Review of Antichrist (2009) by Clams_N_Roses — 23 Nov 2011

Not the sort of film you'd take your girlfriend to see, nor a film you'd want someone walking in on you watching, but certainly a very brilliant one which you'll be left thinking about long after it's ended.

Without resorting to cliched horror movie stereotypes or cheap scares, the director creates a terrifying and unsettling atmosphere with very powerful images and themes. To me, the characters were far more relatable and real than a lot of other reviews suggest- a man desperate to help his wife's depression, while naively arrogant about his ability to do so, a woman with deep insecurities and barely suppressed sociopathic tendencies.

The setting of the majority of the film, in a woodland cabin, is intended to be a place of relaxation and retreat; instead the director shows the cruelty and horror of nature. The woods are not some idyllic place of fantasy happiness and tranquillity, but the arena of an often horrifying struggle for survival between the beings who live there, where death is a large part of life.

An Eagle's chick falls accidentally to the ground where it is consumed by insects, a deer gives birth only to find the calf stillborn, a tree sheds acorns to create new life, though most of these will fall on the cabin roof and never grow- these images compound the guilt of the woman, while also being a constant reminder that death is a big part of nature.

This setting gnaws away at the characters, allowing the film to sink further into its dark themes in a brilliant and powerful way.