Cannes'09 Diary-Day 6: Lars Von Trier's Antichrist review

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Trust Lars von Trier to have the courage to do something like this! His Antichrist, a shocking film that deals with issues like misogyny, man-woman relationship, man's relationship with nature among other things, left the 62^nd Cannes Film Festival all shaken at its midpoint.

Till now treated to nothing extraordinary, the uneven Competition Section - comprising fine pieces of cinema like Jane Campion's Bright Star and Jacques Audiard's Un Prophete (A Prophet), the feel good in the form of Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock and Ken Loach's Looking for Eric (that had its media screening today), the violent ones in the shape of Park Chan-wook's Bak Jwi (Thirst) and Brillante Mendoza's Kinatay, and the ordinary in the shape of Johnnie To's Vengeance - got its real talking point on Tuesday in Antichrist.

Written during an extreme bout of depression he had suffered two years ago, Antichrist pushes boundaries of cinematic violence so much that there were audible gasps from hardboiled critics during the media screening, and a viciously-divided opinion about the film is surely what one is going to hear.
The film - story of a couple grieving over the death of their young son, which is depicted in one of the most-beautifully conceptualized, executed and shot (camera: Anthony Dod Mantle) prologue section - has such degree of violence and graphic depiction of sex and genital mutilation that the weak hearted would be best to avoid it.

But von Trier raises important questions in this film, even though he does it in a shocking way. There are enough Biblical references in the film - even the forest where the two unnamed protagonists (played by William Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and simplyl referred to as "He" and "She" in the credits) go to overcome their grief is called the Eden - and it brings up misogyny, the "unfairness" of nature towards women, man-woman relationship and so on.

The media screening saw the critics divided between jeering and applauding the film, but it is surely a film that is not easy to analysis with a single viewing. Dedicated to Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky, a fact which made some critics raise derisive laughter at the end of the screening, the film is described by its director as the "most important" one of his career.
Separated into Prologue, Grief, Pain, Despair, Three Beggars and Epilogue sections, it is a film that sees not only Trier but also Dafoe and Gainsbourg pushing boundaries beyond anything they have done earlier.

Trier, accustomed to hostile reactions to his films, was at his aggressive best during the media interaction later, thought he laced his replies often with his brand of wry and dry humour. "I don't have to justify why I made this film. It's in the Cannes Film Festival and I have to explain why I made it! I make films for myself and not for audiences, and I don't owe any explanation to anyone why I do so," he told an American journalist who asked his to justify his making of such a film.

Trier has said in the notes on the making of the film it "does not contain a specific moral code and only has what some might call `the bare necessities' in the way of a plot."

He also told the media, "I am the best film director in the world, and all the others are overrated", though he later downplayed it a little bit by saying that "all filmmakers think so about themselves but say it out, but I do".

"I can offer no excuse for Antichrist other than my absolute belief in the film - the most important film of my entire career!" he has written in his notes.

Be sure about two facts - this film will never get screened in India under the current Central Board of Film Certification norms, and it will be one of the most hotly debated films in the times to come.