Who could he mean?

The world's most predictable film reviewer, the Mail's Chris Tookey, has given Antichrist a one star review. What a surprise.

He does give the film some praise, saying:

Parts of the picture are exquisitely crafted. They have a lyricism and a milky, dreamlike quality that evoke memories of the Russian film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky, to whom the film is dedicated.

He does at least given a fair and well argued account of why he dislikes the film, and dismisses claims the film is 'torture porn'. He adds:

The sad truth is that there is nothing in Antichrist that...[the BBFC]...has not let through before, with an 18 certificate.

Which begs the question - why the fuss? But then the most interesting paragraph of all. He says:

In its defence, Antichrist turns out to be not the picture that I have seen vilified in the press, sometimes by writers who lack any context of recent cinema with which to compare it, and in at least one case by someone who hadn’t even taken the elementary step of seeing it.

Who does he mean? Surely not Christopher Hart? Writing in the, er, Daily Mail.

Recommended - the Mail and Antichrist

Head over to Mailwatch to read Jamie's superb destruction of Christopher Hart's ridiculous What DOES it take for a film to get banned these days? rant against the film Antichrist. (Bryan Appleyard had a similar article in the Sunday Times a few weeks back, although at least he bothered to watch the film first).

Hart's pearls of wisdom include: 'You do not need to see Lars von Trier's Antichrist to know how revolting it is. I haven't seen it myself.' It does seem bizarre that anyone could write over 1,200 words about a film they haven't even seen...

The other notable bit is the way he turns this rant against modern culture into a rant against the EU, claiming it funds the Danish Film Institute, which funded the film, thus your taxes have paid for this 'sick, pretentious trash'. As Jamie found, the EU isn't involved. At all. (Any complaint to the PCC on that point would almost certainly be dismissed because the article is an opinion piece.)