February 2010   ~  May 2010

ANTICHRIST
2009 ~ Director: Lars von Trier

This movie is about a couple who's child dies and they soon after retreat to a cabin in the woods referred to as "Eden" to help the wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) cope with her loss and fear. Once there her growing insanity starts to manifest in strange visions and increasingly violent sexual behavior. He (Willem Dafoe) is a psychiatrist who is trying to help his wife get through this depression.

The movie only features the 2 actors for almost the entire film and is broken up into a prologue, 4 chapters and an epilogue. It opens with some graphic sex scenes that continue throughout the movie and get increasingly more violent. He encounters strange visions of animals; a doe with a dead fawn hanging halfway out from the doe's womb, a self-disembowelling fox who utters the words "Chaos reigns", and a crow that is buried alive.

The movie has a lot of twists and turns that take us through the breaking of her and the destruction of her mind. He is an unfortunate party who wants to help but may have only made things worse. You will see penetration, masturbation, sex, gore psychotic breaks, genital mutilation, violence and a lot of great scenery. I wouldn't call this movie scary in a horror sense of the word but it should make you hold your head asking "why..why..." or at least uncomfortable (like the film Irreversible). The most intense chapter I'd have to say was Chapter Three: Despair (Gynocide). I don't want to give out any spoilers but god damn. From beginning to end you will witness beautifully made destruction, no happy endings here.

von Trier really did an excellent job with this movie and Dafoe & Gainsbourg delivered for him.
(if you can't find this on dvd, it has been streaming on Netflix)

          A+          -Eric Guntor