Runtime: 1h 48m (108 minutes)
Denmark, Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, Poland, 2009
Director: Lars von Trier
Cast: Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg
Language: English with Danish subtitles
Age rating: 18+
Tickets available at Cinemateket ODEON Kino
Antichrist is an intense exploration of evil, power, and love between two people. The film delves into profound questions about good and evil, nature and culture.
The story follows a couple, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe, who retreat to a cabin in the woods to process their grief after losing their young son in a tragic accident. The accident occurs while they are making love in the bathroom, accompanied by a Händel aria in the film’s infamous opening scene.
Their sorrow is deepened by intense guilt, and the husband, a psychologist, insists they must confront their trauma to heal. When he asks her where she associates her greatest fears, she replies, the forest. Thus, they set out into the woods—a place both literal and symbolic, which Lars von Trier calls Eden.
Upon its Cannes premiere, Antichrist sparked extreme reactions, from applause to outrage, with some audience members walking out in protest. The film was banned in several countries due to its highly graphic content. This ignited debate over whether Lars von Trier is a manipulative fraud or a visionary artist.
Above all, Antichrist is an enigmatic film, rich in symbolism and layered meaning. Its imagery—shifting between beauty, horror, and grotesqueness—evokes paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, surrealist cinema by Buñuel, and the dreamlike landscapes of Russian auteur Tarkovsky, to whom the film is dedicated.