Antichrist in all its Anti-sensibilities

Okay, here's a movie review -- something I've never really done before with a lot of effort, but here goes.

Tonight, I am going to discuss a movie that I caught earlier this afternoon called Antichrist.

It is a movie. It is a very odd movie.

Starring Willem Dafoe (a man who can be as insane and hellbent as the Green Goblin, or as genius and awesomely gay as the FBI agent from Boondock Saints) and Charlotte Gainsbourg (The name sounds familiar, but that's all I got on her), and helmed by Lars von Trier, when I heard about this movie floating around the 'net, I thought "Why the hell not?" and found it on Netflix.

I am not totally familiar with von Trier's work, aside from Dogville (a superb cinematic achievement and worth many viewings) and now this. A couple things stick out, however, from seeing these two films. One: the director enjoys making his films seem like plays, having them broken up into "acts" with pauses in the film to have some cutesy little cutscene to let us know. It worked really, really well in Dogville, as it was all done on a stage. Here, not so much.

From what I can tell, the four acts were to let us, the viewers, know that the film had four main points to make. In the first chapter, we see their baby basically jump out of a window for the sheer hell of it, as he actively takes the time to break out of his crib, burst through the safety fence, make his way into Dafoe and Gainsbourg's room, push the chair up to the desk, fumble with the window locks, open the window, survey where to best land, and then flings himself outward like a ragdoll. Mind you, this is all while we get to see gratuitous amounts of Mr. Dafoe's pasty ass grinding in Ms. Gainsbourg's equally pasty and bony body in an even more unflattering black-and-white opener.

Take a moment to read this again, if you will. The movie opens with you seeing Willem Dafoe actively sinking his joystick, in plain view, into this woman's "center", if you will, all while their child makes a clearly thought out attempt at suicide. He's like 3 or something. This is when I thought to myself "Well, surely if this is how it opens, the 'horror' aspect of this movie will be intense as all get-out." This is when I would also be wrong.

I will not spoil much for you, dear readers, and trust me, I have spoiled nothing for you yet. The fact that this child kills himself does in a way set off the events for the rest of the film, but you soon forget they had a kid, having this memory replaced by thoughts of "Oh God," "Oh my God," "Oh sweet Jesus," "What the fuck?" and "Hold me, please".

The film is highly criticized as misogynistic, but that's just another way of women saying they don't like a movie. AS IF they should be offended by the whole title of the film being spelled out with the use of the symbol for "female", instances of women being branded as evil cult witches that can make it rain when it shouldn't, and so on*. (*Please note that was sarcasm, and I totally see why people have issues with this movie)

This film is also hailed as deeply moving, very deeply moving, and life-changingly moving. Okay.

For my first movie review, this is probably the worst possible movie for me to start off with. Not because it has so many layers to delve through, but just because the movie makes your brain want to drink whiskey until it wakes up in a neighboring town with a new tattoo dedicated to whoever the hell Monica is. It is not worth watching twice, because there is no depth to go through. This move is just so...straightforward with the weirdness that you can only go "Okay, that was fucked up, what else do these crazy assholes do now?" as you sit there, not wanting to look away and you have no idea why.

SO, in conclusion, nature is evil, woman is evil because nature says so, if you think a vagina is being represented in some symbolical sense it is, and 3-year olds have a tendency to commit suicide just for the hell of it.

Lars von Trier took a gigantic leap forward with Dogville, and somehow managed to fall light-years behind with this film. It probably deserves watching just because I think all films deserve a fair shot, but in all honesty you really shouldn't bank on taking anything away from it.

Did I mention it was a very odd movie?