Or horror, as when genitals are scissored off, masturbation produces blood rather than semen and holes are drilled into legs. Hence, many of von Trier’s more outrageous, ultra-serious symbolic moments (such as a talking fox, its guts half ripped out, muttering “chaos reigns” in an “Exorcist” voice) will - and did, in the press screening - undoubtedly provoke unintended laughter. Clearly, or rather not so clearly, von Trier is working in a full-out symbolic vein here, as did Strindberg late in his career, but alas, the film medium inevitably carries with it, like an albatross, a heavy charge of realism. In discussing this self-styled “most important film of my career,” von Trier has referred to the forbidding Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The fact that the first three are “Pain,” “Grief” and “Despair” does not bode well. At this point, von Trier switches to color and his signature chapter headings. Bereft, they retreat to Eden, their ironically named cabin in the woods, to recuperate from their loss. As we learn in a rather pretentious prologue shot in slow-motion and black and white, their toddler son has fallen to his death through an open window while they were making love. “Antichrist” is relentlessly and solely focused on a married couple, played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
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