Antichrist (2009)

Danish director Lars von Trier's Antichrist is this year's most controversial film. Similar to Gaspar Noe's Irreversible, it has truly managed to get a number or people, including some prominent critics, out of their comfort zones. The well-mannered Todd McCarthy, who writes for Variety Magazine, for example, had this to say: "Lars von Trier cuts a big fat art-film fart with "Antichrist". As if deliberately courting critical abuse, the Danish bad boy densely packs this theological-psychological horror opus with grotesque, self-consciously provocative images that might have impressed even Hieronymus Bosch�" But is Antichrist truly that bad?

Depending on how flexible your tolerance for human suffering is, I'd say yes, Antichrist is a bad film, but a different king of bad. It offers a chilling trip into the bleak world of a devastated couple - He (Willem Dafoe, Shadow of the Vampire) and She (Charlotte Gainsbourg, The Science of Sleep) - where abuse, misery and self-humiliation are examined in a shockingly disturbing fashion.

Antichrist is divided into four chapters - Grief, Pain (Chaos Reigns), Despair (Gynocide), and The Three Beggars - each focusing on the complex process of coming to terms and eventually overcoming the loss of a loved one. The film also has a short prologue and epilogue; the former chronicles the tragedy, the latter summarizes the consequences of it.

Now, here's exactly why the film has turned off so many who have already seen it:

First, Antichrist is not a symbolic film. What you would see in it is what von Trier wanted you to see. The visuals are so direct and powerful that you won't have to speculate about hidden meanings or unspoken messages. The horror is right there, on the screen; it will hit you in the face and you will react to it during the film, not after the final credits roll.

Second, Antichrist is an explicit film. Not dirty, explicit. The sex is mechanical, cold and ugly. He and She have sex to temporarily escape the pain. In a cynical sort of way, Antichrist shows that sex is a form of therapy that works (unlike religion, which isn't even mentioned).

Third, Satan, the Creator, the One who started it all. All four chapters in von Trier's film make it perfectly clear that it was Satan that created us; hence the reason why we suffer, kill and die. According to von Trier, God gave up on us and left. In Antichrist, He and She come to realize precisely that.

So while Antichrist is a bad film, it is not a bad film. It is a powerful and very unsettling depiction of a world where according to von Trier, a self-admitted atheist and Nietzsche admirer, only pain and evil are eternal.

Dafoe and Gainsbourg deliver notably brave performances. The latter, in particular, is so good, she actually does look possessed. Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle's (The Last King of Scotland) lensing - a mix of cool black and white footage for the prologue and other parts of the film, and rich but cold color footage - is stunning.

Fragments from Georg Friedrich Handel's "Lascia ch'io pianga" from the composer's classic Italian opera Rinaldo, performed by Tuva Semmingsen and Barokksolistene, appear during key scenes in the film.

Note: In 2009, Antichrist won Best Actress award (Charlotte Gainsbourg) at the Cannes Film Festival. Earlier this year, the film also won four Bodil awards, including Best Film, Best Actress, and Best Actor (Willem Dafoe).

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