Lars von Trier's Antichrist may be the work of the Devil himself

I had been looking forward to seeing Lars von Trier's new film, Antichrist. The trailer, posters and photos looked pretty cool and they had an excellent style to them. Plus it was naked people being saucy in a spooky looking woods.

However, the film has been shown at Cannes and it may not be as good as we thought. Here is what Jeffrey Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere had to say about it.

There's no way Antichrist isn't a major career embarassment for costars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and a possible career stopper for Von Trier.

It's an out-and-out disaster -- one of the most absurdly on-the-nose, heavy-handed and unintentionally comedic calamities I've ever seen in my life. On top of which it's dedicated to the late Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, whose rotted and decomposed body is now quite possibly clawing its way out of the grave to stalk the earth, find an axe and slay Von Trier in his bed.

Here's a portion of Von Trier's "director's confession" from the press book:

"Two years ago I suffered from depression. Everything, no matter what, seems unimportant, trivial. I couldn't work. Six months later, jsut as an exercise, I wrote a script. It was a kind of therapy, but also a search, a test to see if would ever make another film.

"The script was finished and filmed without much enthusiasm, made as it was using about half of my physical and intellectual capacity. Scenes were added for no reason. Images were composed free of logic or dramatic thinking. They often came from dreams I was having at the time, or dreams I'd had earlier in my life.

"In any case I offer no excuses for Antichrist. Other than my absolute belief in the film -- the most important film of my entire career!"

A man whom I've admired and respected for many years has lost his mind for the time being, or at last lost it while he was writing and shooting the film.

Have you seen it yet? Do you agree with Mr Wells?

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