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*There might be a few spoilers in here, just so you�re aware, but I�ve tried to keep plot details to a minimum. I don�t think it tells you anything that you wouldn�t find on the back of the DVD box.*
Of all the Kenzaburo Oe books that have been translated into English and that I�ve read (and that�s most of them), An Echo of Heaven is the only one that I did not enjoy. In fact, I believe I actively disliked it. But it did have one redeeming quality, which was a provocative analysis of W. B. Yeats�s famous poem, �The Second Coming,� from which we�ve gotten so many wonderful phrases and book titles (�things fall apart,� �the center cannot hold,� �the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity,� �slouching towards Bethlehem.�) Now, Oe�s protagonist is becoming a religious fanatic (which I don�t approve of, but which he seemed to be ok with, which was part of my problem with the book), but in her analysis of �The Second Coming,� she proposes an interesting theory about the significance of the figure of the Antichrist. She suggests that the prefix �anti� should be interpreted not in the sense of something that opposes, but rather as something that precedes (as we get with words like antediluvian and antebellum). In this sense, the Antichrist is not necessarily Christ�s opponent, but potentially just someone or something that paves the way for Christ. One could even argue that, in this sense, John the Baptist plays the role of the Antichrist in the Gospels. But perhaps in this sense, in the sense that Oe�s proposing, it would make more sense to render the word as Antechrist rather than Antichrist?
I say this as the preamble to my theory about who or what is the �Antichrist� in Lars von Trier�s controversial movie of the same name, in which a nameless couple�played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg�suffer the loss of their only child and, seeking solitude in which to grieve and heal, they withdraw to an isolated cottage in the woods, where they proceed to emotionally and then physically destroy each other and themselves. A lot of people think the film was misogynistic (Gainsbourg�s character and that character�s genitalia suffer more damage than Dafoe�s) and so they conclude that the Antichrist of the title must refer to Gainsbourg. My personal theory, when I first watched the film, was that Dafoe was the Antichrist; Dafoe�s character is a therapist and he seeks to use a variety of methods, some of them quite distressing, to cure his wife�s grief, which he thinks is obsessive. Of the two of them, it seemed to me that he was the one whose actions most precipitated the couple�s destruction, and that he was an Antichrist in this sense (not the Oe-sense, but rather the sense of somebody embodying the principle of evil). Far from being misogynistic, I saw in the film a condemnation of a man who manipulates a woman and leads to her undoing; it�s a film that castigates male tyranny (or even better, it�s a film featuring two individuals, and we don�t have to take them as representatives of every other man and woman on the planet. Although perhaps the end credits, which refer to them as �He� and �She,� tend to insist that we do).
But then I think of the title Antichrist in the sense that Oe employs the term, and it seems to me that perhaps both the characters were Antichrists (or rather, Antechrists) in that their actions lead to a small-scale apocalypse (Gainsbourg�s mutilation and death, Dafoe�s terrible physical suffering) and that their actions therefore lay the groundwork for the return of Christ; or at least they�re acting out an apocalyptic scenario where that kind of reasoning could apply and in which the concept of �Antechrist� (that which precedes Christ) comes into play.
Just a heads up to anyone reading this and thinking, �What kind of suffering/mutilation are we talking about here? Maybe I should watch this film right away and find out!� Let me warn you, the violence�often of a sexual nature�is very graphic and potentially very disturbing. If you don�t want to see a frank depiction of people suffering catastrophic genital injuries, I would advise against watching the movie. That said, I think it�s a very beautiful, very well-executed film, and if you can stomach the horrors it has to offer, then I would strongly recommend it.
