Lars Von Trier shocks Cannes

New movie by Lars Von Trier shocks and disgusts audiences in Cannes.

After winning two major prizes at Cannes, in 1997 for «Breaking the Waves» and in 2000 for «Dancer in the Dark», Danish director Lars Von Trier's latest movie «Antichrist», starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, was eagerly awaited on the Croisette.

Initial reactions to explicit scenes in the film were sharp, with the audience booing at the screen. The plot of the horror film follows a couple who lose their only child in an accident. To try to get over the 3-year-old's death, the devastated parents shut themselves in to a cabin deep in the woods, where the mother begins to go mad.

The objectionable sequences, with allusions to Christianity and psychoanalysis, contain scenes in which the couple decompensates completely, including genital mutilation, over-the-top gore and violence. Although a few voiced their admiration for a new masterpiece, most in the audience were scandalized by Von Trier's film, which he claims to have written after getting over his depression.