The story from Cannes so far (or so I hear, I'm no more there than you), is the Lars von Trier film Antichrist, which Dennis Lim describes as a "half-baked, crazy, utterly enthralling treatise on grief and gynophobia," noting "a misogyny consultant is actually credited." Longtime readers may recall that I was decidedly unenthusiastic about the empty provocations and childish politics of von Trier's Dogville. But we ain't, it seems, seen nothing yet.
Booed at his own press conference and asked why he chose to make this film, von Trier waxed philosophical: “I never have a choice. It’s the hand of God. And I am the best film director in the world. I’m not sure if God is the best God in the world.”
And what kind of film has this second-rate God forced the world's greatest director to make? One with genital mutilations so graphic and repulsive that it may take me some time to recover from even reading about them. Those who really must know can find a description here. But, honestly, you'll probably have a better day if you don't.
--Christopher Orr