542 Antichrist

[domino harvey]

You mean retail DVDs

[stereo]

Criterion Spine #_____________

[fiddlesticks]

Criterion Spine #____666______

[justeleblanc]

You mean retail DVDs

Yeah. I get really excited about IFC buying films, because it means they will prevent Americans from watching them. If I were a director, I'd make sure the contract guarantees they sell the DVD of the film.

[Antoine Doinel]

Yet another reason to hate IFC: they will only be showing the uncut version in a limited theatrical release and then, "working with the director", show a cut version on VOD.

[PaganPoet]

I'll just wait for the Danish DVD release. Electric Parc is sure to do a stellar job.

[knives]

IFC, the joke stopped being funny last year.

[piano player]

OMG*Helicopter*ZOMFG. This is like the best film I have seen in a very long time. I knew it would be good when the petty snobs booed it at Cannes. Must be von Trier's best, absolutely stellar.

SpoilerShow

The only thing that did not work was the talking fox

[Fiery Angel]

This is like the best film I have seen in a very long time.

Which film was that?

[colinr0380]

Of course not having seen Antichrist yet I've no way of knowing for sure, but on reading about the fox my mind almost immediately went to Stephen King's remake of The Kingdom, Kingdom Hospital, which has the hero holding in depth conversations with a talking anteater! I wonder if there could be a sly nod to that series in there somewhere? (Here is a video of the animal's first appearance, though you have to wade through five minutes of King recreating his real life accident in fictionalised and more extreme terms and shoehorning it into the plot of the von Trier series to get to it)

[PaganPoet]

The Hollywood Reporter posted this story today:

'Antichrist' will remain uncut in Britain

Censorship board declares no 'harm risk to adults'
By Stuart Kemp

LONDON -- It might contain scenes of sex, bloody violence and female self-mutilation, but the British Board of Film Classification said Friday that Lars von Trier's "Antichrist" is OK by them.

The British censor hasn't dusted off its scissors, allowing British distributor Artificial Eye to release the movie uncut with an "18" certificate.

The movie, which stirred controversy after screening In Competition during this year's Festival de Cannes, will go out to British audiences over the age of 18 unscathed.

BBFC director David Cooke said: "The film does not contain material which breaches the law or poses a significant harm risk to adults. The sexual imagery, while strong, is relatively brief, and the Board has since 1990 passed a number of works containing such images.' "

Cooke and company shied away from cuts, saying that the censor's lack of intervention on the movie "reflects the principle, strongly endorsed in a number of public consultations, that adults should be free to decide for themselves what to watch or what not to watch, provided it is neither illegal nor harmful."

The BBFC Guidelines for "18" rated works state that the more explicit images of sexual activity will not be allowed unless they can be exceptionally justified by context and the work is not a "sex work" whose primary purpose is sexual arousal.

Said the BBFC: "For these purposes Antichrist is very clearly not a 'sex work.' "

And while the film also includes a scene of genital mutilation, the BBFC Board "knows of no research evidence which suggests that the viewing of this scene would raise a significant risk of harm to adult viewers or to society, or which would otherwise justify intervention."

Curzon Artificial Eye CEO Philip Knatchbull said: "There is no doubt that 'Antichrist' is a controversial film, but it's our duty as a distributor to present the works of talented directors such as Lars von Trier in their original form exactly as the director intended. We fully support the BBFC's decision to allow people to make up their own minds about this film."

[kaujot]

Great news for the Brits, I guess, but man, I really hate the phrase "knows of no research evidence which suggests that the viewing of this scene would raise a significant risk of harm to adult viewers or to society, or which would otherwise justify intervention."

[Sanjuro]

So lets see if I've got this right -

"Adults should be free to decide for themselves what to watch", unless it causes sexual arousal in which case it may well be "a significant risk of harm to adult viewers or to society".

I see.

[FerdinandGriffon]

Has anyone here seen Dominik Moll's Lemming? It's not a particularly good film, but seems to have a lot in common with Antichrist (or at least the few plot details that I know about), and Gainsbourg is very good in a similar role to the one she plays in Von Trier's film. She's a very interesting actress, I think, very beautiful in a real, un-Hollywood way, but also possessing something entirely alien, and very, very strange. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Von Trier cast her after seeing her in Moll's film.

[Jonathan S]

So lets see if I've got this right -

"Adults should be free to decide for themselves what to watch", unless it causes sexual arousal in which case it may well be "a significant risk of harm to adult viewers or to society".

I see.

Well, here in the UK you need a jolly good excuse for sexual arousal (ideally procreation) but I think what the BBFC is saying is that if a film's "primary purpose is sexual arousal" then it would only be considered for the R18 category. R18 DVDs are legally available only to buy over the counter at licensed sex shops, which incidentally puts them beyond the legal reach of adults physically or otherwise incapable of visiting such places (i.e. some of the people who arguably might need them most).

[Camera Obscura]

Has anyone here seen Dominik Moll's Lemming? It's not a particularly good film, but seems to have a lot in common with Antichrist (or at least the few plot details that I know about), and Gainsbourg is very good in a similar role to the one she plays in Von Trier's film. She's a very interesting actress, I think, very beautiful in a real, un-Hollywood way, but also possessing something entirely alien, and very, very strange. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Von Trier cast her after seeing her in Moll's film.

Well, Gainsbourg isn't even remotely as weird and alien as Charlotte Rampling here (but she's supposed to be the 'alien one'), but above all, I'm still wondering what happened to all the lemmings that got stuck in the kitchen sink.

[Cosmic Bus]

Politiken.dk is reporting that a PC game and graphic novel based on Antichrist are in development. Titled Eden, both are being made with the blessing of Von Trier and the involvement of Dafoe.

[kaujot]

Sounds like a great way to bond with the kids.

[zedz]

Politiken.dk is reporting that a PC game and graphic novel based on Antichrist are in development.

Nice double-edged adjectives there.

[kaujot]

It took me about 30 seconds to get what you were saying, but when I did, I had a good chuckle.

[Antoine Doinel]

IFC will release the film on VOD on Oct. 21 and in New York and Los Angeles on Oct. 23. Afterwards, it will roll out to other cities. Looks like it something very similar to the Che release plan. No word yet on what, if anything, will be edited from the film.

[Antoine Doinel]

A massive gallery of stills from the film.

[j99]

Ebert can't get it out of his head. He's written another lengthy piece about it.

Interesting he should mention In The Realm Of The Senses; it's the film which sprung immediately to mind when I watched it. I don't think I've seen anything so intense or claustrophic since Oshima's film. It really is an incredible piece of work. Yes, it does nod to Tarkovsky in composition but not in subject matter, so I think it's a bit misleading to label it "Tarkovsky-esque". I felt it also had just as much David Lynch as Tarkovsky in there; the close ups of the couple in particular reminded me of Inland Empire, and the way the camera zoomed into the undergrowth was reminiscent of Blue Velvet (as was the sado-masochistic relationship between the couple to Jeffrey and the night club singer in Lynch's film). Must mention the brilliant performances by Defoe and Gainsbourg, it's as if Body Of Evidence never happened! Also, I was struck by the resemblances of the leads to an older David Bowie and a young Patti Smith, but maybe that's just me.

[Finch]

Should say upfront that I'm on the fence when it comes to Lars Von Trier: I hated Dancer in the Dark (blatantly manipulative and crude), had problems with Breaking The Waves but found some merit in The Idiots and Dogville. I just got back from Antichrist and after all the hysterics at Cannes I personally feel that they made a big fuss about nothing here; I'm actually surprised at how utterly indifferent I feel about this picture. It never managed to pull me in and if it doesn't make you care about the characters, the shock value of the much-discussed images amounts to little more than a wince but nothing that lingers in your mind like the torture scene in Audition. The pacing felt off to me as well (the prologue especially features the most interminable use of slow motion outside of a Zack Snyder film) and the homage at the end is such an obvious hoax in my opinion that I'm frankly astonished that any critic (and especially the Tarkovsky supporters) would allow themselves to be wound up by this. I found the Cannes press conference more fun and involving to watch than the film itself (though the end credits stating they had a researcher each for misogyny and horror films made me chuckle) - watch this if you like Von Trier's stuff, if you don't, I wouldn't bother.

[puxzkkx]

I have no idea how I'll respond to this (I'm seeing it next Sunday) - I despise 'Breaking the Waves' with every fibre of my being - the manipulations in that film are so overt and repulsive - I liked 'Dancer in the Dark' to some extent, where Trier's audience manipulation is a bit more indirect, more effective and also less rooted in sordid sexuality and sensationalism. And I really, really respect his manipulation work in 'Dogville', where it really did feel like a successful experiment, not preachy or overdone and not full of creepy lewdness masked as sympathy for the lead character's suffering. I think any auteur that can have his audience actually rooting for a gangster to shoot a baby, or a bunch of little kids, is in possession of an immense talent. I definitely think Trier is a great director, he just hasn't used his gift to success in every film - it looks like in Antichrist he's ditched the experiments in audience reaction and psychology and gone with something a bit more personal, so it'll be interesting to watch and analyze my own response to it (not to mention see what the response is of the other people in the theatre!) - especially because with his oeuvre so far he's had me at three different poles: hate, liking and love.