The name “Lars von Trier” evokes as much dread in me as the words “H1N1″, “chicken feet”, and “I’m staying over tonight.” After suffering through The Idiots, Dancer In the Dark (and who, other than this oft-accused misogynistic director would make ethereal, eternal cinematic icon Catherine Deneuve carry a plate of spaghetti while singing “My Favorite Things”? Please, some things are sacred cows!) and parts of The Kingdom, I said I’d rather have my eyes poked out than sit through another one of his films. So no Breaking the Waves, Dogville, or Manderlay for me. However, after hearing and reading all the buzz, both heated denouncement and rapturous praise, I wouldn’t be true to my self-proclaimed cineaste status if I didn’t go to see his latest opus, Antichrist, the notorious sensation of the global film festival circuit this year (actually I was just more curious than anything else). Now on a commercial run after its sold-out screening at the recently concluded Chicago International Film Festival, I must say the film is ridiculous, overblown, and a whole lot of sheep dung for significant parts of it, but it is also undeniably hypnotic, impressively infuriating, and ultimately, for better or for worse, memorable. And it’s probably the funniest film I’ve seen all year (yes, it’s funnier than Bruno!), hilarious in its self-absorption and pretension, like an eccentric, middling artist at a pseudo-hipster gallery opening.
Willem Dafoe and the fabulous Charlotte Gainsbourg play a married couple who, in the heat of extremely passionate (and graphically-portrayed) lovemaking fail to notice that their infant son has gotten out of his crib, moved towards an open window, and fallen to his death. The woman, known as ”She”, sinks into deep anguish and grief while the man,or “He”, who is a psychiatrist, decides to treat her mental condition with a variety of unconventional techniques such as role-playing, visualization, and lots of artsy, neo-Bergmanesque talk, beginning in their sleekly modern apartment and then continuing on in their remote vacation cottage in the woods. Then, true madness descends and the couple doesn’t get out of the woods unscathed, emotionally or physically. That’s about as coherently as I can articulate the narrative of Antichrist, but it doesn’t even capture half of what goes on in the film.
I like the first part of the film, the scenes set in the city apartment, in which von Trier is able to bring some form of touching, emotionally-engaging sense to the themes of loss, grief, and guilt, and where Gainsbourg, who really gives a ferocious, unmatchable performance throughout the film, comes off most authentically in her fragility and emotional unsettledness. But man, once the film moves to the cabin in the woods, again pretentiously called “Eden” (so He, She, Eden – is this some form of primal myth? Who knows?), the WTF factor takes over. There’s a deer hopping around while it’s innards are falling out of its ass; a fox who eats its stomach and then intones the infamous slogan of the film “Chaos Reigns” (whaaaat???); a lot of mumbo-jumbo about being frightened of one’s nature; a beautifully composed and haunting image of Dafoe and Gainsbourg making love amongst the roots of a magnificently gigantic tree while naked arms and legs are strewn all around them (the impressive, painterly cinematography is by Anthony Dod Mantle who won an Academy Award this year for Slumdog Millionaire). Nothing really makes any sense at this point, and a lot of the scenes seem to be there just because von Trier thinks they’re ”cool” or “shocking” or “unexpected” or “original” (which, frankly, none of them are to this jaded audience member).
Then of course the much talked-about climactic sequence when He and She fight it out for supremacy in Eden comes and at that point, I think everyone’s (well, I had) given up on trying to figure out all this nonsense. But this sequence with its graphic violence and sexuality is the equivalent of cinematic rubbernecking. You know its crazy mayhem, and you know you shouldn’t look and just move on your merry way, but you’re mesmerized by it all. I’m really curious to know how von Trier’s conversations with his actors went. Did it go something like “Ok, Willem, in this scene Charlotte bashes your balls in with a brick and drills a hole through your ankle to attach a fireplace log. How was your trip into Copenhagen, by the way? I have the best cure for 12 hour jetlag.” And “So Charlotte, this is the point in the film when you cut your genitals with a pair of scissors, in medium shot…oh, have you gotten that far into the script yet? Can I refresh your coffee cup?” How can anyone communicate this dementia?
I’m not sure how much humor von Trier intended to include in this film, but I thought Antichrist was just a big joke, at times. When She finds He hiding inside a crevice under the tree (yeah who wouldn’t hide after all that pulverizing of his anatomy), he begs her to take the log off, and she responds with “I’m sorry, I lost the wrench,” I nearly cough up my clavicle laughing. When He finds himself in an open field in this remote part of the world with all those people materializing out of nowhere, with a Handel score crescendoing in the background, I need to stifle a loud guffaw. When the aforementioned deer and fox, plus the bird that He smashes earlier on in the film, suddenly appear in the cabin at the end of the climactic sequence, I want to bellow. It’s all hilarious! The film is mostly lunacy, some brazenness, and a whole lot of Euro art house guck, but it is entertaining, and interesting, and memorable. I’m still thinking about it days after I’ve seen it unlike many Hollywood films I’ve seen this past year, or even some of the Film Festival entries I went to two weeks ago. And that has to count for something.
Antichrist is playing at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave.
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