The Antichrist Preview: More than a Smattering of Blood

Brian Johnson of Macleans.ca blog said it best that "This is not your daddy's chain-saw massacre."  Walking into The Antichrist, Danish bad-boy Lars Von Trier's latest shocker for Cannes audiences, no one expects a fairy-tale.  What you get however pushes the limits of gruesomely disturbing.

 [warning: spoiler alert. bigger warning: really gruesome  and pardon me but fucked-up movie] The film tells the story of an unnamed couple- played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg-who cope with the accidental death of their son which is shown in a drawn-out, yet dramatically beautiful montage.  Dafoe plays a psychotherapist who attempts to help his wife deal with her suffering by taking her to their remote cabin, referred to as 'eden'.  Here, things get twisted as we encounter a talking fox, which at the market screening this morning elicited the first round of laughter and some clapping from the audiance, as well as our fair share of gruesomely violent sex scenes- complete with penises squirting blood and self-performed genital mutilation, right before our eyes!

 So what was Von Trier going for?  In the press conference he shared that "I can offer no excuse for 'Antichrist'...other than my absolute belief in the film -- the most important film of my entire career!"  Although critics and viewers may not agree; one thing is for sure:  no one will walk out thinking "that was okay..."