At Cannes: Antichrist

Finally, after four solid days of lackluster films ("Hey, did you see _____?" "Yeah, it was okay.") Lars von Trier — with his beautiful, violent, and cringe-inducing film Antichrist — has managed to wake up the festival in ways many people found, well, rather revolting. The press screening was by far the fest's most popular; high-level badges were relegated to the balcony and many members of the press were shut out. (Zut alors!)

The film, split into four chapters, tells the tale of a couple — Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg — whose toddler unlatches a window and falls to his death. That this tragic event happens during a passionate (and incredibly graphic) sex romp only heightens the sense of sadness and shame.

Gainsbourg is in extreme mourning, unable to cope or function. Dafoe, a therapist, takes the loss seemingly in stride, and instead of being the loving spouse, he looks at Gainsbourg as a patient (one with whom he has raw, animalistic sex). He tries various therapist-type techniques to help her deal with the loss: They play word association, he scribbles out a pyramid listing her fears from greatest to least, and finally — and most tragically — he takes her to their bleak, gray cabin deep in the woods.

Which is where things go terribly wrong. Gainsbourg, musing on her abandoned thesis, makes statements blaming women for all the ills of society and calling the sex downright evil. Nature, which is portrayed as the real villain, swallows up Dafoe and Gainsbourg. She says that one of them will die when the three beggars arrive. Oh, those beggars. We think they're the crow, the fox and the deer. Dafoe has encounters with them all, and they play a role in the violent confrontations between the two grieved parents.

As is always the case with von Trier, he really could care less what the reaction is. No one ever walks away from his films thinking, "It was okay." Only two hours after the screening, and it's impossible to dissect just exactly the topics von Trier is tackling: misogynism; the role of nature in the destruction of man; and, above all else, evil and human misery.

For a peek at how von Trier sees all of this, a quick glance in the press notes yields this: He says, "Two years ago, I suffered from depression. It was a new experience for me.... Six months later, just an exercise, I wrote a script.... I read Strindberg when I was young...the period later called his 'Inferno crisis.' — was Antichrist my Inferno Crisis? My affinity with Strindberg?"

It would appear his bout of depression has awoken the filmmaker we grew to love (and hate) in the 1990s: Antichrist is the most original and thought-provoking work von Trier has done since Breaking the Waves. That said, I might entirely change my mind tomorrow -- yet another reason why this film is remarkable. RATING (out of 10): 9