Honestly, I think the death in question is pretty overrated. no offence to the snake or the giant turtle, but my heart broke for the wee furry coatimundi when the actor was slowly running a penknife down its chest as it screamed in pain.Īs far as the fictional content of the film is concerned, the special effects hold up surprisingly well, so you might still wanna avoid the film altogether if gore's not your thing. And some of the animals were so cute and adorable. I don't know if that's true, sounds borderline racist to me, but it's what he said.Īs much as I hate post-hoc censoring of material when it becomes retroactively unpalatable to new audiences, in this case I don't mind in the slightest, given just how gratuitous and unimportant to the film those scenes are. I got the Blu-ray when it was released, and on it he explains that he never wanted that shit in the film, but his Asian distributors said that animal abuse was kinda mandatory at that time in that part of the world if you wanted your horror movie to be successful. His friend and long-time collaborator, actor Stellan Skarsgard describes von Trier as "not uncomplex.If it's Cannibal Holocaust's needless and genuine animal torture/killing scenes that are putting you off, there's actually a director's cut where he removed all of that stuff. Von Trier has a reputation for being tough on his actors. In pictures: The wierd world of Lars von Trier » Von Trier claimed each morning she would say "Mr von Trier, I despise you," and spit at him. It is rumored Bjork became so unhinged filming "Dancer in the Dark" she ate her own cardigan.
He has been nominated for the top prize at Cannes, the Palme D'Or, a staggering eight times, winning once in 2000 for the harrowing operatic tragedy, "Dancer in the Dark," starring Icelandic musician, Bjork, who also took home the Best Actress prize that year. But, of course, it always also allows some of these negative thoughts in." Watch Lars von Trier talking to CNN's The Screening Room about "Antichrist" » "The good side is that you can sometimes achieve something creatively. "I think that if you are, shall we say, sensitive, then there is a good side and a bad side about it," said von Trier. Today, if not fully recovered - the most terrifying thing he can think of is still "myself" - he is able to function once more and is receiving cognitive behavioral therapy to help him face up to his psychological issues.ĭespite, or perhaps because of, what he describes as his "sensitive" nature, von Trier is one of today's great contemporary European auteurs, considered responsible for spearheading a revival in the fortunes of Scandinavian filmmaking. In the winter of 2006, he fell victim to depression and checked into hospital, the aftermath of which left him "like a blank sheet of paper," he told Danish paper Politiken at the time. Indeed, a few years ago, it was questionable whether von Trier, who is famously multi-phobic, would be able to make another film.
The director says that he shot the film as a form of therapy after recovering from a serious mental illness. Do you think that Lars von Trier is a woman-hater? Tell us below in the SoundOff box Misogyny couldn't be further from the truth, according to Von Trier, who says he sees himself up there on the screen: "I mostly see myself as the female character," the 53-year-old director told CNN in Cannes. "Lars von Trier, we get it," wrote film critic Wendy Ide in UK paper The Times. Von Trier was labeled a woman-hater for the wince-inducingly horrific final scene in which female lead Charlotte Gainsbourg takes a pair of rusty scissors to her genitals and performs a DIY clitoridectomy right to camera.Īn Ecumenical Jury that normally hands out a prize at Cannes celebrating spiritual values felt moved to award "Antichrist" an "anti-prize" for being "the most misogynist movie from the self-proclaimed biggest director in the world." Filmmakers are expected to give audiences a hard time at Cannes and the two-hander starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a couple grieving the loss of a child is no exception.īut it was the level of pornographic sex and visceral brutality that outraged some and astonished many.