After a bit of a controversial reception for the film at Cannes, the specialty distributor Artifical Eye has now secured the UK rights to Lars Von Trier’s controversial horror movie, Antichrist. People who have got fed up with Von Trier painting his set on the floor and generally being too poncy and arty for his own good, will be pleased to hear this one is quite as annoying, although he hasn’t abandoned his love of the miserable.
Charlotte Gainsbourg won the Best Actress prize at Cannes, playing one half of a couple (Willem Dafoe is the other half) who travel to an isolated cabin called Eden in order to mend their relationship and grieve for their lost child, but out in nature things start taking strange and horrifying turns. While Von Trier retains his trademark nihilism and inability to see anything nice about the world, it’s more a return to the fantastic ‘The Kingdom’ than ‘Breaking The Waves’.
Artificial Eye hasn’t yet set a release date for the movie, but it is known that they’ve also picked the winner of Cannes ‘Un Certain Regard’ strand, Le Pere De Mes Enfants. Before the festival started they’d already snapped up the eventual Palm D’Or winner, White Ribbon, and the Jury Prize winner, Fish Tank. That’s virtually a clean sweep for the distributor, which has found itself better able to get its hands on the big arthouse releases since Tartan collapsed last year.