How could I forget!! I recently put myself through the heavily draining Antichrist (2009). Lars Von Trier is a director who I have seen very little of, but read much about. He spearheaded the 'Dogme 95' style of filmmaking which aimed to peel away certain mainstream conventions and direct films in more simplistic ways. Ironically, Antichrist takes no heed to these rules and ends up being an over-produced piece of mainstream cinema... Stylistically anyway... The subject matter on the other hand is extremely hard to swallow and deals with an infants death and the parents who have to live with this tragedy. Dafoe is amazing in his role as the nameless 'He' character, but 'She' ( Charlotte Gainsborough) takes the cake by making you loath every aspect of her brutal transition from a grieving mother to an evil witch (if you will). Without giving too much away, the film turns into a drastically bleak thriller in which the violence and hedonism to follow are said by critics to be simply shock tactics to drag viewers deeper into Von Trier's pit. I was lucky enough to see this without hearing all the hype of the banning, and was indeed horrified and moved by what I saw... Which made it all the more successful as the film I feel it was intended to be. In my opinion, any film that can make me feel as off-centre as this deserves praise.
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