September 28th, 2007
13. Irreversible (2002)
Gaspar Noé's Irreversible picked up some well-deserved notoriety for its centerpiece, a gasp-inducing nine-minute single-take sequence in which Jo Prestia anally violates Monica Bellucci at knifepoint in a grimy (and highly symbolic) red underground tunnel, then beats her to an unrecognizable pulp. There's nothing cinematic or subversively sexy about the rape scene; it's a ghastly, raw experience that seems to go on for hours, with Bellucci's muffled cries and wide, blank eyes becoming increasingly inhuman as the process drags on. But Noé doesn't make the rest of the film any easier to take. Laying out the story in reverse chronological order, he begins with a stomach-churning act of revenge for the rape, then sets his camera spinning slowly end-over-end, preventing viewers from gathering their bearings and turning the film into a ghastly carnival ride. Throughout the film, his shocking content and his startling intimacy with his characters make for a strikingly vivid, immersive, intense experience, but it's a singularly exhausting one as well.
14. Boys Don't Cry (1999)
Graphic rape scenes are tough enough to sit through without squirming, but the brutal assaults in Boys Don't Cry make repeat viewings of the film an act of psychic self-abuse. Based on the real-life tragedy of transgender 21-year-old Brandon Teena—played with haunting depth by Hilary Swank—Boys is relentless in its portrayal of barbaric bigotry in small-town Nebraska. After Swank starts a romantic relationship with Chloë Sevigny's Lana Tisdel, Lana's redneck friends forcibly expose Teena as a biological female, then savagely rape her before the hatred escalates to an inevitably horrific end. Just as sickening as the violence, though, is the complicity of Lana's mother—who calls Teena "it" and ultimately gives the boys sanction to "clean up" the situation—and the outright antagonism (bordering on titillation) of the hick sheriff who grills Teena after the rape. The fact that the film's events are based on truth—and the lingering attachment Boys Don't Cry has to the hate-fueled murder of Matthew Shepherd around the time of its release—only magnifies its gut-crawling impact.
15. Grave Of The Fireflies (1988)
From the opening scene showing 14-year-old protagonist Seita dying on a train-station floor as harried travelers look on bemusedly, it's clear that Grave Of The Fireflies isn't going to be easy to watch. An animated Japanese film as visually beautiful as it is emotionally draining, Fireflies finds tragedy in the horrors of war and the dangers of human pride. The story of two Japanese siblings orphaned during the firebombing of their village during World War II, Grave draws out the suffering of Seita and his younger sister Setsuko over 88 quietly horrifying minutes as they struggle, and eventually fail, to survive in a bleak, war-torn landscape. In spite of its dark subject matter, Fireflies is brightly colored and peppered with sweetly innocent moments between brother and sister, making their eventual fates all the more disturbing.
16. When The Wind Blows (1986)
This deceptively sweet little British animated feature emphasizes the cost of war on a very personal level, by observing a quiet rural couple preparing for impending nuclear conflict, then slowly dying of radiation poisoning afterward. Naïvely accepting everything their government pamphlets tell them (though they don't understand much of what they're told, and remain sure that since they can't see or feel any radiation, it can't possibly be hurting them), they fumble through their days, gently squabbling and supporting each other in homey old-married fashion without comprehending either the scope or the causes of the fight that's killing them from afar. Perhaps the saddest part is their conviction that nuclear war will be no different from World War II, which they lived through, and that if they just tough it out and tighten their belts, they can get through lethal radiation poisoning the way they got through wartime shortages. Much like Grave Of The Fireflies, When The Wind Blows is adorable in its personal, knowing details, and excruciating in its big picture.
17. Leaving Las Vegas (1996)
It's been a long fall for Nicolas Cage, from celebrated Best Actor Oscar winner a mere decade ago to the star of Next, Ghost Rider, and (tee-hee, "How'd it get burned?") The Wicker Man. It's honestly hard to remember at this point what a revelation he was in his Oscar-winning role in Leaving Las Vegas, as a failed screenwriter pointedly setting out to drink himself to death. The film, written and directed by Stormy Monday's Mike Figgis, is more consciously polished and Hollywood-y than most of the films on this list, but it has much the same quality of unstintingly, aggressively delving into just how miserable human beings can get. It isn't enough, for instance, that co-star Elisabeth Shue is trapped in a degrading life as a Vegas prostitute. It isn't enough that her best friend is an abusive, suicidal drunk who seems content to drag her down with him. It isn't enough when she gets gang-raped, and subsequently evicted from her home by landlords clearly uncomfortable with the disreputable appearance of a bruised-up, limping rape victim. No, she actually has to get mocked and abused on her way home after the rape, as her taxi driver, noticing how gingerly she's moving, asks if she got "a back-door delivery you weren't expecting," then tells her she was asking for it by dressing the way she does. Only Figgis' glittery, somber direction and the leads' stellar performances turn this wallow in miserablism into something sadly poetic.
18. Jonestown: The Life And Death Of Peoples Temple (2006)
19. S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003)
Though they take drastically different approaches, the Jim Jones documentary Jonestown and S21 are both far too intense and draining for repeat viewing. S21 coldly but powerfully appraises the devastating aftereffects of totalitarianism through the firsthand stories of survivors of Khmer Rouge terror. Jonestown, meanwhile, traces the tragic rise and fall of Jim Jones, a fiery idealist and social activist corrupted by power. People's Temple attains an almost unbearable intensity in a heart-stopping climax that draws extensively on audio footage miraculously documenting Jones' endgame strategy of poisoned Kool-Aid and mass suicide. It's as close to being there as humanly possible.
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