Von Trier at it again....

[Happy Face 29]

Danish director Lars von Trier has shocked this year's Cannes Film Festival with his challenging new work Antichrist.

 

Speaking to the press ahead of Monday's premiere, however, the 53-year-old - no stranger to controversy - was unrepentant.

 

"I don't think I owe anyone an explanation," he said of the film, a dark thriller featuring graphic scenes of sex and mutilation. "I made it for myself.

 

"This is a very dark dream about guilt and sex and stuff," he continued, going on to call the film the most important of his career.

 

Critics in Cannes have been quick to demur, greeting Antichrist's first screening with a chorus of boos and derisive laughter.

 

Variety's Todd McCarthy called it "a big fat art-film fart", while The Times' reviewer described it as "emotionally uninvolving" and "turgidly dull".

 

Not everyone was unimpressed. The Hollywood Reporter's critic called it "visually gorgeous and teeming with grandiose ideas."

 

The Telegraph, meanwhile, said it was "cinema at its most extreme and mind-boggling" - a film that "looks brilliant", with "brave and truthful" performances.

 

'Hand of God'

 

Largely set in a cabin in the woods, Antichrist shows a married couple - played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg - recovering from the trauma of losing a child.

 

What follows involves sex, violence, an eviscerated talking fox and a climactic scene of genital self-mutilation that has led some to accuse the director of misogyny.

 

Von Trier defended this scene, however, saying it "came in naturally". "Not to show it would be lying," he added.

 

"I never have a choice," he said. "It's the hand of God, I'm afraid. And I am the best film director in the world."

 

This last comment is typical of a flamboyant director who has enjoyed an occasionally fractious relationship with this event.

 

In 1991, for example, he threw away one of the prizes presented to his film Europa and dubbed director Roman Polanski, president of that year's jury, a "midget".

 

Von Trier had better luck in 2000, when his surreal musical Dancer in the Dark, starring Icelandic singer Bjork, won the coveted Palme d'Or.

 

'Very loving'

 

In recent years, however, he has battled severe depression that made him doubtful whether he would ever make another film.

 

Dafoe, who previously worked with von Trier on 2005 drama Manderlay, admitted this sometimes became an issue on set.

 

"Everything depended on how Lars was feeling, so there was always a sensitivity," he said on Monday.

 

Despite this, the US actor described him as "a very loving guy who's interested in the tension between men and women".

 

"I enjoy his company," he said. "I enjoy his sense of humour. He's a great filmmaker."

 

The softly-spoken Gainsbourg concurred, saying making the film has been "quite an experience" and "something that I won't live again that soon".

 

"The hardest part wasn't necessarily the sex and nudity," she added. "It was the scenes with emotion and suffering that felt the most raw."

 

A UK release date for Antichrist has yet to be announced.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8057114.stm

 

Bravo

[Rob W 0]

"sex, violence, an eviscerated talking fox and a climactic scene of genital self-mutilation"

 

I never see owt like that when I go to Denmark..............

[Park Life 71]

I have kept an eye on him since Europa and greatly enjoyed Dogville.

 

Quite simply a director now at his dark peak.

 

I fully suspect Antichrist to be massive.

 

Car 23 is now fully laden.

Edited May 20, 2009 by Park Life

[David Kelly 1280]

Very interested in seeing this after reading that. Reminds me that I should see Mandalay too!

[Rob W 0]

It's all a bit dark - I go to the pics to be entertained - not to take a masterclass in philosophy

[Guest alex]

It's all a bit dark - I go to the pics to be entertained - not to take a masterclass in philosophy

Don't go and watch it then.

[Park Life 71]

It's all a bit dark - I go to the pics to be entertained - not to take a masterclass in philosophy

Don't go and watch it then.

 

He'll be waiting till it comes out on Betamax.

[Happy Face 29]

Lars von Trier's new film will not leave me alone. A day after many members of the audience recoiled at its first Cannes showing, "Antichrist" is brewing a scandal here; I am reminded of the tumult following the 1976 premiere of Oshima's "In the Realm of the Senses" and its castration scene. I said I was looking forward to von Trier's overnight reviews, and I haven't been disappointed. Those who thought it was good thought it was very very good ("Something completely bizarre, massively uncommercial and strangely perfect"--Damon Wise, Empire) and those who thought it was bad found it horrid ("Lars von Trier cuts a big fat art-film fart with "Antichrist"--Todd McCarthy, Variety).

 

I rarely find a serious film by a major director to be this disturbing. Its images are a fork in the eye. Its cruelty is unrelenting. Its despair is profound. Von Trier has a way of affecting his viewers like that. After his "Breaking the Waves" premiered at Cannes in 1996, Georgia Brown of the Village Voice fled to the rest room in emotional turmoil and Janet Maslin of the New York Times followed to comfort her. After this one, Richard and Mary Corliss blogged at Time.com that "Antichrist" presented the spectacle of a director going mad.

 

Enough time has passed since I saw the film for me to process my visceral reaction, and take a few steps back. I can understand why this confrontational film has so sharply divided its early critics. It is fascinating to me that there's a sharp divide between American, Canadian and British critics monitored by the Tomatometer, and a cross-section of French critics monitored by Le Film Francais, a French equivalent to Variety, which is published daily at the festival. Reflect that French critics are often noted for more intellectual, theoretical reviews, and American critics are more often populist. Which group hated or approved of the movie more?

Think again. A surprising 44% of the early Tomatometer critics gave positive reviews. Le Film Francais asks its national panel to vote on every film in the Official Selection and the Un Certain Regard section. They can vote as follows: (1) Must win the Palme d'Or; (2) Three stars ("Passionately"); (3) Two stars ("Good"); (4) One star ("One likes it a little"); (5) "Pas du tout"--"not at all"). The French critical consensus for "Antichrist" is... pas du tout. I can't recall when another Official Selection by an important director has been disliked so strongly.

 

A reader signing himself Scott D posted this comment after my first entry on the film: "If it is in fact the most despairing film you've ever seen, shouldn't it be considered a monumental achievement? Despair is such a significant aspect of the human condition (particularly in the modern western world) so how can this not be a staggeringly important film, given your statement?" There is truth to what Scott D says. In the first place, it's important to note that "Antichrist" is not a bad film. It is a powerfully-made film that contains material many audiences will find repulsive or unbearable. The performances by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg are heroic and fearless. Von Trier's visual command is striking. The use of music is evocative; no score, but operatic and liturgical arias. And if you can think beyond what he shows to what he implies, its depth are frightening.

 

I cannot dismiss this film. It is a real film. It will remain in my mind. Von Trier has reached me and shaken me. It is up to me to decide what that means. I think the film has something to do with religious feeling. It is obvious to anyone who saw "Breaking the Waves" that von Trier's sense of spirituality is intense, and that he can envision the supernatural as literally present in the world. His reference is Catholicism. Raised by a communist mother and a socialist father in a restrictive environment, he was told as an adult that his father was not his natural parent, and renounced that man's Judaism to convert, at the age of 30, to the Catholic church. It was at about the same age that von Trier founded the Dogma movement, with its monkish asceticism.

 

If you have to ask what a film symbolizes, it doesn't. With this one, I didn't have to ask. It told me. I believe "Antichrist" may be an exercise in alternative theology: von Trier's version of those passages in Genesis where Man is cast from Eden and Satan assumes a role in the world.

 

The Prologue, a masterful sequence lovely b&w slow motion, shows a couple, He and She, making love while their innocent baby becomes fascinated by the sight of snow falling outside an open window, climbs up on the sill, and falls to his death. This is Man's Fall from Grace. Consequently, She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) falls into guilt and depression so deep she is hospitalized. That is one half of Original Sin. The character named He (Willem Dafoe) insists she cut off her medication. He will cure her himself. That is the other half. Her sin is Despair. His is Pride. These are the two greatest sins against God.

 

He and She go to their country home, named Eden. He subjects her to merciless talk therapy, relentlessly chipping away at her rationalizations and defenses, explaining to her why she is wrong to feel the way she does. I suspect many of the reviews will focus on the physical violence She inflicts upon He in the next act of the film. It is important to note that the earlier psychological violence He inflicts is equally brutal. He talks and talks, boring away at her defenses, tearing at her psyche, exposing her. Listen to Dafoe's voice in the trailer linked below. It could be used for Satan's temptation of Christ in the desert.

 

There is little sense at Eden of real lives together; He and She they are locked in combat that seems their inescapable destiny after the loss of their child. The violence in the film is explicit, but is it intended to be realistic? I don't believe you can have a hole drilled clean through your leg, an iron bar pushed through it, and a grindstone bolted to it, and do much other than be in agony. That He can even speak, let alone crawl into the woods, contend with her and defend himself, is remarkable. I think the violence illustrates the depth of her venom and that She, like He, will stop at nothing.

 

Images suggesting Bosch are evoked toward the end of the film. Human limbs rise up to grasp He and She as they have sex. There is a talking dog, bluebirds, a deer, inhabiting the world of Man. At the end He stands atop a hill while a legion of unnatural humans ascends toward him, evoking "Night of the Living Dead." The suggestion is Biblical, but not from the Bible we know. The human figures are not naked, climbing toward birth, but clothed, climbing toward death. After their fall in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve learned shame, and covered their nakedness. In this evil world, they are created covered, and by their sins are cast out into nakedness.

 

Von Trier's original intention, it's said, was to reveal at the end that the world was created by Satan, not God: That evil, not goodness, reigns ascendant. His finished film reflects the same idea, but not as explicitly. The title "Antichrist" is the key. This is a mirror world. It is a sin to lose Knowledge rather than to eat of its fruit and gain it. She and He are behaving with such cruelty toward each other not as actual people, but as creatures inhabiting a moral mirror world. As much as they might comfort and love each other in our world after losing a child, so to the same degree in the mirror world they inflame each other's pain and act out hatred. This would be the world created by Satan.

 

If I am right, then von Trier has proceeded with perfect logic. Just as a good world could not contain too much beauty and charity, an evil world could not have too much cruelty and hatred. He is making a moral statement. I'm not sure if he's telling us how things are, or warning us of what could come. But I am sure he has not compromised his vision. He has been brave and strong, and made a film that fully reflects the pain of his own feelings. And his actors have been remarkably courageous in going all the way with him.

 

In his own defense here at Cannes, von Trier has described himself "the greatest director in the world." Well, if Le Film Francais says he is merde, what can he be expected to say? He is certainly one of the most heroic directors in the world, uncompromising, resolute. He goes all the way and takes no prisoners. Do I believe his film "works?" Would I "recommend" it? Is it a "good" film? I believe von Trier doesn't care how I or anyone else would reply to those questions. He had the ideas and feelings, he saw into the pit, he made the film, and here it is.

 

 

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/05/a_...r_antichri.html

[Park Life 71]

This is the one. LVT is working on that other level dir sometimes get for a brief moment in their careers...some never.

[Rob W 0]

It's all a bit dark - I go to the pics to be entertained - not to take a masterclass in philosophy

Don't go and watch it then.

 

He'll be waiting till it comes out on Betamax.

 

 

aye I got a REALLY GOOD deal on one of them machines last year on ebay - now to find some - whatjacallthem- Tapes? DVD/s Greenray?? green bay???????

[Cid_MCDP 0]

I really liked that TV show he did back in the day with the haunted hospital. That was friggin' awesome.

[The Fish 11079]

I have kept an eye on him since Europa and greatly enjoyed Dogville.

 

Quite simply a director now at his dark peak.

 

I fully suspect Antichrist to be massive.

 

Car 23 is now fully laden.

Von Triers grotesque is art and Tarrantino's is not?

 

just so I know the rules.

[Billy Castell 0]

"sex, violence, an eviscerated talking fox and a climactic scene of genital self-mutilation"

 

I never see owt like that when I go to Denmark..............

 

I only go to see films with eviscerated talking foxes to be honest. Every film should have disemboweled wildlife in it.

[Park Life 71]

I have kept an eye on him since Europa and greatly enjoyed Dogville.

 

Quite simply a director now at his dark peak.

 

I fully suspect Antichrist to be massive.

 

Car 23 is now fully laden.

Von Triers grotesque is art and Tarrantino's is not?

 

just so I know the rules.

 

It's like comparing txtspeak to Keats. Be safe in the idea that knowledge is something that will never trouble you.

[The Fish 11079]

I have kept an eye on him since Europa and greatly enjoyed Dogville.

 

Quite simply a director now at his dark peak.

 

I fully suspect Antichrist to be massive.

 

Car 23 is now fully laden.

Von Triers grotesque is art and Tarrantino's is not?

 

just so I know the rules.

 

It's like comparing txtspeak to Keats. Be safe in the idea that knowledge is something that will never trouble you.

my point is that Art is Art. You might not like Grafitti but it's just as valid an art form as landscape painting. You're just a big girl, that's all.

[Park Life 71]

I have kept an eye on him since Europa and greatly enjoyed Dogville.

 

Quite simply a director now at his dark peak.

 

I fully suspect Antichrist to be massive.

 

Car 23 is now fully laden.

Von Triers grotesque is art and Tarrantino's is not?

 

just so I know the rules.

 

It's like comparing txtspeak to Keats. Be safe in the idea that knowledge is something that will never trouble you.

my point is that Art is Art. You might not like Grafitti but it's just as valid an art form as landscape painting. You're just a big girl, that's all.

 

Ha...It's like the 80's all over again.

[Happy Face 29]

Danish director Lars Von Trier has accepted his ban from the Cannes Film Festival, following his claims that he sympathised with Adolf Hitler.

 

Speaking on Thursday, one of the producers of his film Melancholia said he "accepts whatever the festival directors want to do to punish him".

 

"It's up to the festival to decide what is good for the festival," Meta Foldager told the AFP agency.

 

In a statement, organisers said the film-maker was now "persona non grata".

 

The director stunned onlookers on Wednesday by stating, during a press conference, that while he was "not against Jews... Israel is a pain in the ass".

 

His off-colour remarks, purportedly made in jest, prompted a swift rebuke from organisers and Von Trier apologised the same day.

 

"I am not anti-Semitic or racially prejudiced in any way, nor am I a Nazi," he said in a statement.

 

'No place'

 

The festival's decision to ban the director came after Wednesday's premiere of Von Trier's Melancholia, which remains in competition at this year's event.

 

The decision was supported by French culture minister Frederic Mitterrand who told reporters in Brussels that "there is a major difference between a film that was chosen in a calm atmosphere and a director who clearly blew a fuse".

 

He added Von Trier's remarks "did not have a place in the festival, or anywhere else for that matter".

 

Organisers said Cannes' board of directors had held "an extraordinary meeting" at which Von Trier was declared "a persona non grata... with effect immediately".

 

The director's comments, they said, were "unacceptable, intolerable and contrary to the ideals of humanity and generosity that preside over the very existence of the festival".

 

“The festival's board of directors... regrets that this forum has been used by Lars Von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable [and] intolerable”

 

Festival de Cannes

The 55-year-old is a previous winner of the festival's Palme d'Or award and is renowned for courting controversy.

 

The festival said it had been "disturbed" by the 55-year-old's comments and had asked him to "provide an explanation".

 

"The director states that he let himself be egged on by a provocation," its initial statement read.

 

"The festival is adamant that it would never allow the event to become the forum for such pronouncements on such subjects."

 

Von Trier and his stars were all smiles as they took to the red carpet on Wednesday at the official screening of Melancholia.

 

 

It followed a press conference Dunst ® was heard to call "intense"

The mood was very different earlier, however, when the director's remarks were met by awkward, stony silences.

 

Spider-Man actress Dunst was heard to describe the occasion as "intense" as she left the podium.

 

In an interview later, the star admitted Von Trier had "run his mouth" and had "dug himself in a deep hole".

 

A family drama that takes place in the shadow of an imminent apocalypse, Melancholia also stars the French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and Britain's John Hurt.

 

Von Trier was last at Cannes in 2009 with Antichrist, a dark drama featuring graphic scenes of sex and violence that provoked a furore at that year's event.

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13457328

 

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

If you're going to muck about like that, don't apologize for it. I liked Idioterne, but everything else I've seen from this bloke is shite. Especially that one with Nicole Kidman rolling about a sound stage for 5 hours, although I couldn't bear to watch the whole film.

[Happy Face 29]

Idioterne is shite

 

Dogville is excellent.

[Park Life 71]

Nothing wrong with what he said.

[ChezGiven 0]

His comments about the French feeling guilty because of how badly they treated the Jews was hilarious. I like him.

[Park Life 71]

His comments about the French feeling guilty because of how badly they treated the Jews was hilarious. I like him.

 

[Dr Gloom 22524]

Nothing wrong with what he said.

 

So you think it's ok to be a Nazi and an anti semite?

[Park Life 71]

Nothing wrong with what he said.

 

So you think it's ok to be a Nazi and an anti semite?

 

 

This is what he said:

 

At his film's press conference, von Trier said, "For a long time I thought I was a Jew and I was happy to be a Jew. Then I met [Danish and Jewish director] Susanne Bier and I wasn’t so happy. But then I found out I was actually a Nazi. My family were German. And that also gave me some pleasure. What can I say? I understand Hitler … I sympathize with him a bit."

 

Think its more the kind of comment an artist makes when he looks across the tapestry of history. People like you automatically make out he is BNP or summink.

 

The Germans always said the Danes were dodgier.

Edited May 21, 2011 by Park Life

[jonasjuice 0]

Had no idea Mini-Me directed films.