He resembles a tragic hero, who, because of his Hamartia, experiences a reversal of power, and with it, a realisation about nature. Far from curing her, the exposure to nature convinces her that She is a witch and He comes to share her belief, in the end killing her and burning her body. He, a therapist, treats She’s grief and anxiety by taking her to the place that she most fears, a cabin in the woods called Eden. Antichrist explores fear of woman as nature: the film following two characters identified as ‘He’ and ‘She’ who have lost their child, Nic. Arguably, this dynamic, where the social is understood as either an extension of the natural but also a safeguard against nature, manifests in the historic subjugation of women. A conservative response to the power of nature would be the maintenance of taboos. However, nature can also be frightening and sublime. In Burkean conservative political discourse, society has natural limits, limits that are tied to the natural.
This chapter examines the political, metaphysic and aesthetic implications of the fear of ‘nature’ in Lars von Trier’s film, Antichrist (2009), by reading it through the varying conceptions of tragedy offered by Hölderlin, Hegel, Heidegger and Nietzsche.
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