Review: Antichrist (2009)

Ever since its release, I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Lars von Trier's Antichrist. Despite its shocking images and actions, even despite the controversy that still surrounds the film, I still love and hate this film for its artistic cinematography and cringe worthy visuals that have haunted me long after I first watched it.

The term "antichrist" is commonly associated with being the exact opposite of Christ, but if one were to look at the Greek word that it is translated from they would see that it really means "opposed to Christ". This is a good starting point for the movie since the main character of film is not supernatural in any way, but instead just a normal man who loses the common moral values of normal people as the film's events take their course. Even though he embodies evil and lacks all good, this is more of a reflection of his nature and not a representation of who he is as a human being.

The film opens with a man and a woman making passionate love. The man, simply known as He, and the woman, simply known as She, experience this moment of pure good until their infant son in the next room crawls out of his crib and subsequently takes a dive out of an open window. This opening scene, entitled "Prologue", sets the stage for the next three chapters of the film: Grief, Pain, Despair (considerately named after the three stages of mourning). In an attempt to console She, He takes her out to their cabin (named Eden) where he counsels her in her anger, guilt, and despair.

After this event has occurred, we as an audience must assume that both He and She are at psychological breaking points. We are told that She has been spending her time researching witchcraft and has been wondering whether or not women are naturally evil. We are also told that He has been distant from She and their son, which begins to imply that He lacks emotion towards She and their son. I believe that the event of the death of their son inspires him to attempt to punish the woman responsible for the life of their son.

Grief is the first stage of mourning and in this film it is legitimate, except that they make a mistake. Their mistake lies in how they decide to try treat their grief instead of trying to accept it and move on with their lives.  Naturally the two of them realize that all the blame for their son's untimely demise lies on their shoulders for having sex when they should have been paying attention him. They feel guilt, and by the strange logic the world of this film seems to follow, guilt demands punishment.. She decides to put herself through mental punishment. For He, the punishment is having to deal with her guilt, by lecturing her in a patient and calm manner that eventually becomes more inane and ultimately destructive overall.

All of this guilt and punishment eventually leads to Pain, the second chapter. This pain is inflicted onto He and She by themselves and each other. The pain that She endures from his attempts at counseling is eventually joined by the pain inflicted upon them by nature. The forest is not what it seems, instead it houses strange creatures, such as a fox and a crow, and are depicted in way that is most certainly not natural in any manner.

This film, and especially these parts, have been attacked and referred to as "torture porn". While this film definitely has a sadomasochistic quality and feel to it, it's a stretch to call it erotic. It's hard to imagine that any viewer would find what is on screen arousing in any manner. Trier can be commended for having made a film that is deliberately shocking since it is pretty much made to shake the audience. This film can be seen as a more of a study of fear than anything else. On a more personal level it addresses the fear in people that real evil does exist in the world, that other "common" people in the world have the ability to inflict limitless cruelty onto themselves and each other.

Review: I Saw the Devil (2010)

Over the years cinema from the East has made its way over to the West, especially cinema from Korea, and my god can the Koreans make a revenge film. I Saw the Devil is a grisly horror/thriller that opens with a young and newly engaged woman named Ju-yeon (Oh San-ha) talking to her love on the phone as she waits for a tow truck to come and save her from her broken down car in the middle of nowhere. As she speaks with her love, a good Samaritan stops and offers to check her tire pressure despite her telling him that she has a flat anyway. Immediately after hanging up the phone, Ju-yeon is attacked and dragged away by the Samaritan who then promptly murders her, chops her up into pieces and scatters her throughout a river running under a bridge. Ju-yeon's lover is a man named Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hyun), a special agent for the South Korean government, who decides to use all of the powers available to him to search for the killer. After making his way through a small list of suspects he comes across Kyung-chul (expertly portrayed by Choi Min-sik of Oldboy fame), the man responsible for the brutal murder of Ju-yeon. Soo-hyun is not a man in the mood for simple revenge, but instead decides to plan a more elaborate revenge,a slow one that involves Kyung-chul experiencing as much suffering as his victims have, even if it allows Kyung-chul to continue on with his murderous ways. 


In a country that obviously up to its eyeballs in murderers, Kyung-chul seems to stand out. He like variety in his killings, utilizing unique methods of dispatch. Then there is the issue of his personality. He is cranky, irritable, quick to take offence; his hair trigger temper initiating his acts just as much as psychological state. Kyung-chul's personality however is in stark contrast to that of his hunter, Soo-hyun. Soo-hyun is quiet and patient, his emotions and grief are cloaked behind his determination, and he never stops to look at what he is doing. Through this way he is very similar to Kyung-chul and thus it never occurs to him that by hunting a monster, he himself is becoming just as and even more of a monster as his prey. 


Brutally violent, but beautiful to look at, I Saw the Devil is perhaps the best example of "cat and mouse" storytelling I've seen. Most movies that claim to be this type are more like "lion and gazelle". The hero chases the villain until he is caught or killed and then it's roll credits. This film however has a 'hero' who is not simply satisfied with simple revenge. Instead he hunts him down, tortures him a bit, puts a tracking device on him, and then lets him think he's escaped-several times. This is how cats normally deal with their prey. 


Cinematographer Lee Mogae's compositions placed next to the nighttime beauty of the South Korean countryside consistently contrast with the horrific actions that are taking place on the screen. But moving on from just the presentation, what causes I Saw the Devil to change from disgusting horror film to an ultra-violent thriller are those that are left behind in the wake of what has happened, starting with the emotionally destroyed Soo-hyun. Even though he is now in his own personal hell, he is not alone, those being with him are the father and younger sister of Ju-yeon. The course of action that Soo-hyun takes only serves to amplify his sorrow, but considering that the film's characters inhabit a world where the merciless prey upon the innocent, his decisions are understandable. 

Review: Revanche (2008)

Revanche is a German-made thriller about two things: the deep needs of female's and the criminal nature of males. Revanche tells the story of a miserable couple who go by the names of Alex and Tamara. Alex and Tamara both work at a seedy Vienna brothel where he works as a bouncer and she works as a prostitute. The two are very unhappy, with Alex sneaking around to have romantic encounters with Tamara behind his boss' back and Tamara being up to her eyeballs in debt that she will never be able to pay off on her own. Even the pimp who Tamara works for has his eye on her, where one day he visits her for sexual purposes and Alex is forced to hide under the bed humiliatingly. Realizing that they both are in need and want for a change, Alex decides to rob a bank for money that will pay off Tamara's debts and allow the two of them to run away and begin a new life. Tamara naturally begins to become nervous of Alex's plot even though he reassures her that nothing will go wrong even to go as far as making sure the gun isn't loaded.
But things do go wrong and a cop shows up and surprises Alex and Tamara as they get into the getaway car, whereupon Alex chooses to take shelter at his father's cottage in the country. It's here that the story changes from cops and robber and turns into a more human story about revenge and, ultimately, acceptance. While in the country Alex meets Susanne, the wife of his neighbor who is the cop who surprised him during the robbery.  Susanne desperately wants to have a child and the audience soon discovers that her husband is void of the ability of making her pregnant, so she begins pursuing Alex who is the the son of her old neighbor that she deeply cares for. The two of them begin having relations on a regular basis, but nothing of the long lasting relationship kind and it's during this that the real conflict of the film begins to arise. It's the possibility of violence. There's the risk of Alex's exposure as a criminal, there's the threat their togetherness presents to Susanne's marriage, and there is the possibility of harm coming to the old man. Instead of using these things to manipulate the story, they are used just to help convey a well fleshed out story.

Perhaps what I liked about this film the most was how the actors were unknown (at least to me they were to me, after all I'm not that well oriented with modern German cinema). In today's cinema, many actors are chosen because they will draw in moviegoers and make money, they are stars that directors and studios know will bring in money if their name is slapped onto the poster of the movie. This film works due to how normal the actors look, they are believable in the setting of the movie. They are unglamorous, they are plausible. Tamara represents the value that looks have in a buyer's market, and Alex looks like the lowest common denominator of society who has been worn down even more by crime and prison throughout his life.

Review: Alien (1979)

Ridley Scott is a director with a great track record with such films as Thelma and Louise, Black Hawk Down, Gladiator, and the phenomenal and extremely misunderstood Blade Runner. Amongst all these accolades one film in particular cannot be ignored and that is Alien; a film that helped revitalize the dying genre of sci-fi horror.

Alien tells the tale of the crew of the Nostromo, a commercial towing vessel that receives a transmission of unknown origin from a nearby planet. Acting upon the orders from their corporate employers, the Nostromo lands on the planet and sends a small party out onto the surface of the planet to discover the source of the transmission, whereupon one member of the party returns with an unknown parasite attached to their face. Soon after, the members of the crew find themselves being hunted by a bloodthirsty monster in the cramped interior of their ship.

When it really comes down to it, Alien is a film about things that jump out of the dark and kill you, much along the lines of Halloween and Jaws. Even one can see the films obvious influences from films like Howard Hawk's The Thing From Another World, another tale about a team that finds an alien and are subsequently picked off one by one. This where Alien begins.

Alien is a film with excellent pacing. It's slow and takes its time with the exposition, something most films these days do terribly. There are long creeping shots in the beginning of the film with a very low almost inaudible soundtrack backing them. There is the long and slow descent onto the surface of the planet and the discovery of the alien ship. Scott takes his time showing these scenes in order build up tension, something that would not be done if this film was made today. Almost all of today's horror films are about the pay off, not about the buildup. If this was made today, the crew would have immediately been thrown in the outstretched claws and open jaws of the alien. It's not the slashing we like, it's the build up to the slashing. This brings to mind Hitchcock's famous example of a bomb underneath a table. If the bomb explodes, it is action. If the bomb does not explode, that is suspense. One of the best aspects of Howard Hawk's The Thing From Another World was not the shots of the team fighting the alien, but the shots of the empty hallways of the arctic station where the monster might be.

And this is where Alien makes possibly its best decision. Over the course of the film the alien evolves from the creature that lays its egg, to it as a newborn, to it as a full fledged monster, and this works extremely well because it prevents the audience from truly knowing what the alien really looks like as well as not completely showing the monster in its entirety. By doing this, an air of the unknown is created since the audience is left to wonder how the alien can be dealt with since some sets of rules concerning it are set forth, such as how its blood is acidic and will eat through the hull of the ship if the crew attempts to kill it.

The art design for this film is top notch coming from H.R. Giger (the design for the alien coming from his painting Necromon IV). The design of many of the film's sets possess a gothic technological quality with the alien and the alien ship having a machine like look as well as an organic one. All of Giger's creepy and disturbing art as well as his color choice in his work really shine through in this film.

Many have called Alien one of the most influential films of its genre and it is deservedly so. Even though it has gone on to influence many other films, the problem lies in the fact that these films only look at the thrill side of Alien and not the thinking side of it. Horror films today have turned into this strang genre where their attitude is "Hey, we got you to pay for your seat, now let's attempt to disgust you". It's sad, but true. Despite the sad truth, one should really go back and watch the landmark film of its genre.