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Antichrist [Blu-ray]

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3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

So, a lot of people seem to be inquiring, myself included, about whether this version is the uncut or cut version of the film... so I decided to do a little digging...

I E-Mailed Criterion at [...] yesterday and got an E-Mail back today from a Karen Mesoznik who works there and this is what she had to say:

Hi Aaron,

Thanks for your email!

We are issuing the uncut version of this film (108 minutes). Our master is the same version as the one that premiered at Cannes; IFC did not edit the film for release here. It's possible there may be some confusion due to the French DVD which incorrectly states the run time as 120 minutes.

I hope this information is helpful. Thanks you for supporting Criterion and please let me know if you have any more questions!

Best,

Karen
The Criterion Collection


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, I wondered what she meant by the French DVD stating 120, so I dug a little deeper and found out that the French DVD in fact states the film at 120 minutes, but the film itself is actually 108 minutes (uncut). There is no 120 minute version of the film. 108 minutes IS in fact the longest running time. The cut versions range from 100-104 minutes (depending on where and how you view the movie). If you have seen the 108 minute version, then you've seen it all, and THIS is what Criterion will be releasing. (The film in all of its unsettling glory!)

I hope this helped you guys! I will definately be purchasing this version myself. Hopefully this persuades people to do the same.

If anyone has any further doubts, feel free to E-Mail Criterion yourself at the E-Mail address mentioned earlier in my post!

A woman and a man lose their son in a tragic accident. Rather than trust in the medicine prescribed by her psychiatrist to ease her grief, he (a psychotherapist) decides to subject her to his own therapeutic regime. She (in an incredibly devastating performance by Charlotte Gainsbourg) will face her fears directly, and see that there is nothing to fear. He doesn't consider that he may have something to fear from her, or that he, with his clinical detachment from feeling and incessant preoccupation with the stance of observer, may be the one who truly needs therapy. (On that note it is hard not to detect a kinship of the themes of this film with the themes of von Trier and Jorgen Leth's The Five Obstructions, that set up von Trier himself as therapist to Leth, whose capacity for aesthetic detachment he found troubling).

The imagery in the film is fascinating and frightening - it is certainly von Trier's most accomplished film in terms of cinematography, and it definitely deserves to get the Criterion treatment. The prologue and epilogue are highly formalistic, shot in a series of powerful black and white images that border on the unreal; the rest of the film, broken into four chapters, is shot handheld with washed out but saturated colors, with rippling natural imagery and occasional freaks of nature that as a whole evokes a darker vision of Tarkovsky's zone (from Stalker). The film is in fact dedicated to Tarkovsky, and suggests a kind of inversion of his values and approach: whereas Tarkovsky finds in nature the potential for transcendence, suggested but not depicted, von Trier depicts in nature the reality of hell, a "Satan's church" where, as the fox asserts, "chaos reigns"; where Tarkovsky takes long, leisurely tracking shots, von Trier's are a bit jerky and employ the occasional jump cut, but he also employs the trademark Tarkovskian slow zoom into extreme close up on a partial face or gesture, and also (as I recall) occasionally employs the "temporal folding" that is common in Tarkovsky's films, where in the course of a single pan or tracking shot of the camera, events are depicted as if simultaneous that could not have been.

The film has been described by several critics as suggesting that women are evil, and the setting in a woods they call "Eden" makes it hard not to see "she" (Gainsbourg) as a kind of twisted Eve figure whose longings and obsessions (and sense of guilt) introduce evil and death into the garden. Still, it seems to me that the central character in the film is "He" and the film uses him as an object lesson to provide a critical depiction of a paranoid male fantasy/nightmare. "He" (played admirably by Willem Dafoe) is a therapist who is confident of his powers, and was obsessed by his job and detached from his wife and son until the accident allowed him to treat her as patient. He had dismissed as trite her writing and research on misogyny and "gynocide" - hatred and violence against women, born of fear -- and was emotionally distant from her until now she became for him a fascinating object of study. He becomes threatened and uneasy when she seems to have been cured, and seeks to continue the therapy by whatever means necessary. What she really fears, he insists, is that the male fears about women that inspired the violence she had studied were in fact true, that women are in fact evil - and that she is herself the object of her fears. When his projection onto her becomes real, when the fear he projected onto her comes to life, it becomes clear that this is his own paranoid fantasy, his own fear of aggressive female sexuality come to life allows him to justify and actualize the violent retaliation he had formerly only been able to realize against her in words, by objectifying and dismissing her.

It is as if, von Trier's film suggests, as if the modern version of the old male fear of the feminine, expressed then by accusing powerful women of witchcraft as a justification for doing them violence, as if this fear has been transformed or sublimated into the male pretense of objectivity. An objectivity that treats women as if their fears and concerns were utterly banal, but only out of a deeper anxiety that if women were to realize that male objectivity is really a new form of witchcraft aimed at silencing women, if women were to realize this they would come into their own and that would be the real danger. The film does not, as I see it, in any way endorse this view of women, or this fear, but depicts it powerfully in the form of a perverse parody. Not for the timid, but not to be dismissed, either, as if it were merely another provocative and shocking joke by that Danish trickster, Lars von Trier. It's a subtle and complex film, powerfully shot, darkly scintillating and dangerous.

Here's what to expect on the Criterion release:

New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Lars von Trier and supervised by director of photography Anthony Dod Mantle (with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
Audio commentary by von Trier and professor Murray Smith
Video interviews with von Trier and actors Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg
A collection of video pieces delving into the production of Antichrist, including interviews with von Trier and key members of his filmmaking team as well as behind-the-scenes footage
Chaos Reigns at the Cannes Film Festival 2009, a documentary on the film's world premiere, plus press interviews with Dafoe and Gainsbourg
Three theatrical trailers
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Ian Christie

Self indulgence is inherent in storytelling. In the case of filmmaking, we have the writer and director, who each have a specific vision of what will unfold in front of the camera. What ultimately limits the vision are practical matters such as budgets, limits of technology, studio meddling, scheduling, the MPAA, or any combination thereof. Watching Lars von Trier's "Antichrist," it became abundantly clear, rather quickly, that I was watching a completely unlimited vision. This is a truly self indulgent story, and in all honesty, I don't know whether or not I mean that as a criticism. I appreciated Trier's audacity to make the movie he intended to make, yet I find myself in utter disbelief over the confusingly allegorical plot and the extreme sexual content, some of which validates the criticism that the film is misogynist.

It stars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, who were indeed brave to accept their roles. They had an even bigger challenge than simply making their characters believable; they had to be physically and emotional vulnerable, and at times, this required them to act in scenes so frighteningly cringe-inducing that it wouldn't be enough to call them shocking. Trier is obviously trying to provoke the audience, not merely in terms of violence and gore, but also in terms of heavy dialogue, strange setups, a meandering structure, and bizarre symbolism. The title in and of itself is an attention grabber, and it will almost certainly inspire visions of unspeakable (and typical) demonic horrors. Ah, but this movie isn't about to let you off so easy. The title, just like everything else we see, is open to interpretation.

For example, is the word "antichrist" referring to Dafoe or Gainsbourg, their characters known only as He and She? The film, divided into four titled sections, opens with a prologue that shows He and She graphically having sex as their infant son falls to his death from an open bedroom window. As the story proper begins, in a chapter called "Grief," we find that He won't let She go through the process of grieving. He's a therapist, you see, and as such, He would rather treat his wife's symptoms through a series of mental exercises while jotting down meaningless notes in a hierarchical pyramid. He sees She not as a wife so much as a clinical experiment, and regards her distantly and coldly, almost as if He were trying to punish her for their son's death. Would a caring husband take his mourning wife to a cabin in the middle of the woods, a place She has been before and intensely fears?

But why did She go to this cabin, named Eden? To write a thesis, naturally, although She never finished it. She has, however, done enough research on the forces of nature to make her believe that women are inherently evil. Now that her son is dead, She has all the more reason to devalue and punish herself. But does She also have reason to devalue and punish her husband? By now we have reached the second and third chapters, called "Pain" and "Despair," both of which follow such twisted and disturbing logic that it's difficult to think past how the mind could conceive of it. They involve the appearances of a crow, a fox, and a deer, each so ghastly in appearance that it's impossible to think of them as of this earth.

By the time we reach the fourth chapter, "The Three Beggars," He and She find themselves in extreme physical and psychological situations. The outside world, unnatural in every sense, is cold, filthy, and inhospitable. Tree roots sprout human limbs. Caves and tall grasses shield terrifying representations of animals. As for Eden, which is decaying both outside and in, it's eerily claustrophobic and a perfect catalyst for He and She's respective emotional breakdowns. They really do know how to hurt each other. More to the point, She knows how to hurt herself. She wants to hurt herself. She wants him to hurt her. It becomes an exhausting and grotesque downward spiral, where suffering and anger give way to physical punishments best left unspoken of.

Inevitably, it comes down to a simple question: Is "Antichrist" a good movie? The thing is, I don't think the word "good" really applies here. If immediate reaction is of any indication, then the truth is I left the theater feeling disgusted and emotionally drained. However, I also found myself a little in awe of Trier, having the nerve to release a film so uncompromising. And there is no mistaking the artistry that went into virtually every shot. The ending, while highly enigmatic, is visually stunning, playing into the figurative nature of plot. So if I can't give it credit for delighting me, I can certainly give it credit simply for affecting me. Some filmmakers, I suspect, are not interested in telling a story so much as they are in being memorable, be it in a positive or negative light. You may like "Antichrist" or you may hate it, but either way, you will almost certainly never forget it.

A woman and a man lose their son in a tragic accident. Rather than trust in the medicine prescribed by her psychiatrist to ease her grief, he (a psychotherapist) decides to subject her to his own therapeutic regime. She (in an incredibly devastating performance by Charlotte Gainsbourg) will face her fears directly, and see that there is nothing to fear. He doesn't consider that he may have something to fear from her, or that he, with his clinical detachment from feeling and incessant preoccupation with the stance of observer, may be the one who truly needs therapy. (On that note it is hard not to detect a kinship of the themes of this film with the themes of von Trier and Jorgen Leth's The Five Obstructions, that set up von Trier himself as therapist to Leth, whose capacity for aesthetic detachment he found troubling).

The imagery in the film is fascinating and frightening. The prologue and epilogue are highly formalistic, shot in a series of powerful black and white images that border on the unreal; the rest of the film, broken into five chapters, is shot handheld with washed out but saturated colors, with rippling natural imagery and occasional freaks of nature that as a whole evokes a darker vision of Tarkovsky's zone (from Stalker). The film is in fact dedicated to Tarkovsky, and suggests a kind of inversion of his values and approach: whereas Tarkovsky finds in nature the potential for transcendence, suggested but not depicted, von Trier depicts in nature the reality of hell, a "Satan's church" where, as the fox asserts, "chaos reigns"; where Tarkovsky takes long, leisurely tracking shots, von Trier's are a bit jerky and employ the occasional jump cut, but he also employs the trademark Tarkovskian slow zoom into extreme close up on a partial face or gesture.

The film has been described by several critics as suggesting that women are evil, and the setting in a woods they call "Eden" makes it hard not to see "she" (Gainsbourg) as a kind of twisted Eve figure whose longings and obsessions introduce evil and death into the garden. Still, it seems to me that the central character in the film is "He" and the film uses him as an object lesson to provide a critical depiction of a paranoid male fantasy/nightmare. "He" (played admirably by Willem Dafoe) is a therapist who is confident of his powers, and was obsessed by his job and detached from his wife and son until the accident allowed him to treat her as patient. He had dismissed as trite her writing and research on misogyny and "gynocide" - hatred and violence against women, born of fear -- and was emotionally distant from her until now she became for him a fascinating object of study. He becomes threatened and uneasy when she seems to have been cured, and seeks to continue the therapy by whatever means necessary. What she really fears, he insists, is that the male fears about women that inspired the violence she had studied were in fact true, that women are in fact evil - and that she is herself the object of her fears. When his projection onto her becomes real, when the fear he projected onto her comes to life, it becomes clear that this is his own paranoid fantasy, his own fear of aggressive female sexuality come to life allows him to justify and actualize the violent retaliation he had formerly only been able to realize against her in words, by objectifying and dismissing her.

It is as if, von Trier's film suggests, as if the modern version of the old male fear of the feminine, expressed then by accusing powerful women of witchcraft as a justification for doing them violence, as if this fear has been transformed or sublimated into the male pretense of objectivity. An objectivity that treats women as if their fears and concerns were utterly banal, but only out of a deeper anxiety that if women were to realize that male objectivity is really a new form of witchcraft aimed at silencing women, if women were to realize this they would come into their own and that would be the real danger. The film does not, as I see it, in any way endorse this view of women, or this fear, but depicts it powerfully in the form of a perverse parody. Not for the timid, but not to be dismissed, either, as if it were merely another provocative and shocking joke by that Danish trickster, Lars von Trier. It's a subtle and complex film, powerfully shot, darkly scintillating and dangerous.

[Edit: 11/10/10 Received my pre-order copy yesterday. Criterion delivers! The following address some serious pre-release ambiguieties/anomalies.]

Big Questions that need answering for this Criterion Release. Many are unthinkable for such a prestigious company as Criterion, but they're demanded and need circulation/speculation prior to the release:


1. The Region 2 copy for France listed on Amazon is 120 minutes. This one is listed as a 108 minute runtime. The Catholic version was the one released for theaters in France. Is Criterion releasing the uncut "Catholic" version or the cut"Protestant" version? Will obtaining an unspoiled copy of a cinematic masterwork be as difficult as it currently is to find a legitimate copy of LvT's "The Idiots"?


2. The US is a 'prude market' according to Zentropa Entertainments:

"We reached an agreement with Lars more than a year ago to make a 'Catholic' version of the movie, to cut some scenes and replace them with others," Peter Aalbaek Jensen, the head of the Zentropa production group, told AFP.

"Otherwise it would be impossible to sell (it) to prude markets like southern Europe, Asia and the United States, where you can't show a naked man from the front," he said.

[taken from France 24 online news]


3. IFC's released version was uncut.


4. IFC and Criterion recently made a merger.


5. Amazon needs to make this information available and clearly listed on the product page and the blue ray format, otherwise it WILL find itself having a disproportionately high return rate for this product.



This is a niche market. This director has a hardcore following and attracts broad interest and attention even on the merit of purely his technical skills and sensationalism that surrounds his releases. People who WANT this film want to see it, own it in its entirety.

We are not a prude market, we have prude authorities. This release will suffer severe curtailing of sales if Criterion/ifc have bent over backwards to political pressure. The Protestant version WILL be boycotted by American consumers en masse.

As a Lars Von Trier fan I was eager to judge for myself whether `Antichrist' was really what many critics panned it as: self-indulgent, non-sensical and unnecessarily vulgar. I was more than happy to disagree on all fronts as it revealed it's strong feminist film theory backbone of Kristeva/Creed's `Abject Feminine', secured against an aptly metaphorical biblical backdrop (She, He, Eden.) Anyone who dismisses this as Freudian isn't giving it due credit- the theory of woman as `other', `evil', part of fecund and devouring mother nature, pre-dates Freud to the Medieval witch-hunts that the scholarly `She' was researching, and earlier. And of course polarised against her, is `He', the male as logic, reason- reassuringly phallic and centred. As they`get back to Nature' in its most primal sense, nature manifests symbolically until, in the final stage of her grief she embraces the (`female')`evil' that she accuses herself of; that she is a bad mother, and that her`violence'/sexuality killed her child.

I truly don't believe that this is a misogynistic work, even *besides* interviews with Lars Von Trier reiterating that the biblical/medieval belief that women (witches) are evil was `nonsense', along with the fact that it was directed by a feminist theory conscious woman. The way the story is told speaks for itself- though we sympathise with Her `phallically punished' husband (c/f the bolt through his leg), it is Her journey that unfolds as she navigates a battlefield of conflicting theories about what she is/ who she is/ what she fears, and finally, what she is capable of. It is, ironically, when `He' tries to compartmentalise her, to `tame' her, that she fully becomes something that requires taming; the monster that is projected, the transgressive female that must be punished.

I honestly have tried to find this movie to watch ever since it had been released in the states. I refused to just buy it because I've never seen it before and the reviews from it are very mixed. I finally found it online from blockbuster, surprisingly. Anyway, this film was the first of Lars von Trier's collection that I have dipped my feet into. I've also heard many mixed things about him as a person and all, but I'm not bothered or offended easily so I was interested in his work. I heard he was controversial, in your face, yet that his films can be beautifully executed and portrayed. I will admit I was smittened by the artsy feel for this film. The black and white prologue and epilogue were unique and well worth a watch just for these, the slow motion settings, the surprising CGI the Danish director used in the film. All of these aspects made this film "watchable" for me. I put the word in quotations because it is not easy to say this film is watchable. I personally think many, if not most will strongly dislike, maybe be offended someone can even direct this. There are many gritty scenes and painful scenes to view. Honestly, I was very bothered by the child falling out of the window at the beginning. I am expecting my son to be here within a month and some change as I write this and I cannot fathom losing my lil man in a situation like that or at all to mention it. This is what the director wants, though. He wants you to feel what the only two actors in the film feel; grief, anxiety, despair and the three beggars (symbolism for the fox, deer, and crow). Another scene that many will not be able to look at is the infamous "decapitation of her clitoris". That is correct...I warn you only because I was warned, yet still for some reason felt I needed to see this film to understand what others were saying about it. Do I regret it?...No not really, as I'm glad to have checked this film off my list and move onto others. Will I want to watch it again?...probably not, I think once was enough for me personally. Others may be determined to understand this work of art and view it more than once, I on the other hand can just leave some things unexplained...

The film is no "feel good" movie. It is PURELY and ONLY ment to watch as an ART FILM. If you do not understand that concept, then go watch Xmen or something lame.

I honestly hope I've been helpful, I put some thought into this review..

-Cam 4/4/11

Lars von Trier's latest film caused quite a stir when it made it's debut at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Audiences there were divided, with some calling it beautiful and brilliant, while many others called it repulsive and pornographic. Antichrist is essentially an art film with many horror film elements. It has very graphic scenes of sexual imagery, as well as sexual mutilation...This is what has scared many filmgoers who have not given the film the attention it deserves.

The film's Prologue shows a couple (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) engaged in passionate (and, in one shot, explicit) lovemaking as their young son falls from a window to his death. This scene, shot in black and white, is one of the most beautifully filmed scenes I have ever seen in a film. The following is presented in four chapters; Grief, Pain (Chaos Reigns), Despair (Gynocide), and The Three Beggars, followed by an Epilogue. It follows He and She coping, He better than her. She is mad with grief, while He has found a way to muffle his emotions. The two go to their cabin in the woods (called "Eden"), so He (a therapist) can help her further.

It's when chapter three begins that the scenes that had Cannes talking begin. This chapter specifically contains the most well-known image from the film of Dafoe and Gainsbourg under a tree, an image I find deeply unsettling in a film filled with unsettling images. Many viewers have mentioned the talking fox as being laughable, but I found it quite creepy and well-done. Von Trier uses CGI in this film, but it's a beautifully rendered use of the technology and it's not used often.

This is a movie filled with symbolism; some obvious, some a little more inconspicuous. I don't want to attempt to dissect any meaning from the film as I've read so much into it, I believe I'd have a biased view. With that said, I'm not sure anyone has nailed down von Trier's exact intent and I'm sure that whatever you take away from the film is close enough.

Now, on the performances...Dafoe and Gainsbourg show they are absolutely fearless in these performances, which show them willing to go places few actors would. Gainsbourg won the Best Actress award at Cannes and it's no wonder as she puts both her body and soul on the line in this performance. Dafoe is very convincing but isn't required to hit on all the emotions required by Gainsbourg. There are those who have blasted Dafoe's character as emotionless, but I don't see it this way. Dafoe grieves for his son, just as Gainsbourg does, but his grieving is characterized more by rationality and reservation than absolute emotional Hell.

Now, as for Antichrist being labeled "pornography," I must say that this is very inaccurate. Not a single scene in this film is intended to arouse and von Trier seems to use the graphic sexual imagery as a way of exposing these character's inside and out. Furthermore, as She sees sex as being the cause of their son's death, these scenes of human nature and the human anatomy seem necessary for what the film is trying to illustrate. Does the film use explicit sexual imagery only when completely necessary? No, probably not. But I'm sure, in his own strange way, von Trier could justify this. On a similar note, many of it's violent images may be intended solely for shock value, but von Trier's use of this imagery doesn't come across as exploitive the way it would in a film by Eli Roth for example.

The cinematography in this film, by Academy Award-winning cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, is beyond masterful. Minus the shot of explicit sex, if the first scene of this film was released as a short film I have no doubt it would have received a lot more acclaim than this film has. The cinematography here makes one appreciate just how important good cinematography is to good filmmaking, for without a cinematographer of Mantle's merit I doubt von Trier would have been able to make this film. Many reviews (from both critics and audiences) have frequently cited this film as "boring," and I expected that after hearing it labeled an "art film." I was surprised watching Antichrist, because there wasn't a single moment where I found myself bored with it. Both the beauty and the horror of the images onscreen kept me so transfixed that I found myself less interested in how the plot would progress, but how the images onscreen would progress.

It's not hard to see why many will completely reject and recoil from this film, but that's to be expected from a von Trier movie. Many who have loved his movies previously will hate this movie. I hated two out of the three films I've seen by the man previously and I loved this movie. Antichrist is a poetic, slow-moving film with shocking, memorable images and two fearless performances. It's a powerful film that is uncompromising in it's vision and not afraid to take it's audience to the depths of despair in a way that few films could or would. I am happy to be in the minority here when I say that Antichrist is one of the best films of 2009.

GRADE: A

I have seen all of the Lars von Triers movies he directed so far and this one is definitely the most disturbing one. It pleases viewer with beautiful shots of nature and animals, contrasted with black and white shots of a married couple that has to accept tragedy that occurs during their passionate lovemaking.

If there is a way for parents to crack once their child dies,this film definitely is able to touch on that subject. Loss, fear, guilt and unbearable grief lead to many different emotions for different people. For protagonists in this film, played by Charlotte Ginsbourg and Willem Defoe it leads to a downright spiral.

As we learn about grief and its phases these two individuals experience, one spouse decides to rationalize them by using his professional background, while other chooses to experience grief in all its force refusing medication and confronting the anxiety that follows. Compared to what happens afterwards, this couple's initial resolve to conquer their loss on their own seems almost idealistic.

Some of the scenes I found gruesome. It is a special kind of pain and inner human nature that can force two people to do things to each other like these two characters set out to do to themselves. Film is brutal and difficult to watch at times. Although I would not call it horror movie, I would definitely call it horrific.

If you are squeamish about your movies, if you can't handle violence or sexual content or dark psychological trauma, do not view ANTICHRIST. Just don't. Turn away and don't look back. Because this is not an easy film to watch. I say this as someone who is seldom disturbed by fiction; it isn't real, it doesn't get to me. ANTICHRIST does. I can't say that I will ever watch it again...and yet the viewing experience will last for quite some time.

The film's plot is deceptively simple. A couple (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) suffer the loss of their infant son. The tragic event throws the wife into grief, and her therapist husband suggests a trip to the woods to help her overcome her grief. As you may expect, things don't go quite according to plan.

For two actors to hold a film on their shoulders requires an immense level of talent. Dafoe and Gainsbourg both turn in performances that are stellar; the only reason these actors haven't received infinite accolades is because the film itself is so controversial...the controversy in large part due to the realism of the performances. This is a highly surrealistic film, yet the pair manages to grasp a level of reality and cling desperately to it. The result is graphic violence--often sexual in nature; consider yourself warned--that hits harder and surer than the "torture porn" films that are being tossed about these days. This isn't the latest SAW sequel. This is Lars von Trier ripping at your guts, going below the belt and doing considerable damage. It's a film full of art-house imagery, macabre scenarios (von Trier has been studying his Lynch), and thoroughly disturbing concepts. Slightly misogynistic in nature (but intentionally so, without judgment) though it may be, ANTICHRIST is a film that will leave a lasting impact. You can love it or hate it; there's no middle ground. Either way, you have to admit, this film succeeds at its intended purpose--that is, it gets a reaction from you, a visceral response that leaves little room for doubt.