Widdy foams at the mouth

Ann Widdecombe has blundered into the debate over the film Antichrist with a totally unsurprising rant in her Express column. It is almost guaranteed that she hasn't seen the film, although, unlike Christopher Hart, she isn't stupid enough to admit that.

The column isn't posted on the Express website, but this is it:

Hardcore pornography should not be shown at cinemas so why is Antichrist...deemed suitable for an 18 classification?

Errr because it isn't 'hardcore pornography'?

Have our censors become so inured to the extreme material paraded before them that they no longer recognise pornography when they see it?

No. As their recent R18 certificate for, ahem, Granny the Tranny shows.

An 18 certificate is supposed to mean not suitable for children, not unsuitable for adults as well.

Well if you think it is 'unsuitable' for you as an adult, don't watch it. The BBFC guidelines for an 18 certficate state, with some (mainly criminal) exceptions:

the BBFC’s guideline concerns will not normally override the principle that adults should be free to choose their own entertainment.

Quite right too. But Widdy goes on:

Doubtless the makers relish the publicity but if enough local authorities refuse to sanction it for public showing then it might hit them where it hurts them most - in the profit margins.

It is almost guaranteed that Lars von Trier would find articles like these highly amusing. And it is equally likely that the film has gained at the box office from the publicity. But really, this was always a niche film and its opening weekend takings of £99,092 shows that - it's only being shown in 38 cinemas. Compare that to the 600 showing the new Harry Potter which made £19.7m in its first weekend.

Newspapers should publish a list of shame, naming those authorities who allow it a screening in their cinemas.

Yes they should - then we can all find out where we can see it.

This film isn't avant garde, it isn't experimental, it isn't challenging: it is just the sort of porn you might reasonably expect to find hidden away in sleazy backstreet shops for consumption by the dirty mackintosh brigade.

Yes, that is what she really thinks. And she gets £55,000 a year for vigorous intellectual insights like that. It does seem curious that she seems more concerned about an erect penis and - shock - a married couple depicted having sex, than she seems to be about the well-publicised violence.

And from the descriptions, 'challenging' seems quite an apt word for the film. But to describe it as wanking material seems totally bizarre.

In his review, the Telegraph's Sukhdev Sandhu referred to:

the foaming-mouthed witch burners of the popular press out in full, end-of-the-world effect. It is, they hiss and scream with the moral certainty of which only the most self-regarding ideologues are ever capable, a work of pornography.

Ann Widdecombe as a 'foaming-mouthed witch burner'?

Surely not.

Is Media Monkey reading this?

On Friday, I posted that Mail film reviewer Chris Tookey had included in his review of Antichrist a none-too-subtle dig at his Mail colleague Christopher Hart, who laughably dismissed the film without having seen it.

It was somewhat surprising to open yesterday's MediaGuardian and find a Media Monkey Diary piece which sounded very familiar.

My post:

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.

Media Monkey's post:

In Friday's Daily Mail, film critic Chris Tookey got terribly worked up in his review of Lars von Trier's Antichrist, describing it as "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 could this frothing buffoon be? Quite possibly Christopher Hart, who in an op-ed rant on Monday declared: "You do not need to see Antichrist to know how revolting it is. I haven't seen it myself, nor shall I." Where did the piece appear? In the Daily Mail, of course.

A coincidence? I think we should be told, etc...

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.)