Earlier this week I watched Lars Von Trier's Antichrist on pay-per-view television. Very disappointing. Sitting down to watch it, I was aware that it had received generally negative reviews, though I hadn't actually read any of these reviews. I admire some of Von Trier's earlier films—The Element of Crime, Europa, Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark—but I've found his recent films increasingly numb and treadless, rote quasi-provocations, and his latest is no exception. For all it's sex-and-guilt violence, and despite some memorable imagery (see above image), Antichrist is not nearly the outrageous work it was billed as being, though it's plenty dumb at times . . . and occasionally downright laughable.
