Written by Drew Byrd-Smith
Most people endure their fair share of tough times - the poverty of college life, relationship problems, a bad car accident, a woeful flirtation with the crack pipe, or any other equally awful experience. But film is constantly there to remind us that there are others out there who are suffering exponentially more than we could ever hope to. Watching them overcome their challenges or ultimately be swallowed by them create two very different types of movies, but in the end, there’s a certain set of films that show us an exceptionally brutal set of circumstances.
WARNING: Spoilers ahead…
THE pING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
His problem: Suffered an unpredicted stroke, resulting in complete paralysis except for his left eye, and died two years later.
Your problem: Alone on Valentine’s Day.
By all accounts, French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby led a pretty great life. He had found success and fame as the editor of Elle magazine, was a father to two kids, and certainly wasn’t lacking in female companionship. Wealth, family and romance - the rest of us could only be so lucky. But on December 8th, 1995, Jean-Do had a debilitating stroke, leaving him with someone called “locked in syndrome.” Paralyzed everywhere except for his left eye, he could still see and hear but was totally unable to reply to his surroundings in any way.
The ping Bell and the Butterfly is a very subdued film about hope and inspiration, in that it doesn’t go for the typical “do your best!” platitudes, but instead subjects you to very difficult circumstances and allows the main character to accomplish incredible things in them. The movie is shot primarily in first person, which does a superb job at making you feel really fucking frustrated for Jean-Do as he lolls around without an ounce of control of his own body. The aforementioned inspiration comes from that, even in this state, he managed to write a book by blinking it out one letter at a time. And now he’s got a pretty damn good film about him, too. Kind of makes you feel unaccomplished, huh?
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM
Their problems:
1) Developed a speed addiction after going on a futile diet in order to lose weight, all in the name of going on a TV show she would never be on. Eventually had to be electroshocked into sanity.
2) Developed a heroin addiction along with his girlfriend and, in a bout of hazed indiscretion, repeatedly injected into a suppurating vein, wounding the arm irreversibly. Amputation ensues.
3) Developed a heroin addiction along with her boyfriend to cope with the perpetual feeling of being ignored by her parents in favor of their money. Addiction deepens while money dries up after her boyfriend stops paying attention to her and, concurrently, she turns to prostitution as a means for filling both needs.
4) Developed a heroin addiction and runs a few ill-fated drug deals in order to fuel this addiction. After taking his wounded friend (see 2) to the hospital, he is then apprehended by police and thrown in the slammer for an indeterminate amount of miserable years.
Your problem: Someone ate the last slice of cake.
The omnibus piece is a great way to involve a viewer with a whole bunch of fucked-up, miserable characters, and Requiem for a Dream is the top of the pops. Darren Aronofsky’s magnum opus is a scathing indictment of not just drugs, but addiction and need in general. Though I’ve never plumbed the depths of a heroin habit, I can safely say that it looks like the repercussions surely aren’t worth it; sensationalized though it may be, Aronofsky does a great job making the stuff look thoroughly unappealing. If something can go wrong for the four characters in the film, it does, be it their attempts to score more drugs (or more money for drugs) or the out-of-control pill popping in order to lose weight and regain youthful energy.
I’m hesitant to make the claim that Requiem for a Dream will scare everyone away from a potential drug binge. The sensationalized editing and pacing tricks will either take the viewer on a nightmarish trip or turn them off from the movie totally, based on whether they can suspend disbelief or resist the theatrics, respectively. Those willing, however, will be exposed to four people who become entangled with a drug and a culture that they simply can’t get above. It eats them alive and spits out their bones. The one thing Aronofsky seems to beg of his viewers is “run for your lives.”
BOOGIE NIGHTS
Their problems: Being talentless, vaguely attractive losers with nice tits and big penises, using their sexuality to support themselves both emotionally and financially. Everyone ends up miserable, addicted to drugs or dead.
Your problem: Hot Topic ran out of TMNT hoodies the other day.
Boogie Nights is just about the polar opposite of Requiem for a Dream. It presents a spiritual dead-end like the porn industry as a place of unending fun, friends and dubious fame, a (figurative) orgy of bright colors and great drugs and bumpin’ tunes. Dirk Diggler, Rollergirl, Amber Waves and all these other pornographers are living a fantastic life, but a lot can change in the span of a two and a half hour movie, and change it does. Once the golden boy of the porn world, Diggler loses his place to a bunch of young upstarts. He turns to showing off his penis for random men in parking lots and being complicit in dangerous heists to fuel his cocaine habit. Amber Waves loses her child, the one thing in her world that she really cares about, to her husband in a porce settlement. Rollergirl is humiliated and degraded in front of people from her old high school. William H. Macy shoots himself. Philip Seymour Hoffman tries to make out with Diggler and is awkward. The list goes on and on and on…
But at the end of it all, you know what the saddest part of it is? Dirk Diggler goes BACK. His old producer sees him in a sad state and offers him the opportunity to return to the porn world, and he does it without a hesitation. That initial allure is so overwhelming that, even with knowledge of its seedy underbelly, he chooses to relive it again. Is this a happy ending or the beginning of a new disaster for Dirk? Considering how well he did the first time around, I’m inclined to think the latter. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with sexuality or the human body, but being so openly appreciated for nothing but your sex organs is surely damaging to many. Whether that’s because of our deep-rooted feelings about sex is a matter best left to a psychologist, but Paul Thomas Anderson suggests that most people simply aren’t strong enough to make a wholesome career out of it.
APOCALYPSE NOW
His problem: Received a government ultimatum that basically amounted to a suicide mision. Spent hellish weeks sailing down a river populated with hostile Vietnamese soldiers. Upon reaching his destination, got his mind blown and his universe tweaked beyond recognition.
Your problem: Can’t afford an iPhone.
If I had to pick, I’d probably choose Apocalypse Now as the most horrifying film I’ve ever seen. I had to go out and get ice cream afterwards because I felt sick to my stomach sitting through something so nightmarish. If there is one film that can bring you to understand the sacrifices our soldiers have made for our benefit, it’s this one - and it’s widely argued that we had very little to do in Vietnam anyway. So is all the suffering we see on display in Apocalypse Now for naught? To me, that’s one of the most depressing parts of the whole affair.
This isn’t the place for political punditry, though; instead, I’m here to tell you why Captain Benjamin L. Willard had a really bad month. He is sent into the heart of the Vietnamese jungles by his superiors to find and eliminate one Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, a US expatriate playing God with the natives. On his way, he suffers through horrific conditions, fights numerous bloody battles, and watches the few men he could call friends die horrific deaths all around him. Upon finally reaching his target, he had everything he knew about the institution he worked for undermined and sullied, is forced to kill Colonel Kurtz with a machete, and returned to the USA with almost certain psychological damage. I am almost certainly not doing justice to the movie, because the oppression and pain is just as audio-visual as it is narrative. Everything Francis Ford Coppola films and records is used to further the chaos that is this mission. The screams of innocent Vietnamese as the Americans firebomb their village; enemies on the embankment hollering and spraying the gunboat with spears; the burning, angry atmosphere of Colonel Kurtz’s camp of brainwashed locals and fellow expatriates. Even the tiniest bits of reprieve - a Playboy show, a puppy found in an enemy’s boat - are ripped away from these soldiers savagely. The movie simply doesn’t give you a break. It is a harrowing cinematic experience, one that will move you and deepen your perspective of both war and film. And if you can’t appreciate what you have after you’ve watched it, then you don’t deserve any of it.
LILYA 4-EVER
Her problem: Abandoned by her mother in a poor country and forced to turn to prostitution to support herself. Her best friend dies, her boyfriend sells her to a sex slavery ring, she contracts a disease and then ends the movie by killing herself.
Your problem: Finding new excuses to bitch about gas prices.
Lilya 4-Ever is one of the more extreme examples on this list, simply because poor Lilya never really stands a chance. Her life is such a negative, hopeless torrent of pain that the viewer automatically learns to parse “happy things that happen to Lilya” into “happy things that will soon go horribly wrong for Lilya.” Her mother flees to America, leaving her in an Estonian slum to die. To make ends meet, a girl from her school takes her to a nightclub, where she learns the prostitution trade. She loses her only friend to malnutrition. When a boy comes into her life and promises to take her away from Estonia, she soon discovers that he’s working for a sex trade, rendering her a prisoner and shuttling her out to several clients a day. Between tricks, she’s locked in an apartment with very little food. Her death seems the most fitting conclusion to this macabre chain of events.
Why would a viewer choose to subject himself to such a relentless film? Lilya 4-Ever is a sublime slice of socially conscious horror, illuminating the sex slave trade with unforgettable tenacity. There’s no way anyone could sit through this film and be able to set aside what Lilya goes through, which is apparently a common problem in underdeveloped Eastern European countries even today. This is just about the farthest thing away from escapist entertainment, but for those looking for a deep and harrowing emotional experience, this film is more than ready to provide.
RESCUE DAWN
His problem: Stranded in a POW camp. Upon escape, he and a friend ventured through immensely dangerous terrain, only for that friend to be beheaded. At death’s door, he is rescued in perhaps the only happy ending on this list.
Your problem: Failed a class that you weren’t paying attention in anyway.
Rescue Dawn, or Christian Bale Undergoes a Radical Physical Transformation in the Name of Acting Part 38, is one of the sadly underseen gems of 2007. A Werner Herzog master-class in filmic restraint, the only extreme aspect of the movie is the punishment heaped upon poor Dieter Dengler. On a routine air mission over Laos, he is shot down and taken to a hostile POW camp where is he is tortured, starved and almost certain to not be rescued. After pulling off an against-all-odds retreat strategy, he and his friend Duane (Steve Zahn, surprisingly effective against type) wander the outlying jungles in the thick of monsoon season with no shoes, supplies or idea of where to go. Upon finding civilization, Duane is senselessly murdered, and Dieter narrowly escapes with his life, alone and forced to hide and forage. He manages to flag down two passing helicopters, however, and escapes with his life intact.
This is definitely a less arduous viewing experience than fellow Vietnam flick Apocalypse Now, but some viewers might empathize with it more since this is the account of a real man. Dieter Dengler, also the subject of Herzog-helmed documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, spent approximately six months in Laotian captivity, in addition to 23 days wandering the jungles; this account of his steadfastness and insistence on escaping makes for a genuinely inspiring ending. Herzog is careful never to manipulate the viewer for sympathy, letting only the film remind you that this war actually happened and the people in it actually suffered. And if the ending seems a little overblown, it’s because a man like Dieter deserves the hero’s welcome he received.
FUNNY GAMES
Their problem: A family experiences ceaseless brutality at the hands of two psychotic young men and are then picked off one by one.
Your problem: Actually, seeing this movie is your problem.
I’ve only seen Michael Haneke’s original Funny Games. That was enough for me, and to the best of my knowledge his USA retreatment with Naomi Watts and Tim Roth is a shot-for-shot remake, so I don’t think I’m missing much. It is a deplorable film that posits itself as an attack against violence as entertainment and our society’s brainless consumption thereof, but fails spectacularly at remedying the problem or even saying anything insightful.
Watts and Roth are a married couple held hostage by a pair of completely incorrigible psychopaths, totally immune to reason or pleading of any kind. After countless “funny games,” they are forced to watch their son get shot; after a long, blood-soaked scene of quiet introspection, the couple makes a failed attempt to escape. The husband is then brutalized for ages with a knife and eventually put out of his misery. The wife is able to seize their gun and shoot one of her captors but the other REWINDS THE MOVIE and cuts her off at the pass. Eventually, they take her aboard a boat and kill her as well (after one more futile, maddening attempt at resistance).
Haneke’s problem in telegraphing Funny Games and its corresponding message is that the delivery of the film is completely at odds with what it’s trying to say. At absolute best, Funny Games may have made you feel uncomfortable. Is that going to stop you from watching any violent films ever again? Not bloody likely; Haneke fails here. At worst, you admired the filmmaking, the brutality and the sheer insanity of the antagonists, in which case the movie is completely lost on you and Haneke fails again. Someone who watches movies like Saw without irony is not going to see this and experience a sudden change of heart about movie violence. They’ll just think it’s either badass or boring (because sadly, this film is tame these days). So basically, Haneke shoots himself in the foot, and then films it without cuts for seven minutes. So what’s more horrifying: the movie, or the fact that the movie has probably done far more harm than good?
KIDS
Their problem: A bunch of children who don’t know any better living in a world of sex, drugs and hate, with barely a speck of remorse for their choices.
Your problem: You’re living in the same world.
So we all know Larry Clark is kind of creepy, the kind of old guy who coaches Little League and gives you that really funny feeling in the pit of your stomach, but it doesn’t make his movie offerings any less resonant. Kids chronicles a collection of youths trapped in the heat of insurmountable inner-city poverty, choosing hedonism to avoid their circumstances. This world comes crashing to a halt for one girl who learns that, after just one sexual encounter, that she’s contracted HIV, and her attempts to warn everyone about the promiscuous boy who gives it to her ultimately fail. In fact, they fail spectacularly, because she gets drugged and date-raped, thus spreading the disease to yet more unknowing kids.
Of all the films on this list, Kids is the farthest away from entertainment of any form. It is ugly, oppressive, generally poorly acted and full of sketchy, half-done characters. It’s hard to get behind this movie for any reason. Its best purpose is as a polemic, demonstrating what ignorant youth is truly capable of doing to itself and others. Children are quickly trivialized and belittled, but it doesn’t make them any less destructive. The challenging question the film offers is that, as detestable as their activities might seem, this may not really be their fault. Are behaviors like theirs a product of their environment? Are all poor youths doomed to waste away like the ones we see here?
Get tested, stay in school and don’t do drugs.
Now it’s your turn! Tell us what films remind YOU that life actually isn’t so bad after all, and if your selections are good, we’ll add them to the list.
USER UPDATES!City of God
(Suggested by: like half the people who read the article, Contributed by: Drew Byrd-Smith)
I would be remiss if I excluded City of God from this list in some capacity, though I already did in the first go-around so basically I fail. Besides being an absolutely fantastic movie, it is notable for immortalizing one of the most hostile, dynamic settings in cinema: the City of God itself, a real-life Brazilian slum where violence and crime reign supreme. Spanning a period of several years, City of God introduces a slew of fascinating characters to us, only to kill them all in drug deals gone awry or horrific gang wars. Though a challenging watch, it is also well worth seeing for any cinephile.
Dancer in the Dark
(Suggested & Contributed by: CoreyTamas)
Her problem: Musical-loving woman who is going blind is going to lose her job if anyone finds out. Naturally, she lives in scrunting poverty as it is. She has a rotten son and, of course, the father is nowhere around. This is the cheeriest part of the story, btw. Later, the small bit of money she has been saving in a tin is stolen by the guy from Hill Street Blues and she has to kill him when he attacks her. Then she ends up on death row and hung by the neck. To music, no less.
Your problem: Beer you put in the fridge 10 minutes ago is still warm.
Bad Lieutenant
(Suggested & Contributed by: Lurky_Mysterioso)
I really expected to see Bad Lieutenant on this list, which really made me appreciate how much worse my own life could be when I first saw it.. however, I felt great as a consequence, not bad at all. The film’s a huge downer, but seriously cheered me up.
It’s not as slickly commercial as something like Requiem for a Dream, harder to watch all the way through and doesn’t spoon-feed messages to you, but was much more convincing for me because of that.
Irreversible
(Suggested & Contributed by: Jeremiah)
A dude starts out in jail, and then we discover why. He beats a guy’s head in with a fire extinguisher, someone rapes his wife in a subway tunnel for 10 UNINTERRUPTED MINUTES, and the rest is a blur to me, but the fact is, this film is told in reverse. So basically, you know the horrible stuff before seeing the happy stuff, but even when you see the happy stuff, you know it’s not meant to last. Did I mention the rape scene is 10 minutes long? Oh, and midway through, some other person walks in on it, but instead of helping her, he watches for a few moments, then leaves the woman to be brutalized some more. Eeesh.
Dark Days
(Suggested by: Anonymous)
IMDB Synopsis: Near Penn Station, next to the Amtrak tracks, squatters have been living for years. Marc Singer goes underground to live with them, and films this “family.” A dozen or so men and one woman talk about their lives: horrors of childhood, jail time, losing children, being coke-heads. They scavenge, they’ve built themselves sturdy one-room shacks; they have pets, cook, chat, argue, give each other haircuts. A bucket is their toilet. Leaky overhead pipes are a source of water for showers. They live in virtual darkness. During the filming, Amtrak gives a 30-day eviction notice.
Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom
(Suggested & Contributed by: Anonymous)
‘Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom’ makes the films on this list seem as uplifting as ‘it’s A Wonderful Life’. Very, very disturbing. See it - but be warned - it will change you.