WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC SPOILERS
It's easy to understand why the name Lars Von Trier sets off the ire of countless feminists. If you look at them a certain (incredibly narrow) way, the Danish director's films can be distilled into one big pile of woman-hating celluloid. In 'Breaking the Waves', Emily Watson stars as a woman whose husband becomes paralyzed and encourages her to sleep with other men; in 'Dogville,' Nicole Kidman's character is raped and enslaved; and in 'Dancer in the Dark,' Bjork plays a woman who is slowly going blind and eventually falsely accused of a crime she did not commit.
The actresses who have worked alongside Von Trier often attest to his bizarre relationship with women. Kidman famously asked the director why he hates women, while Bjork was so disturbed on set that she began to consume her own sweater. All that highly negative press is probably what led to Von Trier hiring a misogyny specialist for his latest film, 'Antichrist.' But he needn't have bothered. Anyone in their right mind (i.e. none of the characters in the film) would realize this movie is not about men or women, at all, but about the repercussions of depression. Misogyny requires a certain commitment to hating women while anyone who knows anything about depression is aware that those afflicted with it have no attachment to anything at all.
'Antichrist' is Von Trier's first horror film and revolves around a couple, He (Willem Dafoe) and She (Charlotte Gainsbourg), whose child dies while they are in the midst of making love. The duo retreat to a cabin in the woods where He tries to cure his wife of depression only to realize he seems to be causing the opposite effect.
The biggest controversy to come out of Cannes this year, the sado-masochistic horror that is 'Antichrist' was concocted out of Lars Von Trier's depression. In it a husband (Willem Dafoe) and wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) retreat to a cabin in the woods to get over the death of their son, only to find themselves embroiled in a non-stop circle of sexual violence and abuse. Not for the prudish or the faint of heart.
Ashley Tisdale Photos
Ashley Tisdale sighting on March 4, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. Celebrity Sightings In Los Angeles - March 4, 2009 Los Angeles, California United States March 4, 2009 Photo by Anthony Goodrich/FilmMagic.com To license this image (56902822), contact FilmMagic.com
Anthony Goodrich/BuzzFoto/FilmMagic.com
Actress Ashley Tisdale attends the 2008 Q102 Jingle Ball at the Susquehanna Bank Center on December 14, 2008 in Camden, New Jersey.
Gilbert Carrasquillo/FilmMagic.com
CAMDEN,NJ - DECEMBER 14: Ashley Tisdale hosts the Q102 Jingle Ball at the Susquehanna Bank Center on December 14, 2008 in Camden, New Jersey. (Photo Jeff Fusco/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Ashley Tisdale
Getty Images
CAMDEN,NJ - DECEMBER 14: Ashley Tisdale hosts the Q102 Jingle Ball at the Susquehanna Bank Center on December 14, 2008 in Camden, New Jersey. (Photo Jeff Fusco/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Ashley Tisdale
Getty Images
CAMDEN,NJ - DECEMBER 14: Ashley Tisdale hosts the Q102 Jingle Ball at the Susquehanna Bank Center on December 14, 2008 in Camden, New Jersey. (Photo Jeff Fusco/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Ashley Tisdale
Getty Images
CAMDEN,NJ - DECEMBER 14: Ashley Tisdale hosts the Q102 Jingle Ball at the Susquehanna Bank Center on December 14, 2008 in Camden, New Jersey. (Photo Jeff Fusco/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Ashley Tisdale
Getty Images
Singer/actress Ashley Tisdale attends Z100s Jingle Ball 2008 Presented by H&M at Madison Square Garden on December 12, 2008 in New York City.
Jim Spellman/WireImage.com
Actress/singer Ashley Tisdale poses in the press room during Z100
Michael Loccisano/FilmMagic.com
Actress/singer Ashley Tisdale poses in the press room during Z100
Michael Loccisano/FilmMagic.com
Ashley Tisdale and The Veronicas on stage during Z100
Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com
Von Trier wrote the screenplay during an intense period of depression and offers up a tremendously visceral depiction of the mood disorder. He also details (sometimes over clinically) the steps taken to assuage its symptoms and ultimately cure the afflicted. Von Trier no doubt focused on female depression because the general public can think of nothing more upsetting than a woman losing her child. Though men experience depression just as often as women, a cinematic depiction of this feeling of loss requires an accessible example, such as a mother losing her child (Von Trier also uses images of a doe with an aborted fetus emerging from it to push this theme home).
'Antichrist' has been attacked for its use of explicit sex and violence, but upon close inspection neither one is used gratuitously. One shot of a male member entering a female orifice while He and She are having sex seems superfluous, but later on, when She begins to see the sex as an agent of her son's death, the explicit mechanics of the act make sense. For her, sex is no longer an act of love, simply an indulgent and somewhat grotesque act.
The theme of death and sex as inseparable entities provides 'Antichrist's' backbone. For Gainsbourg's character, sex is inextricably linked to her son's death and is thus an act that simultaneously repulses her and brings her close to her son. Jumping her husband every five minutes is a way to distract She from her grief, sure, but it's also a way of going back to a time when her son was on the precipice but still alive. The infamous genital mutilation scene is simply her inability to accept this paradox.
However, 'Antichrist's' anti-heroine does not only abuse herself to quell her anxiety, she also attacks her own husband. This includes a graphically violent scene in which She literally breaks her husband's testicles (another agent of her son's death) and inserts a nail through his leg while he is passed out, a rather uninspired symbol of how her grief is tying him down.
Gainsbourg's physical abuse of her husband is as much a symptom of her madness as is her sudden penchant for quoting misogynistic excerpts from her abandoned master's thesis research. Rather than being a negative depiction of women, She is simply a realistic representation of the way in which our minds become unhinged when we become depressed.
Considering how much He has been battered, verbally abused and objectified by his wife, his sudden urge to strangle her is not so much an act of chauvinism as it is an understandable response to her attacks. Not to mention the fact that the act of strangling her is, in a sense, the act of suffocating her grief, which has become all-consuming. While He must realize killing his wife is a crime, He is also aware that death is the greatest gift he can give her. Anyone who wants to call that misogynistic only has to remember the wife's plea to join her son when she discovers he is dead. Having one's last wish granted no doubt beats having one's genitalia slashed.
Reader Comments (10)
chrissy_1 at 9:42AM on Sep 10th 2009
sounds crazy...not for me! But I'm sure some will find it entertaining. lol
noypiyorker at 10:24AM on Sep 10th 2009
That's EmILY Watson, not EmMA Watson. Emma was just six when Breaking the Waves came out.
emersonj00gen at 11:41AM on Sep 10th 2009
interesting
Andrew at 10:54AM on Sep 11th 2009
I'll let you know...I'm going to see it tonight at TIFF.
NoahVale at 7:18AM on Sep 11th 2009
Misogynistic or not, this flick is not only gratuitously and pointlessly violent and sadistic, but tedious and BORING beyond belief. We are subjected, in the beginning, to seemingly-endless, stultifying dialogue in the form of a shrink husband engaged in therapy with his depressed wife. Then, after about an hour of this (which seems like about four and is peppered with shot after shot of Dafoe's aged and flabby white a s s as he humps his wife), the films turns into a "cabin-in-the-woods" style horror flick with the wife imprisoning and mutilating her husband and then herself. The self-indulgence displayed by the director (despite brilliant cinematography) who seems from an audience's perspective to believe he's making some sort of profound statement is beyond anything Vincent Gallo could pull off at his most narcissistic. The graphic, horrible violence is on par with the japanese film Audition, which at least had an actual story that could have stood on its own without the grand guignol. Antichrist honestly seems like a film someone dreamed up after four days without sleep on a meth binge.
Mano74 at 5:48PM on Sep 18th 2009
In her defense of Trier's misogynist movie, Soraya Roberts confuses depression with psychosis and neglects some important features of Antichrist. For instance, how does the fact that the wife was writing a thesis on misogyny adds to the plot if we look at it from Robert's standpoint? It is interesting that the wife goes from criticizing misogyny to advocating in favor of it, all of that before the death of her son. Not to mention that she also used to torture the poor kid, which makes me believe that she actually did witness the death of her son and did nothing to stop it, as opposed to Robert's suggestion that it was all in her head. In addition, while the movie in some levels represents a battle between the rational and the irrational, the husband is supposed to represent the former while the wife is obviously the later. Talking about analogies, what about the unnecessary burning of the wife's body at the end. Finally, since when delusions, hallucinations, incoherence, distorted perceptions of reality, torturing people and self-mutilation became symptoms of depression? Schizophrenia, perhaps, but depression, not at all. There is a lot more to be said, just not enough space...
Teig Schneider at 11:32PM on Nov 20th 2009
I really liked your response. I agree that depression isn't enough to explain many elements of the film. I do think that there are NO single explanations of the film, but a kalidescope of possibilities and that is an expression of great art. This film should be discussed on numerous levels, i.e., gender issues, depression, mythology, paganism, christianity and guilt.
Jessica at 9:41AM on Dec 11th 2009
A well written article, however I have to question the assumption that violence (as depicted in the film) is in some way a representation of depression or how a depressed person might feel.
That may be true of psychosis, but in my experience (both personal and professional), depression would be better equated with numbness/meaninglessness/apathy/disillusionment. Most people who are clinically depressed are basically incapable of energetic anything - whether this be thoughts or actions.
So in essence - I'm not sure if the assertion in this article sufficiently explains or excuses the ultru violence and sexual torture depicted in the film.
Jessica at 9:44AM on Dec 11th 2009
Ah - sorry Mano74 - just read you post. Well said!
Jessica at 9:46AM on Dec 11th 2009
Apologies Mano74 - Just read you post and see you have already made the point (and said it well!).