Antichrist (2009)

What do you think is supposed to happen in the woods?

— He

This is the first time that I have ever seen a Lars Von Tier movie in its entirely. His latest effort, Antichrist has people taking about the disturbing images, with it. Presented at the Cannes Film Festival, it received a mixed reaction, but Charlotte Gainesbourg won the Best Actress Award. My reaction is this is a masterwork.

The movie is broken up in chapters like a book with a prologue and an epilogue. In the beginning, an unnamed married couple (Willem Dafoe, Gainesbourg) is having un-simulated sex in slow motion, black and white and the swelling score. You think the movie is going to be typical avant-garde fair, but it has a purpose to service.

During their torrid sex session, the couple’s toddler walks into the room and catches them. He decides to play around the room while they don’t notice him. He climbs to an open window and falls to his death.

Distraught after their son’s death, she collapses on the ground. She spends a month in the hospital. When she comes home, she has full-blown panic attacks. He is a therapist and he tries to help her out with several exercises. Nothing seems to work.

He wants to get to the root of her panic attacks. She suggests the woods, a cabin that they have in woods in Eden. When they get there, they both have strange dreams. They don’t know if they are real or not.

She who was a former grad student was researching the origin of man and woman, good and evil, nature for her thesis paper. She believes that there is a battle between and man. She may be at the center of it.

I didn’t know what to think of this movie. I thought that it was going to be another pretentious art picture. This movie is different from anything I had ever seen. The images of sex, disturbing behaviors and the dreams evoked a visceral response within my being. I cannot describe it. I think that this movie is brilliant.

Judgment: If you have a low threshold of blood and gore, I would suggest not seeing this movie.

Rating: *****