Rating of
3.5/4
True art
Matthew Brady - wrote on 07/13/15
She: "Nature is Satan's church".
The story is about a grieving couple retreat to 'Eden', their isolated cabin in the woods, where they hope to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.
The meaning of Antichrist can be best described as a person or thing regarded as supremely evil or as a fundamental enemy or opponen (the battle between Christ and the Antichrist). A film like Antichrist must viewed more then once as I feel most of the audiences may or may not understand the film and the films symbolism. I know this just by the reviews that this movie got and it's shockingly bad, I mean really low ratings from some people and one article called this movie "An arty value mess", from some sh*tty movie magazine. The movie also got booed at the Cannes Film Festival and I'm here shock about all this, because Antichrist was a great movie and a much better film then what I heard from people. Is it f**ked up? yes and it can put some people off by it's gory sexual imagine, but it's the special kind of f**ked up that makes the movie and it's symbolism work by it's hidden messages and it's graphic imagine to get that message across.
Charlottle Gainsbourg did a outstanding and believable performance as the damaged mother. Her scenes with her dealing with the lost of her son was truly heartbreaking. She questions life and blames herself for what happened and I did felt like the world was ending on her and she did so brilliant in this movie.
Willem Dafoe also did a brilliant performance in this movie. Dafoe is always great in everything and I'm not talking Speed 2 or Spider-Man. I'm only talking about movies that he was in that he did a great performance in and in Antichrist he once again did. Same with Charlottle Gainsbourg I believed he's pain and hard work of trying to keep he's wife from losing it and all of that is shown in Dafoe performance and it was excellent.
Willem and Charlotte character's don't have names in the movie but they only known as He and She which is kind of interesting as they names main a mystery. I like that the movie doesn't give the character's in the movie names and the fact that the other people in the movie they faces are blurred so you really don't who they are as Willem and Charlotte are the only ones not to get they face blurred. It gives you the viewer thinking about that and the hidden meaning of it.
The director of the film Lars Von Trier who is the type of director that puts he's own style and true art to he's films, because the movies that he directed that I've seen so far have that unique arty style to it that make me feel that the director what's to show true art to cinema, but I also noticed that he sometimes re-use shots or the type of sound in his later movies as it's art style I guest? Like the slow motion shots in Antichrist will later be use in the film Melancholia. The opening to Antichrist will also be re-use in Nymphomaniac, so it's very clear that this director will make something brilliantly artistic in his movie and thought to do it again later on, yeah one of those directors. But all that aside I think Lars Von Trier directing in this movie was well done and quite unique in a artistic style.
Antichrist has probably one of the best opening to a movie I've seen. It's all shot in slow motion and it's black and white with some beautiful music playing in the background. When I saw that opening scene I known straight away that this movie is going to be fantastic and it was.
Now the hidden symbolism in Antichrist can be easily analysis like these a scene and this isn't a spoiler so your save here, but anywhere Dafoe character comes across a fox that he thought was sleeping but that wasn't the case as the fox wasn't sleeping or resting but more like eating it's self. I thought about this and maybe this might be a symbolism of Dafoe character eating it's own guilt and this is shown by the fox eating itself, I mean he might be seeing the fox, because him and he's wife feel guilty for they sons death. What makes it worse is the fox saying "Chaos Reigns".
The movie is really messed up and I really do mean that. It left me feeling cold for half an hour. It's been about four days since I've seen the movie and after putting my thoughts together and what I think the movies hidden message can easily be spoiled to some who may have interest on seeing this movie, so I'm just going to leave you with that thought in mind of what the movie is about and how messed up the movie is going to make you feel.
For problems with the movie: I only have a little problem with the movie and that's it's really hard to take seriously sometimes just because of how over the top it is. But that's it really.
Overall Antichrist is a fantastic experimental horror movie with beautiful shots, excellent directing and brilliant acting from Dafor and Charlotte.
