Antichrist (2009)

Disturbed, a sense of uneasiness – that’s how I would describe my feeling after seeing Antichrist. An expectant deer delivering, with the kid half hanging from her uterus; a baby bird fallen from its nest, the ants wriggling on its body, biting at it when an eagle swoops down upon it and then lands upon a tree clasping it and tearing it apart piece by piece; a crow buried alive beneath the ground smashed to death with a piece of stone; a fox tearing apart its own intestines; a man’s genital spewing blood when masturbated; a woman cutting off her own clitoris with a pair of scissors - Antichrist thrives on loathsome scenes like this. What starts as a painful drama about a couple who have lost their only child (the disturbing premise being the child fell off an open window while the parents were indulged in sex) and are trying to cope with it, gradually turns into a gruesome psychological thriller involving a meditation on pain, grief and despair (the Three Beggars, as the film identifies them) on one hand while a commentary upon sex, life and death on the other. Trouble starts when the couple retreats to a cabin in a forest where bizarre visions and sadistic sexual behaviour overwhelms their life. The film contains scenes potent in medieval Catholic imagery and Christian symbolism as well as sadistic sexual fancies that can shock and provoke any normal audience. Wikipedia quotes an article published on the site breitbart.com that, “At least four people fainted during the preview due to the film's explicit violence.” You’ll have to see the film to judge the truth of the above report. The only soothing moments of the film are provided in the so called ‘Prologue’ and ‘Epilogue’ of the movie, where the beautiful aria ‘Lascia ch'io pianga’ runs in the background to some brilliant images in slow motion. The movie combines the beautiful camerawork of Anthony Dod Mantle with stunning performances by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. So what’s my judgment about the movie? Well, director Lars von Trier was quoted as saying, “was Antichrist my Inferno Crisis?” For my part, I think, it indeed was.

Music and Loneliness

While returning home today after having my sumptuous dinner at Subway, I chanced upon a Folk Music concert going on beside the fish market in Keshtopur. Organised by the Viswakarma Puja Committee, Keshtopur, the concert featured little known singers singing Bangla folk music. The audience gathered seemed pretty familiar with the music. Although I am a complete stranger to Bangla folk music, I was attracted by the song. The singer was not extraordinarily gifted and you could feel the roughness in his voice; but the music – it had an enticing quality. I don’t know but that song aroused a strong sensation of loneliness within me. It had that haunting quality, so characteristic of folk music. I believe that folk music, if it is really good, has the capacity to linger on for a long time in your head and heart. And this song, that the singer was singing did stay behind in my mind. The song had a visual quality to it that made me envisage a lonely person walking down the dirt-ridden lanes of Kolkata and that song playing in the background. He was lost, bereaved of his friends and his family. Altogether alone. And the music – as if all thoughts from the farthest corners of his mind had taken the form of words and melody and beats and had surrounded him, lamenting upon his loss. It was a powerful image; I feel I could write a whole script or story around it. In the same way, as the image of a plastic bag, flying round and round in an alley, compelled Sam Mendes to create ‘American Beauty’. Or as Gulzar had said about that scene in Kamleshwar’s ‘Kitne Pakistan’ where the handkerchief of the heroine is falling down in a rotational motion from the foot-bridge, that he could write a complete novel out of that one scene. It was an image as powerful as that. I wish someday I would be able to include that scene and song in a movie that I’ll make.