Foggy signs: Dark ecological queerings in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist

Abstract

Abstract This article draws on the rich ecocritical scholarship that has burgeoned in the twenty-first century to posit that queer representations of the environment that blur Romantic human/non-human dualism can challenge and nuance our discussion of the present ecological crisis. Lars von Trier’s infamous film Antichrist, I argue, presents the viewer with such a queer vision of dark ecology. This is not a harmonious and peaceful vision of Romantic nature, but the environment as a mesh, a place where the very division between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ is consistently undermined. ‘Nature’ in von Trier’s cinematic world represents all the invasive aspects of our biological surroundings that humans have sought to flee for millennia by producing shelter and culture. Antichrist has been called a psychological thriller or horror film, but it can also, I argue, be appropriately defined as a primary and genre-defining artwork of dark ecology.