First. My friends are pussies. Second. Great film, phenomenal directing and editing, a little weak on the story line. Over all I give this movie 4 out of 5 Netflix stars. For the most part, the more graphic scenes were done with exquisite taste in my opinion. Granted, full on mutilation without any pansy cutaways is my idea of a good time. In fact I might be the last person whose movie review you'd want to take seriously. Lets face it, I have a unique perspective. Also, I really enjoyed the more artistic symbolism going on in the film, even when it led down a dead end road. I would encourage you to see Antichrist without hesitation. Lars Von Trier is a mighty fine Danish filmmaker, and there are several other titles directed by him that I'd advise you to investigate. But today, dear Travelers, I'd like to address the real issue. What upset my grown male friends so much about this movie?
The film starts with our two main characters, a married couple played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, in the throws of wild love making as their infant child escapes his crib and crawls to a window, tumbling to his death. The remainder of the film depicts the two in their grieving process. Willem Dafoe's character is a psychologist who thinks he knows how to better care for his wife than an objective party. He takes her to their summer cabin to face her fears, and a psychological and metaphysical tale unfolds. The movie does create a reality that is disarming and unsettling by way of symbolic figures and images not necessarily integral to the plot. I believe these elements are meant to leave the common empathic viewer in a weakened state prior to the more violent scenes that occurr near the end of the film.
SPOILER ALERT: From this point forward I will discuss scenes in the movie you might not want to know about before seeing it, if you're into that kind of thing.
There are two said scenes that I will expound upon now. The first of which, and seemingly the more upsetting for my friends, is where after spiraling into a state of mental duress the woman lures her husband to a tool shed and they begin to get hot and heavy. She pushes him down and hammers him in the groin with a heavy log. Then she procedes to "finish him off" with her hand as he lies unconcious on the floor. When he climaxes, instead of a fount of pearly white semen, what emerges is blood. Gross? Sure. The second of the two scenes occurs after much more descension into the abyss of madness. The woman takes to her clitoris with a pair of scissors, cutting off the more important bits. It's clearly not real. My friends were convinced that a woman had actually done this to herself, which makes me question how many vaginas they've actually seen. Now I know these scenes are disturbing. I wasn't laughing through the movie. But traumatizing? I was so confused by my friends' reactions after having seen it for myself. I mean these guys have seen Ichi the Killer and Visitor Q, and those films were leaps and bounds worse in their uncut, never released to American audiences versions. So I thought and I thought and I thought. And the only thing I could come up with is that they were upset that this level of violence was committed by a woman. Where as in most very violent films the violence is committed by a man. Perhaps the sadism toward that which is sexual, not just sexual sadism but actual brutality against the very concept of sex, was alarming for them.
To take it a step further, this film focused heavily on some meta-ethical differences in men and women. Things like how men and women internalize guilt and what role women tend to assume when in the presence of men. It even broached the scary uncharted territory of what happens when the dynamic between man and woman no longer recognizes social norm, but becomes a nihilistic frenzy of action and despair. And, symbolically, what happens psychologically when you rid the two of their most basic defining elements: their genitals. While I doubt that the director really intended all of this commentary on the human condition, I found it very interesting to see how the core themes were in some ways manifested in audience reaction.
So I ask for your opinions dear Travelers.* If you've seen the flick, what was your take on it? What do you suppose would cause such contrasting response from males and females to this type of violence?
*Sparkles <3
No comments:
Post a Comment