Every so often a scene gets paired with a song that, for better or worse, ends up making it that much more memorable, so let’s just go ahead and tackle the lengthy opening sequence that pushed everybody’s buttons.
In hindsight, when you break it down, nothing about the prologue of the 2009 film Antichrist is that shocking - the graphic, unsimulated sex, the splicing with a tragic death, and all in black-and-white and slow motion - especially when the very first thing you see on screen is the name Lars von Trier. But a great deal of audience members were appalled as they were hit with all these elements from the get-go when the controversial film debuted.
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The remainder of the film would actually have a lot worse in it, as would the rest of what von Trier dubbed his “Depression Trilogy” which includes 2011’s Melancholia and 2013’s Nymphomaniac, but many thought this was going too far. The film opens on married couple Willam Defoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg stepping into the shower and proceeding to have intense, drawn out sex, slipping around on the wet floor and knocking things over, until they eventually make it onto their bed.
Charlotte briefly shows breast and a bit of bunnage during this epic bang sesh, but the real star is Mandy Starship, who doubles for Charlotte’s snatch during a colossal close-up of penetration. And if that weren’t contentious enough, the energetic sex is intercut with shots of the couple’s young son getting out of this crib, seeing them doing the deed, and then climbing out a window and plummeting to his snowy death, all set to a recording of "Lascia Ch’io Pianga" by composer George Frideric Handel.
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What happens is definitely awful, but not outside the realm of possibility (if it can happen to Eric Clapton, it can happen to anyone). Some consider the combo of slow-mo, black-and-white, and soaring opera to be pretentious, but just concentrating on the choice of the song itself, the appeal is more than apparent.
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Rather than choosing part of Handel’s most famous work, Messiah, von Trier goes with the lesser known opera Rinaldo, though the aria itself is a well known concert piece. The film is not Christ, it’s Antichrist, after all. And though the plot of the opera itself isn’t reflected in the moment (takes place in Jerusalem at the end of the 11th century and is about a knight who’s lover is kidnapped in a garden), the translation of the Italian lyrics are fittingly prophetic “Let me weep/My cruel fate/And that I/should have freedom/The duel infringes/within these twisted places/in my sufferings/I pray for mercy.” It makes even more sense when you think about how von Trier wrote the film while hospitalized for depression and anxiety. To hit his frame of mind home even more, the song later comes back in the film, and is featured again in Nymphomaniac.
Whether you love it or hate it, this seven is definitely an unforgettable moment in skinema.
