THE CRITIC-AL LIST
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

The Crazies
Case 39
The Wolfman
Legion
The Lovely Bones
Black Death
Daybreakers
Avatar
The Stepfather
Ninja Assassin
The Descent: Part 2
Amer
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Box
2012
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Horseman
Solomon Kane
Pandorum
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
Transformers
The Revenge Of The Fallen
Antichrist
Terminator Salvation
Last House On The Left
Inglorious Basterds
Angels & Demons
Adventureland
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Crank: High Voltage
Coraline
Dragonball Evolution
Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Uninvited
Amusement
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The RIse OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by Lars von Trier. Starring Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg. Horror, Dk, 110min. Web Site.

Lars von Trier’s self-indulgent, banal and monotonous talk-fest continues to anger me. In Cannes I was pounced on by a Danish TV crew after exiting the world premiere and asked what I thought about the latest work from one of their country’s once leading lights. I slagged it off so mercilessly even the cameraman blanched. Then the presenter said something about me being way too harsh in my criticism because ANTICHRIST was clearly breaking new ground for art-house movies. I completely went for her after that statement. That’s the trouble with the fart-house brigade.

Because they don’t see movies like MARTYRS or INSIDE, they think second-hand gore imagery wrapped up in Freudian pretentiousness is something unique. When we all know that shock route is the last resort for exhausted creativity. And von Trier’s bankrupt exhaustion shows throughout this puerile and pompous rubbish.  Way too po-faced conceited and s-l-o-w for gore-hounds and ultimately way too cringe-worthy bloody for von Trier luvvies, the title is the first big cheat in this painfully medicinal study of Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s relationship falling apart in the wake of their son’s tragic death. The lyrical beginning that most reviewers (who should know better) have praised is nothing more than a direct lift from DON’T LOOK NOW’s accident-sex montage. (Dafoe’s thrusting stunt penis courtesy of German porno star Horst by the way). Endless boring chat, daft histrionics and theorizing about ‘Nature being Satan’s church’ (wait till you hear the talking fox saying “Chaos Reigns”!) ends with Dafoe’s ankle being drilled into and a millstone weight screwed in. Then he’s hit in the crotch by a tree trunk and masturbated by Gainsbourg until he climaxes blood, while she commits ‘Gynocide’, cutting off her fake wax clitoris with rusty scissors in full close-up. Such imagery might be offensive if it wasn’t so absurdly overwrought. Although nicely photographed von Trier’s cabin-in-the-woods Strindberg style is a hopeless attempt to use genre symbolism for ego-inflating ends that falls completely flat. Finally Dafoe finds his own hell on a hill with thousands of swarming women. For horror fans hell will be sitting through this patience-testing anticlimax. In his Cannes press conference von Trier said he made the movie to claw back some clarity after a mental breakdown. Just like other people’s dreams, other people’s therapy is also boring and ANTICHRIST is the proof. I love the story, which I do hope isn’t apocryphal, that when French distributors were shown the movie to buy, one of them walked out as the credits started, screaming ‘Charlotte Gainsbourg! I can’t watch those tired old ugly tits again”.

The fact Gainsbourg was voted Best Actress at Cannes for virtually yelling ‘You bastard, you bastard’ continually says all you need to know about the redundant Palme D’Or As a friend of mine remarks, if he sees the wreath on a poster, he stays away. And don’t believe the hype about it being the most controversial Cannes entry ever. Andrzej Zulawsi’s POSSESSION was back in 1981 when the sort of tired grossness von Trier now peddles was something akin to exciting.

Alan Jones

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