Comments on: Lars von Trier’s Slippery, Sloppy Antichrist

By: Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia: Homage Without Artistry | HTMLGIANT

Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia: Homage Without Artistry | HTMLGIANT — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:34:02 +0000

[...] Antichrist, the two main characters were given enough space (it terms of images and the screenplay*) to [...]

By: Greg Gerke

Greg Gerke — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:35:57 +0000

Thanks Michael! Yes, I was going to be more critical, but as I wrote about it, I realized I like it more and more. I think the ending is perfect mysterious. Like the bells ringing in the air at the end of Breaking the Waves, there is an incredible vision to that scene of the women going up the hill.

Oh I agree he’s definitely Brechtian. That Tarkovsky dedication made me watch the old masters films, I’d only seen one. What incredible images.

By: Michael Leong

Michael Leong — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:11:46 +0000

Hey Greg, I’m a bit late on some of the more recent Big Other discussions about film but I wanted to make sure to chip in on your thoughts about Antichrist. I really liked the movie and wouldn’t quite call it “sloppy.” I’m a fan of LVT and think it’s one of his best films…I’m probably not as critical of it as you are. I think he really pulls together different strands from his ouevre in a compelling way– I liked the element of hypnosis that he played with in Europa. And I’ve always thought of LVT as a Brechtian kind of director and I appreciated the more surreal aspects of Antichrist– like the slow motion image of acorns falling in front of Dafoe’s character, like the body limbs protruding from the tree. These more supernatural elements of the film reminded me of The Kingdom (which has to be–along with Twin Peaks– one of the best made for tv mini-series ever). Definitely I agree with you about the Lynch connection–also the close up of the baby bird covered in ants seems to be a citation of the ear in Blue Velvet.
I was surprised to read that people at Cannes jeered when they saw the dedication to Tarkovksy at the end…it made sense to me. The slow close up of the dirty water in the flower vase at the hospital seemed an extremely Tarkovskian image… All in all, I didn’t think the ending was as big a deal as people made it out to be. And I thought his ratcheting of tension throughout was so amazing–a beautiful choreography of malice–that he could have done just about anything at the end and it still would have been a great film.

By: Greg Gerke

Greg Gerke — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:24:46 +0000

John,

I still would try to see this if you can. He’s really trying something here that we don’t see much in pop art. It’s frustrating and beautiful.

Richter is great. His show I saw that the MOMA in SF was the best visual art experience of my life.

By: John Madera

John Madera — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:46:06 +0000

I haven’t seen the film and I’m unlikely to catch it in the theaters. Von Trier is a complicated figure and while it’s easy to conflate his work with autobiography, and reduce his work with all kinds of easy interpretations, a viewer/critic is better off exploring all the tensions, dichotomies, complexities. I think, as evinced in the Slate article, that von Trier has a deep anxiety of influence, but he’s able to transmute it into provocatively horrific imagery, narratives, etc. Another article that may help complicate this picture is this one: http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/why-antichrist-feminist-horror-film where Karina Longworth argues “Why ‘Antichrist’ Is a Feminist Horror Film.”

I think one of the critical moments in this post is when you shared how the “film has stayed with [you] for more than a few days” and how you “woke up one morning with thoughts of it.” And I agree that this is at least one “sign of a significant work of art.”

Side note:
I’m a huge fan of Richter too. His extraordinary command of craft, and how he utilizes it to explore the mundane and sentimental (I’m thinking of his candle paintings) is inspiring. And I also like his weird, and paradoxically controlled, abstractions as well.