The second part is way more direct and involves the gruesome scenes that most people will have heard about. The first part is mostly suggestive, depending on moody drones and ominous images of simple everyday objects to create an uneasy atmosphere. Von Trier uses a range of horror tricks but divides them rather strictly between the first and second act of the film. Gainsbourg suffers, Dafoe (being a psychologist) tries to pull his wife through these difficult times. When the son of Gainsbourg and Dafoe tumbles through the window three stories high while they are happily making love in the bedroom, all is in place for a nice little guilt trip.
While revealing its actual premise would be quite the spoiler, it follows a very similar path to Linkeroever where a tragic (or at least dramatic) event is distorted into horror. Both Linkeroever and Vinyan came to mind almost instantly when looking for films to compare Antichrist with.Īt its very core Antichrist is a drama, but quite faithfully presented as a horror film. After letting the film sink in for a while I was surprised how much it made me think of some recent Belgian films. Playful use of slow-motion and Händel playing in the background. Ultra-stylized, artificial and controlled. The opening of Antichrist leaves little to the imagination. While films as Dogville, Manderlay and The Boss Of It All are clearly separated from the Dogme movement, they remain very minimalistic and still seem to pursue the original ideology behind the Dogme movement. Von Trier has been straying from the Dogme path for some time now, but Antichrist is his first film in a long time where he returns to a more traditional styling. Question is of course, did Antichrist (and Von Trier) deliver? Perfect marketing for your film as many people will automatically want to see it, even when they're not directly drawn to Von Trier's work. He succeeded to shock Cannes and even managed to score some actual puke reactions at TIFF. This time around he outdid himself though. A new Lars Vor Trier film means a guaranteed buzz.