Von Trier’s Antichrist Morbid but Far from Mundane

©2009 Zentropa Entertainments23 ApS, Zentropa International Köln GmbH, Slot Machine Sarl, Liberator Productions Sarl, Arte France Cinéma, Memfis Film International AB, Trollhättan Film AB, Lucky Red SRL.

Throughout much of human history, the forest has always been considered a place of danger and foreboding and in Lars Von Trier’s “Antichrist,” fear of the forest takes on a whole new level of anxiety and shock.

While He (Willem Dafoe) and She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) are having sex, their young child falls from a window to his death in agonizing slow motion all the while Handel’s “Lascia ch’io pianga” plays in the background.

He, who happens to be a psychotherapist, agrees to council his grief-stricken wife with the caveat that they move to Eden, their cabin in the woods.

At first, a gaunt and perpetually bony She substitutes sex for grief throughout much of “Antichrist” but as they both discover, sex is never the antidote for grief especially when it comes to losing a child.

Acorns and trees become objects of dread as do the sounds of the forests which become more and more horrific as She spirals into a deeply imbedded madness.

A constant droning sound similar to that in David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” becomes synonymous with dread.

In one scene, a more sinister version of Mr. Fox from “Fantastic Mr. Fox” tells He that “chaos reigns” which is true in most Von Trier films but so what?

Later, HE reads She’s diary with its incomprehensible writings peppered with motifs suggesting witchcraft and a complete devolution which opens a window into the ravings of a lunatic.

As proof, She asks He to “hit her until it hurts” but when He hesitates at first, She exclaims that “You don’t love me.”

More “Eraserhead”-like music provides the eerie backdrop to fornication in the woods and in a woodshed where She (in a fit of rage) makes a failed attempt at copulation with her husband.

©2009 Zentropa Entertainments23 ApS, Zentropa International Köln GmbH, Slot Machine Sarl, Liberator Productions Sarl, Arte France Cinéma, Memfis Film International AB, Trollhättan Film AB, Lucky Red SRL.

Instead of moving on like most normal couples, She clobbers He in the groin with a piece of split wood rendering him unconscious.

In a “Misery”-esque moment, She takes an antique wood drill, pops a nice hole in He’s leg and immobilizes him by attaching a heavy weight to the leg.

“Antichrist” seems to give new meaning to the phrase: Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn.

After regaining consciousness, He attempts an escape by crawling through the forest where he fights off a raven that wants to make a meal of his leg.

At this point, one almost hopes a giant tree limb would fall on He, She and the entire Von Trier production crew such is the sense of intense, ultra-violent psychosis in this film.

The biggest mistake here is not moving out to the country cabin to heal but He’s insistence on acting as his wife’s psychotherapist which comes into alarmingly sharp focus as She plods through the woods screaming “Where are you, you bastard?”

The level of pain and suffering in this film are on such a massive scale as to almost render this film comical and beyond hyperbole such that the hyper-violence in “Misery” and “A Clockwork Orange” come to mind as being almost sophomoric.

Despite the morbid subject matter and depressing montage and script, “Antichrist” draws the viewer into a kind of morbidly weeping vortex reminiscent of a diabolical peep show.

She’s actions toward the climax of “Antichrist” are clearly meant to precipitate a type of suicide-by-cop action by her husband.

The climax itself is beyond watchable except in some countries where self-mutilation is still acceptable (spoiler alert).

Gainsbourg, as Von Trier’s bony yet electrifying muse, is as usual intelligent and dynamic in her believable depiction of a broken woman who slides into madness following a tragic loss.

Dafoe too is great in a performance that rates him high as the quintessential actor’s actor.

“Antichrist” is dedicated to the Russian director Andre Tarkovsky who may have agreed with the notion that if there is any redeeming message to be gained from this film, it’s that the ugly side of human nature has its place among all forms of human artistic endeavor including cinema, but that doesn’t mean that the ideology of art for art’s sake is for everyone.

It’s not a stretch to say that “Antichrist” may be perceived as being completely inaccessible to all but the biggest Von Trier fans but it’s also a film that the viewer can’t help but watch simply out of curiosity much as motorists slow down to view a horrific automobile accident.

Still, based on Von Trier’s catalog of films to date, I’m sure that he would be okay with that assessment.—-Steve Santiago

Artist entertains but Chaplin it’s not

Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo star in "The Artist," 2011, The Weinstein Company

When I first saw “The Artist,” I couldn’t quite make out whether this film was a gimmicky effort made to appeal to a niche segment of cinephiles or a finely crafted homage to the silent era.

Directed by the relatively unknown Michel Hazanavicius, “Artist” (2011) has garnered glowing critical review including three Oscar nominations for Hazanavicius: best director, best original screenplay and best editing.

Despite that, “Artist” is still not in the same league as its cinematic ancestors: “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928), “The Battleship Potemkin” (Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925), “Greed” (Erich von Stroheim, 1924), “The General” (Buster Keaton, 1926) and “Metropolis” (Fritz Lang, 1927) are just a handful of films from that era that should, at the very least, receive a special screening by the academy prior to handing out any statuette for “Artist.”

But with its legions of gushing critical followers, that seems unlikely to happen.

In any event, “Artist” opens with a screening of George Valentin’s (Jean Dujardin) latest silent picture “The Russian Affair” during which aside from him being tortured by a Frankenstein-like electrical device, not much else happens.

But after the screening, a starstruck fan, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo),  accidently inserts herself into media frenzy outside the theater and is photographed planting one on Valentin’s face.

When his wife Doris (Penelope Ann Miller) sees the photo on the front page of Variety the next day, she is none too amused by both Valentin and his kooky Jack Russell Terrier, Uggie, who is trained to mimic Valentin’s pantomime.

The Weinstein Company, La Petite Reine, Studio 37

Meanwhile, Peppy Miller is ecstatic at having been photographed by Variety and decides to go on an audition at Kinograph Studios.

While waiting for her audition, she shows a butler (a bored Malcolm McDowell) the magazine cover and is dejected when he still doesn’t recognize her.

After earning a role and receiving a nod of approval from the casting director, Peppy celebrates with a Tiger Woods-like fist pump.

She then turns to a still seated McDowell and says “My name is Peppy Miller” to which McDowell wryly smiles and shrugs it off.

The Weinstein Company, La Petite Reine, Studio 37

Valentin later suggests Peppy paint a fake mole above her upper lip to attract more attention and miraculously she starts commanding better roles.

As time rolls on to 1929, sound technology comes into being and Valentin’s relationship with Doris

becomes more mundane and strained.

On top of that, Studio head Zimmer (John Goodman) screens one of the first rushes employing sound and Valentin laughs it off  as a joke.

“If that’s the future, you can have it,” he sniffs (perhaps echoing the same criticism Walt Disney received when he first proposed producing animated feature-length films).

Not surprisingly, Valentin inexplicably wakes up to an entire world using the new technology of sound only he is unable to speak, still silent and still holding on the a bygone era.

It turns out to be a Buñuelian dream from which Valentin awakens sweating and clearly disturbed― so much so that the normally outgoing actor becomes introspective on the ride to the studio at which he discovers that most of the silent actors and stage hands are gone.

Kinograph Studios has decided to halt production of silent films in favor of talkies.

“You and I belong to another era, George. The world is talking now,” Zimmerman tells a stunned Valentin.

In a matter of hours, Valentin discovers that he has gone from yesterdays box office idol to today’s washed up actor―it wasn’t possible back then to hang on for dear life by coining boorish phrases like “winning.”

Meanwhile though, Peppy Miller is winning having signed a deal with the newly reinvented Kinograph Studios.

She still believes in Valentin and eventually helps resurrect his career but only after Valentin makes one more desperate attempt at producing and acting in his own silent film which fails miserably.

The Weinstein Company 

“Artist” is an entertaining, well made and aptly researched and edited piece but the effusion of positive critique of it as something new rather than novel is puzzling and makes one wonder whether or not some critics are really familiar with the silent film canon.

Still, in addition to the categories for which it is nominated, “Artist” should probably also be nominated for best costume design, best cinematography and music score.

Everything is period correct even down to interior light switches and poster fonts.

Under ideal circumstances, there should probably be more of a push to restore original silent films and screen them at modern theaters but as they say, “every dog has its day” and if there were such a thing as an Oscar for dogs, Uggie would certainly earn my vote.―Steve Santiago

 

‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ delivers again and again

Noomi Rapace & Michael Nyqvist in 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' (2009) Yellow Bird, Nordisk Film

To say that Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a gripping crime thriller really barely scratches the surface of what is really a sweeping work of fiction that  delivers an eye-opening look at how wealth and immorality corrupts and destroys a prominent family while at the same time condemning certain aspects of modern Swedish society.

Helmed by the relatively unknown Danish director Niels Arden Oplev, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  really does have it all―sex, violence, marital infidelity, political intrigue, corporate corruption and of course numerous references to Sweden’s brief WWII experiment with Nazism.

The Girl with the Dragon  is based on Stieg Larsson’s wildly popular “Millennium series” of novels which were released shortly after his death in 2004.

All three novels in the series (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, (The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest) dissect the underbelly of 21st century Swedish society while the stark beauty of the Sweden’s countryside provides a naturally dramatic backdrop.

In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is an investigative journalist who loses a libel case involving a wealthy but corrupt businessman named Hans-Erik Wennerström (Stefan Sauk).

Despite being sentenced to three months in prison and ordered to pay thousands in damages, Blomkvist is hired by Henrik Vanger, the former CEO of Vanger Corporation, to investigate the disappearance of his great-niece Harriet.

Because Harriet has been gone so long, Henrik rationalizes that Harriet was murdered yet each year on his birthday he receives gifts of pressed flowers leading him to suspect that either it’s a joke from the killer or Harriet is still alive.

It’s no secret that Henrik deeply despises his family which only further muddies the waters of potential suspects.

“For all intensive purposes the Vanger family was made up of a thoroughly unpleasant bunch and there was a mutual hatred among us,” Vanger tells Mikael.

Girl takes place around Christmas time but there is anything but cheer and tidings of joy.

Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is a surveillance agent/computer hacker initially hired by Vanger’s lawyer to investigate Blomkvist but she believes Mikael has been set up and eventually is arm-twisted into joining his investigation into Harriet’s disappearance.

Rapace’s portrayal of the rakish, antisocial Lisbeth is brutally ice-cold yet brilliantly believable and consistent throughout the entire 152-minute film.

When Lisbeth is assaulted by a group of thugs in the subway, she manages to fight them off with a broken bottle.

And when her guardian/probation officer Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson) threatens to withhold money from her unless she performs sexual favors, she frames him by secretly videotaping her own rape.

 

Peter Andersson & Noomi Rapace (2009) Yellow Bird, Nordisk Film

                                                                                                                                

Like most modern films, product placement rears its ugly head in the form of prominent placement of Apple laptops.

But that’s not really as annoying as how it seems every time a computer is hacked, the screen displays “ACCESS GRANTED” as if that needs to be spelled out every time.

Still, Girl has returned nearly $105 million in box office which might explain why American production companies caught a whiff and decided to remake a 2011 version directed by David Fincher and starring the latest “Bond” muse Daniel Craig.

I’m also not sure how Daniel Craig, more known for his action roles, will come across as an investigative journalist although he does have an uncanny resemblance to Michael Nyqvist.

What really sets the Swedish version apart from its inevitable American clone is that in this version, the music and dialog are consistent throughout the film.

Absent is the typical American penchant whereby inaudible dialogue is followed by ear-shattering audio simply for dramatic emphasis.

The astonishing climax is reached through steady and surefooted building of plot points in a way any adult would appreciate because the editing in Girl is methodical and mature without being boring.

Early theatrical promotions for the David Fincher-helmed Girl made it seem like the film would be the next great MTV music video rather than a high-quality dramatic thriller which this film is supposed to be.

It is said that imitation is the best form of flattery but in this case you’re probably better off seeing the original.—Steve Santiago

   

Melancholia It’s What’s For Dinner

"Melancholia," 2011, Zentropa, Nordisk Film Distribution, Magnolia Pictures

If you’re on the fence as to whether you’ll have a big lavish wedding—don’t, otherwise you could have an entire planet crash the party and ruin the festivities.

Such seems to be the message of Lars Von Trier’s latest offering, “Melancholia” starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Alexander Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling and John Hurt.

The film is presented in two parts entitled “Justine” and “Claire” which at first glance would seem to suggest some sort of meaningful dichotomy but  in reality is just a single unified treatise on how depression runs in families.

At first, “Melancholia” stylistically resembles Zack Snyder’s “300” in its visual richness combined with the psychological tension of a Bergman film.

In one of the first few shots, Justine (Dunst) is seen in close up looking like she scraped herself off the sidewalk after an all-night rave party.

Next, Melancholia itself appears out of the abyss as a stunningly beautiful, benign orb while Justine floats down an idyllic stream in her wedding dress almost right out of a Tennyson poem.

As the film’s title would suggest, Justine inexplicably falls into a severe depression on her wedding night.

The reception is at a gorgeous Victorian-era mansion owned by Justine’s sister Claire (Gainsbourg) and her husband John (Sutherland).

But perhaps in a sign of things to come, Justine and Michael’s (Alexander Skarsgård) stretch limo almost doesn’t make up the narrow unpaved road leading to the mansion.

Then things go from bad to worse as Justine’s shrewish mother Gaby (Rampling) and bumbling father Dexter (Hurt) almost single-handedly derail the nuptials.

Justine and Michael share a moment

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Gaby toasts the happy couple. “I myself hate marriages especially when they involve some of my closest family members.”

With parents like that, it’s no wonder Justine goes off the deep end.

She refuses to consummate her marriage to Michael and eventually gets dumped that same night but not before she boffs her co-worker,Tim (Brady Corbet) outside on the lawn.

Meanwhile John, despite channeling Jack Bauer, goes from self-assured lord of the realm to basket case.

At first he appears to be the only level-headed character in the film but when he discovers that Melancholia won’t just graze Earth but actually slingshot back and collide, he decides to check off the planet by committing suicide.

With all the depression running amuck, it’s no wonder John forgot that his primary responsibility to his family was to provide for them and protect them from harm.

Not that he could do anything about a rogue planet impacting Earth, but he could’ve saved face by at least pretending.

“Melancholia” was beautifully lensed in champagne golds, rich earth tones and brooding blues by Manuel Alberto Claro (“Reconstruction,” “Dark Horse,” “Allegro”).

Hey, if the world’s going to end, at least everything looks pretty.

Von Trier’s choice to score “Melancholia” almost exclusively from Richard Wagner’s “Tristan & Isolde” catalog definitely sheds light on why everyone’s in a bad mood.

“Melancholia” premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival where the verbally unedited von Trier made controversial statements that some perceived anti-Semitic.

Still, Dunst (who battled her own melancholy back in 2008) won the award for Best Actress and really put in a performance not seen since her role as Claudia in
“Interview with the Vampire.”

Stellan Skarsgård sans pirate makeup puts in a fine effort as Justine’s priggish boss Jack.

“Melancholia”is a well-crafted movie that’s worth seeing on the big screen, just remember to have a big bottle of Prozac on hand afterwards.—Steve Santiago

Panic in the streets

"A Town Called Panic" 2009, La Parti Production, Made in Productions, Mélusine Productions, Beast Productions, Gebeka Films,

The past few years have witnessed a resurgence of decent stop-motion animated films that are slowly but surely reintroducing the genre to audiences who may recall classics like Art Clokey’s “Gumby” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” but not much else.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the iconic “Gumby” (which for decades provided hung-over college students with fodder for papers on pop culture) and “Rudolph” (really an early PSA on dealing with bullies and marginalization) but they both needed a dusting off.

Enter “Panique au Village” or “A Town Called Panic,” an out-of-competition selection screened at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

Directed and animated by the Belgian team of Stéphane Aubier  and Vincent Patar, the labor-intensive, French-language film clocks in at 76 minutes and utilized over 1,500 plastic toy figures over a 260-day production period.

The plot of “Panic” is relatively simple yet refreshingly twisted:

Cowboy (Coboy) and Indian (Indien) realize they forgot fellow roommate Horse’s (Cheval) birthday, so instead of buying a practical gift like a saddle, they decide to build him a barbeque grill from scratch.

When the Bert-and-Ernie-like roommates attempt to order the bricks online, they leave a coffee cup on top of the keyboard zero key and mistakenly order 50 million bricks instead of the 50 bricks the project requires.

Thus, the panic ensues—a chain of events that can only simultaneously be called absurdly surreal and knee-slapping funny.

Cowboy and Indian complete the barbeque in time to celebrate Horse’s birthday but can’t figure out what to do with the rest of the bricks so thinking Horse won’t notice, they stack the bricks on top of the house– which of course results in the whole place collapsing.

Each day they rebuild the house and each night the walls are stolen by mischievous aquatic creatures called Atlanteans who occupy a parallel universe inside a pond owned by a perpetually agitated farmer named Steven.

When the trio discover the Atlanteans stealing the walls of their house, a chase ensues during which the three heroes get chased by an angry bear, fall down a hole to the center of the earth, get trapped inside a giant snowball-throwing penguin and eventually confront the thieving sea creatures but not before escaping a school of angry barracudas.

Rounding out the frantic village people are : Jeanine (Steven’s wife), Policeman, Madame Longray (a music teacher and Horse’s love interest) and an assortment of barnyard animals.

“Panic” was originally developed as a 20-episode series for French and Belgian television in 2003 but the idea of using animated, cheap plastic toys first came to the creators during the 1980s when the directors were art students in Belgium.

By employing a frenetic, Gumbyesque editing style and what the creators describe as character vocalizations “filled with laughing gas,” “Panic” evokes a filmic quality more commonly associated with auteurs like Luis Buñel and Jean Cocteau yet it is stylistically 21st century.

And although the TV series enjoys a cult following in Europe, Shrekkies and Pixar followers across the pond may not warm up to a film like “Panic” simply because there simply is a lot crazy stuff going that does not employ a linear narrative but then again that’s where the real beauty (and fun) of this film actually lies. —Steve Santiago

“Incendies” a conflagration you don’t want to put out

"Incendies" (2010), Micro_Scope Productions, TS Productions,Phi Group

“War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it, and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.”

So said Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman during the American Civil War but it also quite aptly describes the underlying plot of “Incendies,” a Canadian film released in September 2010.

Directed by Denis Villeneuve and adapted from Wajdi Mouawad’s play “Scorched,” “Incendies” literally translates from French as “fires” and delivers nothing less than a film characterized by epic brutality and terror counterbalanced by moments of human sweetness, empathy and sacrifice.

At a reading of their mother’s will, twin siblings Jeanne and Simon Marwan (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette) are puzzled by her seemingly mad requests.

Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal) insists on being buried face down, without a coffin and sans a headstone.

The twins always thought their mother had a screw or two loose but never really knew why.

When Nawal requests through notary Jean Lebel (Rémy Girard) that her children deliver two letters—one for a brother they never knew and the other to a father they presumed was dead—Simon walks out in disgust.

At first only Jeanne makes the trip back to the Middle East but once she starts piecing together who her mother really was—a student turned freedom fighter, assassin and later tortured political prisoner—Simon agrees to join her and find out the truth about their mother.

Although not directly stated in the film, “Incendies” takes place during the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990 during which up to a quarter million people were killed, over one million people displaced and Beirut, once regarded as the “Paris” of the Middle East, was destroyed.

Director of Photography Andre Turpin adroitly captures the vastly vacant, dusty landscapes of the Middle East with an uneasy beauty that avoids turning this film into a travelogue.

The horror of war is particularly brought to the forefront during a scene in which a bus carrying Arab travelers is ambushed members of a Christian militia who at a checkpoint riddle the bus with gunfire and torch it.

“Incendies” is a film that keeps driving forward like a wild herd of mustangs until delivering its unbelievable climax.

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2011, much of “Incendies” takes place during a period of war yet is not about war per se, but about how war and cruelty destroy the human soul and strip it of its brilliance and beauty.—Steve Santiago

Old debts sometimes better than new ones

"The Debt", (2007), Evanstone Films Ltd.

It seems as Hollywood continues to exhaust its pipeline of creative ideas for movies, it simply resorts to remaking foreign cinema  that it hopes will be more palatable to American audiences.

I’m not a big fan of Hollywood remakes of foreign films and the current remake of 2007’s “The Debt” is no exception.

For one, domestic remakes sometimes tend to run longer—the new “Debt” runs almost two hours as opposed to the original which runs a leaner 90 minutes.

Two, remaking a high-quality work of art is like saying you can make fine French champagne at home simply because you use the same ingredients and have a cool cellar to store it in.

“Ha-Hov,”—”The Debt” as it is known in English—is and Israeli spy thriller told in Hebrew and German which opened November 2007 to critical acclaim in Israel.

Written and directed by Assaf Bernstein, it stars Gila Almagor (as the retired Rachel Brener), Edgar Selge (Max Reiner), Itay Tiran (young Zvi), Yehezkel Lazarov (young Ehud) and Netta Garti (as young Rachel Brener).

The film opens in 1964 as Rachel, Zvi and Ehud, three young Mossad agents, return to a hero’s welcome in Israel after claiming they dispatched Max Reiner, the notorious Surgeon of Birkenau.

Unbeknownst to everyone except the agents, the story is a fabrication as Reiner managed to escape the agents’ safe house but not before laying a beat down on two of the agents—Rachel winds up getting slashed in the face and Zvi comes home with his arm in a sling.

Flash forward 35 years and the mission is considered a high point in Mossad history until Reiner’s name turns up in a newspaper article.

It seems that ‘Surgeon of Birkenau’ is not only alive but living well in an upscale Ukrainian nursing home.

Meanwhile, a retired Rachel has been keeping herself busy training new Mossad agents and authoring a book about the now famous mission which turns out is a complete farce.

Later when confronted by Zvi to finish the mission, Rachel refuses until Zvi reminds her, “What do you remember each time you see this (her) scar?”

He insists that Rachel be the one to dispatch Reiner before anyone finds out he is still alive.

At a cocktail party celebrating her new book, she goes for more champagne only to cut her hand on a glass and flashes back to the 1960s mission.

Apparently, the post-war period has been very kind to Herr Doktor who has now set himself up as a well-to-do gynecologist adept at using his speculum—what else would a former Nazi doctor do for a living?

Rachel Brener (Neta Garty) poses as a young married patient of the doctor who is trying to get pregnant.

With each appointment, she recoils in fear knowing the atrocities committed by her physician.

And Reiner’s arctic-like bedside manner doesn’t make it any easier as he icily stares at her and repeats, “This is my hand, and this is the speculum.”

The suspicious doctor also asks Rachel who referred her to him after detecting that her German accent sounded foreign.

“The war changed a lot of people,” Reiner flatly states both referring to his innocent victims and his new found success as an ObGyn.

The plan to smuggle Reiner back to Israel to stand trial gets derailed after he gets his hands on a razor and escapes the safe house.

Despite its subject matter, The Israeli version of “The Debt” is a breath of fresh air and features a new way of storytelling from an otherwise not well-known national cinema.

Other than “Ajami”(2009),”Waltz with Bashir”(2008), “The Delta Force” (1986), “Iron Eagle” (1986) and maybe a few others, Israeli films have largely been absent from American theaters except maybe for a few art houses in large cities.

If you want a longer movie featuring more gunfire, faster-paced music, Dame Helen Mirren and faster cutting, then see the American version of this film.

Otherwise, stick with the slightly older, more satisfying “Debt.”―Steve Santiago