Antichrist

I texted the Foca yesterday asking if our son could phone me. When he did it was on my Mother Out Law's phone. I chatted to her briefly, the line was bad. When my son came on it cut out. I howled.

They tried again minutes later. In between breaks in the line my son told me how his dad had bought him a wetsuit and did I like the card he made me. He sounded so grown up, not the soprano babble I'd heard from my neice when I spoke to my mother earlier.

Feeling somewhat dead emotionally, I went onto Facebook and found Luke, my shit school aquaintance. "How are you Mr?" He answered, as I knew he would. Good blokes do.

We talked, then he said "Bye."
"Have a great evening," I answered, "What you up to?" So much unsaid, I couldn't let go....

Then, "This is crazy... I miss you..." and as I read, tears fell down my cheeks, gently, like a caress. He let me go. I let him go. I didn't want that but had to, for both our sakes.

Earlier I'd been flirting with the idea of going to see Von Trier's Antichrist. Slated and applauded by the reviews in equal measure, I wondered if I could do horror on my own. Perhaps I should go and see Cloud 9, a gentle German film about love in old age. I'll be old one day, give me hope.

The rain tore down outside. Antichrist it was.

Critics said it was sexually explicit and violent. It was but not gratuitously. It plundered the emotions of grief, pain and despair. In the prologue, the protagonists played by Willem Defoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg are making love as their son falls out of a window and dies.

Gainsbourg is brilliant as the mother torn apart by grief. I found this hard to watch. I would want to die too. They go to Eden where she'd spent the summer before with her son. Her husband, a therapist, projecting his pain, all rational and contained, onto her.

It's a journey into the human psyche. The ugly, distorted aspects of our nature as we battle emotions more powerful than ourselves. Aspects of ourselves that offer no redemption. The film offered no redemption. Perhaps the title is the most controversial part of this film. I was glad I'd gone to see it.

I came out and the Trumpet Player had sent me a text. "You are a freak of nature."

Right! OK! If you say so!

Me, the freak, is off to the Big Chill in an hour. The perfect antidote. My nature in nature, dancing, chatting, having fun with other natures who are there to dance, chat and have fun with other natures. It's what it's all about isn't it? Chilling out!