By ALI NADERZAD I confess: I apprehended a little watching the new Lars Von Trier currently presented in competition yesterday. Von Trier was in the throes of a bad depression just before the shoot and knowing this made me uneasy, though I’m not sure why–artists are often at their best when creating their art in unsane mental conditions. The first ‘projo’ for the film last night (from the French; short for projection) was at 7:30pm and I stood guard on the press room balcony, watching queue developments in front of the Debussy Theatre from above. Something told me it would be safer to try the later screening and I was right. Some colleagues waited in line for forty-five minutes and did not get in.
There are important reasons why so many people want to see this film. Antichrist is the event of the Cannes Festival. Von Trier already won the Golden Palm for Dancer in the Dark in 2000 and many other accolades in Cannes; with Antichrist he visits a new genre and partners up with DP Anthony Dod Mantle, and to positive results. There’s also a fair amount of buzz surrounding the film’s explicit sex scenes between Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe.