immediate thoughts on antichrist *SPOILERS*

this is my experience on monday night watching ANTICHRIST. it was extraordinary and nothing like the hyped up gore fest i had heard about. it was the story told in chapters with a prologue and epilogue about a couple dealing with the death of their young son and the cruelty and indifference of nature. i purposefully did not want to know too much about it before going in but cannot avoid speaking about it fully here so if you haven't seen it look away now but take my word for it, its worth going to see what your reaction is.

it begins in beautiful slow black and white. a toddler gets out of the safe confines of his cot and manages to open the stair gate then seeing the snow is fascinated and plummets to his death. interspersed with this is the sight of his parents, only referred to as he and she, fucking. the harshness of the word must be used for the sight of it is graphic and carnal. it is not pornographic but it is natural and if it was not so beautiful it would be almost clinical. it is clear that the couple were having a shower, wanted each other and started doing it all over the house, ending up in bed.

the next chapter deals with the initial grief. the woman has been sedated since her grief and guilt is so profound and he (now identified as a therapist) tells her she doesn't need the drugs and he can help her through this. he wants to protect her and guide her through her grief. he probes and prods at her feelings, trying to control the situation and her. she has anxiety attacks and can hardly breath, he identifies that she has a fear and he wants her to examine her fear so takes her to the countryside, a log cabin they have in the forrest called eden. he will not comfort her with sex, will not let her escape and soothe her grief but only talk her out of it.

once in eden the surroundings seem to suck them in, at times the lush greenery seems distorted, like its twig claws are pulling them into its darkness. she complains that the ground is burning her, he identifies a freudian cure and draws a pyramid to help explain, identify exactly what the problem is. he sees eden, this place, nature as top of the pyramid of fear. she seems to see this as intrusive but he will not stop. he seems to start to become suspicious of nature, not understanding things about it the way she does. the acorns dropping on the roof (completely natural) seem to be like bombs. he starts seeing animals in the forrest that seem to be warning signals - a doe with a stillborn baby still hanging from its womb, a bloody fox and a screaming crow. she tells him that she was researching her book gynicide (a study of medieval witch hunts and a discussion of the innate evil of women and original sin) last summer when she heard a scream, thought it was the baby but realised it was the scream of all things that will die. the acorns falling on the roof are all essentially sperm that will not fertilize the earth and she says she can hear them crying. she also states that nature is satan's church. she demands sex and they make love in a tree root surrounded by human bodies.

the next chapter is when she turns on him. she can't find him when she wakes and certain he has left her she knocks him out, rams a log into his crotch to emasculate him and whilst passed out masturbates him (he climax spurts blood and semen) then screws a heavy stone to his leg and retreats to the forrest. when he wakes he crawls out and finds shelter in the tree root where a crow gives him away. she finds him and buries him alive. later she seems to come back to rationality and digs him up, drags him back and holds him. she then masturbates and has a memory of seeing her son plummet as she orgasms and finding the guilt at her enjoyment of sex unbearable, takes a pair of scissors and cuts into her clitoris. he awakes and sees the deer, fox and crow surround her, takes off the grindstone and strangles her. he then burns her body on a pyre and escapes on some crutches.

again in black and white we see him leaving eden but then hundreds of faceless people, clothed, climb into the forrest, possibly the souls of all living things whose destiny is to die.

i am still thinking about this and feeling this film. there are a hundred things i could say about it but the first thing i was reminded of was when i was about 9 years old being on holiday in cornwall with my family. i'd not been very well in the day and woke up and it was dark. i went to see my mum and couldn't find her. everyone was in bed and asleep, i awoke my dad and he said she'd taken the dog for a walk. i sat in the living room and heard a scream. the most accurate thing i have ever heard in real life that could be described as "blood curdling". i went cold. i was convinced that my mum had been attacked. i tried to wake my dad but he wouldn't, he said it was just a fox but i remember being out of my mind with fright. maybe it was only half an hour but it felt like an eternity stood in the garden of that house that was in the middle of nowhere in the forest calling for my mum and seeing only the blackest night, nature staring back at me. it also made me think of the hurricane at the end of the zora neale hurston novel "their eyes were watching god". nature is uncaring, indifferent. it seems cruel but it has no feeling it just is and it is much stronger and powerful than any human, it cannot be tamed. this is one of the best films i have seen and will leave me thinking for weeks.