Ever since his first feature, The Element of Crime, played at Cannes in 1984, Lars von Trier has remained one of the most controversial figures in international cinema. That said, nothing he has done could possibly prepare people for the profoundly disturbing Antichrist. The film follows an unnamed couple as they deal with the loss of their infant son. Shot in a deeply chilling and unsettling style that combines both the rigorously choreographed, symbol-laden universe of Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky (to whom the film is dedicated) and recent Japanese horror movies, Antichrist is a vision of hell, proffering nightmarish, essentialized portraits of the sexes. The wife is irrational and explosive; the husband controlling and dismissive. That said, it's rather misleading to discuss them as individual characters, since we're deep in the realm of allegory. The film is driven by a deep-seated awareness of evil and a horror of what we're capable of doing and thinking. I see a lot of movies, and I can't recall another film that has haunted me quite like this one. Steve Gravestock