Charlotte Gainsbourg (above) and Willem Dafoe (below) in woods scenes in Lars Von Trier's 'Antichrist'
by Sam Juliano
One of opera’s most beautiful arias, Handel’s mournful “Lascia Ch’io pianga” from Act II of Rinaldo, provides the aural accompaniment to one of the most ravishing opening sequences in the history of cinema. Yet it’s a sequence that ends in unconscionable tragedy, after the infant son of a young couple “doing it” climbs up to a window and drops to his death during a snowfall. It’s a shocking event that will hover over the remainder of the film, and dictate the level of depravity and despair that unleashes the worst behavioral possibilities can that possibly be engineered by man. Of course the grief experienced is so intense that the mental state of the characters is fragile at best. The man and woman, referred to as “He” and “She” (the young son Nicholas is the only character in the film with a name) retreat to a cabin in the woods, as the suggestion of the male, who is a psychotherapist. The forest surrounding the shanty is known as Eden, and its clear that Von Trier isn’t masking some pretty standard Biblical imagery. But this Eden is closer to the garden of Satan, and when the wife screams out “the cry of all the things that are to die” are one with the real sounds of nature, it’s clear that there’s a proclamation here that everything must die. As acorns rain down on the roof of the cabin, “She” completely breaks down mentally and the film decends into such revolting barbarism, that’s it’s clear that there’s a pervading sense of hopelessness and crushing despair in the existence of these characters, indeed of all mankind. It’s an uncompromising view of a dream-turned nightmare and it’s execution is both carnal and surreal. (more…)
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