Antichrist
Director: Lars von Trier
Rudo y Cursi
Director: Carlos Cuarón
Danish auteur Lars Trier famously added a “von’ to his surname to sound more distinguished. To me, this most disingenuous of talented but frustratingly shallow film directors ought to be called “Larks von Trier”. With each film, he is having a laugh at his collaborators’ expense and at the audience. His films are preceded by self-generated hype, an announcement such as the signing of Dogme 95, heralding a so-called aesthetic purity that invites an audience to receive his movies in a certain way.
If you want to know how frivolous he is, consider his appropriation of French icon Catherine Deneuve in Dancer in the Dark, an homage to Soviet-era musicals with a touch of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and the death penalty thrown in. Her character is called Cathy, diminishing her presence.
Fast-forward almost a decade and von Trier offers us the mock horror film, Antichrist, in which Willem Dafoe, at least partly famous for playing Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ, is graphically abused by Charlotte Gainsbourg. If you thought Misery was wince inducing, then you’ll be truly shaken by the torture inflicted by Gainsbourg in the latter part of the film – although perhaps not quite so shocked as by the act of self-mutilation that reportedly stunned audiences at the film’s Cannes Festival premiere.
The superficial story involves a couple retreating to a cabin in the woods where He (Dafoe, playing a therapist) treats She (Gainsbourg, a student working on a thesis) after the death of their young child, Nic, shown in the elegant if slightly contrived opening.
She prefers her medication to treatment from him. He tries to get to the root of her fear in between bouts of sex that She initiates. In so doing, he provokes her latent anger. There is a link to her own research in
16th century witchcraft, in which She comes to the misogynist conclusion that women brought it on themselves.
I don’t think von Trier is a misogynist himself. He does not frame the numerous sex scenes as erotic spectacle. Indeed, he is drawn to actresses with a distinct persona – Emily Watson, Björk, Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall – and celebrates their inner resolve.
Nevertheless, Antichrist does not deserve to be taken seriously. For one thing, it features a talking fox who exclaims in a deep voice that apparently only foxes have: “Chaos rules”. For another, when a lame Dafoe stares up the sky and looks for the so-called ‘Three Beggars” – Pain, Grief, Despair – before exclaiming: ‘I don’t think such a constellation exists”, you cannot help but laugh.
That said, I left the screening room in an elevated mood. I had survived Antichrist without feeling shocked and appalled. The pleasure I felt was akin to stepping off a rollercoaster ride. In that sense, von Trier has simply produced the art house equivalent of Hollywood multiplex fodder, dedicated improbably to Andrei Tarkovsky.
When directors Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Del Toro joined forces to form a production company, Cha Cha Cha, the intention was to make more Spanish language movies using Hollywood money. Their first release, Rudo y Cursi (“Rough and Corny”, though translations vary) is an overtly commercial film that lacks the edginess and ambition of their best work.
This reunites the stars of Cuarón’s breakout Mexican hit, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Diego Luna, who is threatening to turn into Stacy Keach on this appearance, and Gael García Bernal, who is not afraid of appearing ridiculous. They are cast as half-brothers, Beto and Tato (nicknamed Rudo and Cursi) who end up playing for rival Mexico City football teams. Alfonso’s brother, Carlos Cuarón, wrote and directed the film and does a competent job, although on this evidence he won’t make Hollywood’s first 11.
In soccer terms, this is more Championship than Premier League. When a soccer scout, Baton (Guillermo Francella) arrives at the village where the brothers live, he spots talent in both of them. He can only take one, so Beto proposes a penalty shoot-out. Beto tells Tato to shoot one way, Tato kicks the other and it is the single, singing-star wannabe Tato, as opposed to committed family man, Beto who gets the opportunity to play for a Mexican First Division side.
Baton, who narrates the story, describes this as a declaration of war. “Wars often start between brothers”, he tells us. “But they confuse wars with games.”
Cuarón sets us up for something epic but then, intentionally, undermines this expectation. Both men are undone by their flaws – goalkeeper Beto by his addiction to gambling, after Baton finds a team for him to play for; star striker Tato by his vanity. He has a talk show host girlfriend, who leaves him for a better prospect when he goes off his game.
We learn that neither brother does anything to improve the lot of their family back home. Beto may replace his wife’s blender, in hock to pay off a gambling debt, but it is a drug lord who is an ironic source of regeneration, moving into their village, repairing a road and building a beach house for Tato’s mother.
The film is subtly critical of football culture. Each brother is ritualistically humiliated by his teammates after the first try out. Fans treat Tato with hostility, threatening to beat him up if he doesn’t break his goal drought, but then they ask for his autograph. Cuarón is also at pains to show how ordinary so-called stars really are.
As Beto’s gambling debts spiral predictably out of control, tragedy is threatened. Mindful of sending an overtly negative image of Mexico across the border, Cuarón instead offers something more low-key. The film wants you to like it – Tato’s recurrent theme is a Spanish language version of “I Want You to Want Me”– but elicits a wry smile rather than an affectionate embrace.
Patrick Mulcahy
