THE SHOES??????

Personally i think it was to inflict pain on the son


http://www.filmquarterly.org/2009/12/antichrist-a-discussion/

"..it becomes clear that for all her play-acting at his clumsy therapeutic games, the initial scene had been set in motion by her at least a year before: the teddy bear tied to the helium balloon tantalizing Nic to reach for it, the baby monitor on silent, the reversed shoes, the windows opening twice to let in the acorns and let out her son. Antichrist is a fascinated yet horrified disquisition on the ambiguity of witchcraft, a set of spells and strange incantations not unlike those practiced by the filmmaker himself.

I have not seen the film... but perhaps wearing shoes is seen as "conformity".

Notice that your feet sometimes mold to the form of your shoes (especially if you are a runner you may notice the difference between a new pair of shoes and those with hundreds of miles on them), and your feet also "take you where you are going" in life.

I think it could be seen as a metaphor for "parental upbringing", like being raised with "a moral compass", good character & manners, also the "religion" of beliefs and it's related rules that parents subscribe to and raise their children in. (religious beliefs could be Christian-based or Anti-Christ-based, yet the devil always perverts the truth to lead souls astray)

Perhaps putting the shoes on the wrong feet is a perverse twist or anti/conformity to nature, as if she is trying to force her son into something different than what would naturally be good for him i.e. shoes that fit, Left & Right on the proper feet and in the correct direction.

My premise is that she is a perverse being, perhaps the antichrist character, and she is perverting the most wonderful gift God has given us "self-less giving agape love in sexual union" with "objectified self-seeking lust" -- the original sin, the temptation, the "apple" in the garden of Eden -- after which Adam and Eve "realized they were naked, and ashamed, covered themselves".

Sex/love union as God/nature intended it multiplies agape love into a child
Perverted pleasure seeking Lust ignores/avoids the consequences of offspring

She ignores her child which dies - not by accident, but by neglect - by purposefully ignoring the child so directly for the sake of lust. Just like a morning after pill or abortion, the child dies by lack of nurture in the womb or murderous expulsion from it. The grieving psychological consequences of from this extremely selfish act remain and haunt her, yet her only escape is back to lust.

Just a thought... coming from a Catholic / Theology of the Body perspective.

He got a doctors report about his sons autopsy & it was informed that his son had deformed feet, She must have been putting his shoes wrong for a long time causing his feet to be that way.

Actually, I think it was to keep him from wandering away and leaving her so easily. It's really quick, but she mentions that during the previous visit to Eden, the boy kept wandering away. The pictures He finds of his son are all from the previous visit. I think She began to switch the boy's shoes as a method of curbing his activity. The guilt led to a downward spiral for her, as she saw how easily She could slip into doing something potentially harmful to her child.

Just my thought, though.

What struck me is how the x-ray of the child's foot looked more like that of an animal. Almost like cloven hooves...

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This might come off as weird, but just hear me out: I think the shoes thing was a way for her to make sure Nic wasn't leaving her.

We're dealing with a very depressed character, so we have to think in context of this depression. She obviously is very afraid of people leaving her (which she lampshades a few times during the film), and putting the shoes on the wrong feet was a subconscious way for her to keep him close to her, as walking would be very painful, if not impossible (yes, I might be thinking way too simple and it does sound a bit lame, but bear with me).

She even states "Nic wasn't there for me either." in the film, which is a desperate attempt at self-pity and trying to make sense of her situation. This all makes sense in the mind of someone who is suffering from extreme depression.

So, in short: The shoes are a way for her to prevent him from leaving, because she's scared to death of being left alone.

I also would like to add (and this just occurred to me while typing) that towards the end of the film, she completely loses it when she thinks He is leaving (this explains her torturing him and, in an act of reckless self-defense, him torturing her). This further explains her intense fear of being left alone, which ultimately leads to her downfall.

All in all, the entire film is about the fear of being left alone and the realization that people find it hard to get along with very depressed people.

I think the only good thing about this movie is that it makes you think and ask questions. I assume she was putting the shoes on wrong because she was mentally ill from the start and wanted to harm her child. There's probly a ton of different ways to interpret it. This was a very clever movie, but stretched out way too long. I went into it expecting some outrageous psychedelic horror movie based on what I'd heard and the cover, but instead I got an extremely quiet, washed out (visually) art house film. I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more if it had been a book.