Antichrist premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to applause, booing, and fainting. Producer Meta Louise Foldager talks to LAURA MCQUILLAN of NZPA about what has been called 2009's most shocking film.

Wellington, July 22 NZPA - Antichrist, which had a controversial premiere at this year's Cannes Film Festival, is at best a hard film to watch -- at worst, downright disturbing.

Audience members fainted at the debut screening of the film, in which nature settings and striking camerawork contrast sharply with footage of graphic sex, violence and genital mutilation .

Reviewers were left deeply divided over its artistic merits.

Producer Meta Louise Foldager tells NZPA Antichrist's director and screenwriter Lars Von Trier aimed to push people's limits with the film .

"It is a provocative film and it's also a very, very, beautiful film," Foldager says.

"We did expect that there would be people who couldn't make it through and there would be people who hated it, and there would also be people who absolutely loved it."

Starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe as a nameless couple who retreat to a cabin in the woods after their son's death, Antichrist shows a wife struggling with depression and sexuality, and her psychologist husband's attempts to heal her.

It has been received variously in different countries, so it's hard to predict how audiences will respond when it first screens at the New Zealand International Film Festival in Auckland tomorrow (eds: July 23).

"Most of the time people either call it a masterpiece and all that and [give it] a lot of stars, or they go in the other direction and say it's absolutely crap," Foldager says.

"That's the reaction we got, people who thought it was [von Trier's] most important and best film and then there are people who say that he should never be allowed to do movies again."

Each viewer has a different interpretation of the film -- and of von Trier's intentions, Foldager says.

"You put this film in front of people and they see little pieces of themselves and then they're making their own interpretation out of it, which is very interesting."

Von Trier has been called many names, not least a misogynist, for his previous works and this latest film, but Foldager says he's really taking the role of devil's advocate.

"He always tries to pick the opposite argument of what he thinks himself, and that's what happened -- when someone's saying women are bad or evil, people think that that's what he thinks, but it's not. There's a deeper layer," Foldager says.

"Me and you and every other woman in the world, for thousands of years we've heard that women are, you know, their sexuality is bad, or they're not as good as men and all that and it gets to us.

"It's a cultural thing and I think this film is trying to point that out, of course, because Lars doesn't agree with it."

The film renews the old debate over where to draw the line between "art" and "pornography", and its graphic nature, which some reviewers likened to "torture porn", prompted calls for it to be banned.

In New Zealand and most other countries, it is classified R18, and the United Kingdom expressed a desire to edit it before it could be screened, but in Sweden and Denmark, anyone over 15 can watch it.

To Foldager, the film is firmly a work of art, and she says much of history's great art has pushed limits in a similar way.

"Personally, I don't think we should ban art movies. You can, of course, tell people that they shouldn't go take their kids to see it.

"It is a piece of art and if you look through history at which pieces of art have done this and created such a discussion, and which artists have done that, it assures me that this is going to be one of Lars' most important pieces of art."

*for pix, contact Rebecca McMillan at the New Zealand Film Festival, rebecca@nzff.co.nz, (04) 802 2575, 0274 555 061

*Antichrist screenings:

Auckland - July 23, 25, 26

Dunedin - July 28

Wellington - July 31, August 2

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