LUCIDMEDIA

Von Trier Chases Horror and Controversy with Antichrist

Written by Adam A. Donaldson Monday, 08 February 2010 09:36

Apparently, the title was the first thing Lars von Trier wrote down about his new film, Antichrist. Speaking during a telephone interview from his native Denmark, Lars muses about his film’s controversial title. Calling a movie Antichrist, is indeed a pretty provocative place to begin the creative process.

The fact of the matter is that Antichrist actually has very little to do with a creature that’s the embodiment of all evil, but rather about the evil we have inside ourselves. It is about a darkness that grows inside each of us, especially when we are faced with loss, depression, or despair. But in the beginning, von Trier was just trying to make a scary movie.

“The idea was to actually make a horror film, and then I don’t seem able to really do that,” says von Trier, following a contemplative pause. “The horror genre is a very, very open genre in terms of images and moods and whatever you can bring to them. It can almost contain anything as long as we know that it’s intended to be scary. So that’s quite special for this genre.”

Naturally, von Trier didn’t want to make something about slasher killers or twisted booby traps. Instead, he was intrigued by the idea of making an emotional horror movie. He references Japanese-made films, like the original versions of The Ring and Dark Water, saying that he was “very fascinated by them” but at the same time didn’t want to try and copy them.

Antichrist is about a couple played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, who are struggling with the loss of their young son following a tragic accident. Both characters are never given names, so their isolation is symbolically compounded, and allows us to believe that this could happen to any couple. During a trip to a cabin in the woods, things seem to go horribly wrong. Along the journey, the wife becomes increasingly resentful over her therapist husband’s apparent clinical detachment. Their time in the woods descends to greater acts of violence and depravity, leading to a climactic scene featuring two gut-churning acts of mutilation.

Due to the nature of the story, and the fact that the violence is perpetrated on the man by the women, some have wondered if von Trier’s message is that females are evil, or that femininity is evil. “I’m playing with some things here,” the director explains. “First of all, it’s a not a film that teaches you anything about the sexes, I think. But it raises some of the questions and values that people had for many years: the whole witch thing, the battle of the sexes, all these things. It’s not so long ago that these subjects weren’t discussed. I was in a state where it felt right to do it.”

The state von Trier refers to is the bout of depression he was fighting before he began work on Antichrist. As he dealt with his mental health issues, von Trier says that he looked for “fascination points” to fixate on, like the aforementioned J-horror movies that showed him new cultures and new images to think about. The filmmaker says that it wasn’t the movie that helped him overcome his depression, but just the fact of getting down to work did. “The plain work that a movie involves was good,” he remembers. “That’s how you normally get out of these things I’m told, or that the normal treatment for depression is to do something that is very structured but quite simple to do.”

As for perceptions of misogyny, von Trier says that the female character in Antichrist is closer to him than the male, she being the most personally and emotionally affected by the child’s death. “If you look at my other films you will see that some of the men are complete idiots,” he explains. “They’re just following some philosophy and ideal and don’t see anything at all.”

Further, von Trier says that part of Antichrist’s story was driven by his desire to think of religion in different ways, especially considering how traditional forms of faith have marginalized females. “Catholic and Protestant religion is extremely male dominated,” says von Trier. “You have the Virgin Mary, but she’s really a side character. So I thought, to make things easier for the female part of the world, we should probably change the religion and exchange Christ for someone else or put more females in religion.”

Such bold and heavy source material needed actors of great commitment and talent. So what made Dafoe and Gainsbourg the ideal fit for von Trier? “First of all that they wanted to take the roles,” he says with a little chuckle. “I was very much in doubt about the casting, and then Willem mailed and asked if I had anything for him and I said ‘Oh yes. Yes please,” von Trier recalls calling Dafoe a good friend and a good actor.

In casting Dafoe’s onscreen wife, von Trier encountered some difficulties. Rumour has it that Eva Green (Casino Royale) was first approached to play the wife, but it didn’t work out. That’s when Charlotte Gainsbourg came into the picture. “The first thing she said to me is ‘I’m not supposed to say this but I’m dying to get the part,’” von Trier remembers. “That is what you want to hear as a director because to work with actors that aren’t really willing to do the film that you want to do is really hell.”

Von Trier adds that he’s been blessed with a lot of actors that wanted to work with him. “Furthermore, if you don’t pay them very much then you know that they’re really there for the film,” he jokes. In terms of directing the actors through such difficult material, von Trier laughs a little at the memory. “I was very clever because I said that I didn’t feel so well and they did everything for me,” he says with the pride of a man that got away with a sly prank. “There was never any discussion about anything; ‘If there are any problems don’t tell Lars because he’s not feeling very well.’”

As for what he wants people to come away with after seeing Antichrist, von Trier says that it’s up to each member of the audience to make up their own mind about his films. “If I were to say something through a riddle, it would be nonsense,” he says. “The only things you can do, is to go in there and help yourself.” As for the strong reactions the film’s provoked, including being the recipient of an anti-Jury prize for making Antichrist "the most misogynist movie from the self-proclaimed biggest director in the world," von Trier says simply that it’s “fine with me.”

What’s also fine with von Trier is the idea of making another horror, or at least the idea of framing his films under the broad definition of a particular drama and seeing what he can do with it. “I think that the genres are interesting in the way that you can kind of aim at them,” explains von Trier. “It was very important to me to make the one horror movie. It is a tempting genre to go into again, but maybe next time it could really be scary.”