IFC has picked up Lars von Trier’s latest, Antichrist, for U.S. distribution. The film is currently creating a storm of controversy at the Cannes Film Festival with its physical, sexual and emotional brutality. The film follows a couple (played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) grieving over the death of their infant by retreating to a cabin in the woods and then shit hits the fan in a dozen different ways. Roger Ebert has a great piece discussing the film’s despair and brutality along with the film’s Biblical or perhaps bizarro Biblical implications.
Anyway, IFC is thankfully saying they intend to release it here in its full uncut glory, even though von Trier’s production company had already said they were prepared to make cuts in order to get into some of the more prudish nations’ theaters. I’m dying to see this. It sounds like von Trier fully committed to this project in all its infinite ugliness. Despair and human brutality isn’t something I want to be drenched in with every film, but I’d love to see it done well once in a while, and to me it sounds like it’s at least done intelligently and purposefully here.
I’ve attached the previously seen trailer below the fold:
