Pro or Anti-Christ?

Last weekend I popped back to England, where the prep for Antichrist's release (today) was in full force. It's interesting that more than one publication seems to have decided that they're not sure if they can rely on their own critic's judgement, and have hence consulted an array of diverse 'consultants' from across the arts to have their say (Guardian, Time Out).

A notable exception to this trend is the famous Daily Mail, whose criticism of the film nearly had me laugh out loud. For anyone outside of the UK, this newspaper, in my opinion, is our most abhorrent publication - a national embarrassment which is more deplorable than any of the red top press purely because of its hypocrisy. The DM pretend to be a bastion of middle class morality, while at the same time being so surreptitiously right wing, misogynistic, xenophobic (I stopped short of racist), self-righteous and outrageously antagonistic that it makes my blood boil. The worst thing is that a large section of the middle class are oblivious to this, and see it as a nice middle of the road paper somewhere between the broadsheet and the tabloid.

Anyway, the point of the matter is that their self-proclaimed 'liberal' film critic Christopher Hart has proposed a new genre of film criticism where you review a film without having seen it. Quote:

I haven't seen it myself, nor shall I - and I speak as a broad-minded arts critic, strongly libertarian in tendency. But merely reading about Antichrist is stomach-turning, and enough to form a judgment.

Maybe more critics should take note of this great time saver - why bother seeing any source material when you can just judge a piece of art from reading about it?

However, it looks like Hart may have risen to the bait as proffered by Artificial Eye's PR company who seem to be plumbing new depths of promotion tactics with their lowest common denominator press release.

I feel a bit sad that an independent distributor who prides itself on offering films of quality would then market such a film in such an unashamedly populist way. It goes without saying that I want as many people to see great cinema as possible, but this kind of marketing is surely only going to attract the wrong crowd. Antichrist isn't a gory, voyeuristic thriller - it's an art film that is surely going to disappoint a large number of people who are attracted purely by the controversy.

Anyway if it wins some converts to the goodness of European cinema, I'm all for it. I just wish the means didn't leave such a bad taste in my mouth.