But it's Horst Baron who provides the close up of the full package. Nude, butt, shirtless, body double, balls, penis 00:00:48 Willem Dafoe's rangy physique takes center stage while making love to his wife while in the shower. May sorrow break these chains of my sufferings, for pity's sake.' Yes, Trier is laying it on thick, but that's what he does. 'Lascia ch'io pianga' from Handel's opera Rodelinda blasts on the soundtrack, the lyrics translating to 'Let me weep my cruel fate, and I sigh for liberty. He and She are having sex in the shower, leaving their toddler Nic unattended, and he ultimately falls to his death from an open window in their home. Needless to say, things go pretty steadily downhill for the couple from there.īack to the opening scene of the film, it's a moment of unspeakable tragedy presented in gorgeous black-and-white juxtaposition to a moment of utter ecstasy. Basically, he will make her confront her fear of nature in hopes that it will help her to move past her grief. He, a therapist himself, finds that after a month, the care she has been given is inadequate and decides to take her to their secluded cabin in the woods of Eden where he will attempt to cure her through exposure therapy. Following the death of their young son, She sinks into an unbearable depression and is hospitalized for a month under intense psychiatric care. The film centers around a married couple known only as He ( Willem Dafoe) and She (Charlotte Gainsbourg). This makes defending his films nearly impossible, turning anyone attempting to do so into an apologist, which seems to be his entire raison d'être. This is part of the mystique that Lars von Trier has carried through all of his films, presenting so many strongly opposed ideas within the same film while simultaneously offending the sensibilities of just about everyone. While it's certainly more difficult to argue the film as being a feminist allegory than it is misogynistic, the film contains enough material for anyone to mount a convincing argument that is exclusively one or the other. The film has been viewed as both virulently misogynistic and militaristically feminist, operating on a wavelength that can literally send different signals to different audience members. Prior to 2009, Danish provocateur Lars von Trier was never really one for subtlety, but anyone maintaining that illusion about him had it shattered with the release of Antichrist. This week, Willem Dafoe gets an assist from a German porn star for the opening scene of Lars von Trier's bleak 2009 flick Antichrist! Our weekly column Anatomy of a Scene's Manatomy will take an in-depth look at these scenes, their history, their deeper meanings, and their legacy. Throughout cinema history, there have been some iconic nude scenes that have transcended the bounds of the films in which they appeared.

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