ANTICHRISSED

Antichrist Lars von Trier (2009) Denmark/Germany/France/Sweden/Italy/Poland

In a recent piece for the Daily Mail, critic Christopher Hart slammed maverick Danish director Lars von Trier’s controversial new work Antichrist – but also succeeded in creating a controversy all his own. Under the heading ‘What DOES it take to get a film banned these days?’ he went straight for the soft underparts, with the opening words: ‘A film which plumbs new depths of sexual explicitness, excruciating violence and degradation has just been passed as fit for general consumption by the British Board of Film Classification.’

Having a go at von Trier is nothing new, of course. At Cannes, it’s practically compulsory. The part that really ruffled readers’ feathers, however, came in the fourth paragraph. ‘I haven't seen it myself,’ said Hart, ‘nor shall I – and I speak as a broad-minded arts critic, strongly libertarian in tendency. But merely reading about Antichrist is stomach-turning, and enough to form a judgment.’

This was greeted with hoots of derision from readers and commentators of every hue – including fellow critic Mark Kermode – all of whom seemed to struggle with the concept of judging a film you haven’t actually seen. When Hart talked of the film containing ‘horrors the likes of which I have never witnessed’ you could almost sense the half-stifled guffaws of disbelief, and the cry from the bequiffed gentleman at the back of ‘That’s because you haven’t seen them...’

When he went on to harangue ‘the anonymous moral guardians of British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), who in their infinite wisdom, have passed this foul film for general consumption’ you could almost hear the unrestrained cascades of cruel laughter, and the pantomimesque heckles of ‘Their wisdom may not be infinite, but at least those moral guardians bothered to watch it!’

And when he continued by stating: ‘It doesn't surprise me that Antichrist was heavily subsidised by the Danish Film Institute to the tune of 1.5 million euros,’ you could almost feel the furrowing of the eyebrows and lengthy pause for thought across vast swathes of southern Scandinavia, as the entire population of Denmark mused on whether they had just been roundly insulted.

All of these reactions, of course, are grossly unfair. I may not agree with Christopher Hart’s assessment of von Trier’s film, but I defend to the hilt his right to pass judgement on it in a state of complete ignorance. In fact, let me add my own voice to his.

I haven’t seen Antichrist either, but based on blind assumption, hearsay and rumour I judge it to be possibly the best film I have never seen. The opening sequence, in which the couple make love while their child falls out of a window, is both beautiful and heartrending, while the Sleepy Hollow bit with the arms coming out of the tree looks absolutely marvellous.

As far as the much-debated genital mutilation goes, well, I’m all for it. Just another one to add to the collection, from my point of view. And who cares if it hasn’t got a happy ending or a moral? That’s why we have Disney and Dreamworks, for goodness sake. As for the idea that these shocking images corrupt us, I’m with Wes Craven on that one – such cinematic shocks and traumas are small rehearsals for the shocks and traumas of real life, and so are life-enriching, not corrupting.

The bits in between – though largely imagined – are by turns absurd, tragic, funny, sickening, heartwarming, thrilling, stomach-churning, poetic, offensive, bold, terrifying, sentimental, misogynistoc, ironic, meaningless and life-changing, and the sequence in which Willem Dafoe does tricks on a bicycle in an apple orchard to the strains of Burt Bacharach and crashes into the mic boom is sheer movie magic.

Some – bandwagon jumpers, BBFC officials, people who have actually seen the film – may take issue with this unfashionable point of view. But it’s people such as Chris and myself who have the purest possible experience of it, unsullied by the distraction of any kind of objective reality. Certainly, our versions are a hundred times better and/or worse than yours. Born out of sheer bloody ignorance, these are pure and unfettered experiences – untouchable, incorruptible, beyond criticism; something those who have actually seen Antichrist will never know, and have absolutely no right to comment on.

In short, a fabulous film, that everyone, young and old, should see. Or not.