[Quote] a comment on Antichrist

Okay. I saw Antichrist last night and have taken time to reflect and think about it. The best post on this thread so far is Asnklv’s 「all in all, you get what you want from this work.」

Heres MY take on Antichrist (I』m breaking it up into multiple parts to make it easier for everyone):

Overview:
Antichrist is done almost perfectly. It remains ambiguous enough that those of us looking for a deeper message, meaning or symbolism can find it in many diffrent places. It’s scary, disturbing, shocking, disgusting, etc. but its also artistic. The rampant symbolism in Antichrist is so obvious that it blows my mind when people refer to it as 「torture porn」 or 「filthy trash.」 The movie is about two people. It gives insight into their supposed 「nature」 and shows us in great detail what grief, pain and despair can do to them. How far can human beings be pushed by these three feelings? What would it take to make YOU finally break down or crack? Antichrist is, at its core, a portrait of tortured souls. If what happens to them is natural or just plain insanity is up to you.

阿提斯tic Merit:
Lars uses a lot of techniques we are familiar with in Antichrist. Its very personal and a lot of it is shot with an imperfect hand which makes us feel like we are there. However, there are portions of the movie that step outside of this 「documentary」 style and presents us with striking (no pun intended) images rarely seen in his work. The editing is kind of unsettling and the overall atmosphere that he created for Antichrist is scary in and of itself. I think he knew exactly what he was doing and I give him a lot of credit for making bold decisions in terms of what he shows and how he shows it.

Deeper Meanings:
There is no 「right answer」 to Antichrist. Anyone could form any number of theories about the film.

Does it symbolize men’s fear for women’s sexuality? Or the fear of sexuality throughout history? Does it show us that humans are indeed evil by nautre? Or perhaps its trying to show us that human beings are dependant on nature to surrvive?

The following are a few of my own ideas (keep in mind that i』ve only seen it once and these are JUST opinions)
The movie is split up into 6 sections; The Prolouge, Greif, Pain, Despair, The Three Beggars and The Epilouge.
SPOILERS!!!!*
Each of the three animals He encounters are symbolic of the chapter its in. The deer is Greif, the fox is Pain, and the crow is Despair. The fact that all three of the animals come together in 「The Three Beggars」 supports my theory.

The deer represents grief because its in the middle of a still birth. Its still attached to it’s dead child; constantly reminded and unnable to seperate itself from the death of its baby. She feels the same way in this chapter.

The fox represents pain because its auto-canabalistic. Its hurting itself badly. She is allowing herself to be hurt continuously by what happend. The fox says 「chaos regeins」 to him. What could be more chaotic than putting yourself through extra pain? In this chapter both He and She are dealing with such a great amount of pain even though they arent directly at fault for what happened.

The crow represents despair because it too has lost a child and has no real purpose or reason anymore. It gives away his position and dies alone. By the time we have reached this point She is already in such great despair, pain, and greif that she projects all of her fears of nature and isolation onto HE.

In the scene where He tries to help her with the rock game, we see a baby crow being eaten by aunts, then an eagle flies in and takes it up to safety, where it then devours it for itself. He is doing the same thing to her. He tries to help but only makes things worse. Instead of facing the fact that nature is nothing to fear, she views his human nature as the most terrifing thing of all.

Her son goes off by himself while she is working on her thesis so she puts his shoes on the wrong feet to keep him from going too far. She feels evil for what she did to her son. She feels evil for letting something as trivial as the pleasure of sex keep her from saving him. She reads books about how evil men are for burning innocent women and comes to the conclusion that we are all evil by nature and need 「the three beggars」 to function.

By the end of the film she has acted on her deleriously evil (yet in her mind natural) impulses. She loses faith in her marraige and in herself. *BIG SPOILER* After he kills her he burns her on top of a giant pyre. He burns her like the witch that he percived her to be.

Other moments of intrest would be when he has her imagine that she is becoming one with nature- fusing herself to what she fears most.
After a brief time in Eden she realizes that the 「outdoors nature」 is not the nature she should be scared of. Its her husbands and her own HUMAN nature. Without letting the three beggars (greif, pain, and despair) into herself she could not have handled her sons death. There is a price that has to be paid for being human. We have naturalistic tendencies to feel these emotions after a loss. The three beggars finally came together once she had nothing left. She had lost her son, her marraige, her sex- all the things that kept her going, and then she was surrouned by grief, pain, and despair.

Final Thought:
The movie was acted superbly. The sound design was very effective and the visuals where quite entrancing. If Lars had the intention to make me think, to make me expireince something new, and to inspire me by showing me a side of people rarely displayed on film, than he succeded admirably. If you hate it, thats fine. At least it gave you strong feelings. If you love it, even better. Be thankful that we still have filimmakers willing to push limits and try risky things. A film like this one makes me excited to see where film can take me in the future.

PLEASE ASK ME QUESTIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Antichrist is something to behold- and its all in the eye of the beholder.

the quote from: http://www.theauteurs.com/topics/4889/comments?page=2#comment_149531