Antichrist

The film Antichrist by Lors von Trier is by far one of the most gruesomely vivid movies I have ever seen. The most enjoyable part was the beginning sequence because of the director’s choice of black and white. The opening scène sets up continues elements throughout the film, including the repetitive theme of guilty pleasure. While having passionate sex with her husband, ‘she’ and ‘he’ do not notice that their child is walking around the house, and as she climaxes their toddler falls out of the window. This sequence— rather long for an entrance— maintains a steady rhythm, which conveys the idea of feeling the utmost pleasure juxtaposed with the anticipation of death. I personally had to pause the film because I became so fascinated with how

Simone’s de Beauvoir’s text—Ambiguity and Embodiment— was rather interesting because it made me ask many questions that I had never asked myself before. For example, what is a woman? De Beauvoir starts off this by stating that, “not every female human being is necessarily a woman” (3). Thus, in my opinion, there are two ways in which a female is a woman: 1.) Being the way that society categorizes a woman and 2.) The way that a person may perceive himself or herself. This is due to the fact that, as De Beaviour mentions, “womanhood is embodied but is not defined” (3). The main problem with this as De Beaviour also raises is that which men never assert themselves the way that women do, because men are men. What does it mean to just be? Aristotle mentions that some possible explanations for this is that men equal = positive and women= negative (5) and thus, a woman is defined always in relation to a man. One of the various myths state that Eve was said to have been created for Adam, and that categorizes women as the ‘Other’. However, De Beauvoir mentions that if women do not show their importance it is because she does not value or transform herself (10). ‘Her’ from Antichrist, can be said to embody this sense of value as she tries to transform herself through rectifying the norms of motherhood. As ‘he’ had mentioned, going to Eden for his wife meant that she would be able to work on her thesis, which refuted women as evil. Nonetheless, she seems to have written the opposite and began to believe in women’s innate evilness. What I found interesting is that even if this was so, she did not exert her ‘evilness’ as a handicap, except used this to manipulate her husband into transforming herself. A deviant act was exactly what helped her emphasize her importance. In some way, I believe that this was her way of controlling an extreme point. She and him were constantly