Antichrist is a film starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsborough, whose characters have no names. Their son dies while they have passionate sex. She is devastated. He strikes a clinical pose and tries to solve the problem. He copes with grief by distancing himself from it and embracing his professional identity as her therapist whereas she self-medicates through pills, sleep then frenzied sex. They go to their cabin in the woods, Eden, and their relationship becomes more dysfunctional, but is it because they are psychologically messed up or are they victims of a larger evil forcing them to play roles in an unknown drama that existed for all time? Antichrist has nudity, graphic violence and explicit sexual content—usually simultaneously. Most people should probably not see it, but if you dig torture porn and adore everything that Lars von Trier ever directed, you should check it out.
I did even though I hate torture porn, and I am not a von Trier fan, but begrudgingly follow his work because I concede that whatever he does, he really is an artist even if I usually find him repugnant. I have had numerous opportunities to see Antichrist and let them pass until now because enough people have begged me to let this one go and not be a completist. I felt like it was finally time to see Antichrist because I saw Melancholia and loved it so I knew that I would not automatically come to Antichrist like most of his movies waiting to find out why I would inevitably hate it.
Lars von Trier directed Antichrist, which was his attempt at making a horror film while he suffered from crippling depression. On a good day, von Trier’s take on Christianity is problematic—all the original sin and condemnation with none of the redemption except from women who must be punished to redeem others-usually males. von Trier is a Christian without Christ and mired in the tragedy of original sin. Women have the only connection to the spirit world and are the only Christ like figures. von Trier does not sacrifice virgins. He sacrifices whores, and to be a whore, you only have to be slandered as one or be a mother. He isn’t picky. Sex equals death. To be fair, von Trier sees men as weaker beings unable to confront the bleak realities of this world and to face suffering so while I find his misogynistic leanings repulsive, they are balanced by his self-loathing-no offense taken.
What disturbs me about von Trier is how his twisted theology inspires a literal evangelical zeal. I lived in Harvard Square when Breaking The Waves came out, and a man stood on the corner with a sandwich board offering to buy tickets for people who wanted to see it. “May I tell you about our Lord and Savior, Bess McNeil.” I kid, but not by much. The fact that von Trier’s movies resonate so deeply with people disturbs the crap out of me more than the fact that he thinks this way, which is why I don’t pay for his films. I have never seen anyone do this before or since 1996 for any film other than Breaking the Waves.
Most people who watch Antichrist think about the theology more than the horror story. von Trier dismisses Antichrist as a failed attempt at horror, but it is still horror even if it is not fun or a failure. Maybe horror should not be fun, but it is satisfying. Horror has a set of rules known or at least discernible to the audience, and when the characters do not adhere to those rules, they are punished in ways that the viewer fears and wants to experience vicariously while surviving. We want to be the final girl without the PTSD-smart, experienced, a survivor. Any von Trier film wants the viewer to have PTSD, and Antichrist is no exception. He wants to make films that are almost unbearable to watch.
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Antichrist’s rule is that when three figures (pain is symbolized as a fox, grief is embodied as a deer, and despair is characterized as a bird) appear, someone must die! Bad things do happen when even one appears. Basically Dafoe’s character holds out as long as he can before succumbing to his predetermined, unwilling role in the story, as an enforcer of gynocide. The big reveal is that Gainsborough’s character was not lying. She did cause the kid’s death at least through neglect because she saw him going to the window, and she had been abusing the child as her mental state deteriorated the more time that she spent in the woods long before the film started.
If Antichrist is horror, it shares more in common with The Wicker Man and Cabin in the Woods than the Saw franchise though the injuries inflicted upon and suffered by the characters share more with the latter, which I have never seen. Antichrist requires animal and human sacrifice. There are unwilling witches. Gainsborough’s character is possessed, which is depicted when Dafoe’s character discovers her notebook and her handwriting changes until the skill completely eludes her, which was used in Hannibal, the TV series, to reflect a character’s brain fever. She has no memory of what she does to Dafoe’s character. She can control the weather. von Trier does a better job than The Witch in evoking European fears of the wilderness, naked women making pacts with the devil and being witches, burning witches. The whole enterprise almost goes over the cliff however when a fox who was rejected by Wes Anderson during casting for Fantastic Mr. Fox literally chews up the scenery.
Antichrist made one point that I agree with: human beings don’t go into nature, they are part of nature, the ecosystem, and no amount of analysis and distancing will help you escape from that cycle. Antichrist is an anti-creation film in the same category as The Turin Horse, which I preferred. Antichrist and The Turin Horse share the same imagery: barren trees, matches that don’t light, the idea that there will be no future generations and creation has come to an end.
The only possibility of life is the living dead. Water is usually a symbol of the Holy Spirit, but in Antichrist, water does not enrich characters’ lives. During the prologue, Antichrist depicts the couple having sex in the shower, the washing machine on spin cycle, and snow falling. Water obliterates the character’s identities and intellects. Human beings are primarily made of water so it stands to reason that water makes us more connected to nature and divorces us from ourselves as individuals. While in the woods, Eden, the couple has sex on a barren tree (the tree formerly known as the tree of life) and is surrounded by arms, which they don’t notice. In the final scene, which uses the same technique as the earlier funeral procession by blurring out the faces of anyone other than the three main characters using water droplets, the living dead emerge from the woods and begin to surround Dafoe’s character after he kills his wife, and he can finally see them. Sex only produces death whereas death raises the dead to walk and overwhelm the living. What does that mean for the only living character with some individuality, the husband? It is not good.
Matthew 18:6 says, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” The husband gets this and a hole in his leg, which falls 75% short of Jesus like crucifixion imagery. No one ever suggests that he could be the Antichrist, a man who cannot save, a man forced into a role that he never wanted as the gynocidaire. Antichrist is reminiscent of Kill List-just because you got the job does not mean that you wanted or deserved it.
Antichrist does leave you with one valuable lesson. When in grief, perhaps immersion therapy in the woods where you can’t get help from another human being is a fatal idea. Just think of Antichrist as the cinematic equivalent-don’t get into it unless you think that you can get out.
Side note: the ticks stuck on his hand was the most disturbing scene for me followed by his waking dream of ticks falling. I had no idea what they were.