Antichrist

Let me preface this review by saying that if you are easily offended by graphic violence or pornographic imagery, then you shouldn’t watch this movie. 

This is going to be a tough review for me because there seems to be lots of metaphors in this movie that I’m not really sure I understood.  Maybe someone more versed in the bible or in cinema would follow it better, but it seems like you could come up with 50 metaphors that all fit for this movie.  But, I’m going to do my best here and tell you what I think this movie was about, whether it’s right or wrong. 

First, ‘Antichrist’ it a title that I think would turn a lot of people away, specifically those who don’t like the horror genre.  I wouldn’t quite classify this as a horror movie, though, despite the fact that there are some scary scenes.  What’s scary about this movie is that it’s all about human nature and the potential evil that lives inside us all, so it’s not entirely unbelievable that these events could occur.

Maybe it would help if I gave a little explanation of what this movie is about.  Our two unnamed characters (credited as ‘He’ and ‘She’ and played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg respectively) open the movie with a pretty explicit sex scene during which their young son climbs out of his crib and falls out an open window to his death.  Is there irony in the fact that their child loses his life while they were performing an act that creates life?  Maybe, or maybe I’m just trying to think about this movie too hard.  Anyway, ‘She’ goes through a long period of extreme depression and grief and ‘He’, being the therapist that he is, decides that her doctors are not helping and that he is the only one that can counsel her through this.  The therapy starts in their home, where she reveals that he has been distant toward herself and their son.  It’s interesting to watch Willem Dafoe’s reaction in this scene because he treats it very much like a therapist would, giving no personal reaction and simply asking why she feels that way.  Eventually, he decides that the in-house therapy was a bad idea and that what she really needs to do is begin facing her fears, which turns out to be their cabin in the woods in a place called Eden.  Some very weird events begin happening when they get to Eden, specifically when ‘He’ encounters a fox disemboweling itself and then speaking the words ‘chaos reigns’.  Somehow, these events don’t get him to think that maybe this place isn’t where his wife needs to be right now, further reinforcing his distantness to his wife.  He seems to be trying to help her, not because he wants her to get better, but because he wants to prove to himself that he is the only one that can help her.  In the meantime, she seems to be getting more crazy and unpredictable, eventually lashing out at him and herself in very violent ways.

The cinematography in this movie is actually very pretty at times, with extreme slow motion shots that bring out some of the colors of the woods, and black and white shots during some of the movies key moments (the opening scene being one of them).  But this is contrasted against some very un-pretty images, the fox, for example, disemboweling itself (which isn’t even close to the most violent part of the movie).  There are interesting camera tricks, mostly involving the woods appearing to warp in interesting ways, and extremely short flashes of things to come, almost like subliminal messages.  This is a movie that makes you want to analyze every little thing to catch the ‘real’ meaning.  But I think that is this movies downfall because you try to make this movie smarter than it is and come out saying “what the hell was that movie about?”  Ultimately, though, I think it’s about the evil that we all have inside us and how traumatic events can warp our view of the world and cause us to do irrational and unspeakable things. 

I can’t say I loved this movie or that I completely understood it, maybe you’re not supposed to completely understand, but I enjoyed it enough that I would recommend people watch it (instantly on Netflix) and see what they get out of it.  Just be aware that you’ll see some things in this movie that you probably don’t want to see; don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Score: 6 out of 10