Antichrist

"When the three beggars arrive someone must die." 

When Lars von Trier premiered "Antichrist" at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, audiences and critics were immediately polarized. While some saw it as the work of a true auteur, others called it disgusting and even misogynist citing its "twisted, shocking, and depraved" scenes depicting sex, death, and genital mutilation. While such distressing and gory attributes would probably be unnecessary in the hands of a lesser director, von Trier uses such imagery to craft a profound cinematic statement on clinical depression, self-hatred, the interaction of rationality with the emotional, and, most importantly, the inability of human beings, particularly women, to escape nature, whether it be the realties of the natural world or their own intrinsic nature. "Antichrist" is not a misogynist film. Its message is critical of modern civilization and the concept of "rationality" as a further detriment to the lives of women who already experience injustices in nature. Notwithstanding these notions of gender, "Antichrist" also has a metaphorical narrative giving voice to Lars von Trier's personal bouts with mental illness and his distaste for traditional psychological treatment and counseling. 

"Antichrist" is divided into six parts, which serve as both thematic and cinematic divides in the story: Prologue, Chapter 1: Grief, Chapter 2: Pain (Chaos Reigns), Chapter 3: Despair (Gynocide), Chapter 4: The Three Beggars, and an Epilogue. In the "Prologue," the film begins with a married couple, known only as "She" and "He," having passionate sex in the shower and then the bedroom. As the couple continue their passions, their male toddler crawls out of his crib and proceeds to fall out of an open window to his death. This opening scene is ridiculously but purposefully overwrought with beautiful slow-motion black and white shots and an aria called "Lascia ch'io pianga" from Handel's opera "Rodelinda." The libretto translates from the Italian as: "Let me weep my cruel fate, and I sigh for liberty. May sorrow break these chains of my sufferings, for pity's sake." Although the sex scene is primal and graphic, it is viewed through a lens of civility, even beauty, a perspective which will be contrasted later in the film. In "Antichrist," many symbols are presented as dichotomies and unfortunate coexistences. The child dies during the act of intercourse and coitus. Not only is it ironic that a life ends concurrently with an act of conception, there is also an irony that a "dirty" act is taking place during an act of cleansing. 

What makes "Antichrist" a truly original film is how von Trier captures the downward spiral of depression from situational grief and sadness to an all encompassing lament of existence on a large scale. Depression opens up a Pandora's box in which the sufferer begins to experience the injustice, chaos, and helplessness inherent in the universe. At first, She cries about missing her son. By the end of the film, she obsesses about a woman's inability to separate her body from nature itself. In "Chapter 1: Grief," we immediately see the aftermath of the child's death: severe clinical depression and intense guilt felt by the mother. She exhibits a classic presentation of major depression: sleep changes, loss of interest, guilt, low energy, less concentration, decreased appetite, low psychomotor activity, and suicidal thoughts. She is stuck in cyclical thoughts of loss and her perceived culpability.

She's husband, known as "He," is a psychologist who immediately takes charge of his wife's therapy with a rational plan. He symbolizes the prototypical Western man, espousing the use of reason as a mechanism of controlling nature. He insists on intense psychological counseling and exposure therapy, both of which will give her insight into her condition and control over her emotions. Her husband views depression as a physical condition and emphasizes its observable manifestations. "A main part of anxiety," He says, " is physical: dizzy spells, dry mouth, distorted hearing, trembling, heavy breathing, fast pulse, nausea..." Espousing that she physically experience and confront her fears as a way of diminishing their power, He explains, "Exposure. That's the only thing that works. Everything else is just talk. You have to have to courage to stay in the situation that frightens. And then you'll learn that fear isn't dangerous." To the Western man, physicality and observable phenomenon reign supreme. 

Lars von Trier has been very public about his continuing bouts with severe depression and his intense distaste for therapy and psychiatry. In fact, von Trier made "Antichrist" while in the midst of a depressive episode. Before he began filming, von Trier had been institutionalized for his illness and signed himself out to make the movie. On set, he famously said "Basically, I'm afraid of everything in life, except filmmaking." The major thematic dichotomy in the film is one between rationality and the emotional with the former resulting in ultimate failure. For von Trier and his character, "She," depression is an intrinsic, existential problem whose solution cannot be rationalized. Speaking from his own experiences, von Trier argues that rationalizing the true nature of depression and exposing the sufferer to it not only makes things worse, it also opens up a world of philosophical crises about the unavoidable evils of nature and unearths a history of gender repression based on the dichotomy of rationality and emotion.

As part of She's therapy, her husband insists that they both go to "Eden," a cabin deep in the forest where She and her son last spent time together. He believes that exposure to this painful memory will lessen its power, what he calls "a natural, healthy reaction." When asked of her greatest fear, She says simply "the forest." and adds that "nature is Satan's church." In one of von Trier's finest depictions of depression, She wanders around a dark, foggy forest looking for meaning. Her husband asks his wife to melt into nature and says "Melt into the green. Just turn green." Exposing herself to nature, however, will prove to be a disastrous event for She.  

As the film continues with "Chapter 2: Pain (Chaos Reigns)," both She and He confront the horrors of nature and realize that rationalizing the world leads to more hopelessness, existential crises. He goes for a walk in the woods and stumbles upon a dead, rotting fox who then rises up and proclaims "Chaos reigns." This scene is terrifying in its total unexpectedness. He begins to confront the reality of nature: that all living things perish and degenerate back into the earth. This destiny is unavoidable and demonstrates that rationality cannot help escape that chaos; one cannot control the universe. This fact is again emphasized when the couple sees a dead baby bird fall from a nest and become food for a nearby hawk. Given her increasing depression, She has already begun to accept meaninglessness. For He, these events are merely scratches in his protective veneer of rational control.   

While ultimate meaninglessness is something with which the characters wrestle, the central realized problem of "Antichrist" is how, unlike men, women are inextricably tied to the realties of their biological nature, a fact that ensures their perpetual unhappiness and degradation throughout human history. To come to this conclusion, He and She go back to "Eden," the proverbial beginning of human history in Genesis. From this vantage point, they begin to see the inequities imposed on the female gender and how the recent death of the couple's son is emblematic of this disparity. In the film's eye, the main difference between men and women is that women have the capability of pregnancy and, thus, carry a natural responsibility for a child, a task that men are not forced into. During the sexual act, both men and women seek to gratify their natural urges. The difference, however, is that a woman literally bears the consequences of the act if she becomes pregnant. Therefore, whenever a woman engages in sex, there are two opposing needs at play: the need for sexual gratification and the need to conceive, bear, and raise a child responsibly----the ancient female dichotomy of madonna and whore. 

In the "Prologue," the consequences of these two opposing needs are on display. She is gratifying herself sexually at the expense of watching her son, who falls to his death. In fact, if you watch closely, She is on the verge of orgasm and chooses to finish even though she sees that her son is about to fall out of the window. In a zero sum game, She picked sexual gratification and her son died. While one can take the "Prologue" literally (a child falling out of a window), it can also be read as a metaphor for She having sex and then having to get an abortion. Sexual gratification brings life but then necessitates death. Either way, this is the key issue surrounding She in the film: her guilt and subsequent anger at her inescapable nature as a woman. As She says later in the film, "Women do not control their own bodies. Nature does."

While in the forest, He sees a deer in the middle of a miscarriage, another sad death that has its origins in the sexual act. Again, while the miscarriage of a child is a sad event for all involved, it inordinately affects a woman in a deeply physical way; the death occurs within her. She laments acorns falling onto the roof of the cabin, which acts as metaphors for the the inevitability of death:

"Oak trees grow to be hundreds of years old. They only have to produce one single tree every hundred years in order to propagate. May sound banal to you but it was a big thing for me to realize that when I was up here with Nic. The acorns fell on the roof vent. They kept falling and falling. And die and die. And I understood that everything that used to be beautiful about Eden was perhaps hideous. Now I could hear what I couldn't hear before. The cry of all the things that are to die."

Despite the fact that He has begun to see the death and chaos inherent in the world, and notwithstanding that he eventually stands outside amidst by falling acorns, he still insists on his rational view: "Acorns don't cry...you know that as well as I do. That's what fear is, thoughts distort reality. Not the other way around." This exchange is key to understanding the growing divide between She and He and their view of nature and depression. Contrary to He's assertions, the reality one experiences, particularly during depression, can distort thoughts. The reality of her son's death and her growing understanding of the gordian knot placed upon women, are directly responsible for her thoughts. Additionally, what is reality? Who defines it? Is depression always a distortion of reality or could it be the acceptance of reality and all of its associated cruelty? When discussing her dreams, She sums up how reason disrespects the irrational by saying sarcastically to her husband the therapist, "Dreams are of no use to modern psychology. Freud is dead, isn't he?"  

The struggle between He's rationality and She's emotional understanding of nature comes into further conflict as the movie progresses. After She hears her son screaming in the distance, her husband rejects the validity of fear and emotion unless it has a biological use:

"And because you experienced something that you can't explain rationally, you placed Eden very high on the pyramid chart. Eden was the catalyst that triggered your fear. You jumped to conclusions and tied the emotional event with a place. When you feel threat, it's natural to react. If the danger were real, your fear would save your life, because your adrenaline would be used for fight or flight. But what you're experiencing is panic, nothing more. The scream wasn't real." 

Echoing Michel Foucault's arguments in "Madness and Civilization," the onslaught of rationality and the progress of "reason" flatly rejects all that does not insist upon or endorse reason itself, a problem that prevents humanity from hearing the truths spoken by the irrational or emotional. She's hallucinations of her son are real to her and symbolize her processing of loss and growing understanding of the truths inherent in the world. In a way, He's insistence on reason is ironically a way of rationalizing his way out of reality. She discerns this and yells "Stop! Calm down. You shouldn't have come here. You're just so damn arrogant." 

As the film moves into "Chapter 3: Despair (Gynocide)," the existence of cruelty and natural prisons are now connected with how "reason" has helped reenforce nature's shackles on women and that the only solution is to destroy one's imprisoning nature. It is revealed that She has been working on a graduate thesis called "Gynocide," a project that examines the persecution and execution of women for sexual promiscuity, witchcraft, and other forms of intuitive behavior that challenged the prevailing system. In the past, the system was dominated by religion; now, it's dominated by reason. In both cases, women's actions were considered a violation of nature. He sifts through some primary sources and sees old pictures and manuscripts depicting witch trials and burnings. As a man of reason, He interprets these past events as unfair and tied to outdated ideals. She, in contrast, sees it as legitimate punishment. Bewildered, He asks, "The literature that you used in your research was about evil things committed against women. But you read it as proof of the evil of women?" 

What He fails to understand is that despite the separation in time, the historical acts and conceptualization of women as evil have led to a culture that inculcates self-loathing and guilt within women. Females are raised in a milieu of self-hatred and grow to despise their susceptibility to nature (emotions, pregnancy, etc). While role playing to conquer She's fears, He asks what nature demands of her. She says, "To Hurt you in anyway I can. I'm outside and within. The kind of nature to do evil things against women." In the film, there are two strong visuals that depict the destruction of women at the hands of their nature. One involves He having sex with She on top of a giant tree (phallic symbol) which has grown on the bodies of dead women. Additionally, at the end of the film, He walks through a forest of dead women strewn around trees (again, phallic symbols). The life of men (one can even argue civilization) and the male dominated concept of "reason" have been built on the subjugation and death of women.   

Throughout the entire movie, sex and anger are both fungible between the couple; one often morphs into the other. Frustrated, She gives into her sexual nature and violently masturbates outside the cabin. During another sexual act, She gets a wooden log and crushes He's testicles, knocking him unconscious. She then uses her hands to stimulate him until he ejaculates blood. This turn of events is very symbolic. For one, She destroys the male power of impregnation, which is partly implicated in the imprisonment of women to their nature. Additionally, the fact that He ejaculates blood instead of semen is symbolic of his feminization; he does not ejaculate semen for impregnation but, instead, ejaculates blood similar to a menstrual period. He now shares in the death marked by miscarriage, abortion, and even a woman's normal menses in which a discarded egg is expelled in blood. The feminization of He harkens back to the "Prologue," in which the director unabashedly shows the couple having intercourse; He's penis is clearly shown entering She's vagina. Despite the fact that von Trier was criticized for the inclusion of this shot as unnecessarily graphic, the point becomes clear as the movie moves forward and repeats phallic symbols connected to female death: males have the ability to penetrate a female and impregnate them, an act that leads to their intrinsic unhappiness. She has taken that away.    

As He is unconscious, She proceeds to feminize him even further by drilling a hole through his leg and inserting a bar and grindstone. This action both literally and figuratively handicaps He, as he can barely walk, and, thus, can now metaphorically experience the cultural handicap experienced by women. He eventually regains consciousness and climbs into a foxhole, which bears resemblance to a womb offering warmth and protection. While in the hole, He finds a crow buried in dirt. The crow begins thrashing around and despite being hit with a rock several times, absolutely refuses to die. She hears the commotion and proceeds to beat him with a shovel and then cover his body with dirt, essentially burying him in the foxhole. The symbolism is strong in this events. She turns the tables and buries him in a "womb" which normally sustains life but is now made a burial site. Finally, the crow that refuses to die is representative of despair as it refuses to go away no matter what the person does to banish it. 

In "Chapter 4: The Three Beggars," She expresses remorse for her actions, rescues He from the foxhole, and brings him back to the cabin. She says the ominous phrase, "When the three beggars arrive someone must die," meaning that all of the components of depression have aligned (at least in von Trier's mind) to bring about the complete destruction of self. In perhaps the most provocative scene in an already provocative movie, She gets a pair of scissors and cuts off her clitoris. By removing her clitoris and He's functioning testicles, She frees herself of her sexual nature and, thus, the choice between unfair responsibility and sexual gratification. She removes that which imprisons her to nature and that which contributed to her child's death. This act is She's gynocide. Looking up to the sky, He sees constellations of The Three Beggars: Grief, Pain, and Despair, all of which came together to eventually kill She. Of The Three Beggars, She says "none of them have any use." In other words, there is no room for emotion in a rational world. At the end of the film, She tries to stab He with scissors, who then chokes her death.

The "Epilogue" reprises the black and white motif with the aria "Lascia ch'io pianga," which harkens back to the feeling of beauty and civility in the "Prologue." As He wanders from the cabin and picks berries, hundreds of faceless women climb the mountain past The Three Beggars towards the cabin. Because of her actions, She successfully removed what tied her to nature and, thus, assuaged her depression. The faceless women represent the imprisoned women throughout history tied to their biological nature and the persecution of their intuitive attributes that often led to their self-destruction or death. Are they now free because of She's actions or are they moving toward the cabin as a sisterhood who will welcome She into the history of injustice against women? Maybe both.  

Lars von Trier made "Antichrist" was part of his "Depression Trilogy," which also includes the films, "Melancholia" and "Nymphomaniac." von Trier has battled severe mental illness all of his life and "Antichrist" is an allegory about the conflict of self that takes place during depression. Human beings have both rational and emotional attributes, and depression is a profound dysfunction of emotions that distorts reality, which raises the question of whether rational treatments like therapy or psychiatry is effective or even indicated. Ironically, depression and its therapy both involve an imbalance of self. The title, "Antichrist," reflects the reversal of nature inherent in both She's genital mutilation and He's use of rational thinking to overcome nature. For von Trier, both depression and its rational cure involve the destruction of self and the perversion of nature. Depression is not only a medical problem, but a centuries old existential one as well.