Antichrist's ending analysis
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ANTICHRIST!
The epilogue of Antichrist by Lars Von Trier is presented to us with Hendel’s “Lascia ch’io pianga” as background music. The title of the tune literally means “let me cry”, therefore process the pain. In fact, the whole movie can be seen as an attempt for reconciliation of the two characters after the tragedy that occurred to them. !
In the end of the movie, with the death of his wife, the man can finally move on and leave the suffering behind.!
This is represented especially by the setting, with him climbing up a hill plenty of white bodies resembling a Gustav Dore’s Inferno and then climbing up a steep hill with faceless women walking towards him such as in a purgatory depicted as a Brugel painting. Therefore is like him walking from Satan’s Eden where he used to live, facing grief daily, to God’s Eden. In this new Eden there is no room for evil and suffer. Because of that, all the women, that previously are seen as sinful and persecuted as witches, now walk towards heaven and towards man as a unique faceless body representing feminine. !
The movie is fulfilled with symbolism and the three animals are probably the most recurring symbols. A fox, a doe and a crow -representing pain, anxiety and despair- they are the animals which puppet version are held by the infant child while falling down the window. Thus they become a medium for processing characters’ suffering. At the end of the movie they are shown to us as ghosts and the man smiles at them.!
The reference to Eden is strengthened by the image of him eating berries as a new apple that instead of departing from God, brings near to him.
!
ANTICHRIST!
The epilogue of Antichrist by Lars Von Trier is presented to us with Hendel’s “Lascia ch’io pianga” as background music. The title of the tune literally means “let me cry”, therefore process the pain. In fact, the whole movie can be seen as an attempt for reconciliation of the two characters after the tragedy that occurred to them. !
In the end of the movie, with the death of his wife, the man can finally move on and leave the suffering behind.!
This is represented especially by the setting, with him climbing up a hill plenty of white bodies resembling a Gustav Dore’s Inferno and then climbing up a steep hill with faceless women walking towards him such as in a purgatory depicted as a Brugel painting. Therefore is like him walking from Satan’s Eden where he used to live, facing grief daily, to God’s Eden. In this new Eden there is no room for evil and suffer. Because of that, all the women, that previously are seen as sinful and persecuted as witches, now walk towards heaven and towards man as a unique faceless body representing feminine. !
The movie is fulfilled with symbolism and the three animals are probably the most recurring symbols. A fox, a doe and a crow -representing pain, anxiety and despair- they are the animals which puppet version are held by the infant child while falling down the window. Thus they become a medium for processing characters’ suffering. At the end of the movie they are shown to us as ghosts and the man smiles at them.!
The reference to Eden is strengthened by the image of him eating berries as a new apple that instead of departing from God, brings near to him.