If were gonna go the auteurist route, let me say the I'm convinced that Von Trier made exactly the movie he wanted to to make. It just isn't a very good movie. The point of this film can be reduced to something as simple as Von Trier showing his contempt for just about everything. Nature is portrayed as destructive force, an eternal process of death, and while a good movie certainly can be made around that premise, Antichrist quickly spirals out of control into some psychosexual parable about women being evil. Or something; the theme of witchcraft is clumsily shoved in by having Willem Dafoe find some spooky books in the attic. And while I find the overall point of the movie to be morally objectionable, it ultimately fails to present its twisted morality in an interesting or engaging way. Yes, women are witches, the world is evil, we get it, but so what? It just seems hollow, and when it all becomes tedious, the movie attempts to reconquer our attention by showing us graphic acts of violence. Sometimes it seems that a one-dimensional portrayal of an evil world drenched in a distinct directional style is the only criterion for something to warrant the distinction of "art". Lars Von Trier does his thing to perfection, but it's just not very interesting in my opinion.
Review of Antichrist
