EVERYONE HAS AN OPINION. WHAT’S YOURS?



We’ve been keeping score of what some of the nation’s critics have been saying about ANTICHRIST. Now you can finally have your say.



“What’s certain is that serious film people on several continents will be talking about von Trier’s latest affront, defending or deriding it, finding it hard to ignore. Short of a flat-out masterpiece, what more can movies offer?”
- Richard & Mary Corliss, Time



“A powerfully made film. The performances by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg are heroic and fearless. Von Trier’s visual command is striking. And if you can think beyond what he shows to what he implies, its depths are frightening. IT IS A REAL FILM. Von Trier has reached me and shaken me.”
- Roger Ebert ,Chicago Sun-Times



“AN ALTERNATELY DEADLY SERIOUS AND HIGHLY IRONIC EXPLORATION OF PSYCHOSEXUAL TRAUMA…CHAOS REIGNS IF NOT NARRATIVE SENSE, BUT I WOULD BE LYING IF I DIDN’T ADMIT THAT THIS IMPOSSIBLE MOVIE KEPT ME HOOKED FROM START TO FINISH.”
- Manohla Dargis, The New York Times



“Mr. von Trier has certainly lost none of the impish, assaultive sensationalism that has made him both a darling and a scapegoat of film critics. But the formal rigor and itellectual brio that made his best films - “Breaking the Waves’ and ‘Dogville’ - as hard to dismiss as they were easy to loathe seems to have abandoned him.”
- A.O. Scott, The New York Times



“Suggests a Bergman film run amok, is wide open for ridicule. Yet it is indelible. It reinforces the reputation of Mr. von Trier, its Danish director, who has called it “the most important film of my entire career,” as one of world cinema’s most foolhardy provocateurs. Ms. Gainsbourg’s extraordinarily intense depiction of grief that transmutes into insanity and murderous rage lends the film a terrifying emotional immediacy.”
- Stephen Holden, The New York Times



“Set to become the scandal of the fall season…But it is more than adroit provocation. In some ways it may be Mr. von Trier’s most emotionally exposed film, one in which he relinquishes his formal mastery and habits of control to enter uncharted and uncensored territory.”
- Dave Kehr, The New York Times



“***1/2! As somebody one said (the Marquis de Sade, perhaps): No pain, no gain. Lars Von Trier might not be, as he famously boasted in CAnnes, ‘the best director in the world.’ But, as witnessed by his ‘Antichrist,’ he certainly is one of them. First and foremost ahs tob e the surreal, fairy-tale-like cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle, who also lensed ‘Sludog Millionaire.’ Then there are the brave pefromances by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Very few actors would have the courage to allow von Trier to put them trhough what Dafoe and Gainsbourg experienced in the name of art.”
- V.A. Musetto, New York Post



“This isn’t a pretend horror flick, with violence you can shrug off or laugh off. It’s the real thing. My first—and then frequent—instinct was the emotional equivalent of duck-and-cover…But both actors have given themselves over to the filmmaker’s vision with performances that had me feeling like Malcolm McDowell in ‘A Clockwork Orange,’ horrified yet unable to look away. And Anthony Dod Mantle has created a succession of somber images that refuse to loosen their grip on my memory. By turns repellent, powerful and ludicrous, ‘Antichrist’ piles horror on horror with pitiless passion.”
- Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal



“***1/2. Antichrist’’ may (I say may) be a psychosexual drama of profound and primal impact…has the power to haunt beyond words…It’s an evil joke and devastating art; an act of audience abuse and proof of film’s ability to access the most subterranean levels of experience. It’s unlike any movie ever made. For that, be thankful.”
- Ty Burr, The Boston Globe



***1/2. “Antichrist” may be objectionable in a hundred different ways, but it is undeniable and cinematic in a hundred others. Its mixture of tones and genres risks complete disruption every second. Certainly it’s barking mad. “You have to have the courage to stay in the situation that frightens you,” Dafoe’s He says to Gainsbourg’s She at one point. von Trier did exactly that, and he got some amazing work out of two exceptionally brave actors. And the film will, in its way, endure.”
- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune



“The story of “Antichrist” is a tangled mess of sex, evil and death, with Von Trier making a stab at allegory and old-fashioned horror, but ultimately failing on both fronts. What makes Von Trier’s vision particularly troubling is how powerfully he tells his stories. Actresses give themselves over to this director, with performances so physically and emotionally naked, it’s as if you could see inside their soul. Gainsbourg has done that and more.”
- Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times



“A doggedly outrageous, fearsomely ambitious two-hander is so desperate to make you feel something—if only a terrible sensation of nothingness—that it’s almost poignant. ‘Antichrist’ which, above all, wants to make pain visceral, is less successful at projecting authentic experience—the shock tactics are ultimately numbing. Still, ‘Antichrist’ is not without its qualities—notably von Trier’s boundless sarcasm and skill with actors. Gainsbourg’s courageous, uninhibited performance effectively creates the movie.”
- J. Hoberman, The Village Voice



“A word to the squeamish: there is no shame in leaving as the tools—and I use the word advisedly—come out. In a way, you will be getting the best of ‘Antichrist,’ which until now has been a film of awkwardness, confusion, and great beauty. I see no reason to ally oneself wholeheartedly either with those who despise von Trier for his horrific silliness or with those who revere his ambition. Both have a point, and the problem is that von Trier, even at his most objectionable, can summon a wealth of images that defy explanation.



The same applies to ‘Antichrist,’ with a twist: it was sex that led to death in the first place. That’s why the movie is so self-involved, and leaves you fighting for breath, and why I believe von Trier when he describes the whole thing as a “dream film.” That would account for the want of logic, for the claustrophobia, and for the incantatory manner in which details loop round and recur. I can no more rid myself of the memory of the wife, in a glowing white dress, crossing a moonlit bridge, than I can of Arthur Rackham drawings in a book of fairy tales from my childhood. I feel the same way about the fox in the film; without warning, it speaks, and most people giggle at the sound, but we accept something similar in ‘Peter and the Wolf,’ so why the derision here, since von Trier is clearly carving out a fable? Maybe that should be his next challenge: a PG rating. Skip the mutilation, stay in the woods, and make as strange a film as possible for kids. We can take it.”
- Anthony Lane, The New Yorker



“There’s a mystery that will linger long after the film’s psychosexual dynamics and philosophical musings: Just who is von Trier trying to reach with ‘Antichrist’? Surely the teenagers who have made “Saw” into such a cash cow aren’t likely to sit through more than an hour of carefully composed set pieces and Bergmanesque encounters between the lead couple. And it’s hard to imagine the bourgeois sophisticates who have flocked to von Trier’s other films being able to stomach this one’s most outrageous moments.”
- Ann Hornaday, Washignton Pot



“And after the infantile bludgeoning that is ‘Antichrist,’ I feel no need to keep accompanying von Trier’s career at all. I’ll just read the plot outline of each new movie, layer on that familiar von Trier affect of repulsion, resentment, and boredom, and it’ll be as if I’ve seen it. u win, Lars—if I’m the bourgeoisie, consider me épatée.”
- Dana Stevens, Slate



“Like no other movie this year or ever…MESMERIZING…ALMOST EVERY ONE OF ITS FRAMES SHIMMERS WITH DEMENTED, IMAGINARY LIFE. Von Trier is one of the most accomplished cinema artists of our time.”
- Andrew O’Hehir, Salon



“The impotent folly of ‘Antichrist ‘is that von Trier has made it his mission to shock the bourgeoisie in an era when they can no longer be shocked.”
- Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly



“Charlotte Gainsbourg gives a phenomenal, fearless performance. I’ve never witnessed a performance like it.”
- Melissa Anderson, Film Comment



“I don’t think I breathed for the last half - out of shock, out of stress, out of disbelief. This is to say that von Trier had us all. von Trier is a consummate filmmaker…He has ideas and vision and some humor. He can get an actor to do anything and do it well.”
-Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe



“Before I had a chance to see it, a male reporter for a major newspaper told me that “no woman” could possibly enjoy the film. I enjoyed ‘Antichrist.’ I guess this makes me less of a woman? In fact, I’d argue that ‘Antichrist’ is a much better—and scarier, and more sexually and politically provocative—female revenge film than ‘Jennifer’s Body’, which some writers have claimed as a work of feminism. The dateless, basement-dwelling stereotype of the fanboy aside, young male horror fans aren’t going to let the kind of fear of women that leads to politically correct tiptoeing get in the way of their good time. And neither should we.”
- Karina Longworth, Double X