3 out of 5

Director: Lars von Trier

Well then, von Trier. Interestingly, I just watched Nekromaniak, which also featured a certain bleeding prosthetic. That film’s similar obsession with sex and death (though more comedic) makes me wonder if we have a surreal remake on our hands here… Right. Anyhow. I’m not a big von Trier fan, yet I want to watch his films. I’m not a big Michael Haneke fan, but I want to watch his films. Both directors embrace the film medium as a way to ACT upon their audience, and both our skilled with their chosen methods. But whereas Haneke, I feel, generally has a very specific agenda in mind, Trier also seems to go more dreamy with things. Both of these approaches sort of narrow the focus of things – Haneke’s films work if you’re privvy to the seed of knowledge from which his story sprung, and Trier’s work… if you don’t care about watching a film. Because almost everything goes through a filter of ambience before it hits the screen, rendering dialogue and images directly pointless… Whatever whatever. So this is why I actually liked Antichrist more than other Trier films I’ve seen, because, having chosen the horror film as a central point from which to work, it seemed to liberate Trier from some of his wandering, even though this is still one of his more surreal works. There are things to analyze here, but you can certainly get the gist of depressing Danish themes regardless of how deep you do or don’t dig. It’s pretty brutally acted, and crisply shot. Not as creepy as I think he was aiming for, but effective in its twisting of the knife at about the hour mark. Not a required view by any means, but if you’re looking for something that pushes you – and its director – and its actors – in an unconventional direction, and you can deal with some weiner pain, here you go.