
Lars Von Triers latest film 'Antichrist' is visually stunning from beginning to end. The cinematography by Antony Dod Mantle is refreshingly unusual and stands out a mile from most films. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe are a couple trying to come to terms with the accidental death of their son. The breathlessly beautiful opening scene of the film is in slow motion and black and white depicting their son climbing up and falling out of a window whilst the couple are having passionate sex. Dafoe is a therapist who burys his own anguish in attempting to rehabilitate his wife after she is overcome with grief and collapses at the funeral, waking up a month later in hospital. He decides to take her out of the hospital, forcing her to flush all her medication away and becomes fixated with her therapy, forgetting she is his partner, she becomes his patient. Most of the film is set in a cabin, 'Eden', and the surrounding woods, where she spent the last summer with her son, which they travel to after discovering that nature is at the root of most of her fears. What is fascinating is the constant shifts in their relationship, you see her character go through various stages of grief, which coincides with the four chapters of the film: Grief, Pain (Chaos Reigns), Despair (Gynocide) and The Three Beggars. Throughout the film there are constant references to nihilism and destruction, Dafoe is the witness to all of these, a deer which at first he thinks is beautiful until it turns to reveal it is in the middle of giving birth to a stillborn calf, as well as a fox which appears to be eating itself, which speaks to him and says "chaos reigns". The woods seem ominous, like there is a powerful energy watching them, not altogether evil but indifferent. Gainsbourgs character is obsessed by the chaos and inevitability of nature and its affinity with the female. Eventually Dafoe's bizarre therapy style of trying to find the source of her fear, backfires and Gainsbourg's character becomes more and more distressed and psychotic, leading to her ultimately attacking him. Due exaggerrated shock tactic reviews about graphic sex and self mutilation, a lot of people will not go to see this film, which is unfortunate. There is graphic violence but it is integral to the film and is dealt with in a non-gratuitous way. The film has been wrongly labelled as horror, yet it doesn't sit in the psychological thriller category either. It is more of a dark adult fairystory or moralistic folk tale.
We highly recommend that you see it, at least once.
HA
No comments:
Post a Comment