On "Antichrist"
I saw Antichrist at the same showing at which someone had a seizure but I have been more curious about the contortions of critics who want to defend the film against charges of misogyny . According to Robert Cargill there are ongoing arguments “about whether the film is decidedly misogynistic or wildly feminist.” The idea that Antichrist is a feminist film must be the product of some sort of cognitive dissonance among those who fancy themselves both aficionados of art-house cinema and also good progressives — and who assume these two commitments will never conflict. Because I am not so constrained, I face comparatively little difficulty in pointing out what is pretty obvious: Antichrist is an extended polemic against female sexuality.
In case there were any doubt that Lars von Trier regards Woman as the Antichrist, he writes the title with a stylized “T” that resembles the symbol of Venus . As the title suggests, Antichrist is an inversion of the Christ story. Instead of the birth of a child, there is a death. Instead of three kings bearing gifts, there are “three beggars” demanding a sacrifice. Instead of redeeming the world, establishing moral order, “chaos reigns.” Instead of a crucifixion, there is a “gynocide.” And, at the end, there is a resurrection: While Jesus died and rose again to forgive sin and turn the world toward justice , after Charlotte Gainsbourg dies we see the resurrection of Woman as many faceless women pour forth from Eden to commit sin and create injustice.
In the film, “She” — the name of Gainsborg’s character — had been writing a thesis on violence against women through history. She realized that “nature … causes people to do evil things to women,” but concluded that female nature is also part of this cycle, that the nature of women inspires violence. As She explains it, women lack complete control over their own bodies, which are animated by some demonic spirit. For her, images such as those she collects of early modern witches copulating with demons capture some essential truth that her therapist husband, whose relentless rationalism fails to cure her, fails to appreciate until the very end.
Gainsbourg’s character, through her sexual frenzies and shifts of mood, seems connected to the natural world of Eden around her. When she observes that “Nature is Satan’s church,” it is not difficult to infer that while Christ was half man, half divine, Antichrist is half woman, half satanic. Indeed, She does not seem completely in control of herself. She brutalizes her husband, and then suddenly shifts back to a nurturing mode in which she genuinely seems to care for him. In her brutalizing mode, for example, She bolts a grindstone to his leg, and then throws the wrench under the house to prevent an escape. Later, in her nurturing mode, She wants to remove the grindstone and help her husband back to the house; She looks for the wrench in the toolbox as if she were not aware that she herself had hidden it elsewhere.
Such splitting of her personality recurs. In one (notorious) sequence, She remembers watching her child fall from the window while she did nothing to stop him because she was caught up in sexual ecstasy. When, horrified at her own conduct, She performs a genital self-mutilation, she is trying to protect herself as well as others from an uncontrollable destructive force within herself.
The fact that She herself is horrified by female sexual power seems to undermine the notion that the film depicts the result of patriarchal oppression. Rather, it is hard to escape the conclusion that She has rediscovered a truth that He, in his rationalistic naivete, has dismissed out of hand. And that the expulsion from Eden — the corruption of the world — was not simply the fall of Man but the rise of Woman.
Call me crazy, but I don’t find that wildly feminist.
Antichrist presents what Roger Ebert reports was von Trier’s original vision: “that the world was created by Satan, not God: That evil, not goodness, reigns ascendant.” But the vehicle of Satan’s triumph, the Antichrist, seems to be the point of the film.
An update: This comment from SDG is well taken. The language in the post was meant only to highlight the contrast with Antichrist and not to reëvaluate the hypostatic union.
well, the vehicle of satan’s triumph has to be either a man or a woman, right?
you’re correct; it doesn’t sound wildly feminist. Should it be? Does it purport to be? Is it virtuous to support feminism (undefined here) and evil to criticize it? Is the association of woman with blood, sin and satan reason to make abortion illegal and job discrimination against women legal? Is a work of art a set of instructions for life? an example of a good life? a wish for the way the world ought to be? a model for emulation?
should artists only pursue inoffensive politically correct ideology or should they forget all rules and let the imagination fly into very dark places? “No law in the arena” they say. Indeed.
— ray butler · Oct 14, 12:05 AM · #
“should artists only pursue inoffensive politically correct ideology or should they forget all rules and let the imagination fly into very dark places? “No law in the arena” they say. Indeed.”
Haven’t seen it, and don’t plan to. But by description it sounds as if Lars has observed the rules rather scrupulously. Banality, thy name is “arthouse.”
— Tony Comstock · Oct 14, 12:47 AM · #
You do know the rules, don’t you? If not:
The Intent to Arouse as legal doctrine
— Tony Comstock · Oct 14, 11:52 AM · #
Stuff like this makes me realize that maybe TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN wasn’t really that bad.
Mike
— MBunge · Oct 14, 02:11 PM · #
“while Christ was half man, half divine”
Not quite. According to Niceno-Constantinopolitan Christian orthodoxy, Christ is (present tense, not past) both fully human and fully divine (not half and half).
— SDG · Oct 14, 02:25 PM · #
I just love it when people review movies they haven’t seen yet. Especially when it includes spam for their website and a few non-sequitors.
— ray butler · Oct 14, 04:52 PM · #
“An update: This comment from SDG is well taken. The language in the post was meant only to highlight the contrast with Antichrist and not to reëvaluate the hypostatic union.”
Thanks. :) I knew what you meant, and it doesn’t affect the critical point you were making, but I thought the clarification was worth making; glad you agree.
— SDG · Oct 14, 05:03 PM · #
Ray, “sounds like the same old shit” is not a review, at least not around here; but if that’s how you want to characterize it, well I don’t know what to say about that.
How sex is depicted and contextualized in cinema is my life’s work. What’s your angle? Or are you just another antonymous internet commenter who thinks he knows about art?
— Tony Comstock · Oct 14, 10:59 PM · #
RE Tony Comstock
I’m very glad to hear that SOMEONE is making sex his life’s work. I wish I had that job. Whatever insights one gains from that pursuit would never qualify anyone to form an opinion of a film not yet seen.
As for the questions (since I am not TC’s monkey), I shall only answer the second: yes.
And I reserve the right to remain antonymous especially since you made up that word just for me.
— ray butler · Oct 14, 11:43 PM · #
“Whatever insights one gains from that pursuit would never qualify anyone to form an opinion of a film not yet seen.”
See this is why you’re stupid, and kind of an asshole too.
The entire movie business is predicated on getting people to form opinions about movies they haven’t seen. That’s how you get people to give you their money before they see the movie. You don’t get to hear it on the radio first, or see it on TV first. You form an opinion about the movie before you see it and on the basis of that opinion you decide whether or not you want to spend your time and money to actually see the movie.
That’s how the business works, ray.
— Tony Comstock · Oct 15, 12:04 AM · #
She realized that “nature … causes people to do evil things to women,” but concluded that female nature is also part of this cycle, that the nature of women inspires violence. As She explains it, women lack complete control over their own bodies, which are animated by some demonic spirit.
So that’s the argument for why Roman Polanski should be released immediately.
— Synonymous · Oct 15, 01:46 AM · #
Jesus Christ, Comstock, you’re no fun at all. And that name-calling? Was that really necessary? Total Buzzkill. Looking forward to FistStock, however. It’s so totally great because I know it in advance because, well, I’m kind of an asshole and I’ll see myself in it. lol
— Ray Butler · Oct 15, 03:15 AM · #
And I reserve the right to remain antonymous especially since you made up that word just for me.
— ray butler · Oct 14, 07:43 PM · #
Antonymous is when you’re called Antony, but not really.
— ell · Oct 15, 05:10 AM · #
What about Sudernonymous, ell?
I’m sorry I called you an asshole, ray.
— Tony Comstock · Oct 15, 08:29 AM · #
Sudernym.
— ell · Oct 15, 12:42 PM · #
Tony’s right, ray. I know enough about Lars Von Trier’s movies after Breaking the Waves to know I never want to see another one. I can’t believe I actually sat through that entire movie, but I think what sustained me was my vision of a role reversal SNL skit in which the wife is paralyzed and asks her suffering, self-sacrificing husband to go out and have sex with other women. I had to go home afterward and watch the brilliant Babe (the pig movie) just to get the taste of Breaking the Waves out of my mouth.
When a director makes a film that misogynistic, I’m not going to give him the benefit of the doubt on the next one. I’m going to say, a la Tony, “Sounds like the same banal crap dressed up as art. I’ll take a pass.”
— Kate Marie · Oct 15, 04:21 PM · #
I have found memories of Breaking the Waves, especially awkward playful lusty lovemaking at the beginning and the heavenly choir at the end.
— Tony Comstock · Oct 15, 04:34 PM · #
Thanks, Kate, but there’s still no way that you can possibly form an opinion about a movie that you haven’t seen. It’s fine that you don’t like von Trier and you don’t want to see the movie.
And for the record, the portrayal of female sexuality it NOT, by definition, misogynistic. I didn’t see anything about von Trier’s work (in any of his films) as misogynistic. Do you really think he hates women? What kind of a man does that? We’re talking about art here, not life. It’s not like he raped or beat a woman or told people to do so.
Once again, art has no rules and has no obligation whatsoever to fulfill any ideology.
— Ray Butlers · Oct 17, 11:04 PM · #
To say the von tier is a mysogenous is to exxalt \his station as some sort of penisu God.
— Juliet Rogers · Oct 18, 07:25 AM · #
Ray, I don’t know about Von Trier personally. I said his film was misogynistic. Are you saying it’s not possible for a work of art to be misogynistic?
Why on earth would you suggest that the portrayal of female sexuality is not, “by definition,” misogynistic? I would think it depends on how one portrays female sexuality, wouldn’t you? Or is anyone who portrays female “sexuality“in any way automatically off the hook?
I ask you to consider what kind of film Breaking the Waves would be if the roles were reversed. “Laughable” is the word I’d use.
— Kate Marie · Oct 18, 04:21 PM · #
Kate Marie,
My point is that, in art, none of this matters. Art does what it does and has no obligation to ideology. I’m pulling away from the ideology that you seem to think is natural. I’m beyond it and above it.
— Ray Butlers · Oct 20, 03:51 PM · #
No, Von Trier seems to think his own particular ideology is natural, and Breaking the Waves is saturated with it to the point that it becomes compromised as a work of art. That’s my point.
— Kate Marie · Oct 20, 07:21 PM · #
Kate, My point is that I am beyond ideology. Ideology such as yours destroys any possibility of interpreting the film except in a literal-minded, reductionist way.
— Ray Butlers · Oct 20, 08:46 PM · #
What on earth are you on about, Ray? Here’s my ideology. I don’t like bad movies. Breaking the Waves is a bad movie. I think it’s a bad movie, not based on my ideology, but because it is a vulgar, faux-edgy, laughable, and poorly-acted film.
On the other hand, I can’t say that I am completely beyond ideology. I don’t like Triumph of the Will or Birth of a Nation, no matter how artistic they may be. Congratulations, Ray, on floating beyond all that. How proud you must be.
— Kate Marie · Oct 20, 09:39 PM · #
Funny how you started with ideology and then rejected when you couldn’t make it work for you anymore. Go ahead. Have the last word.
— Ray Butlers · Oct 22, 08:06 PM · #