Antichrist (2009)

Sometimes a review panning a film can be fun to read. C. Robert Cargill turns in an exceptionally amusing review of Lars von Trier’s new movie Antichrist, which actually contains both savage mockery and high praise.

Widely panned at Cannes by some, praised by others, and completely spoiled in the press, especially on the Drudge Report in which its final scenes were spoiled in headlines splashed across the front page (can’t find Drudge’s posting, but here’s a nice spoiler. – JDZ) It is not a nice film. It is dark, brooding, melancholy, and more than a little mean-spirited. Loaded from top to bottom with nudity, sexuality, and even a slow-motion shot that will itself ensure that this gets the dreaded NC-17 rating (as well it should for the level of adult content in this), it is at times a bit distracting. There’s so much nudity in this thing that I almost feel as if it should be renamed Lars Von Trier’s I Hate Pants! There are even a few scenes in which the characters lack pants for no good reason. But then again, there’s a lot of things in this that some would argue are here for no good reason. It is violent, bloody, and disturbingly sexual for a goodly portion of the film. Not in small doses. The majority of the film aims to offend you in one manner or another.

Read the whole thing.

Happily for me, I already know that I loathe and despise Lars Trier (who is no kind of “von” whatsoever, the “von” he uses is just a joking cinematic reference to von Stroheim and von Sternberg, who both, for very different reasons, appropriated the preposition characteristic of names of Teutonic armigers) and all his works. Trier is a representative of the worst sort of European communist sensibility. Take an airsickness bag if you plan to see this one.