Cannes 2009: Lars von Trier’s ANTICHRIST
Antichrist: Filmmaker Lars von Trier (top); Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe (bottom).
In this pyshcological horror-drama, a married couple struggles to come to terms with the accidental death of their son.
Wendy Ide in The [London] Times:
"Von Trier has moved away from the sparse, rough and ready work of the Dogme era and embraced a stylised and visually sumptuous look for Antichrist. The movie is packed with arresting and atmospheric images, some of which you’ll wish you could permanently erase from your memory.
"If von Trier’s issues with female sexuality have been evident in previous films, particularly Breaking the Waves and Dogville, in Antichrist he ups the ante, constructing a gender war of nuclear intensity between a bereaved couple hoping to heal their wounds and their marriage in an isolated country retreat."
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Xan Brooks in The Guardian:
"Chaos reigns. I stumble out in a daze, momentarily unsure whether I loved it or loathed it. Abruptly I realise that I love it. Von Trier has slapped Cannes with an astonishing, extraordinary picture – shocking and comical; a funhouse of terrors (of primal nature, of female sexuality) that rattles the bones and fizzes the blood before bowing out with a presumptuous dedication to Andrei Tarkovsky that had sections of the crowd hooting in fury. If he had dedicated Antichrist to the Queen Mother he could not have insulted them more."
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Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times:
"Whether this is a bad, good or great film is entirely beside the point. It is an audacious spit in the eye of society. It says we harbor an undreamed-of capacity for evil. It transforms a psychological treatment into torture undreamed of in the dungeons of history. Torturers might have been capable of such actions, but they would have lacked the imagination. Von Trier is not so much making a film about violence as making a film to inflict violence upon us, perhaps as a salutary experience. It’s been reported that he suffered from depression during and after the film. You can tell. This is the most despairing film I’ve ever have seen."
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Lars von Trier at the post-screening press conference, as quoted in The Guardian:
"I don’t have to justify myself. I make films and I enjoy very much making them. You are all my guests, it’s not the other way round. I work for myself and I do this little film that I’m now kind of fond of and I haven’t done it for you or the audience so I don’t feel I owe anyone an explanation."
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Tags: Andrei Tarkovsky, Antichrist, Cannes 2009, Cannes Film Festival, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Danish Cinema, Dogme, Film Festivals, Horror Movies, Lars von Trier, Psychological Drama, Robert Ebert, Sex, Wendy Ide, Willem Dafoe, Xan Brooks
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