Although Lars vonTrier's Antichrist is set in Washington state, themagical gloom of his Scandinavian forebear Ingmar Bergman clings to the scenerylike frozen fog. Antichrist is asequence of scenes from a dissolving marriage infused with the uncanny. Thefilm's dedication, to the great Soviet-era Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky,is a clue to the always-provocative Danish filmmaker's intentions. Dafoe'scharacter, trimming the incomprehensible cosmos to fit some theory or other, isjust the sort of rigid, know-it-all rationalist that the dissident Tarkovskydespised.
On the surface,Dafoe seems like a model of strong compassion for his wife. Devastated by theloss of their young child, Gainsbourg is limp as a sail on a dead sea, deflatedand without hope. She blames herself and she blames her husband for hisdistance and distraction. Attraction and repulsion mark her increasinglyunhinged emotions toward Dafoe. She loves him but hates his controllingdominance of their life. Content to live within the walls of his intellect,this somber and sober man has a ready answer for everything, delivered in calm,reasoned tones. “Fear isn't dangerous,” he tries to assure her, but she isn'tbuying the balm. She knows fear too well.
For Dafoe, avacation to their off-the-road cabin, pointedly called Eden, is a carefully planned exercise intherapy. But careful plans have little weight in a universe with unfathomablevariables. At one point the clouds lift from Gainsbourg's brow and she appearsrecovered from depression. Her mood darkens abruptly when she perceives thecomplex, uncomfortable truth: Dafoe is less happy that she's well than inproving his textbook theories correct.
Nature surroundsthem, brooding and mysterious as a 19th-century Romantic painting of theterrible sublime. Dafoe thinks he's having “crazy dreams”; surely the fox thatgrowls “Chaos reigns” can't be real? Meanwhile, Gainsbourg, who had beenwriting a thesis on the persecution of witches, grows increasingly witchy underunkempt eyebrows and a wild mane of hair. Considering humanity as part ofnature, made from the same clay as the forest and its creatures, her thoughtswander down the dark alley of original sin. Perhaps natureand everything init, including usis inherently evil? Dafoe's value-free psychologizing canneither contain nor address the idea of evil, even when the most perverseviolence overtakes everything in his life.
In Antichrist'sprologue, the child falls from the ledge as the snow fallsoutside, as the spray from the shower head falls in slow motion while Dafoe andGainsbourg are having sex. At their cabin in the woods, acorns fall and fallonto the roof in an unnerving death rattle. The fall of the world into evil isthe theme. “Acorns don't cry,” Dafoe insists, resisting Gainsbourg's impulse tofind life and death and meaning in every rustling leaf. Perhaps it's madness,but she is obviously hearing something beyond her husband's narrow range.
7 and 9 p.m., Jan. 29; 3, 5, 7 and 9 p.m., Jan. 30;and 3, 5 and 7 p.m., Jan. 31, UW-Milwaukee Union Theatre.
