ANTICHRIST EXPLAINED - Let's Look At The Facts / Not The Symbology

THIS THREAD DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS - PLEASE BEWARE!!

I am not going to go in to the artistic merit of this film - I think that topic has been well discussed in other threads. Also, I am not going to even raise the subject of whether you have to be intelligent to understand this film. Often there are films that have so many red herrings that you can be left perplexed. In other instances, a film can be so heavily layered in complex 'symbolic' imagery that it detracts from the story. I think that this film is a case of the latter. I will not go in to the symbology of the deer, the fox and the crow - the so called 'three beggars' - as I feel that they don't actually contribute to the essence of the story.

Finally, I don't want to discuss whether the movie was too graphic or gratuitous. That topic has also been well covered in other threads.

I saw this film a couple of days ago, and after initially leaving me confused and bewildered - I now have had some time to think about it. By no means do I think that my interpretation is 100% correct, and please don't leave any abusive posts if you disagree with me. If, however, there is anything that I have missed then please respond. I welcome your thoughts.

I don't believe that Dafoe's character is the Antichrist, as mentioned in another thread. If that was the case, then why did he try to help his wife throught the grieving process. The Devil/Antichrist is purely out for self-gain and manipulates every situation to that end. Dafoe's character shows genuine concern for his wife and tries very hard to support her through their time of loss.

Here are the facts. In the Prologue, Dafoe [He] & Gainsbourg [She] are having sex as their young son climbs out an open window and falls to his death. [The parallels to this and the death of Eric Clapton's son are nothing short of chilling.]

After a month of deep depression and heavy medication for Gainsbourg, Dafoe feels that [in his infinite wisdom] he is better prepared to accelerate his wife's recovery through the mourning process and checks her out of hospital for some one-on-one therapy. [At this point, we do not know if her depressed state is more related to Grief with the loss of her son, or is it more about the Guilt related to the combination of having the baby monitor left on silent, the safety gate left unlocked, the window left open and the fact that she saw the boy climb on to the table and fall to his death without doing anything about it. It could even be both the Guilt and the Grief - but to what extent does one dominate the other?]

At home, Dafoe initially fights-off his wife's sexual advances because He tries to keep his therapy sessions professional. Foolishly, He eventually gives in to her despite knowing that She is merely using sex as a means to temporarily forget her guilt/grief pain. Using sexual gratification [sometimes rather inappropriately] as a means of a temporary antidote becomes a central theme in her feeble attempts to dull the pain that she is constantly feeling.

It is during their therapy sessions together that He discovers that something had happened to his wife while She was working on her thesis at their holiday cabin at/or called Eden. [This is where the biblical references begin.]

It is at this point that his total aloofness/disconnection from his family is revealed. He was not even aware that She had given up working on her thesis. Furthermore, apart from the emotion that He had shown at his son's funeral, there appeared to be no other grieving shown on his part. Clearly, He was so absorbed in his psychotherapeutic work that he could only focus on the techniques as they would be applied to his wife, rather than also applying these techniques on himself.

After moving to the Eden cabin, the psychotherapy techniques become more intense - and so too does her disintegration between what she perceives as real and unreal. After all, you can't wake up from one good night's sleep and claim to be cured of your depression - now can you? He is not convinced and neither should the viewer be.

After another rough sexual encounter between He and She, She reveals why she gave up on her thesis. Her initial perspective on Gynocide [or Gynaecide/Gynecide which is defined as 'the killing of a woman/women] was that 'Nature is Satan' [i.e. 'Nature' refers to human nature and 'Satan' is the reference to the Antichrist in the title] and that men can't help themselves from hurting/torturing/killing women because evil is inherent in their nature. It is after her deep analysis of the information that She had collected that She had concluded that it is because women are also inherently evil that they bring the hurt/torture/death upon themselves. So therefore it is only natural that Gynocide happens.

Her slow descent in to madness begins at the point of this realisation. This is evident in the decline of legibility of her handwriting in the journal/scrapbook that holds all her data. Can you fight evil if it is inherent in your nature?

The autopsy report on the death of their son revealed that the boy had a deformity in his feet. The thing to consider is that young children's bones are very malleable, and can be affected by external forces to change shape. Much like oral braces can move teeth – and the application of rings can elongate the necks of young girls in Burma [Myanmar] to make them appear to be more sexually attractive to the opposite sex - She's [perhaps subconscious] attempts to torture her son by placing the wrong shoes on the wrong feet could very easily cause a growth deformity in a child so young. Let's be clear, here, it is never stated that the deformity occurred at birth - all that is said is that the deformity was unrelated to the events leading to the child's death.

[As a side note: Is it possible that She tried to deform her son's feet as a form of MBPS [Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome], in which she was seeking attention for herself by gaining sympathy from others by making her own son unwell? This idea is unlikely as there is no indication that anyone else was aware of any problem with the boy's feet, or even aware of what she was doing to his feet. The deformation was only discovered during the autopsy - whereas in most cases of MBPS the main aim is to prolong the sickness as long as possible so that the parent/caregiver causing the child's illness can maximise the attention gained from medical staff and those friends/family around her/him.]

So, is She evil? When He confronts She about the photos depicting their son with his shoes on the wrong feet, She snaps and attacks him - first by physically trying to punch and kick him and then by overpowering him in another rough sexual encounter. It is at this point that She smashes the large log in to his engorged loins and then proceeds to...well you know the rest [if you’ve already seen the film].

Does She snap because He has revealed her true evil [or Antichrist] nature, or is it because She fears that He will leave her like She claims is the case? It is hard to say what the real answer is. I do believe, though, that the act of bolting the stone wheel to his leg was done to prevent him from leaving her. Would She be able to cope with the last important person in her life leaving for good? Most definitely not, especially in her current fragile Grief/Guilt pain-ridden state.

However, if She was not evil then why did She continue with her sexual encounter when She saw her son heading for the open window that lead to his untimely death? She did have enough time to respond because the boy was only just starting to climb the table. So why didn't She save her son? Therein lies the answer. Perhaps her true evil is both inherent and uncontrollable - and that it is foolish to believe that the evil in all of us does not exist. [In much the same way that it is believed that the greatest trick that Satan had ever pulled was that he, himself, did not exist.]

When She realises that She cannot release the inner evil [or Antichrist] in her husband, thereby unleashing his 'true' nature to physically punish or torture her [in fact, her first attempt to unleash it was when she asked/begged him to beat her during sex and all he could do was slap her a couple of times], She then takes it upon herself in the act of genital self-mutilation. After all, if He won't torture her, then someone has to - and if you want a job done properly, sometimes it is just better to do it yourself.

When He awakens after being dragged back in to the cabin from the forest and tries to unbolt the stone wheel, she comes at him with the scissors and this finally unleashes his true inherent evil [or Antichrist] self.

By grabbing her by the throat and strangling her to death, he actualises her self-fulfilling prophecy that it is in all our nature to be evil and that by her acts of evil she has brought about her own act of Gynocide, by revealing/releasing his true evil [or Antichrist] self.

So, was the action of killing his wife an act of self-preservation or had He finally snapped? It's hard to say whether the answer is one or the other - or perhaps even both. At the end of the day the result is still the same - She is dead by his hands. 'Nature is Satan.'