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Lars Von Trier's 'Antichrist' Shocks Audiences at Cannes

by Blaine Metzgar | May 21, 2009 at 08:53 am

628 views | 10 Recommendations | 5 comments

Lars Von Trier's latest film, Antichrist, premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival and was nothing short of shocking to the audience. The film stars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, the daughter of famed French icon Serge Gainsbourg, as He and She respectively. Noted for his use of graphic sexual and violent imagery, Von Trier's Antichrist takes graphic to a whole other level.

Warning, the following quote is disturbing, seriously.

“Gainsbourg hits Dafoe so hard in the testicles with a plank of wood that he lapses into a coma. He ejaculates blood when she masturbates him. She drills a hole through his leg before tying him to a rock. But the scene that has caused the most disquiet is the close-up of Gainsbourg’s character cutting off her clitoris with a rusty pair of scissors.”

The plot of the film is questionable even to star Gainsbourg, saying, "I can't describe it. I saw it yesterday again and thought that I could finally see his vision but not understand it."

Antichrist opens with a heavily stylized, black-and-white, slow-motion portrayal of the child's accidental death set to soaring music by Handel.

Dafoe's character, who is a therapist, tries to help his wife deal with her grief and encourages her to come off heavy medication that sedates her for weeks after the death.

They decide to go to an isolated wooden cabin in an unspecified forest to recover, but the woman Gainsbourg portrays loses control of her senses.

The American distribution rights to the provactive film were purchased by IFC Films but the movie's most graphic scene has been cut for release.

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Amy Judd

at 09:19 on May 21st, 2009

There will definitely be an underground movement to get a copy of this film with the most graphic scene left in, sick as that is..

Jarrett Martineau

at 09:20 on May 21st, 2009

And I thought The Idiots, Breaking the Waves, Dogville, Dancer in the Dark, The Kingdom and Medea were disturbing. This is going to be a whole new level of crazy. Wow.

ynot4tony2 (not verified)

at 19:02 on May 25th, 2009

Why do I get the feeling that if this film did not have the over-the-top genital violence, no one would be talking about it. It would just be another crap-pile, lame horror movie. Actually, that's exactly what it is...except with more genital mutilation.