By JOAN DUPONT
PARIS — Among the darkest, cruelest and most unsettling of the grim entries at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist” stars Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe as a couple who lose their only child and retreat to a place called Eden, to discover hell on earth. Ms. Gainsbourg won the best actress award for her part in the film, being released worldwide through October.
The actress thanked her mother, the singer-actress Jane Birkin, adding that she hoped her father, the late composer-singer Serge Gainsbourg, would have been proud — and shocked — by her performance. “I was making a joke,” she explained. “I hope he would have been happy that I did something close to him: he loved provocation.”
In “Antichrist,” Ms. Gainsbourg is filmed, at different times, naked, making love, masturbating, mutilating her husband and herself, and being strangled by him. “The toughest, most painful and scary, was the strangulation because Lars really didn’t have a limit.
“He didn’t want me to die,” she laughed, “but he wanted me to go as far as I could.”
It seems as if all France watched Ms. Gainsbourg grow up. A wisp of a girl with a wobbly voice, she sang “Lemon Incest,” a love ballad (and play on words — “zeste de citron”), in duet with her father. At the César ceremonies when, at 14, she was named most promising actress for her role in Claude Miller’s “L’effrontée” (Shameless, 1985), Serge gave her a public amorous embrace.
“I was aware of the subject of ‘Lemon Incest,’ but it didn’t shock me,” she said. “I was saying truthful things — that I loved him deeply and this was the love we would never do together. I think it was very generous of my mother to let me be free like that.”
Ms. Gainsbourg, married to the actor-director Yvan Attal, has a son and a daughter. At 38, she is no longer a hesitant girl, but a singer with her own voice and a fearless actress who sought out Mr. von Trier for the part when Eva Green stepped down. “I went to Copenhagen to meet him, but thought I wasn’t to his taste: he was very quiet and nervous. I was intimidated, but since he was so nervous, it calmed me, and the more he asked about my fears and if I had panic attacks, the more I had to say no, I was perfectly fine.”
Mr. von Trier has claimed that he made “Antichrist” during a period of depression. “I never really grasped his vision, but it didn’t matter,” said Ms. Gainsbourg. “I was attracted to the part and the idea of acting like a puppet. Ever since I was little, I liked to hide behind other people’s visions and desires. It does something for me.”
Her rare quality, a certain purity, makes her character, an anonymous woman known as She, credible. “The entire character was about pain. I don’t know if this is masochistic, but I enjoyed being that character.”
Ms. Gainsbourg’s Cannes prize, and especially this role, marks a new turn in her career. She has played headstrong women in comedies by her husband, Mr. Attal: “Ma femme est une actrice” (My Wife is an Actress) in 2000 and “Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d’enfants” (And They Lived Happily Ever After) in 2004. She also won a César for best supporting actress in Danièle Thompson’s “La bûche” (Season’s Beatings) in 1999.
American audiences know her through Michel Gondry’s “La science des rêves” (The Science of Sleep) in 2006 and Todd Haynes’s “I’m Not There” in 2007, playing opposite Heath Ledger.
“It’s always nice to do comedy, but I’m quite the opposite of that nice little girl right now — I’m not so nice, and it would be awful if I couldn’t do what I want because of that image. I’ve always done whatever attracts me without censoring myself. I didn’t do this role for the sake of provocation, just without fear of limits.”
On the set, Mr. Dafoe was a great ally. “Willem has something strong and sure,” she said. “Lars was always unexpected: you never knew when he was going to leave or have a panic attack himself. So it was good to have Willem with me in the same boat.”
Often feeling adrift, Ms. Gainsbourg says that she got little direction from Mr. von Trier, “as if he hadn’t written the screenplay. It was a big intense role with very strong emotions and it scared me, but I didn’t question it, and we didn’t rehearse: Lars doesn’t like to think about the script or talk, so that was intimidating.”
Ms. Gainsbourg has been busy with other projects, including a film directed by Patrice Chéreau and an album with Beck.
The graphic novelist Joann Sfar is making a biopic on her father and several of the women in his life, scheduled for release next year. Ms. Gainsbourg said, “I had to step back and let him make his movie. I’m sure he’ll do a great movie — it’s just that I won’t be able to watch it.”
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