Abode of Evil Lars von Trier is a well-known provocateur who loves to torture the viewer with prolonged slaps, not wanting to let go or soften his madness at mercy. “Antichrist” is the pinnacle of his work and the best film. Here, metaphor and symbolism reach the highest concentration and diversity, shrinking within the narrow framework of the storyline.
In one prologue, the whole universe and the religious human worldview are examined at once. There is life as a continuous process of achievement and development, of seeking purpose and of receiving pleasure. Meaning is the driving force of all this reality. And as in any worldview, we are clearly shown the entire medal on both sides, forcing us to choose where it is important and where it is reversed. The spiritual meaning is a family, a child and home cozy happiness, life for others, investing your knowledge in the new generation, a happy family in its classic view. The material sense is the desire for pleasure, obtaining the maximum pleasure from life, the key and highest sensation of sweetness in which is orgasm and in general physical intimacy, the feeling of a loved one, the feeling of complete fusion into a single whole being, when neither Adam nor Eve are indistinguishable from the divine whole and when fleeting pleasure makes you forget about everything.
Everything must be paid for - this is the first postulate and the first problem raised, which closes before it has time to open, but with a thin needle this topic will permeate the scenes of history again and again until the very end.
The director devoted a lot of time to the study of the key concepts of psychoanalysis, starting from the ideas of Freud and contrasting them with the views of Carl Jung. And even in direct text, after all the carnal metaphors, we are told that “Freud is dead!”, although this sounds rather not even from the standpoint of modern approaches to psychoanalysis, but from completely different positions. On the one hand, this is the famous statement of F. Nietzsche, where Freud replaced the key figure of religious existence, and on the other hand it is only an interpretation of modern science in its refusal to consider dreams and the occult arts as something essential.
It was to occult philosophy and the reading of such concepts that Trier devoted no less time than to Freudianism and psychoanalysis. Without any even superficial knowledge of religious signs, alchemical laws and astrology, it will be impossible to understand why a deer appears in a particular scene, what acorns mean, what certain actions are done for, and many fragments of the film risk losing their meaning, because they themselves are contradictory, like any truth.
Truth is always contradictory and at least dual. Literally, each character is presented with a variety of meanings, sometimes partially contradictory due to the contentious context of the situation. Trier deliberately puts each scene under different symbolic angles of interpretation to show the saturation of symbolism, the diversity of meaning in each such episode. And the viewer will have a long time to realize and understand such elements, when the rapid plot is already sliding further into the depths of human consciousness.
Man is the center of the universe, each is the starting point of his own microcosm, directing his life. The study of the human soul, behavior, character, and temperament is the third stage of discovery and knowledge of the depth of content. Gradually, like an uneven staircase, before us lies the path of immersion in a deep depression, and then in madness. Each stage is spelled out remarkably clearly, with each element at the peak of possible things.
Nature is the church of Satan, the fourth postulate that plunges us into the depths of the whole universe. Gradually forgetting that the rotten dead nature around is only part of the environment, that the very essence of nature is within us, inside the characters of the film, inside every thought and in the deep reaches of the spiritual world of each person, in his consciousness. The issue of struggle is particularly acute here. Obey animal instincts or fight for your humanity. After all, a person as a species is capable not only of grandiose compassion, but also of incredible cruelty.
The Beast Inside is the fifth stage and fifth postulate of the film, telling about the mental anguish and torment that pass to the level of physical sensations. The bitterness and empty sadness have ended, all the tears have been wept. And immaterial sensations begin to become part of the surrounding nature, the surrounding reality, the animal essence of evil breaks out.
Torturing and torturing the viewer, driving each scene to madness, to the apogee of passion, whether it is violent rampant sex or inhumanity in brutal manifestations of violence. Violence after violence, level after level, level after stage, and with each bell and whistle, it gets stronger and worse, harder and worse. And the strength to put up with nature is no longer when you reach an understanding of the idea itself. All this is nothing more than nature and reason in their eternal confrontation and, more importantly, in their interaction.
Chaos rules everything! - this is the sixth, or rather 666th, pillar of everything that happens. Each has its own beast that seeks to consume and destroy. One part invariably strives for creation, for observation, for a desire to be cured or to know, and the other half tries to destroy all the best, leaving only the pain that makes them relive their mistakes again and again. There will be no forgiveness until the very essence of man, all his external and internal nature, can understand and accept himself with all his problems and shortcomings. And the master of natural cruelty is none other than the king of cunning, tormented by fate. The Antichrist Himself!
Death is only a new beginning, this is the epilogue, this is the final, seventh attitude. Each has his own. To each his own hour and his own time. No one will die until the three beggars come. And, perhaps, only then, having completely lost himself and his essence, will the side wake up that was torn into a bunch of small spiny acorn stars, which formed non-existent pictures of a non-existent forest, in the sick fantasy of a grieving man who came to despair.
Lars von Trier managed to turn the human soul inside out by proving that God and the Devil are one person. And there is no evil, there is no good, there is only nature and life either according to its laws or the desire to conquer it. And everyone in life has the opportunity to choose, everyone has the right to happiness and suffering, to make mistakes and make decisions. And life, meanwhile, is rolling along a sloping, sharpened bloody stone that drove through someone’s fate, into the fogs of a fabulous forest of a sick imagination. And the monster that lives inside regularly keeps repeating over and over again: chaos rules everything!
An amazing psychological and metaphorical horror film about the struggle between the spiritual and the material, about human fear and its forms. Dedicated to the very nature of phobias, the mysteries of the human soul and immersion in longing, anxiety and depression. Strong, filled with occult and religious symbolism, a film about nature that surrounds us, which should never be forgotten, because it is within us and we are in it.
9 out of 10
Original