Antichrist (2009)
Screenplay, Director: Lars Von Tiers
One is quick to find a punching back, a casual link to all our maladies. They hurl brickbats at others, nature, animals, bad times and bad omen as a reason of their predicaments. If nothing can be definitely pinpointed, genetics and nurturing take the beating. The actual evil of the world, according to this film, is none of the above but is buried deep within all of us. Yes, the animalistic, raw, unbridled desires in us are the culprits! We can blame all the evil that happens to us upon ourselves, not our parents or our siblings.
This somehow graphic and gory presentation takes us through the journey of a psychotherapist and his wife. The wife is grieved by the death of her toddler. The child fell to her death whilst she and her husband were engaged in a passionate act of love making. The guilt of neglect and joy at an emotional moment dragged her into depression. The medications do not seem to be working; it only leaves her drugged and lethargic with no light at the end of the tunnel.
That is when the psychotherapist husband (Willem Dafoe) takes the matter into his own hands. He made the cardinal mistake of treating his own kin, his wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg, a regular in many Von Tiers' movies). Their journey leads to dangerous areas of the human psyche, the woods, their summer cabin and a gory rollercoaster of violence and killing using Christian symbolisms in its background. It is the first of Von Tier's 'Depression Trilogy'.
Not quite the movie for weak hearted and those who wish to see no evil!
P/S., Are we all wired up to feel guilty of our actions? We are conditioned to do certain things in life. We are told that that is the right thing to do. It may also be the only way to do. Hence, when we deviate from our self-defined boundaries of goodness and the outcome of the occurrence plays against our liking, we make ourselves feel guilty. This surmounted heap of unfilled 'sin' creeps deep into our psyche and pushes the body to the dark side. Interestingly, the crow which is denigrated in the Christian myths to signify evil of the mind is venerated in many other cultures including the Red Indians, Celtic, Germanic and Hindu folks for its sharp-mindedness, ability to foresee the future and its role as an intermediary to the netherworld!
Screenplay, Director: Lars Von Tiers
This somehow graphic and gory presentation takes us through the journey of a psychotherapist and his wife. The wife is grieved by the death of her toddler. The child fell to her death whilst she and her husband were engaged in a passionate act of love making. The guilt of neglect and joy at an emotional moment dragged her into depression. The medications do not seem to be working; it only leaves her drugged and lethargic with no light at the end of the tunnel.
That is when the psychotherapist husband (Willem Dafoe) takes the matter into his own hands. He made the cardinal mistake of treating his own kin, his wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg, a regular in many Von Tiers' movies). Their journey leads to dangerous areas of the human psyche, the woods, their summer cabin and a gory rollercoaster of violence and killing using Christian symbolisms in its background. It is the first of Von Tier's 'Depression Trilogy'.
Not quite the movie for weak hearted and those who wish to see no evil!
P/S., Are we all wired up to feel guilty of our actions? We are conditioned to do certain things in life. We are told that that is the right thing to do. It may also be the only way to do. Hence, when we deviate from our self-defined boundaries of goodness and the outcome of the occurrence plays against our liking, we make ourselves feel guilty. This surmounted heap of unfilled 'sin' creeps deep into our psyche and pushes the body to the dark side. Interestingly, the crow which is denigrated in the Christian myths to signify evil of the mind is venerated in many other cultures including the Red Indians, Celtic, Germanic and Hindu folks for its sharp-mindedness, ability to foresee the future and its role as an intermediary to the netherworld!
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