Antichrist, controversial? Not so.

Lars von Trier's Antichrist is a jarring film about sex, the power that comes with it, and how people deal with such power. It also deals with the nature of man - what is good, evil and if either/both are inherent in us.

I like it because it made me think. I like it because it didn't disappoint. I was expecting to throw up for some graphic scene or another, but I didn't. It was tolerable. I just don't get where the controversy lies. Is it because shock art is overrated? But I *was* shocked at some point, so that makes it effective, doesn't it?

It wasn't as graphic as I was made to expect it to be. Battle Royale had more senseless, supposedly ickier gore and violence in it, and I'd laughed and snored my way into that film. The graphic scenes in this film came naturally to the story. If Freud had been watching, he would be slow-clapping in his seat; in his head thinking, "BRILLIANT." After all, he'd maintained that sex and aggression are natural in human beings.

There were definitely scenes where we - the Mogwai audience of ten - would be induced to a collective gasp, to which I think, would cause Von Trier to snigger to himself. I'd think he'd be glad that he managed to jolt us back to our senses - with the omnipresence of violence not just in the moviehouses but in our own homes in the form of primetime news desensitizing a majority of us. The frequency and intensity of the collective gasps increased as the film progressed. It was like Von Trier was consciously and continuously pushing the characters, the film, and the audience towards the edge - a feat made successful by a crowd wincing and groaning in unison.

Some critics are saying Antichrist is not any different from Von Trier's early works, which makes it pretty dull and redundant. Others even go as far as calling Von Trier as being boxed into his own creative playpen, unable to go beyond what he has produced before.

In my opinion, if that's what the guy wants to do, what gives him pleasure, what flays his Muse to life, then fine - let 'im at it. The artwork is always the artist's prerogative. It's up to the artist when he/she wants to move on to a different subject matter. If he/she ever wants to.

Sure, the critics' job is to show the artist where he/she is at fault. But an artist (ideally) must never change what he/she intuits as his/her work for the sake of pacifying the critics. (Futile, because they never get completely appeased.) It's the artist's duty to him/herself and the art form he/she married to progress - grow - in one way or another. Stasis is never a good thing, especially in art; so it would be the artist's loss if decides against stepping out of his/her comfort zone (ah, that term.).

But I digress. Going back on topic -

I attempted tabula rasa throughout the film, but couldn't help but snicker in some of the scenes and go, "Seriously!?" in my head. Reminds me of when Sir Doy commented in his Writing for Film class, "Since when has violence become so funny?" But while I get where this film's violence is coming from, there a couple of things I don't quite understand:

- The psychology of the characters. Why is the wife like that? Had she been psycho even before their kid died, or was the psychosis an effect of the guilt over the kid's death?
- The husband's dream sequences. I know they mean something. (They must.) But I'm not sure what, exactly.
- The choice of symbols. The fox, the doe and the crow. Are they or are they not representations of the Three Beggars? If yes, why did he choose those animals out of so many others? The doe for grief, the fox for pain and the crow for despair. I don't get it.

Other things that distracted me constantly were a couple more technical stuff: jump cuts, 180-degree line-crossing, and continuity slips. Maybe it's part of the whole feel of the movie - disjointed, chaotic - or maybe I'm just too used to clean-cuts from the usual Hollywood fare or maybe the auteur just doesn't care in particular, but the intermittent disconnection from what should have been a relatively-smooth plot kept me from thoroughly immersing myself in the milieu.

But I suppose I should still be glad that there was an actual story to be pulled away from in the first place. Coming off from a couple of Cinemalaya films I'd seen before, I'd prepared for the possibility that this film would be so esoteric, the plot would practically be non-existent, and where the auteur would just be stringing you along for a ride in his train of thoughts, but to no particular end or effect.

My take on indie films is that they are still films. Films are still vehicles for stories, and telling stories is a sense-making activity. That said, even indie films, no matter how experimental or confounding, must still create some grain of sense in the end. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time, effort and resources.

Did Antichrist make sense? To some degree. The treatment made sense, but the nitty-gritty of the story... not quite.

I think there are two things Von Trier was trying to get at in this film:
1) Shock the audience. 2) Profundity.

Did he succeed? On the first count, somewhat. I gasped along with the crowd towards the end, after all. On the second, most likely. But not in a particularly good way. Either it's so profound I don't get the whole of it, or I'm that ignorant to not see what's supposed to be right in my face. The subject of the story is profound enough, it's just the execution that I'm having trouble with.

I'd watch it again, but only because I didn't get the whole gist of it the first time.

I give it FOUR STARS for effort, and because I believe there's a lot more that can be gleaned from this after the shockwaves have settled and the mechanics of the story have been understood a lot better.

*Edited because writing cannot be done in a vacuum.