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Updated Friday, November 13, 2009 9:18 am TWN, By Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times




	A grief-stricken couple retreat to their remote cabin in the woods after the death of their child, only to find evil awaiting them. (Courtesy of Crown Films) Enlarge Photo

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Antichrist 撒旦的情與慾

The film initially seems as if it will be a smartly done, if dark, intellectual excursion, but it quickly turns into a Freudian house of mirrors. Dafoe represents the ego, the rational and controlling side of things, while Gainsbourg is pure id, emotionally tortured and increasingly unhinged. Meanwhile, Von Trier as super-ego hovers above it all, his deeply conflicted and increasingly disturbing interpretation of the male and female of the species more nakedly on display than ever.

There is a lot of before and after going on in the story too, primarily scenes of the couple's intense lovemaking, her last memory of their life before Nic's death. He decides they should return to their cabin in the woods. It is a place called Eden, and if you know Von Trier's work at all, you know that if it's biblical, it's going to be bad.

You might think, given the He, She, Eden, etc., that the film is allegory. It is not. “Antichrist” never rises to the symbolic; instead, it looks like nothing more than a reflection of one man's unresolved issues with the sexual liberation of women.

The horror in this tale comes not in apparitions or irony, but in the things humans are capable of doing to themselves and others. In She's case, her desire for sex, her need for it, is the demon. When it comes to He, the evil is hate masquerading as love. As they turn against each other, the movie shifts from philosophical debate to a level of graphic gore that renders the meat hooks of “Hellraiser” preferable by comparison.

What makes Von Trier's vision particularly troubling is how powerfully he tells his stories. Actresses give themselves over to this director, with performances so physically and emotionally naked, it's as if you could see inside their soul. Gainsbourg has done that and more in “Antichrist.” So deep does the actress disappear inside She, and so completely does Gainsbourg embrace the demon Von Trier has given her, that she earned the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

“Antichrist,” Von Trier has said, was an exercise he used to write himself out of a deep depression a few years ago, a “glimpse into the dark world of my imagination.” If the menacing fog of this film is the antidote, it is a wonder he emerged at all. It is worth noting that the credits include therapeutic consultants for cast and crew; none, unfortunately, are available to us.

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