After years of gut-wrenching “Golden Heart” films, chalk-outline experiments about “America,” a co-founded movement for pure cinema and other infamous works including his most recent, the explicit horror film Antichrist, it’s easy to forget that Lars von Trier started his feature film career in the science fiction genre. Of course, he being who he is, Von Trier’s dystopian detective story The Elements of Crime isn’t easily identifiable as sci-fi.

And neither, I’m sure, will be his next venture, a “psychological disaster” film titled Planet Melancholia. I’ll ignore the Hollywood Reporter’s reference to “Roland Emmerich territory,” especially since it follows the equally asinine description of Antichrist as being in some way related to a slasher film, and stick to comments from Von Trier and his partner at Zentropa Entertainment, Peter Aalbaek Jensen.

First: The filmmaker’s statement of “no more happy endings!” could easily be the next Von Trier t-shirt, joining the recently released “chaos reigns” design and the Van Halen-style tee.

Jensen added that hopefully no genitals will be cut off, that there will be some special effects employed, that this won’t be about an alien invasion (though there apparently will be a threat from the titular planet) and that this will be “romantic, in a Lord Byron sort of way.” I’ll admit the only familiarity I have with Byron is as a character in Bride of Frankenstein. But regardless, as a longtime fan of Von Trier’s, I’m excited for this film no matter what the inspiration or comparison.

After he dedicated Antichrist to Andrei Tarkovsky, though, I’m really hoping Von Trier sets his new film on a spaceship, a la Solaris. You know Von Trier in outer space would be the greatest thing of all time.

Check out what other film bloggers are saying in response to this news after the jump:
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Because last year’s list of dress-up ideas for cinephiles was a hit, we’re doing it again. From movies released in the past 12 months, there are few obvious costume ideas. We’re sure to see a lot of guys dress up as the main trio from The Hangover, while girls inspired by Whip It will be sexy Girl Scouts (with or without roller skates).

This time around, though, we’re presenting ten costume ideas that shouldn’t be too popular. And that makes them somewhat appealing, because nobody wants to show up at a Halloween party where someone else is dressed in the same outfit (especially if the other person’s costume is better). Of course, keep in mind that some of the following unpopular ideas could in turn make you unpopular, too.
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Film blogs are sure to be a buzz-influencing force at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, which opens tonight and runs through the 19th. And they better be, especially after the apparent runaround bloggers — including Spout’s own Karina Longworth — were getting from the TIFF press office last month regarding credentials. Alex Billington of FirstShowing even arrived in T.O. only to find that the festival had still not decided if he should be given a badge (he was eventually granted credentials).

Anyway, Karina will be reporting through the fest’s run, but I want to first share what some other bloggers are writing as the fest begins. Check it all out after the jump:

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If there was any question as to the changing face/function of the studio-dependent art house division, the just-announced 2009 New York Film Festival line-up offers compelling proof that the concept of the indie label-as-Oscar bait factory is losing currency. The last two NYFFs featured the US or North American premieres of studio-division-distributed eventual Oscar nominees The Queen, The Wrestler, Happy-Go-Lucky and I’m Not There (as well as red carpet and/or press conference appearances from the likes of Hollywood movie stars such as Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie and American cinema stars such as Wes Anderson and Steven Soderbergh). Though the NYFF 2009 lineup is full of films with US distributors, it’s notably lacking in excuses for Oscar campaigns (with the exception of Lee Daniels’ Push, which is hardly a fresh choice — it’s basically played every major festival in the world since winning Sundance, though it was pulled from what should have been its Film Society debut) and, with the exception of Penelope Cruz in Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces, is virtually star-free. I’m not complaining — the kind of film I’m talking about often ranks amongst NYFF’s biggest disappointments — but it does seem like a notable swerve away from business as usual. (And will I *ever* see The Road?)

What the NYFF 2009 lineup lacks in Hollywood-friendly star power, it makes up for in auteur weight. The festival will screen newish films (many first screened at Berlin, Cannes, Venice or Toronto) from Lars Von Trier, Pedro Costa, Jacques Rivette, Alain Resnais, Todd Solondz, Claire Denis, Michael Haneke and more. Cannes favorites Vincere and Police Adjective will be there. Catherine Breillait’s Bluebeard and Maren Ade’s Everyone Else, both missing in action since Berlin, will be there, too. But if NYFF is going to function as a near-year-end best of the fests, there are still some titles that seem noticeably omitted — will *you* ever see Dogtooth?

The full line-up is here.

A friend pointed me to this inane editorial in the Guardian Daily Mail, in which Christopher Hart rails against the British ratings board for giving Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist an 18+ certificate rather than banning the film outright. Comparing the film unfavorably to the eye gouging scene in King Lear, Hart writes,

The world of Antichrist, by contrast, is blatantly amoral, without any sense of justice or retribution whatever. Its mingling of sex and violence, the cheapest and nastiest trick in the book, is usually one which the BBFC pounces on in a straight horror film. But here they are blinded by their own cultural snobbery, swallowing the lie that Antichrist is Art.

Harsh words … which might actually merit serious argument from me if not for this preceding admission:

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2009 may be remembered as a “down year” for the Cannes Film Festival — certainly, some press and industry faces familiar from previous years were nowhere in sight; certainly, celebrity directors like Ang Lee, Pedro Almodovar and Quentin Tarantino showed up with new films that failed to single-handedly rescue the world economy by the end of their first screenings — but isn’t it a down year all around, not just for film but for, like, life on Earth? In a time as stagnant and depressed as this, what can we reasonably expect a film festival to do? Never once in my eight days at the festival did I question whether Cannes does or does not matter. Spending hours each day in Market badge lines composed of Cannes’ equivalent of rabble (myself included — I was standing in those lines because my coverage is not important enough to the Festival to merit press accreditation) the weight of the event doesn’t seem up for debate — you’re literally fighting over seats with too many people to whom Cannes matters to.

Back in New York now, maybe I should have a clearer perspective, but it’s hard. Even as the bigger films failed to meet my expectations, even as Lars Von Trier stomped in like Godzilla, swallowed the press corps whole and left the festival in ruins (and I *liked* Antichrist), even if I went home without seeing anything that matched 2008’s A Christmas Tale or Modern Life as sure-to-endure masterworks international cinema … I’ll still do whatever it takes to go back next year. I spend an awful lot of time covering things out of obligation because they’re perceived to matter to someone; in return, let me be selfish. Let me have Cannes, if for no other reason than because it matters to me.

And with that: after the jump, you’ll find my collected coverage. At right, the one photo I managed to take of “local color” - because even the coffee at Cannes this year came with unneccessary nudity.

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Though not for lack of trying, I haven’t seen a film worth really writing about in days. This afternoon I check out Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, about which I’ve heard good things; before I leave I’ll attempt to see the Competition entries from Gaspar Noe, Tsai Ming-Liang and Isabel Coixet. But the end of Cannes 2009 is definitely in sight. The market wraps up today, and the crowds are both thinning and wearing out. I arrived at this morning’s screening of Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus 90 minutes early to find nothing like a crowd in wait; when I walked out of the film after 40 minutes because my eyes ached from rolling so much, it looked like everyone in my half-full row was asleep.

So in lieu of reviews, here’s some gossip and other notes on the past few days:

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I initially planned to write an Antichrist-inspired list of most misogynistic movies ever made. But after some minor research, I decided that as a man, even one who has studied feminist film theory, I’m not the best judge of what titles to choose. Besides, I figure there are already enough places on the web where we can debate whether or not Neil LaBute and Lars von Trier are misogynistic filmmakers or if they are in fact the opposite.

I could have instead attempted a list of movies that are misandric, but I don’t think hatred towards men is equally as off-putting to male viewers as misogyny is to women. So, here’s something slightly similar, also inspired by Antichrist (particularly a disturbing genital-mutilation scene in the film), because there’s certainly nothing more difficult for men to watch than scenes in which male sex organs are harmed.

Of course, cinema has been hurting guys’ balls for laughs throughout the existence of motion pictures. And plenty of action and horror flicks depict castration by shotgun, knife, van door and other means on a regular basis. Therefore, I’ve gone specifically with these six sex scenes, since they add to the pain by first teasing pleasure. But no, masochistic delight is nowhere to be found in any of these hard-to-watch movie moments.
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What does it take to start a controversy in Cannes? Do you need to show real sex? Will a hand job do it, or does it have to be a blow job? Does the penis necessarily *have* to ejaculate blood? What about self-mutilation? If it’s not of the sexual variety, does it go far enough? How about the disemboweling of animals — is the sight of exposed guts always shocking, or only when the guts belong to a wild beast?

I saw two films in two days literally dripping with graphic sexuality, violence, and the apparent philosophy that explicit depravity is the only way for the filmmaker to get their point across — if either filmmaker even has a point beyond inviting dismay, which has been debated –– and yet only Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist is attracting scandal. With its depiction of forced incest, two explicitly not-fake images of sex acts, liberation via very bloody self-harm and the on-screen disemboweling of a housecat, Greek Un Certain Regard title Dogtooth should by all rights be giving Antichrist’s raspberry to art film seriousness a run for its money –– and maybe it would be, if anyone was paying attention.

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As of this writing, no film at Cannes has yet managed to surpass Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, which premiered three days ago, as the hot topic of conversation. In fact, the chatter began before the movie screened: there was a palpable level of excitement days ago about a main Competition title, in English, from a name-brand auteur, with elements of genre that could potentially up its market value. In fact, for awhile there was talk that Antichrist could be the most accessible film Lars Von Trier has ever made. And then people saw it.

As you may have heard by now, the film stars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a married couple (they’re never named) who lose their only child in a freak accident, which they were present for but failed to stop because they were distracted having operatic sex. After she spends some time in a psychiatric ward dealing with her grief, Dafoe, a therapist, convinces Gainsbourg they should retreat to their house deep in secluded woods (they call it “Eden”) so that he can teach her how to face her fears. The house happened to be where the wife used to go to work on an academic thesis on Gynocide — ie: archaic and semi-mythic violence against women, witch hunting and like practices through which, as Gainsbourg’s character puts it, “nature causes people to do evil things to women” — before her husband dismissed her subject and thereby discouraged her ambition. Feeling as though her own sexuality is responsible for the death of her son, the woman essentially internalizes the texts she’s studied and becomes an embodiment of the “evil” she once dedicated her life to critiquing, manifested mainly through total sexual hysteria. And it’s funny!

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When Lars von Trier claimed to be suffering from depression two years ago, I assumed the illness was caused by his (then) most recent film, The Boss of it All. Not only did the office comedy fail to make as much noise as his prior features, but it actually earned a lot of favorable reviews. Some even called it (gasp!) enjoyable. For a guy used to polarizing critics with his often controversial and groundbreaking movies, that reception had to be tremendously dissatisfying.

But the filmmaker is back at Cannes this year, and I mean back. His latest movie, Antichrist, is apparently as audacious, shocking and misogynistic as everyone expects von Trier’s work to be. And even though it’s getting a lot of negative reviews, it’s still the talk of the festival this year. No wonder the filmmaker is looking so jolly in photos from Cannes; the attention, both good and bad, must be doing wonders for his mental health.

Nobody from Spout has seen Antichrist yet, unfortunately, but don’t doubt we’re trying. Desperately. And we know you’re looking forward to Karina’s take as much as The Brothers Bloom director Rian Johnson is. Today he Tweeted: “Waiting for @KarinaLongworth to see & review Antichrist the way a drunk man waits for a hint of blessed equilibrium.” She responded that she hopes to prove male reporters wrong in their belief that no woman will like it.

While we wait for her anticipated response, we’ll just have to settle on reading other reviews from around the blogosphere. I’ve highlighted some of my favorites, both positive and negative after the jump:

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It’s the first true Big Cannes Moment to happen since I arrived in Cannes on Friday: Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, starring Charlote Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe, screened for the press last night, and immediately word started to spread that the film was intentionally unreleasable, chock full of intense violence, graphic sexuality, unforgivable misogyny … and also beauty. One man’s total debacle is another’s ecstatic vision, but thus far the Antichrist supporters seem to be outnumbered by the offended press. I haven’t seen the film yet — I waited in line for an hour last night, but didn’t get in — but I did watch the press conference. As I passed through the Palais, my attention was drawn over to a bank of monitors when I saw this quote on Matt Dentler’s Twitter stream: “I work for myself,” Von Trier said. “And I am the best film director in the world.”

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If you’ve been paying attention to any of the pre-Cannes speculation this year, you won’t be surprised to see that Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, and Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces made the competition lineup. You may be surprised by just how many modern masters, globally recognized provocateurs and early-to-mid career boldfaced names will be showing work alongside them: Michael Hanneke, Jane Campion, Park Chan Wook, Johnny To, Isabel Coixet, Gaspar Noe, Jacques Audiard, Tsai Ming-liang, Andrea Arnold, and Alain Resnais. This leaves little room for emerging talents — and in fact, a couple of small American films gossiped about in recent weeks as being Cannes-bound were not included in the Competition or Un Certain Regard lineups. But there’s always Director’s Fortnight; the slate for that and Critics Week will be announced tomorrow. The full ineup so far after the jump.

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The trailer for Lars von Trier’s Antichrist has hit Vimeo (see it here after the jump). If patented Lars Von Trier creep applied to what seems like an old-school horror formula doesn’t pique your interest, the final money shot probably will. Unless you have something against a naked Willem DaFoe thrusting atop Charlotte Gainsbourg, who is herself mounted on a tangle of muddy tree roots and froze, anonymous limbs!

The general consensus seems to be that this film will probably be at Cannes. So will I! I will report back.

Via FILMMAKER Blog

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