Here’s some troubling news for those that weren’t at the Cannes Film Festival.
Writing a great Cannes recap piece, Anne Thompson — who did some fantastic coverage of the festival, btw — reports that the version of Lars Von Trier’s “Antichrist,” North American audiences will see will likely not be the same version seen in Cannes as IFC is planning cuts.
“IFC will show the movie uncut in a few U.S. cinemas and then trim it—working with the director—to show it on VOD.”
What does that mean exactly? Sounds like a New York/L.A. limited release uncut — as it was seen in Cannes, genital mutilation and all — and then a safer, probably R-Rated rather than NC17 cut for the rest of North America and the VOD world, no? Basically. yes.
We didn’t want to speculate too much so we asked her and she essentially confirmed as much, saying it will likely only be shown in two cities uncut (smells like NY/LA to us). What they will they cut? She says she wasn’t told, but let’s face it, everyone knows what’s going to be cut. The more brutal parts of the film and it’s probably no stretch to go out on a limb and guess those rusty scissors, snip, snip scenes are the ones that are going to be… ahem, trimmed. Does that ruin the film? Hell, no, but you know how some audiences can be about any kind of censorship (frankly, not seeing those scenes might help the whole scarred-for-life experience many of us at Cannes felt after being assaulted by Von Trier’s loony second-half of the picture).
However, we can also assume audiences annoyed by these excisions will be able to see the full and final version on DVD eventually? Let’s hope so. IFC Films has not set a date for “Antichrist” yet, but it feels like a Fall 2009 release as does much of the Cannes 2009 fare.
As nutty, off-the-charts and unsuccessful as Von Trier’s “Antichrist” can be, Thompson reminds us that it was the film that got him out of a deep depression that threatened to totally debilitate his career. With that in mind, we sort of feel that writing the manipulative misogynist harangue might have been incredibly cathartic and if it’s the choices between the existence of a half-great “Antichrist” and no further unique Lars Von Trier provocation, we’re always going to go with the former as we appreciate his twisted view of humanity even when he fails or doesn’t entirely succeed.
