While in the woodshed, she attacks him, accuses him of planning to leave her, mounts him, and then smashes a large block of wood onto his groin, causing him to lose consciousness. Upon viewing Nic's autopsy and photos she took of him while they stayed at Eden, the man becomes aware that she had been systematically putting Nic's shoes on the wrong feet, resulting in a foot deformity. He suspects that Satan is her greatest hidden fear. The man reprimands her for this, and in a frenzied moment, they have violent intercourse at the base of an ominous dead tree, where bodies are intertwined within the exposed roots.
She reveals that while writing, she came to believe that all women are inherently evil. The area becomes increasingly sinister to the man acorns rapidly pelt the metal roof, he wakes up with a hand covered in swollen ticks, and finds a self-disemboweling red fox that tells him, "Chaos reigns!" In the dark attic the man finds the woman's thesis studies, which includes violent portraits of witch-hunts, and a scrapbook in which her writing becomes increasingly frantic and illegible. During the hike, he encounters a doe that shows no fear of him and has a stillborn fawn hanging halfway out of her.ĭuring sessions of psychotherapy, the woman becomes increasingly grief-stricken and manic, often demanding forceful sex. They hike to their isolated cabin in a woods called Eden, where she spent time with Nic the previous summer while writing a thesis criticizing gynocide. She reveals that her second greatest fear is nature, prompting him to try exposure therapy. The father, a therapist, is skeptical of the psychiatric care she is receiving and takes it upon himself to treat her personally with psychotherapy. The mother collapses at the funeral, and spends the next month in the hospital crippled with atypical grief. Īn unnamed couple has sex in their Seattle apartment while their toddler son, Nic, climbs up to the bedroom window and falls to his death. It was followed in 2011 by Melancholia and then by Nymphomaniac in 2013. The film is dedicated to the Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–86).Īntichrist is the first film in Von Trier's unofficially titled Depression Trilogy. Other awards won by the film include the Bodil Award for Best Danish Film, the Robert Award for Best Danish Film, The Nordic Council Film Prize for best Nordic film and the European Film Award for best cinematography. Filming began in the late summer of 2008, primarily in Germany, and was a Danish production co-produced by several other film production companies from six different European countries.Īfter its premiere at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, where Gainsbourg won the festival's award for Best Actress, the film immediately caused controversy, with critics generally praising its artistic execution but remaining strongly divided regarding its substantive merit. Written in 2006 while Von Trier had been hospitalized due to a significant depressive episode, the film was largely influenced by his own struggles with depression and anxiety. The narrative is divided into a prologue, four chapters and an epilogue. It tells the story of a couple who, after the accidental death of their son, retreat to a cabin in the woods where the man experiences strange visions and the woman manifests increasingly violent sexual behavior and sadomasochism. Antichrist (stylized as ANTICHRIS♀) is a 2009 experimental psychological horror film written and directed by Lars Von Trier and starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg.