First of all, a few words about Lars von Trier and his fans. While I can perfectly understand people may like his work, when I discuss the matter with some of them, the same argument always comes back: he is a genius, people, the critics don't understand him, they are wrongly shocked. As if (and it was repeatedly told me) because he was misunderstood and shocked, he was a genius. I am sorry to say that total morrons can shock, and being misunderstood is not a sign of brilliance.
The second thing is purpose. While watching any of von Trier's movies, I know his (possibly only) goal is to provoke and to transgress. It could be fun when I was young and there was something punk about it. (Yes, « Breaking the Waves » was a kind of « Ordet » where prayer was replaced by sex, with a rock soundtrack.) But Thirty years later trying to shock systematically is just pathetic. And when you ask him, he answers he is joking, even when he says « I am a nazi. » Funny joke indeed !
It is all the more pathetic as von Trier is a great director when it comes to filming, producing memorable pictures and scenes, to creating an atmosphere as well as directing actors.
But what is all this talent for ?
Filming the death of a toddler like a christmas fairytale, with slow motion like in Leone's westerns ? Filming the grief of his parent like an absolutely sordid and squalid descent to hell, in a place called Eden (what culture ! What intelligence!) ?
The best part of the movie is when nothing happens, when the woods play their fantastic role, when fantasies, old fears are lurking outside. Yes, von Trier creates fantastic images, but the whole thing is pointless. What happens is just stupid and vile.
Does he want to demonstrate something, about grief, good and evil, about human relationships ? What we can barely grasp of what he says about women is simply repulsive. We don't learn a simple thing about human nature while watching the movie. And on the other hand the movie isn't what you call entertaining. So what's left ?
Can you just imagine a couple having actually lost their child and watching this ? This is an insult to grief.
Von Trier was supposedly suffering from breakdown when he wrote the script. Is it the way he cures himself ? Let him write about Xmas or football then and leave true human tragedy to sensitive adults. Because what is clear about almost any of his movies is that he doesn't like people. There is not a second of empathy in this movie.
Plus, as I began, trying to shock the audience with such a theme (grief after a child's death) is not only childish but nauseating. It looks like the sick juvenile jubilation of defacing human sorrow.
Kubrick, for instance, didn't like humanity very much and didn't produce a single « nice », sympathetic hero in his movies. But he brilliantly managed to debunk society, desire, science, war, sex, adventure, and not to ruin intimacy and pain. Von Trier seems to take a sick pleasure into desecrating human mind or soul.
To add insult to injury, he dedicates his movie to Andrei Tarkovski. This too must be provocation. Tarkovski was a mystic director who constantly declared a work of art has to adress god or deal with transcendence. There is absolutely no transcendence in « Antichrist ». Only immanence, the immanence of squalid things which drag grieving people into an abyss of filth.
Alas, « The House that Jack Built » has come to confirm this appetite for filth and sick pleasure, with the same alibi of « great » pictures. This can probably be very interesting for therapists, not for me.
