ANTICHRIST (2009) - Movie Review

[unluckychloe]

just rewatched this film for the first time in around 10 years. when i first saw it i was in my mid 20s and attracted to edginess for its own sake, and latched on because it was provocative and extreme. i laughed at the pretentious music and slow-mo, and thought of von trier as an admirable prankster and troll.

but this time it was different - i went in looking for that same experience, and was caught completely off-guard by how deeply it affected me emotionally. i went through a lot of awful things and a years long battle with depression since my last viewing, and now suddenly all the things i laughed with/at as pretentious or trollish rang true.

just my view of course, but at its core this feels like a movie made by somebody very sick and tired of being told "the way out is through", that confronting terrible things will magically make them go away. in the film the natural world seems to represent these naturally occurring feelings, with dafoe's character pushing his wife to confront them, to become one with them, to live inside of them. but the film seems to argue that just because something is "natural" doesn't make it holy - nature has no right and wrong, only chaos reigns. same as our own instincts & natural functions, the human nature we put on a pedestal, but which leads to the historical horrors the film also depicts. it feels like a warning against rationalizing and narrativizing suffering, a condemnation of our reverence for the natural, and most of all a command to just take the damn medication

sorry for the essay comment 4 years later lol

[lockekappa]

How you described the "enlightenment" that comes out of movies like Lars makes couldn't have explained any better my enjoyment of his movies. It lets us go through these harsh and disturbing scenarios and understand them better, maybe even help us reflect on our own similar situations. It's almost therapeutic.

[ashraykotian]

Just got to say this, this might be one of the best reviews you have done. I have heard people talk about this film but none for me has opened up a way to think about it and make sense of it for myself the way this review does with all the points you bring up. Good job!!!

[Guigley]

This movie makes a strong case for Charlotte Gainsbourg being the most fearless actress who ever lived.

[Turtleproof]

I found little symbolism other than Her describing her dreams, that their names are so impersonal hints at how this movie is a situation any two people can end up in. The moral of the story is that He shares just as much responsibility for the catastrophic finale.

My background: I spent years taking psychology courses and was engaged to a woman with dangerously severe Borderline Personality Disorder. In short: 1) We were taught to NEVER treat your own family, and He does that, 2) The way She acts is only slightly exaggerated (I am not kidding). I once askes my fiancee, "Am I going to wake up to you clawing my eyes out?" Rather than screaming or hitting me as she usually would, she got quiet. As for the witchcraft angle, people with BPD latch on to a narrative for why they deserve to be in pain and to hurt the people who love them most: she dabbled in witchcraft and told me that she is, "a piece of shit, I'm useless, " and that she deserved to be exploited by the creepers and pornographers of the city.

It only seems like a shock movie because nobody who hasn't studied it or lived it could ever believe that these things happen. It's not an ugly movie to me, it is mostly a gorgeous fugue with moments of the ghastly that were seared into my mind.

[VINYLandSTUFF]

This movie reminds me of Possession (Andrzej Zulawski) another break up, transformation, depression type of movie. I really enjoyed the movie it was a blind but for me.

[Somefrickinguy]

I find it very humorous that in trying to research movies that I want to watch, it inadvertently leads to your channel. And I always enjoy your take, whether I choose to watch the movie after or not. Cool stuff 👍

[jarommossey]

I like to interpret the movie as abstractly as possible. The conflict in the movie shows this almost inherent underlying pattern that shows itself in our perceptible reality on so many levels. On my first watch I immediately interpreted it as the fundamental conflict of self suffering. However, there are so many fitting interpretations of the movie like your own, that I feel the movie is capturing a deeper pattern underlying the human experience. There are ideas about humanities complex relationship with nature and the self, and how neither are multually exclusive. There is something fundamental about conflicts of masculine and feminine, and chaos and order within human nature. When I watch this movie I understand it on such an instinctual level that I can't help but feel it is capturing the experience of life itself.

[jellybeanz]

You can break down the film to humanity's struggle between rationality and primal animal desires (in other words NATURE, also represented by the woods and the animals). The psychiatrist husband character is the representation of rationality and the crazy woman represents nature.

[styleissubstance]

I believe the film is also about self-fulfilling prophecies when it pertains to misogyny. Patriarchal societies frame women as evil, and it's this negative framing that becomes reinforced by the woman. Dafoe's character exists as a counter to this, but his dismissal of her thesis research is simultaneously contributing to devaluing her efforts as a woman. It is all paradoxical and I think you articulated some of my thoughts quite well.

[grantkistelprowrestler]

This was so cathartic for me. As someone who wants to make film, but being 20 from a poorer background, right now the dream as I work a job is just to make reviews and to explore and give myself up to what I can watch as much as possible. Thank you, as someone who looks up to this channel a lot, it was very affirming to hear you had a near identical takeaway from this film as I. Not only did it strengthen my strong feelings and the poignancy of this film to me to know it can be universally read the same, but that someone who’s bread and butter is analysis of film could see what I did and voice it nearly the same. I’m rambling, I just wanted to say thanks for always being an inspiration for how to analyze film and truly subject yourself to the art.

[rutherfrogp.wilmington]

Alex Garland’s “Men” is a perfect companion piece to this one. Both excellent films by consistently solid directors.

[jamespader]

Would love for you to review Night of the Hunter truly one of my absolute favorite films ever made.

[heathershuler]

Just saw if for the first time so im looking for everyones input.. deffinately a lot to discuss in this one. To me the movie is about control and [repression/expressions] of the same emotions at different ends of a gender binary. SPOILERS

The man wants the woman to overcome her trauma by facing the fear and anxiety, a manifestation of the grief, pain, and despair. But he hasn't overcome it himself. He has repressed it into the clinical/logical space of "if I cure my wife's 'hysteria' I'll be healed as well"

I think that him killing her at the end can be read as the enviable consequence of men repressing their feminine emotions.

[lacrimatorium]

Well I finally saw it. And though I wasn't expecting to be I was quite impressed. Thanks for prodding us with your thoughts on it. What does Antichrist mean? I think the final dedication to Tarkovsky, who certainly was a Christian, gives us a clue. And it is no simple name tacked on. Many images in the film call to mind Tarkovsky. Particularly films like Stalker and especially The Mirror. While Tarkovsky lens moves through the landscape seeking out the meaning of images set before us. Von Trier does just the opposite. He surveys the landscape, and the human relationship, as meaningless, even dark, matter. Yet he gets to the heart of one of the paradoxes of humanity, the love/hate of men and women. Truly worthwhile subject. And interestingly enough, by focusing on that darkness, by implication, he can't help but wrestle with the actual meaning of this life. Which Tarkovsky certainly believed was there. I like your interpretation. And because it really is a work of art, flawed yes, but real, it is indeed open to various interpretations.

[ruygranja]

Excellent review. Lars von Trier is a master showing the human nature that most humans fake not to be aware of. It takes a lot of courage to be Lars von Trier. All those metaphorical scenes are also a promise of awareness and emotional maturity.

[drmollycules]

I think it’s odd that, although this movie is inextricably connected to Von Trier’s “nature is Satan’s church, ” nihilism and pessimism are almost never mentioned in regards to this movie. I think of that part of Burden of Dreams when Werner Herzog describes nature - “Nature here is vile, ” he said. “I see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and growing and just rotting away . . . the trees here are in misery, the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing, they just screech in pain.” The whole man v. Nature dichotomy subtext seems sort of false but I haven’t really done an analysis of this movie nor seen in it a while, so I could be misremembering things.

[whitedragoness]

I saw it as the failure to help women/ people with mental issues (if you want to be neutral) and how the woman was suffering pain and she killed her kid because she wasn’t being cared for and probably had a kid she didn’t want or eventually her depression got so bad she did what is the opposite of what women are supposed to be.
They are supposed to be nurturing, loving, comforting but her mental state ruined it or maybe she wasn’t meant to be a mother and was pressured by society’s standards to depict a typical woman.

She tends to be overly emotional, something else is brewing and is the source of her mental issues but it’s never figured out in the movie because she isn’t being treated.

[lacrimatorium]

Well this is Timely. A friend just said that the breakup with her long time boyfriend was like this film. To which I said whoa. I knew enough to know how crazy this film is. So I just ordered it to understand what my friend was saying. It should be arriving anyway. Then I'll come back. And finish watching this. Thanks!

[elfsieben]

Thanks for your insightful thoughts on this movie! I don't have a conclusive answer to your questions, but I feel that your questions are exploring into the right direction when it comes to understanding this film. I really like your interpretation, it is very close to my own thoughts after watching "Antichrist". I also feel a certain kinship between "Antichrist", "mother!", "The VVitch" and "The Lighthouse", as all these films explore historical myths in terms of the psychological thriller, psychoanalytical drama, and horror genres.