mtreveler

John Doe says in "Se7en": "Wanting people to pay attention, you can't just tap them on the shoulder. You have to hit them in the head with a sledgehammer." L. von Trier was tapping on the shoulder with "Dogville". He turns to a sledgehammer with "Antichrist". The problem is that when you have been hit by the extremities of his latest endeavor the most appropriate question you may want to ask seems to be suggested by the next line of the late detective Mills: "What makes you so special that people should pay attention?"

This movie doesn't strike as an overt emotional manipulation like "Dancer in the Dark" (the fact that the latter is really something that can be described in such a way was eventually admitted even by the director himself). The cinematography is stunning - in a good sense of the word. Several frames with Willem Dafoe's face will certainly enter the gallery of iconic images provided by modern cinema. Even the dedication to Tarkovsky was not vain. But von Trier is neither stupid/ talentless nor childish/egocentric - hopefully, at least - to the extent to actually consider making movies a kind of therapy, and the screening room his own private couch at a shrink's. So he is trying to bring in a meaning here after all. If so what is it?

What is that point he is trying to deliver? Human nature is far from being perfect? It's hardly new news. The aesthetic audacity and harshness of images in "Dogville" were fully justified by a consistency of its message, which they conveyed in a completely adequate way. As far as I can see, von Trier was talking then about the unbearable hypocrisy of our modern civilization and an inevitable catastrophe this civilization is heading for (while his account made I'm afraid a pretty accurate description of the actual situation). What does he have to add with this feature? Is it that all evil which falls upon people is intrinsically immanent in human nature? Having experienced or witnessed a critical amount of grief, pain and despair man comes to some point when even a concept of good, God, hope or whatever you call it is becoming virtually inconceivable? And after that chaos reigns? That to fight that man has to kill an evil in himself which he might love? But this fight is doomed anyway if a natural arena for it happens to be a world "issued by Satan"? It's a kindergarten philosophy. Some of these things may very well be true and correct, but to make all these daring assumptions and observations it's quite sufficient to have read a dozen of books or had just one good look around. There can be several more interpretations - some somewhat less coherent, some even more banal. What are justifications of all this excruciating imagery we encounter in "Antichrist" then? It's not quite clear.

So I should say that it is a bit surprising that the audience has happened to be so polarized. In fact, this movie is neither too good, nor too bad. And I might be missing something but I have a strong feeling that von Trier can be quite justly accused on this particular occasion of doing something he was quite wrongly accused of doing on some previous ones - of trying to compensate in a badly provocative manner a certain shallowness of his work and its half-baked message by the extremities of the way in which they are presented.

This movie's trailer declares that "the new age of erotica coming in 1997". Unfortunately, the movie itself hasn't become the beginning of a new era of porn. It rather remains a sole achievement, a still unattainable paragon of the genre (however I should mention that I am not familiar with other Philip Mond's endeavors ).

The movie's biggest accomplishment is the way in which it approaches the most critical problem of porn movies - a 'meaning' thing. The total absence of any sense (even on some atmospheric level) which characterizes almost all productions of this genre renders almost immaterial any other 'developments'. The attempts to deal with this problem (some of them were pretty expensive) have one common mistake - they tend to ignore the objective parameters set by the genre (you have only 20 min between 'action' scenes, at most, to tell a 'story'; this 'story' should live through these scenes which last much longer etc.). As a result, in almost all those movies that undertook somewhat ponderous attempts to bring in some 'meaning' through introducing some 'plot', the latter exists separately from everything else. "Conquest" with Jenna Jameson is a good example - the plot does not affect the 'action' scenes in any way - in fact, most of them are worse than those from any average quality production. So what we have is just a silly waste of time and money.

Having, obviously, grasped the same idea - you can successfully handle this problem only by incorporating somehow a 'meaning' into an 'action' - "Zazel", on the contrary, finds a perfect solution. It offers a plot, chaste as it is, but which immaculately pulls this whole thing together. Without any dialog (the only thing that we can hear is a narration) it renders meaningful not only all the 'action' scenes, but each element of them: settings, costumes etc.

Apart from this accomplishment the movie has two indisputable assets: a marvelous soundtrack by Dino and Earl Ninn (it contributes into the general meaning with its every instrumental part as well as with occasional lyrics) and a piece of stunning perfection - the red beauty Anna Romeo. This graciously moving gray-eyed honey has three scenes in the movie (plus one as a body double) and is absolutely dazzling in all possible ways.

All those things compounded give us something that goes far beyond subjects that are commonly considered the pinnacles of the genre - normally gorgeously looking, but, in fact, pretty tedious and senseless Andrew Blake's average fumbling around, for instance. Something that even in strictly cinematic terms (considering the amount of resources used) is way above a good half of conventional Hollywood mainstream. It's the quintessence of the genre - an exquisite visual meditation on pure beauty of pure form. When you are watching it, at times, it feels like the world might make some sense.