ANTICHRIST: Mo Cunni Mo Problems

For many, Lars von Trier’s Antichrist is summed up in a single piercing act involving scissors and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s genitalia. The moment incited a wave of physical disgust through fellow matinée-goers, and near-univesal derision among critics, who took it to epitomize tactless, misogynist spectacle. The ecumenical jury at Cannes called Antichrist the “most misogynist film of all time.”

Which is odd, because at that pivotal moment I found myself thinking: “Get it, girl.”

“It” being bloody orgiastic revenge for centuries-long gender oppression, told through the familiar sensationalism of Horror and sung with a satirical jouissance unique to von Trier.

The plot is decidedly cliché: one man, his wife, the insurmountable grief following a child’s untimely death, an isolated cabin called “Eden,” gradual demonic possession. Willem Defoe is husband. Charlotte Gainsbourg is grieving wife, monstrous feminine. “Nature is Satan’s Church.” You’ve heard the story before.

For all the subtle nuance von Trier devotes to form — Eden is lush with crackling textures and gauzy light, limned by surreal collage and handheld chaos — his content tends toward hyperbole. In his relentless mission to subvert genre and convention, he embraces the heavy-handed: remember the final scene of Dancer in the Dark, how he hanged Bjork mid-song?

What is the point, then, of two straight hours of Charlotte Gainsbourg getting raped and raping, getting castrated and castrating, fucking and getting fucked up? That’s misogyny on a platter, not to savor but to see: the logical extension ofANTM, “beat the pussy up” rap anthems, SAW-spawned torture porn, Katy Perry politics. It’s what we implicitly expect and never quite see; this time a mere a difference of magnitude.

My get-it-girl moment was one of resignation. It was then I realized von Trier’s clever albeit self-indulgent trap — and acquiesced. Von Trier succeeded in crafting a haunting, grisly “horror film” with all the verisimilitude of the genre and none of its revolting political indifference. Gainsbourg-as-Antichrist is more Perseus than Medusa, at once epitomizing woman’s inherent threat, but more profoundly attacking that myth and its proponents. While the trauma is sometimes excessive — you don’t need to see a blood-cum handjob to get the point — it’s effective; Antichrist hits the spot and throbs long beyond refractory period.