Antichrist from Lars von Trier: Genesis reimagined
I remember when Antichrist came to the cinema: dark and gloomy posters with a couple having sex under the monstrous tree. An existentialist horror about child loss, grieve, with lots of nudity and Biblical motives... Intuitively, I knew that wouldn’t be able to grasp it due to the lack of a life experience (I was in high school at the time), and I made a mental note to watch it someday.
It’s been more then a decade since. Lars von Trier could have been easily one of my favorite filmmakers to exist, if not his self-indulgent citation of Tarkovsky works and that hideous joke about Hitler at Cannes film festival. Some people said it was his social awkwardness to blame. Some called it black humor. If so, it was the worst joke you can imagine uttering in front of the whole world. The movies I’ve seen did not indicate his fondness of fascist ideology (I haven’t seen “House that Jack built” yet, so mind my words), but I have kept my guard ever since.
I know I will go on a journey to the center of myself when I get to watch one of his films. It is as we were attending same group for depressed individuals anonymous. Von Trier understands depression like nobody else. I grew up in environment where depression was not considered a real illness, and when I saw Kirsten Dunst’s character in Melancholia struggling to get out of the bath, it struck home. He is capable of turning a highly subjective experience into an expressive art form, which reverberates in my guts.
The idea of the Antichrist came to Lars von Trier when he was in a hospital with a depressive episode, and the film it is a very personal. It’s not hard to believe: to me it feels like the whole movie was built around the scene where Charlotte Gainsburg’s character bolting a grindstone into her husband’s leg, so he couldn’t leave her, while at the same time loathing him, and is driven by the hidden desire to punish him. This is one of the most powerful metaphors I’ve seen for the relationship on the verge of death, driven by guilt. Scenes of violence and genital mutilation induce and absolutely visceral reaction, leveling up elements of horror and grotesque.
I’ve read a couple of reviews about the movie: the audience used to either hate it or love it. People called it misogynist, and I can see where they are coming from: fear of women is very real in this film. It might be that it follows from von Trier’s existentialist philosophy: director is being brutally honest about himself and his relationship to women, rather then an attempt to establish a dominant point of view and spread hatred.
There are certain things that lead in a different direction: “She” is so fragile and deeply humane in her grieve, while male character is quite unsympathetic and distant. After all, more than Satan his wife was afraid of “Him”. His rationality makes him almost senseless, and his has rather reprimanding ways with his wife. “She” is the nerve of this drama, it’s main force. Desperate and chaotic scenes of Her chasing Him in the forest, screaming one word on repeat: “Bastard!”, is living in my head now. Charlotte Gainsburg’s performance is iconic.
I see Antichrist as a retelling of the biblical Creation myth, full of desperation and existential dread. Adam and Eve are represented as two powerful forces that are doomed to a circle of attraction and mutual destruction. When “She” finally embraced herself, becoming one with “nature” (nature is called “Satan’s church”), she rebels towards repressive and rationalized “Him”, which results in violent outbreak, and him burning her as inquisitors used to burn witches. It’s a battle between nature and reason.