If Luis Bunuel directed an unholy union of "Scenes from a Marriage" and "Friday the 13th", the resulting beast would bare some resemblance to Lars von Trier's "Antichrist".
The film is divided into four chapters (Grief, Pain, Despair, The Three Beggars), a prologue, and an epilogue. "The Three Beggars" may be a reference to the appearance of a fox, deer, and crow, as well as to the themes of Grief, Pain, and Despair. The urge to invest meaning, symbolic or otherwise, into "Antichrist" should be resisted, as the film follows a dream logic (or rather, nightmare logic) that is both its strength and, more often, its weakness.
"He" (Willem Dafoe), a therapist, and his wife "She" (Charlotte Gainsbourg), suffer the tragic death of their son Nic (Storm Acheche Sahlstrom). Shot in slow motion and black and white, this opening scene is exquisite, and could be a self-contained short in its own right. Making the questionable decision to treat his wife's depression himself, He brings her to their secluded cabin in a wooded "Eden". Pouring her medication down the toilet turns out to be a bad idea. As her condition worsens, the rational becomes irrational and Eden becomes Hell.
Not surprisingly, a lot of graphic material can be found in Hell: sexual, violent, and, for lack of a better word, "other". Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg both deliver the epitome of "brave" performances in physically and emotionally demanding roles. While any number of scenes will cause viewers to flinch and wince, it is a generalized mood of dread that dominates.
She spent the previous summer in the cabin writing a thesis on gynocide, and He finds misogynistic material she studied, as well as photographic evidence that calls into question her maternal instincts. Due in part to guilt over Nic's death, She comes to believe what she had sought to disprove: women are evil.
While portraying women as evil is socially provocative, aesthetically "Antichrist" can be tedious. "Chaos Reigns" is the subtitle of one of the chapters, and, in case there was any doubt, a self-eating fox actually speaks these words, which is presumably not meant to be funny.
Like any bad dream, "Antichrist" is difficult to shake off, and that is partially to its credit. As Von Trier has said himself, the film was a kind of talking cure for his own depression. While it can be argued that any work of art has a similar genesis, the personal mythology within the film comes across as self-indulgence, and much of it seems like a therapeutic exercise. And this is the real reason why the film may give offense. It feels like witnessing someone else's therapy, and when it's over, realizing you have been billed for their session.
