Welcome to the latest edition of Head to Head, in which our Quickflix critic takes on our readers in a rip-snorting battle to the death! You pick the film, and we pick the fight!
This week, Lee Zachariah (from Ain’t It Cool News!) pulled out his scissors and *** *** *** ****** of Lars von Trier‘s controversial Antichrist (but not before ******* ** *** ***** ** **** *****)! You can send your mini-reviews to us here at Quickflix too!
Lee Zachariahwill argue AGAINST the film while Quickflix critic Simon Miraudo will argue FOR it. Let us know in the comments section below who you agree with. Spare no vitriol! Choose your side! There can only be one winner!
Lee Zachariah – 2/5
It’s not so much that I don’t like Lars von Trier; it’s more that I hate his work with the heat of a thousand suns. His obvious desperation to be “edgy” makes him his own worst enemy, and never has that been more apparent than in Antichrist. For the first time ever, Antichrist showed me von Trier’s potential as a great filmmaker: there are some moments in Antichrist that are astonishingly good, and evidence that von Trier has it in him to make amazing cinema. But far from being a brave auteur, he is constantly weakened by his desperation to be “shocking”. A close up of penetrative sex in the opening sequence is strangely juvenile; likewise, the way that Charlotte Gainsbourg descends into psychotic madness eschews its promise of psychological complexity in favour of scenes designed purely to grab headlines and secure von Trier as some sort of dangerous artist. “Shocking” does not mean “explicit”, and von Trier’s childish desire to further his reputation is what steered the promising Antichrist into failure.
Simon Miraudo – 4.5/5
I thought the first half movie was amazing the first time, but the second time it sort of bored me.Gainsbourgh is amazing and some of the cinematography is excellent, but von Trier really goes off the rails in the third chapter (and that penetration shot almost kills the otherwised fantastic opening sequence). I'm siding with Lee on this one
That's me done with Lars von Trier. I should really have tossed it in after Dogville… This was such a self conscious pile. Lars was there standing over every scene, contriving the weirdness, the gratuitous torture (why stop at a clitorectomy when you can toss in ejeculating blood) and even the occasional beautiful scene. But the movie never existed on its own, you could always feel the dead hand of Lars in every scene. Even amazing performances from Dafoe and Gainsburg were overwhelmed by the von Trier conceit. Note to Lars – leave the creepy happenings in the woods to David Lynch