Review of Antichrist (2009) by Michaeldn — 06 Oct 2012

It's basically an hour and a half of porn, and if anybody tried to convince you there is intelligent or emotional depth to it, they are kidding themselves. After seeing Lars Von Trier movies such as Melancholia and Dancer In The Dark, I had high expectations for this one, even after looking at the lackluster reviews.

However, the harshest critics are right. It's basically like if the Piranha movies pretended they were good. It's a lot of gruesome images, amidst a plot line that seems like it could be an emotional one, and so people just buy into it.

There are also completely pretentious moments, such as when he tells his wife to fade into the grass, and she turns green while laying on the grass. I'm sure fans of this movie think that's the deepest thing ever.

Whoever said you have to understand pain and depression is extremely pretentious. I usually go for depressing movies, and that actually describes most of my favorites, hence the fact that I'm a Lars Von Trier fan, but there has to be a solid script for those emotions to come through.

Simply coming up with an emotional topic isn't enough. The same goes for whoever chalked up the negative reviews to people who don't like art cinema. The Tree Of Life was my favorite movie of last year, because the story was brilliant, and the emotion was there.

That emotion isn't going to come through, just by the topic about a couple dealing with losing a child, especially when the way the script tries to convey those emotions is to just have an hour and a half of sex scenes, before the wife has an emotional breakdown at the end.

It's kind of interesting, actually. You can fool people into thinking your movie is good, just by having so many random, ridiculous moments, that no one would possibly think any sane writer or director would do it, without having some type of meaning behind it.

They don't understand exactly what that meaning is, but they're sure it's there. Ask anyone who raves about how deep this movie is, what the significance is of the mob at the end, and watch them stare blankly without an answer.

Charlotte Gainsbourg gives a strong performance, and the cinematography and music are incorporated beautifully enough to feign real artistry.