Issue 130 – Reviewing Antichrist
Lars Von Trier
Rod Stoneman on how, with the sensation caused by Lars von Trier’s latest effort, some critics have shifted the emphasis onto the reviewer and off the reviewed.
Bryan Appleyard’s review of Lars von Trier’s film Antichrist in The Sunday Times (Culture section, 12th July) provides some indications of the contemporary roles of both European arthouse filmmaker and critic: two versions of ego performance are on display and mutually reinforce each other. The director deploys the same tools of precise self-marketing as he did when he launched Dogme95 and meanwhile the broadsheet film reviewer builds a discourse around the film to position his exaggerated negative opinions as a definitive judgement.
The filmmaker
Lars von Trier created Danish dogme with its ‘Vow of Chastity’ – a series of semi-arbitrary rules and a fetish for authenticity. The freewheeling style involved a high degree of improvisation and a roughness in the arrangement of materials; its proposal that its aesthetic was not to have an aesthetic, was of course disingenuous. It had a high impact as a new national brand and was a very effective marketing ploy – strengthening the impact of a ‘new wave’ of Danish cinema and bringing a momentary constellation of energetic directors to the foreground internationally. As the most prominent filmmaker in the movement, von Trier became a positioned persona; both within Denmark and in world cinema he is a celebrity, allowed to (expected to) behave ‘badly’ or provocatively within the sub-category: artist. Paradoxically, the statement in Rule 10 of the dogme Manifesto: ‘The director must not be credited… I am no longer an artist…’ only serves to reinforce his auteur status. His public persona has been cultivated as a product and his phobias (having to drive from Copenhagen to Cannes as result of his fear of flying), his tantrums and rows with actors capture media attention and reinforce the image of his ‘difficult’ talent. The more difficult, the more talented.
He is deliberately aware of the implications and effects of the arrogant and provocative comment he made in defence of Antichrist at the Cannes press conference. When pressed to justify his film by Baz Bamigboye of the British Daily Mail, he replied: ‘It’s the hand of God, I’m afraid. And I am the best film director in the world. I’m not sure God is the best god in the world.’
The full article is printed in Film Ireland 130.
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