CANNES - Scandal hit Cannes as Denmark's Lars Von Trier offered a shock thriller on sex and madness in "Antichrist", featuring graphic close-up scenes of love and mutilation.

Critics gasped, jeered and hooted during a preview of the often difficult to watch movie, one of 20 films competing for the top award, with the theatre split at the close between applause and boos as the credits rolled.

Featuring powerful performances from Willem Dafoe and France's Charlotte Gainsbourg, the film tells the story of a couple grappling to overcome the death of their baby son.

The film opens with a close-up on the act of sex and veers into a dramatic escalation of violence, including Gainsbourg slicing off her clitoris.

Dafoe is in the role of a psycho-therapist husband.