Monday Matinée - Anti-Christ

Lars Von Trier. The man that proclaims himself the best director in the whole world. I won't deny I'm a big fan of his Europa Trilogy but that claim is a little too much in my personal opinion. Anti-Christ is another statement. A movie that draws a very, very thin line between shocking and offensive and something artistically beautiful. The story starts with one of the best introductions to a movie I have seen all year. A brilliant black-and-white scene to the sound of an aria from Handel's Rinaldo that shows the greatest tragedy of a couple, when their infant son falls out of a window while the two make love. And sex is one of the main points of the movie. Following that event we see the male protagonist, Willem Dafoe's unnamed character, decide to take her sorrowful wife, also unnamed and played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, to a cabin in the woods of Eden. What follows that is series of horror moments that show chaos rulling over nature in the most shocking ways possible, in animals and plants alike. But its in the wife that evil really shows up, leading to many scenes of pure violence and sexual mutilation, that end with an epilogue that attempts to pass us the idea that the wife death is the necessary unfortunate event that can end and evil that started with Eve's original sin. I say attempts because, apart from the brilliant acting and the beautiful visuals, the story isn't exactly clear in every moment. It may as well be the idea of the director, but we don't get a complete picture of the metaphor Lars is trying to create with this movie. With people fainting in Cannes when this one was showed you know this is isn't for weak hearts. The violence is shocking but not gratuitous in my opinion, it does serve the story. Possibly one of the love it or hate it movies of year, it's certainly on experience not to miss because of the way it makes one feel.

7.5/10