September 28th, 2007
7. Straw Dogs (1971)
A forceful, unrelenting statement on masculinity and violence, Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs sounds like a perfectly watchable home-invasion thriller, concluding as it does with the hero standing his ground and beating back his formidable attackers. But like many of the films on this list, it's a case where the moviemaking is skillful enough to make even its simple revenge scenario seem dangerously potent. Critic Pauline Kael described it as a "fascist classic" for casting Dustin Hoffman as a wimpy, bespectacled academic and pacifist whose manhood remains questionable until he's put through a bloody rite of passage. Hoffman's gruesome showdown with a group of crude locals would be shocking enough on its own, but the infamous scene that prefaces it counts as even more disturbing. Left alone in their home in a seemingly quaint Cornish village, Hoffman's wife (Susan George) is raped by her former lover and his crony. Initially horrified, she eventually responds with something close to ecstasy, underlining her husband's weakness in the context of an indefensible rape fantasy.
8. Audition (1999)
"Kiri-kiri-kiri-kiri-kiri!" ("Deeper, deeper, deeper…") J-horror maestro Takashi Miike has plenty of disturbing images to his credit—a man suspended horizontally by hooks and doused with hot oil in Ichi The Killer, the infamous lactation sex scene in Visitor Q—but Audition, his best film in a walk, unsettles because its shocks are character-oriented, in addition to merely being gross. The first half of the film could be mistaken for austere melodrama, as Miike follows a widowed producer who "auditions" a new wife under false pretenses, and finds a quiet, petite young woman who fits the bill. But the woman turns out to have a dark agenda, and she answers his deceptions in a horrifically extended torture sequence involving a very long needle. Her retribution is Miike's sick idea of social critique, addressing the problem of female objectification with unspeakable (and yet weirdly erotic) acts of cruelty.
9. Sick: The Life And Death Of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997)
Simply describing the sadomasochistic stunts pulled by Bob Flanagan, a performance artist who died from cystic fibrosis at age 43, is enough to get half the population wincing as if they were sucking on a lemon wedge. But seeing Flanagan's work in Kirby Dick's surprisingly moving and inspiring documentary Sick is another matter. As a way of combating a body that was constantly betraying him, Flanagan tested his astounding pain threshold in shocking ways, most notoriously including a nail pounded into his penis. (In close-up.) It may sound like something no one would want to watch the first time, let alone twice, but Sick is redeemed by Flanagan's wicked sense of humor and courageous defiance in fighting a disease that normally strikes down the afflicted during childhood.
10. Come And See (1985)
Many films use a child's perspective to tell a war story—it's a easy way to chronicle loss of innocence and portray the consequences of violence. Nothing on film drives this point home quite as effectively as Elem Klimov's Come And See, the chronicle of one boy's struggle to defend his Belarusian village from the Nazis in 1943. Aleksei Kravchenko spends the early part of the film eager to join his comrades, finding a damaged rifle of his own and dressing in oversized military clothing, camouflaging his youth before the war actually takes it from him. Kravchenko's face tells the story, as repeated close-ups document his transformation. By the film's end, it's hard to tell whether dried dirt or actual wrinkles are violating his once-youthful visage. The scene where a Nazi officer gleefully pushes Kravchenko to his knees and points a pistol at his temple to pose for a photograph may once have brought to mind Saigon and that notorious execution of a Viet Cong officer. Now, it's hard not to think of Abu Ghraib.
11. In A Year Of 13 Moons (1978)
There's torment enough in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's deeply personal In A Year Of 13 Moons long before it reaches the sequence that made it semi-notorious. Fassbinder's hero, a transvestite martyr played by Volker Spengler, is a pitiable Frankfurt drifter who had a sex-change operation years earlier, prompted by an offhand comment ("too bad you're not a girl") from an unattainable object of desire. Spengler convinces neither as a man or as a woman, and he winds up subjecting himself to his old crush, now a cruel businessman whose towering office space is accessed by the password "Bergen-Belsen." And on top of it all, the film was shot mere weeks after Fassbinder's lover committed suicide. But 13 Moons saves its most disturbing setpiece for its final act, which contains a monologue on self-mutilation set against footage of the killing floor in a slaughterhouse. Fassbinder super-fan Richard Linklater lifted the idea for Fast Food Nation as a tactic for letting audiences know where their steaks and burgers come from, but the combination of those images and the dissociated voiceover makes 13 Moons considerably more disturbing.
12. Safe (1995)
A sort-of horror movie in which the monster is the entire world, Todd Haynes' Safe follows a rich, empty housewife (played masterfully by Julianne Moore) into the depths of "environmental illness"—a malady that real-world doctors still can't agree on. Is it all in her head, which is half-vacant and in need of something to worry about when all basic needs are met? Or is she just sensitive to low levels of toxic chemicals that most people simply don't notice? The film doesn't offer an clear answer—instead, it follows Moore through incredibly uncomfortable anxieties and unpeggable illnesses. She ends up at a wellness retreat, which at first seems to offer some hope, but she's soon sucked even deeper into the discomfort of her own mind. It's pure bleakness.
« Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next »
- Comments