Dir.
Lars von Trier, Denmark/Germany/France/Sweden/Italy/Poland, 2009, 109 mins
Cast:
Willem Defoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg
Review by
Carol Allen
This was the film which cause such a stir at this year's Cannes Film Festival for its scenes of unsimulated sex (so they say) and genital mutilation.
The story deals with a couple, whose only child has died in a tragic accident. Hoping to help his wife and presumably himself, He (Defoe - neither of the characters are given names) takes She (Gainsbourg) off to "Eden", the name they have for their isolated holiday cabin in the woods. And then the trouble starts in earnest.
The slow motion opening depiction of the event that incites the story, beautifully shot in black and white with classy classical music in the background as the child moves inexorably towards his fate, while his parents are absorbed in making love, is very effective. In this, which is the first of many explicit sex scenes in the film, we could however do without what in porn movies is known as the "money shot". We're grown up enough to know what the couple are doing and how engrossed they are in it without that.
At first this seems to be the story of a woman, who is grieving and guilt ridden over the death of her child, and her loving but dominating husband, who is a therapist by profession and who believes he knows the best way to help her. One is tempted to question the wisdom and ethics of a therapist treating his own wife, but that is the least of our worries. Their time together in the cabin is liberally sprinkled with more sex scenes, a talking fox (I kid you not) and a lot of intense dialogue and it's all rather soporific. It then emerges that the wife is an academic, who before the tragedy had been working on a historical thesis about "Gynocide" - dictionary definition: "the idea that men create a social system where women live entirely as instruments of men's interests." He digs out her research from the attic, she for no discernible reason goes stark raving bonkers and the film turns into a cross between an explicit horror movie and "Misery" with the now infamous scenes of mutilation. At a guess von Trier appears to be trying to say something about the forces of nature bringing out the dominance of men and the subservience and oppression of women and she, it would appear, is getting revenge on behalf of womanhood as a whole on him as the sole representative of the male gender available in this remote spot and then punishing herself for her own guilt. The thesis has also been put forward that the film is an analogy with the story of Garden of Eden, though if that's what is intended, the link is tenuous to say the least.
It's technically well made, Defoe and Gainsbourg do their stuff well within the limits of the film and it's a change to see Defoe smile occasionally - usually in sexual ecstasy. The film leaves one with the impression of an art movie in black and white (even though it uses colour) and that it should be in some obscure foreign language with subtitles. But it's not only incomprehensible as far as meaning is concerned. The last section, in which we see Gainsbourg smash her husband's private parts with a rock, cripple him by hobbling and then genitally mutilate herself with a pair of scissors, is gratuitously and graphically repellant for no good, clear reason. Von Trier apparently conceived the film while in the throes of some sort of breakdown. On the evidence of this, that is not perhaps the best state of mind in which to write and direct a movie
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