Ahoy there fellow Brits! 'Twas a lovely day today in London -no rain and all- and I'm here for a jolly good review. Put the kettle on then, and don't forget yer tea towel or yer'll get all burned and everything! The movie I'll talk about was shown in the oh-lovely Odeon scene at Panton road, right next to Picadilly! Nice price too: I got a movie for a tenpound and a bottle o' good-old Thames water for just a twopound and a fivepence! Isn't that a bargain? But enough chitchat luvs. Let me start me fable:ANTICHRIST
(by Lars von Trier)
(by Lars von Trier)
Having seen quite a few movies in the short span of my life, it is safe to say that I cannot be easily impressed or shocked. It is also safe to say that Trier's new movie achieved both - maybe less the former and more the latter, anyway. Much as Dogville, the movie is divided into 4 chapters, with an accompanying prologue and epilogue. Right from the very start, Trier sets the movie rolling: beautifully shot, with an excellent soundtrack, and overly misogynistic. It is not strange that Trier received from the Cannes film festival a special anti-award for the movie's misogynistic views. He's practically screaming to the audience: "Women are evil! Sex is evil! Nature is evil!", and so on.
I won't spoil the surprises the unaware audience member is about to discover, but brace yourselves. This movie is not for the faint of heart- I personally tried very hard not to look away during certain scenes. Performance-wise, the film is of course a winner: Dafoe reigns the movie utterly, while Gainsbourg puts tremendous effort in her role, which mostly comprises of screaming, fucking, and mutilating. One special note has to be given to Trier's camera work - he's far from his Dogma 95 rules, creating some breathtakingly beautiful shots (and some breathtakingly gruesome shots as well). But apart from the technical details, the movie really feels like Trier's psychotherapy project. His views on women, motherhood, and nature are frankly, laughable. So, the movie practically boils down to arthouse torture porn. If you're the type of person that can appreciate the sight of Dafoe's penis cumming blood in a close-up, this is your movie. Everyone else, avoid. There's really no in-between...
I won't spoil the surprises the unaware audience member is about to discover, but brace yourselves. This movie is not for the faint of heart- I personally tried very hard not to look away during certain scenes. Performance-wise, the film is of course a winner: Dafoe reigns the movie utterly, while Gainsbourg puts tremendous effort in her role, which mostly comprises of screaming, fucking, and mutilating. One special note has to be given to Trier's camera work - he's far from his Dogma 95 rules, creating some breathtakingly beautiful shots (and some breathtakingly gruesome shots as well). But apart from the technical details, the movie really feels like Trier's psychotherapy project. His views on women, motherhood, and nature are frankly, laughable. So, the movie practically boils down to arthouse torture porn. If you're the type of person that can appreciate the sight of Dafoe's penis cumming blood in a close-up, this is your movie. Everyone else, avoid. There's really no in-between...
P.S. The movie is dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky. I can picture his rotten corpse, somewhere on the Russian cemetery of Paris, trying to escape from his grave so that he could mutilate von Trier. Alas, he cannot.
3 comments:
Lovely!
I'll arrange a screening for Nancy, Stela and Erika!
haha love the intro! OK, 10 pounds for a movie... you really need to get your NUS card - no student in England should be without it. And yes, 2 pounds for a bottle of water. Now you understand why the English drink so much beer. 2 pounds for either 330 ml of water or 500 ml of beer, one quenches your thirst and the other makes you forget about it :)
It sounds like a visually stunning "exploitation" film. Fountain meets Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. Me likes!!
BTW Loved the intro mate...
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