Antichrist (2009)

Antichrist is a fairground ride through the brain of a genius, both nightmarish and apocalyptic, extraordinarily beautiful in its tracking imagery through the sinister forest. No one escapes chastisement in this distrustful, depression-amplified vision of humankind.

The critic describes a troubling but refreshing sense of an artist uncloaked in this primal scream of a film about grief and gender war. They single out the honest provocations and sympathy for the female character for praise, while noting the wildly shifting reactions it provokes.

The critic views it as von Trier's horror film, an anthology of horror-art references with committed acting and moments of beauty and terror, though it deliberately splits audiences.

Ebert highlights the courage and conviction of Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg in their extreme roles, treating the film partly as a document of their performances. He sees it as a provocative exploration of evil, grief turning to despair, and human cruelty, with the actors elevating von Trier's vision.

The critic finds the film a powerful, daring and fractured work of audacious on-screen catharsis that confirms von Trier as the mad master-imp of world cinema. They single out the outrageous abandon with which the director expresses his psychological traumas for praise, while noting the graphic violence that overwhelms any thematic message.

Lane acknowledges the film's shocking provocation and silliness but finds it makes sense as a study of the link between loss and lust, praising Gainsbourg's dramatic dominance and certain striking images. He notes von Trier's terror of female power and the extremity of the violence while valuing some credible emotional intensity.

The film is a smirking contraption engineered to provoke liberal outrage about violence, misogyny and censorship. Von Trier is a talented mischief-maker who bodyslams his way back into the limelight with this nasty, clever hoax disguised as a film.

The critic finds the film a baffling, nightmarish provocation that assaults the viewer but ultimately proves boring and incoherent despite strong technical elements and committed performances.

The critic calls it a baroque horror essay that is too loopy and coarse for art-house audiences and genre buffs alike. They single out the intense but misleading Gothic trimmings around the gender-war theme and the turn to torture-porn tactics for complaint.

Scott calls the film ponderous, conceptually thin, and dull rather than genuinely scandalous or upsetting, despite its graphic sex and violence. He singles out Charlotte Gainsbourg's raw, anguished performance in the first half as its strongest element amid an otherwise dubious exercise.

The critic suspects the film is either a sincere personal work or a prank designed to outrage, delivering exactly the extreme reaction von Trier seeks but awarding the lowest rating.

The critic dismisses the film as a pretentious, boring abomination driven by the director's self-indulgent fantasies and contempt, lacking any redeeming artistic value.

The film is offensive yet too transparent to shock, interesting only briefly as an act of confession. Von Trier transplants sexist myths into a modern context without wrestling with them, instead arrogantly defending his own sins.

The critic calls it the least artistically successful von Trier film, with grandiose ideas overwhelming the modest story and commercial prospects slim. It works better visually but falls apart when trying to tell a story with real people.

The critic finds the film a powerful psychological horror that lingers through its manipulation of trauma and sexuality rather than gore. Von Trier's approach to grief, nature as a symbol of fear, and extreme imagery is singled out as a challenging but valuable experience for horror aficionados.

The critic calls the film essential and conceptually stunning for its raw exploration of grief, depression, and misogyny allegations through explicit folklore-horror imagery, while criticizing technical issues like poor handheld camerawork and editing that disrupt immersion. The personal and confrontational nature is singled out for praise.

The critic finds the film a supremely audacious and graphically extreme nightmare that begins as an elegant grief drama before descending into twisted horror and abstraction. While acknowledging its misogyny and capacity to shock, the review ultimately praises its calculated design and sheer audacity.

The review describes the film as an exorcism of von Trier's inner turmoil following depression, praising its craft, impressionistic sequences, and arresting violence while noting its provocative and dubious symbolic elements. The opening, closing, and therapy scenes are highlighted as elevating amid the brutality.

Dafoe and Gainsbourg deliver powerful, believable performances that keep the film watchable, but the story is shallow and fails to say anything meaningful about grief or the human condition despite its provocative elements.

The film pulses with outright hatred and disgust for women rather than mere misogynistic undertones, with an inconsistent tone that veers into comedy and graphic genital mutilation that disrupts coherence. Atmospheric cinematography provides the only real merit.

The critic sees the film as neither masterpiece nor mere grot-shocker but a deliberate hoax and prank by von Trier. It is visually striking and daring in places but ultimately shallow and mocking of the audience.