Antichrist

Directed by Lars von Trier

(Not Rated)

**

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A couple moves to the country to cope with their child’s death.

Antichrist is Lars von Trier’s “most extreme work yet,” said Ty Burr in The Boston Globe. In this “psychosexual drama of ­profound and primal impact,” Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg play a couple who, after their child falls to his death, retreat to the country and spiral into self-destruction. Dafoe begins to believe nature itself has it in for him, while Gainsbourg, racked by guilt, conducts an act of self-mutilation that takes the director’s typical shock tactics to deeply disturbing levels. The most repulsive sequences take up about 20 minutes, and are both “horrifically violent” and “irredeemably pointless,” said Dana Stevens in Slate.com. Von Trier made Antichrist while struggling with deep depression, but we shouldn’t have to be subjected to his misogynistic anxieties and sadomasochistic nightmares “just because he bloody well feels like it.” Von Trier may be “deeply trapped” in his own perverse head, but he’s “one of the most accomplished” filmmakers working today, said Andrew O’Hehir in Salon.com. Antichrist might be “too damaged and crazy to be a great film,” but it’s definitely one worth taking seriously.