WITH its explicit sex scenes and graphic depiction of genital mutilation, the new film from award-winning Danish director Lars von Trier (Dancer In The Dark) is not for the squeamish.
A husband (Willem Dafoe) and his younger wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) are engaged in lovemaking, oblivious to the actions of their baby son, who is supposedly sleeping.
In a tour-de-force prologue shot in slow motion, the infant climbs out of his cot to the strains of an aria from Handel’s first opera Rinaldo, opens the child safety gate and climbs up onto a table, eventually falling out of an open window to his death.
The devastated couple seek refuge in a remote woodland cabin where the spirits of the forest have a strange effect on the wife.
As tensions between the couple escalate, the grief-stricken mother unleashes her fury upon her spouse, culminating in a shocking act of self-harm.
Antichrist is simply too ponderous to really make a serious impact, though it will undoubtedly linger in the memory.
Antichrist (Cert. 18, 109 mins)
Stars: Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg
Directed by Lars von Trier
