No Ordinary Fool

There is an episode of The Simpsons that concludes with Ron Howard trying to pitch an emotionally traumatic idea for a film to a movie executive. The latter is clearly losing interest until Howard, in a moment of desperation, blurts out that the hero’s best friend will be a talking pie. The executive immediately yells, “Sold” and the episode ends with a jubilant Howard holding two bags of money aloft. Of course, the talking pie had originally been Homer’s mad idea and the obvious intention is to satirise the paucity of cerebral films being produced by Hollywood in favour of trite mass appeal rubbish.

I was reminded of this scene whilst watching the latest film from Lars von Trier. For the first two acts, it is a bleak and challenging watch that is heading for a fascinating showdown between reason and emotion as a denouement. It is at this point, though, that a disembowelled talking fox leaps up to snarl out a warning that “chaos reigns”. Unfortunately, the general reaction in the audience to this unlikely turn of events is either one of contemptuous snorting or derisory laughter. From then on, Antichrist implodes into a series of farcical and occasionally grimace-inducing scenes that drag the film’s worth down several notches.

Of course, much has been made in the media about certain scenes that appear in this film. In truth, they represent a small fraction of the run-time and have been hyped out of all proportion (surprise, surprise). Of course, many will still find these shots quite unedifying despite their short duration. Yet, a more balanced assessment would be to emphasise the film’s inexorable sense of dread and psychological anguish, before acknowledging that there are also some grisly moments introduced towards the end that some may find tough to stomach.

In a nutshell, the central pairing of Wilem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg play an unnamed married couple referred to in the credits as He and She. In a memorable prologue, shot in slow-motion black-and-white and scored by a gorgeous Handel aria, the audience witnesses a tragic event unfolding as the couple engage in sex. The trauma caused by this event affects She quite severely. However, the impassive He, a psychiatrist, persuades his wife to cease taking her medication and to be counselled by him instead. They then go away to their mountain retreat called Eden, which is buried deep in a forbidding-looking forest that is shrouded in mist. Here, He rationally probes away at what is causing his wife’s despair, while she only seems to find any form of release during their fraught sexual intercourse.

Indeed, the acting from Gainsbourg in portraying She is quite remarkable. The look of sheer desolation on her face, as well as the hopeless sorrow in her voice, brilliantly brings out the deep inner torments that her character is suffering. Indeed, the whole role requires brave and committed acting on her part and her performance towers over every other aspect of the film. You simply feel the pain of every minute that she is on the screen.

At the same time, Dafoe also deserves credit for playing such a contemptible role in such an unapologetic and intense fashion. Apparently, von Trier had been suffering from depression prior to making this film and his loathing of psychiatristz is vested in He’s dispassionate approach to his wife’s terrible distress.

To a great deal of critical derision, the film is dedicated at the end to the legendary Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. Yet, there are certainly some similarities, for example, between Antichrist and Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Both, in their own way, turn Nature into something abnormal and to be feared, whilst the audience is filled with a sense of foreboding at the sight of one of the protagonists suffering from such psychological anguish. At the same time, this comparison should not be pushed too far. For, in Stalker, Tarkovsky leaves much that is left unseen or open-ended. His art is to generate tension out of absence. Much is implied. In Antichrist, von Trier adopts similar techniques, albeit more explicit in tone, before suddenly deciding to complete his creation by dumping a few gallons of paint over it.

In fairness, those final scenes are not completely gratuitous and greater attempts to shock for shock’s sake have been foisted upon cinemagoers in the past. Equally, there is some artistic merit to be found in this medieval concoction of Christian and pagan belief, which deems sex to be sinful, Woman to be the cause of Man’s downfall, and Nature to be a place of punishment. Moreover, the ambience that von Trier creates is marvellously unsettling throughout. Yet, the problem remains that the film provokes sneers from the audience at what it ultimately descends into. The overall work, and Gainsbourg’s performance in particular, deserves much more than to become the object of such ridicule.