Editorials
The Immersive Examination of Depression and Grief in ‘Antichrist’ [Unveiling The Mind]
Welcome to Unveiling The Mind. This bi-monthly column takes an analytical look at art that explores mental illness. In this month’s entry, I look back on Lars Von Trier’s 2009 feature, Antichrist.
Around the time I watched Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, I was in a rough place. Since childhood, I’ve struggled with on and off depression. Sometimes I’ve gone for great stretches of time without any suffering, then sometimes it’ll randomly appear. Perhaps because of having depression, I’ve been drawn to darker forms of art; I’ve adored horror movies for as long as I can remember. Eventually, I found myself a means to watch Antichrist and checked it out.
Upon watching the film, I was captivated. I want to say I saw Antichrist for the first time roughly 10 years ago. The film is the first installment in Von Trier’s unofficial “Depression Trilogy”; after Antichrist follows Melancholia and Nymphomaniac. Though I adore Melancholia and find elements of Nymphomaniac to be fascinating, Antichrist is the film that has stuck with me the longest of Von Trier’s works.
Von Trier has stated that the film was the result of him striving to cope with a bad depressive episode. It’s worth noting that Antichrist involves a variety of themes, not just pertaining to mental illness. That said, I thought it would be interesting to revisit the film and critique how it examines depression and grief.
There will be spoilers ahead.
Antichrist follows She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and He (Willem Dafoe). The film opens with the two having sex; at the same time, the camera jumps to their small child crawling out of his crib. As the two continue to make love, we watch as the child eventually makes his way to a nearby windowsill, falling out and plummeting to the ground. With the child’s death, She and He enter a state of grieving. What is important to note throughout the film is how both individuals handle their grief. She takes the death more personally, whereas He appears to move on relatively faster.
In that opening scene, we are immediately brought into a bleak world. Later parts of the film contain a plethora of fantastical qualities (most of us know of the “Chaos Reigns” fox). But the nature of Antichrist is quite dream-like. The black and white colors and intensified classical music create a surreal entrance. So much is happening between the parents having sex and the child making his way out of the crib, yet, everything is shown in slow motion. As the viewer, though, we grasp the physical tension of the sex and absorb the terror of the child falling out the window.
It is here where Von Trier implements the essential aspect to Antichrist’s horror – establishing an atmospheric depression the audience actively partakes in.
The color palette of Antichrist comes with sullen vibes; even with some bright colors appearing, there is always a dark tint to everything. On an auditory level, there are moments of brief dissonant and minimal sounds presenting unease. But there is also no sound sometimes, making each scene of violence jarring in its visceral delivery. Along with Gainsbourg and Dafoe’s acting, the technical aspects of Antichrist exude depressive energies. This is the type of film experience that, though it has much to offer, is also draining.
For those who don’t suffer, it is tough to describe the pain that is depression. It is not a matter of just feeling “sad,” but a sincere sense that hope is lost. That you cannot possibly obtain peace or love. Movement and vision can feel like they are in a haze. The “color of life” can come across empty. It is like drowning in a thick syrup and not having the will to claw one’s way out. On that note, Antichrist achieves the sensory aspects of depression, making for an experience that offers some form of insight for those who don’t have depression (for the most part).
One thing I have to address before moving forward is the film’s problematic elements, specifically that of the villainous and hysteric shift of She. One could argue that her brutal violence and lack of rationale may be aligned with other matters of mental illness, but I feel that, towards the end, Von Trier is more so trying to gross us out. Given that the film leads to such intense heights, I do not feel that the later portion of the story fairly represents grief or depression. All that said, I don’t feel that the majority of Antichrist is overly exploitative in its displays of mental illness.
Upon the death of her son, She enters a state of grief. One can sense the ache in her face, how her eyes stare blankly into life. Her grief comes out in shifting forms of self-harm and heightened sexuality. If she isn’t bashing her head into a toilet, she is aggressively trying to have sex with her husband. Her anguish gradually builds, unleashing in vicious acts (such as the mutilation of her clitoris).
To help his wife through her grief, He asks her what she fears; She says nature. In an effort to attempt exposure therapy, He says they will take a trip to Eden; this is a place in the woods where She spent a summer with her son working on her thesis. Over the course of their time in Eden, She begins to feel an overwhelming connection to the woods around her. Speaking to her thesis, she brings up how, “Nature is Satan’s church.” Obviously, this may be taken as a metaphor for human nature and our actions on earth.
Of my own opinion, one way I like to read this line is as a statement regarding “the nature of the brain.” Besides the impact medicine and other remedies may have on our minds, we don’t have immediate control over the chemicals in our brain. Upon re-entering Eden, the aggression of Gainsbourg’s character intensifies. In the woods, it appears as if her “nature” is taking over her. Along with her elevated aggression, the film portrays a variety of visuals associated with death. Von Trier is certainly pulling from some Freudian logic, adding to the iffy aspects of Antichrist’s narrative and thematic exploration.
What further adds to these grim moments with She is how the viewer experiences them through the husband’s point-of-view. We get a few moments where we are left alone with She, but for the most part, our understanding of her is through dialogue and the husband trying to work with her. It is that dialogue that also serves to address the concept of mental illness. Many of the conversations the couple have are focused on coping with grief and other mental matters. As a therapist, He is driven to help his wife in a scientific manner, while She leans towards more visceral emotion (and eventually hysteria as her sanity snaps).
The dialogue is primarily present as to let the viewer in on the film’s observations surrounding mental illness. Given how intimate Antichrist is in its settings and characters, the audience feels even closer to the dialogue taking place. He strives to breakdown every feeling his wife is having with cold logic, rarely taking on a warmer, sympathetic approach. On the other hand, She is more emotional and reactionary to his advice. The two of them are clearly meant to represent the two sides of thought (in the broadest terms, logical and emotional). It is those debates and conversations between the couple that elevate the film’s depressive tone.
In all the years since I’ve seen this film, I find myself still thinking about it. There are parts of it I find problematic and not to my liking – but I am still stunned by it. Part of that is because of how exposed of a film Antichrist is; nothing feels protected, the suffering is bare. Where many may feel like their agony with mental illness is invisible to the world, Antichrist puts that horror up front and before the eyes of an audience. Obviously, everyone with mental illness has a different experience; but in an atmospheric sense, it represents that dreadful hell.
The cinematography, sound, acting and the story all strive to fuel Antichrist’s depressive presentation. Whether it is through emitting a depressive tone or literally speaking to the subject of grief, Antichrist makes for an immersive experience on such haunting struggles. This is a film that takes the invisible specter of mental illness and displays it not only in a physical fashion, but in a way the viewer can truly feel.
Here’s what we know about Longlegs so far. It’s coming in July of 2024, it’s directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), and it features Maika Monroe (It Follows) as an FBI agent who discovers a personal connection between her and a serial killer who has ties to the occult. We know that the serial killer is going to be played by none other than Nicolas Cage and that the marketing has been nothing short of cryptic excellence up to this point.
At the very least, we can assume NEON’s upcoming film is going to be a dark, horror-fueled hunt for a serial killer. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five disturbing serial killers-versus-law-enforcement stories to get us even more jacked up for Longlegs.
MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003)
This South Korean film directed by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) is a wild ride. The film features a handful of cops who seem like total goofs investigating a serial killer who brutally murders women who are out and wearing red on rainy evenings. The cops are tired, unorganized, and border on stoner comedy levels of idiocy. The movie at first seems to have a strange level of forgiveness for these characters as they try to pin the murders on a mentally handicapped person at one point, beating him and trying to coerce him into a confession for crimes he didn’t commit. A serious cop from the big city comes down to help with the case and is able to instill order.
But still, the killer evades and provokes not only the police but an entire country as everyone becomes more unstable and paranoid with each grizzly murder and sex crime.
I’ve never seen a film with a stranger tone than Memories of Murder. A movie that deals with such serious issues but has such fallible, seemingly nonserious people at its core. As the film rolls on and more women are murdered, you realize that a lot of these faults come from men who are hopeless and desperate to catch a killer in a country that – much like in another great serial killer story, Citizen X – is doing more harm to their plight than good.
Major spoiler warning: What makes Memories of Murder somehow more haunting is that it’s loosely based on a true story. It is a story where the real-life killer hadn’t been caught at the time of the film’s release. It ends with our main character Detective Park (Song Kang-ho), now a salesman, looking hopelessly at the audience (or judgingly) as the credits roll. Over sixteen years later the killer, Lee Choon Jae, was found using DNA evidence. He was already serving a life sentence for another murder. Choon Jae even admitted to watching the film during his court case saying, “I just watched it as a movie, I had no feeling or emotion towards the movie.”
In the end, Memories of Murder is a must-see for fans of the subgenre. The film juggles an almost slapstick tone with that of a dark murder mystery and yet, in the end, works like a charm.
CURE (1997)
If you watched 2023’s Hypnotic and thought to yourself, “A killer who hypnotizes his victims to get them to do his bidding is a pretty cool idea. I only wish it were a better movie!” Boy, do I have great news for you.
In Cure (spoilers ahead), a detective (Koji Yakusho) and forensic psychologist (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) team up to find a serial killer who’s brutally marking their victims by cutting a large “X” into their throats and chests. Not just a little “X” mind you but a big, gross, flappy one.
At each crime scene, the murderer is there and is coherent and willing to cooperate. They can remember committing the crimes but can’t remember why. Each of these murders is creepy on a cellular level because we watch the killers act out these crimes with zero emotion. They feel different than your average movie murder. Colder….meaner.
What’s going on here is that a man named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) is walking around and somehow manipulating people’s minds using the flame of a lighter and a strange conversational cadence to hypnotize them and convince them to murder. The detectives eventually catch him but are unable to understand the scope of what’s happening before it’s too late.
If you thought dealing with a psychopathic murderer was hard, imagine dealing with one who could convince you to go home and murder your wife. Not only is Cure amazingly filmed and edited but it has more horror elements than your average serial killer film.
MANHUNTER (1986)
In the first-ever Hannibal Lecter story brought in front of the cameras, Detective Will Graham (William Petersen) finds his serial killers by stepping into their headspace. This is how he caught Hannibal Lecter (played here by Brian Cox), but not without paying a price. Graham became so obsessed with his cases that he ended up having a mental breakdown.
In Manhunter, Graham not only has to deal with Lecter playing psychological games with him from behind bars but a new serial killer in Francis Dolarhyde (in a legendary performance by Tom Noonan). One who likes to wear pantyhose on his head and murder entire families so that he can feel “seen” and “accepted” in their dead eyes. At one point Lecter even finds a way to gift Graham’s home address to the new killer via personal ads in a newspaper.
Michael Mann (Heat, Thief) directed a film that was far too stylish for its time but that fans and critics both would have loved today in the same way we appreciate movies like Nightcrawler or Drive. From the soundtrack to the visuals to the in-depth psychoanalysis of an insanely disturbed protagonist and the man trying to catch him. We watch Graham completely lose his shit and unravel as he takes us through the psyche of our killer. Which is as fascinating as it is fucked.
Manhunter is a classic case of a serial killer-versus-detective story where each side of the coin is tarnished in their own way when it’s all said and done. As Detective Park put it in Memories of Murder, “What kind of detective sleeps at night?”
INSOMNIA (2002)
Maybe it’s because of the foggy atmosphere. Maybe it’s because it’s the only film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography he didn’t write as well as direct. But for some reason, Insomnia always feels forgotten about whenever we give Nolan his flowers for whatever his latest cinematic achievement is.
Whatever the case, I know it’s no fault of the quality of the film, because Insomnia is a certified serial killer classic that adds several unique layers to the detective/killer dynamic. One way to create an extreme sense of unease with a movie villain is to cast someone you’d never expect in the role, which is exactly what Nolan did by casting the hilarious and sweet Robin Williams as a manipulative child murderer. He capped that off by casting Al Pacino as the embattled detective hunting him down.
This dynamic was fascinating as Williams was creepy and clever in the role. He was subdued in a way that was never boring but believable. On the other side of it, Al Pacino felt as if he’d walked straight off the set of 1995’s Heat and onto this one. A broken and imperfect man trying to stop a far worse one.
Aside from the stellar acting, Insomnia stands out because of its unique setting and plot. Both working against the detective. The investigation is taking place in a part of Alaska where the sun never goes down. This creates a beautiful, nightmare atmosphere where by the end of it, Pacino’s character is like a Freddy Krueger victim in the leadup to their eventual, exhausted death as he runs around town trying to catch a serial killer while dealing with the debilitating effects of insomnia. Meanwhile, he’s under an internal affairs investigation for planting evidence to catch another child killer and accidentally shoots his partner who he just found out is about to testify against him. The kicker here is that the killer knows what happened that fateful day and is using it to blackmail Pacino’s character into letting him get away with his own crimes.
If this is the kind of “what would you do?” intrigue we get with the story from Longlegs? We’ll be in for a treat. Hoo-ah.
FALLEN (1998)
Fallen may not be nearly as obscure as Memories of Murder or Cure. Hell, it boasts an all-star cast of Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, James Gandolfini, and Elias Koteas. But when you bring it up around anyone who has seen it, their ears perk up, and the word “underrated” usually follows. And when it comes to the occult tie-ins that Longlegs will allegedly have? Fallen may be the most appropriate film on this entire list.
In the movie, Detective Hobbs (Washington) catches vicious serial killer Edgar Reese (Koteas) who seems to place some sort of curse on him during Hobbs’ victory lap. After Reese is put to death via electric chair, dead bodies start popping up all over town with his M.O., eventually pointing towards Hobbs as the culprit. After all, Reese is dead. As Hobbs investigates he realizes that a fallen angel named Azazel is possessing human body after human body and using them to commit occult murders. It has its eyes fixated on him, his co-workers, and family members; wrecking their lives or flat-out murdering them one by one until the whole world is damned.
Mixing a demonic entity into a detective/serial killer story is fascinating because it puts our detective in the unsettling position of being the one who is hunted. How the hell do you stop a demon who can inhabit anyone they want with a mere touch?!
Fallen is a great mix of detective story and supernatural horror tale. Not only are we treated to Denzel Washington as the lead in a grim noir (complete with narration) as he uncovers this occult storyline, but we’re left with a pretty great “what would you do?” situation in a movie that isn’t afraid to take the story to some dark places. Especially when it comes to the way the film ends. It’s a great horror thriller in the same vein as Frailty but with a little more detective work mixed in.
Look for Longlegs in theaters on July 12, 2024.
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