Who are these women coming at the end of movie Antichrist?

Question

During the Epilogue, in the the last scenes of Lars von Triers Antichrist, hundreds of blurred-face women were ascending towards the hero.

Picture source

Who are these women and what is their significance? Is there any official word for their significance?

Answer 1

While this film, in general, defies attempts to analyze it, here are a few (hopefully not too jumbled) thoughts which are a composite from reading many analyses of this film, a film rich in incoherent and possibly unintended(!) religious symbolism:

While She came to believe that women were inherently evil, He was repulsed by this idea. The trip to Eden was about exorcising the evil which She had incorporated into her being during her studies ("masculine" knowledge attained from outside). She crippled her son, in Eden She tries to cripple her husband; She tries to neuter both of them, removing the organs which both created the son and were responsible for his death.

The women at the end, who were perhaps somehow the same as the fragments of women entwined in the tree roots earlier in the film, are climbing - Heaven is up. They are dressed - leaving Eden. The mood is peaceful. It feels like the women have been released by the death of She. There are references in the film to witchcraft, and one has to remember that women who were accused of witchcraft were often mystics or inclined to intuitive knowledge rather than actual "witches." This could be seen as a release of "feminine knowledge" which in the time of witch hunts was seen as evil, but which is really the powerful intuition we all access at times - knowledge from inside. The whole Eden story is about eating from the tree of knowledge (and there are many ways to interpret that one!).

In the Bible version of the story, Eden is the work of God and eating the fruit means Adam and Eve are cast from the garden for yielding to Satan's temptation. This film is called Antichrist. It is a story that presumes Eden is the work of Satan, and the expulsion this time can be seen as a positive (in traditional terms), a move toward God instead of away from God. Note that he is eating berries on his way out - the bramble a symbol of Christ (think thorny crown).

As noted in another question about this film, Lars von Trier wrote this film in the depths of depression. It served as his means to survival, forcing him to get out of bed to write ten pages each day. In one interview he says:

"Truthfully, I can only say I was driven to make the film, that these images came to me and I did not question them. My only defence is: 'Forgive me, for I know not what I do.'" This precipitates a bout of giggling. "I am really the wrong person to ask what the film means or why it is as it is," he says finally, "It is a bit like asking the chicken about the chicken soup."

The symbols in this film are from deep within the psyche of the artist, but his joke suggest a Biblical theme. I don't think you will find an authoritative answer to your question.

This analytical discussion of the film between Rob White (Film Quarterly) and philosopher Nina Power is an interesting place to start.

Answer 2

I couldn't find anything from an official source, but I think that it's pretty safe to say that since the antagonist believed that all women were inherently evil, these ladies represent that belief and I believe that they intend to kill the Hero.