Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on February 2011

Antichrist: ©Zentropa Entertainments 2009

Though few would agree with Denmark’s Lars Von Trier’s self-assessment that he is the greatest director of all time, he is undoubtedly one of the most innovative working today (Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark). So it’s sad to watch him go so completely off the rails with crap like this. It’s a shame he feels it necessary to prove his bad-boyness with extreme visual images of (for starters) sexual violence and genital mutilation. Without this cinematic showboating, the movie, despite some brave acting by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, is pretentious, thematically weak and rather obtuse.