Out of professional courtesy, if nothing else, I will usually sit through the end of just about any film — even ones by Michael Bay. There are some films, though, that are simply asking to be walked out on; when a filmmaker spends two hours raising his middle finger at the audience — which is basically what Lars von Trier does with his pornographically violent horror film "Antichrist" — the sensible reaction is to head for the exit.
Von Trier's "Antichrist," a sensation at Cannes in 2009, exists almost solely as a provocation, and I'm sure the director would be overjoyed to learn that another walkout viewer has reacted with shock and outrage. Except that I didn't; the "transgression" card has been so overplayed at this point — by Gaspar Noe, Michael Haneke, Kim Ki Duk, Takashi Miike — that it's just dreary, brutal and pointless. I mean, genital mutilation — didn't Isabelle Huppert already win Best Actress at Cannes for doing that back in 2001 in Haneke's "The Piano Teacher"?
Nevertheless, Cannes 2009 chose to reward Charlotte Gainsbourg for doing the same in "Antichrist." This is what it takes to win Best Actress at Cannes these days: yanking off violently next to the unconscious and bloody husband through whose leg you've just drilled a hole, followed up by self-castration. Bravo. (Interestingly, the jury that gave Gainsbourg the prize was headed by — surprise! — Isabelle Huppert.)