Antichrist

[Butcher]

<!--quoteo-->QUOTE <!--quotec-->I never saw "Dogville" but I've heard that the woman in that gets put through the ringer as well.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

He's a total misogynist. I can't remember the name of his first movie, but I do remember the female lead shouting, "FUCK THE DEVIL OUT OF ME!" many times. The theme was clearly that women are evil and only a man's penis can save them. Or something.

In Dogville, Nicole Kidman essentially gets raped by an entire village.

I don't think I've liked any of his movies (except Dancer in the Dark -- and even that one was pretty misogynistic), but for some reason I keep watching them. After Antichrist, I think I might be done with Von Trier.

[rok]

<!--quoteo(post=68905:date=Nov 13 2009, 11:16 AM:name=Butcher)-->QUOTE (Butcher @ Nov 13 2009, 11:16 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec--><!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE <!--quotec-->I never saw "Dogville" but I've heard that the woman in that gets put through the ringer as well.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

He's a total misogynist. I can't remember the name of his first movie, but I do remember the female lead shouting, "FUCK THE DEVIL OUT OF ME!" many times. The theme was clearly that women are evil and only a man's penis can save them. Or something.

In Dogville, Nicole Kidman essentially gets raped by an entire village.

I don't think I've liked any of his movies (except Dancer in the Dark -- and even that one was pretty misogynistic), but for some reason I keep watching them. After Antichrist, I think I might be done with Von Trier.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Europa (sometimes called Zentropa) was pretty good, I thought, as far as Von Trier's tamer films are concerned. It reminded me a lot of one of my favorite classic movies, The Third Man, for whatever reason.

[Butcher]

<!--quoteo(post=68913:date=Nov 13 2009, 12:01 PM:name=rok)-->QUOTE (rok @ Nov 13 2009, 12:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=68905:date=Nov 13 2009, 11:16 AM:name=Butcher)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Butcher @ Nov 13 2009, 11:16 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec--><!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE <!--quotec-->I never saw "Dogville" but I've heard that the woman in that gets put through the ringer as well.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

He's a total misogynist. I can't remember the name of his first movie, but I do remember the female lead shouting, "FUCK THE DEVIL OUT OF ME!" many times. The theme was clearly that women are evil and only a man's penis can save them. Or something.

In Dogville, Nicole Kidman essentially gets raped by an entire village.

I don't think I've liked any of his movies (except Dancer in the Dark -- and even that one was pretty misogynistic), but for some reason I keep watching them. After Antichrist, I think I might be done with Von Trier.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Europa (sometimes called Zentropa) was pretty good, I thought, as far as Von Trier's tamer films are concerned. It reminded me a lot of one of my favorite classic movies, The Third Man, for whatever reason.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe I'll give that one a look.

It's easy to see his talent -- he's incredibly talented. That's probably why I keep giving his movies a shot. But his pretentiousness and his deep-rooted misogyny has put him on thin ice with me.

[liner]

this one had a lot of emotional or psychological torture as well. the man character is a psychologist and throws everything he knows about not treating someone you're close to away and it really fucks both of them up along the way i think. that was almost as brutal as the physical stuff for me and i think that, while the visible stuff obviously sticks out more, the fact that this undercurrent runs almost throughout is what helps drive the crazy shit home.

[rok]

<!--quoteo(post=68915:date=Nov 13 2009, 12:05 PM:name=Butcher)-->QUOTE (Butcher @ Nov 13 2009, 12:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=68913:date=Nov 13 2009, 12:01 PM:name=rok)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rok @ Nov 13 2009, 12:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=68905:date=Nov 13 2009, 11:16 AM:name=Butcher)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Butcher @ Nov 13 2009, 11:16 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec--><!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE <!--quotec-->I never saw "Dogville" but I've heard that the woman in that gets put through the ringer as well.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

He's a total misogynist. I can't remember the name of his first movie, but I do remember the female lead shouting, "FUCK THE DEVIL OUT OF ME!" many times. The theme was clearly that women are evil and only a man's penis can save them. Or something.

In Dogville, Nicole Kidman essentially gets raped by an entire village.

I don't think I've liked any of his movies (except Dancer in the Dark -- and even that one was pretty misogynistic), but for some reason I keep watching them. After Antichrist, I think I might be done with Von Trier.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Europa (sometimes called Zentropa) was pretty good, I thought, as far as Von Trier's tamer films are concerned. It reminded me a lot of one of my favorite classic movies, The Third Man, for whatever reason.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe I'll give that one a look.

It's easy to see his talent -- he's incredibly talented. That's probably why I keep giving his movies a shot. But his pretentiousness and his deep-rooted misogyny has put him on thin ice with me.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Europa is actually the first movie I had ever seen of his, and is the main reason why I keep giving Von Trier the benefit of the doubt over the years. It is a surrealist film about post-war Europe and very stylized, cutting between black and white and color, with a heavy dose of mystery and even comedy (maybe it was unintentional, but I can never tell). Having Max Von Sydow narrate is pretty cool too. I liked it quite a bit, and is another beautifully crafted but polarizing film that I've come to appreciate more and more over the years. It has none of the violent excesses of Von Trier's later films, so I'd say give it a shot.

[Ace]

Why doesn't rok have a film blog?

[bz]

<!--quoteo(post=69860:date=Nov 21 2009, 08:49 AM:name=Ace)-->QUOTE (Ace @ Nov 21 2009, 08:49 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec-->Why doesn't rok have a film blog?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I've been telling him to start one for a long time now.

[rok]

Yeah, I noticed that as well. I wasn't sure if it was simply because I was watching the screener and maybe some of the FX were unfinished, but I guess there could be more to it. And the movie you mentioned with the fire extinguisher was Irreversible, and that scene wasn't even the most disturbing part of the film but the rape scene was to me anyway. I think that could have been toned down as well, but then maybe we wouldn't be talking about it now. There is another example of a film that, edited a certain way, is transformed into something completely different and is more shocking as a result. Otherwise it would have played out as a traditional revenge film.

Anyway, good review Bz.

[bz]

Ok, just watched.

SPOILERS

I didn't think it was that fucked up as most, but I completely see that side of the critism--the physical and sexual violence.

I definately did not like it, BUT I did not dislike it. This, to me, is something that doesn't really need to be seen by anyone...a problem the director, no doubt, doesn't give a shit about. I would never go, "Hey, you have to check out Antichrist!"

There are some things that I did like about this movie, however. I liked how nature acted kind of as a foil to humanity: the pragmatic scope and the emotional scope (as Rok mentioned.) It seems to me that the movie is meant to be totally nihilistic. Where chaos reigns no one can be in control; her total breakdown and his "fight response" in killing her after she gave up and needing to nourish himself with berries both actualized this.

I don't feel that the animals needed to be there as much as they were. The talking fox was a little insulting, as Butcher described, and The Three Beggars watching Him leave seemed unnecessary. I'm still a little unsure of the mass exodus of half-naked, blurry women. Perhaps something to do with "Genocide" or women being freed from some purgatory of sorts (which would have strange and serious implications if you couple that with the female castration.)

I echo Butcher in that the graphic nature of the cutting was unnecessary and seemed to take it to a different level of grotesque shock for no real purpose but that. I think of two scenes where that level of shock was achieved in the same direct, visceral, literal manner that achieved thE desired shock, without detriment to the movie: Pan's Labyrinth's wine bottle execution scene and that backwards movie where the guy is bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher. Those were gross, shocking, etc. but served their purposes effectively.

I don't really have a problem with how it was filmed. I didn't mind the Calvin Klein cut to Dogma style (but I laughed out loud when I read Butcher's description of it as such.) Some parts were heavy handed, though. Did anyone else notice the strange, optical camera distortion in scenes where they filmed the woods from a farther perspective? Maybe it was accidental, but there was a bit of (for lack of better words) clown mirror distortion around the edges of the screen while the camera panned over the woods.