OH, CHRIS T Gainsbourg
PIRATE RADIO
ing herself as a glamour girl nourished by flashbulbs. In the second, she connects with a caring teacher and starts to assert herself—but the movie’s by-the-bootstraps conclusion taints our joy at her triumph. In a small role, Mariah Carey convincingly inhabits a cubicle as a kindhearted, hard-shelled social worker, a successful atonement for Glitter.
DIREC TOR LARS von Trier’s latest exploration of—and exercise in—sadism begins with a bewitching black-and-white scene swimming in slow motion and scored to a Handel opera that lovingly laments a cruel fate. While a married couple has savage sex on every surface of their laundry room, their son toddles out of his bedroom window and falls to his death, leaving Dafoe and Gainsbourg with the only speaking roles in the film—oh, besides the fox, which at one outlandish point growls, “Chaos reigns!” Throughout, the devilish von Trier silently screams that he, with his malicious imagination, is the title character.
The husband, a psychologist, tries to be clinical about easing his wife’s wild grief. She just wants to ravage her man. “Never screw your therapist,” he sighs between sessions. The two head to their country cabin—named, with typical restraint, Eden—
so she can try to further soothe her anguish. No dice. “Nature is Satan’s church,” she proclaims, shortly therea;ter emerging as its high priestess. As if possessed, she coldcocks hubby, grabs some rusty tools, and then absorbs herself in a new pastime: genital mutilation.
I couldn’t tell you what
happens a;ter she treats him
to a blood-gushing (un)happy
ending because I was busy being
unconscious, having fainted at
onscreen gore for the first time
in my life. Somehow, I doubt
that the conclusion involved either rainbows
or Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.” Surpassing
even his Björk-torture epic, Dancer in the
Dark, for emotional exploitation while failing
to match the riveting barbarity of Dogville,
Antichrist is von Trier’s most troublesome
stunt yet. The director undermines a
frequently sensitive look at human grief
with his sensationalist ogling of inhuman
horror. By trying to pass off cheap carnage
as a deep metaphor, he made me feel used.
Pirate Radio ★½ PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, KENNETH BRANAGH FOCUS FEATURES, R Tribute to seafaring DJs is sweet enough to sicken In the 1960s, when BBC Radio was stingy about broad- casting rock, ships floating outside U.K. territorial waters picked up the slack. Among the idiocies of this fairy-tale portrayal of the phenomenon is its implication that this was the only way to hear, say, the
Who—as if there weren’t still record stores at the time. Writer-director Richard Curtis, employing the same oppressive cuteness he brought to Love Actually , further insults us by presenting a crew of DJs who rarely behave like humans. Betrayals blow over like clouds, and the young hero (Tom Sturridge) isn’t convincingly affected upon meeting the father he never knew on board. That last plot detail will earn Pirate Radio comparisons to The Life Aquatic, which isn’t fair, because this movie is damaged enough on its own.
ANTICHRIST ★★½ WILLEM DAFOE, CHARLOT TE GAINSBOURG IFC, NOT RATED
Precious: Based on
the Novel Push, by
Sapphire
★★★½
GABOUREY SIDIBE, MO’NIQUE
LIONSGATE, R
Gripping, if predictable, tale
of troubled youth
Obese, illiterate, and preg-
nant after being raped by her
father, Claireece “Precious”
Jones plods through adoles-
cence in dreary Harlem. Pri-
vate enemy number one is her
mother, played by Mo’Nique
as nastiness incarnate, who
only pauses from telling the
girl she’s worthless to beat her
up. In the first act, Precious
finds escape during fabulous
daydream sequences, imagin-
Until the Light
Takes Us
★★
VARG VIKERNES, GYLVE NAGELL
VARIANCE FILMS, NOT RATED
Black metal loses its
menace in this muddled doc
Inadequate as an explora-
tion of Norway’s early-’90s
black-metal scene and nearly
incoherent as a true-crime
story, this documentary
manages the difficult trick of
being simultaneously bizarre
and dull. The filmmakers fail
to sort out what, if anything,
is special about the thrashing
music. Instead, they fruitlessly
dwell on its links to local atroc-
ities—murder, arson, far-right
politics, bad performance
art—and eagerly swallow non-
sense that even Spinal Tap
would reject as exceedingly
juvenile. One interviewee,
explaining his artistic vision,
makes this typically banal
pronouncement: “I’m talking
about darkness with a capital
D, if you know what I mean.”
[DVD SPOTLIGHT]
PRECIOUS
CLOCK WISE FROM TOP LEF T: CHRISTIAN GEISNAES; ANNE MARIE FOX; ALEX BAILE Y
★★★★★
90 NOVEMBER 2009 ; MUSIC STUFF! ON SPIN.COM! NO KIDDING!
Trash Classic
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