Antichrist – Chaos Reigns: the event of violence and the haptic image in Lars von Trier’s film

Abstract

Lars von Trier’s film, Antichrist (2009), is in this article seen within the philosophical framework of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Antichrist (1888) and the filmic inspiration of Andrey Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice (1886). The overall question of the Dionysian orgy, sacrifice and rebirth of nature is also related to the negative picturing of the woman and the devil (Antichrist) in Malleus Maleficarum (1486), that form a central reference for the imagery in the film. Trier’s composition and use of the haptic image as a denominator of a virtual time, where an eternal return of the same might take place, is finally seen as an aesthetic comment on the contemporary real-time control of media.

Keywords: Lars von Trier; Antichrist; Friedrich Nietzsche; Andrey Tarkovsky; Dionysus; the haptic image; real-time images; the eternal return of the same

(Published: 30 December 2009)

Citation: Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 1, 2009 DOI: 10.3402/jac.v1i0.3668