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#1
12-07-2009, 09:52 PM
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Most touching scenes in obscure movies
I was reading through (and crying through) this entry on The A.V. Club, about the best scenes in movies in the '00s. It got me to thinking about some of my favorite and most touching scenes in film.
For the purposes of this thread, I'll define 'obscure' as any movie that did not make it past #21 in the US Box Office during its theatrical run. I made this rule only so some smaller movies could get their moment in the spotlight, instead of this being three pages of scenes from Harry Potter or LOTR. Obviously, made-for-TV movies are exempt from this rule. My nomination is from Last Night, and was the first example I thought of when I read A.V. Club's article. Last Night is a 1998 Canadian movie about... the end of the world, or rather, how a group of individuals reacts to it. Patrick, played by Don McKellar, refuses to spend the last night on Earth with his family, preferring to die alone for reasons he won't reveal. His best friend Craig, played by Callum Keith Rennie, on the other hand, comes up with a list of sexual fantasies to fulfill before the end (ie deflower a virgin, bang his hot French teacher, etc.). My moment comes when Craig approaches Patrick shortly before the end, and tells him that one of his fantasies is to have sex with a man -- and that he only wants that to be Patrick. Patrick says that he can't go that far, but he can give Craig one last kiss. What breaks my heart about this scene is that after Craig spends the whole movie seeking physical gratification, this poignant and sad kiss is the only moment of true intimacy that he experiences. It's his last kiss at the end of the world; might as well be with someone he loves. 
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#3
12-07-2009, 10:12 PM
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"Smoke" came out about 15 years ago. It starred William Hurt and Harvey Keitel. Hurt played a writer who had lost his wife years ago to random violence. Ketiel played a cigar shop owner and amateur photographer. One of Keitel's photography projects was to take a snapshot of the same street corner, at the same time of day, every day. He had been at it for years and kept the photos in bound journals. One evening Hurt was over at Keitel's, and was absent-mindedly flipping through one of his journals, and then suddenly stopped. One of the pictures captured his wife -- not doing anything important or interesting, just walking down the street. But just seeing her there, when he wasn't expecting it, made him break down in tears, as feelings that he wasn't prepared to hold back all came rushing loose.
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#5
12-07-2009, 10:50 PM
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The scene in Brassed Off where the band gathers outside the conductor's home caught my with my guard down...
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#7
12-07-2009, 11:30 PM
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A movie from 1969 called Run Wild Run Free spoke to me particularly at that time; I haven't seen it since, and I rather doubt it would have the same effect on me now as then.
The scene is at the end when the boy has to break his psychological muteness in order to save the horse he loves, to make it pull itself out of the mud, and both his parents were there to help him. Before this, his parents had been clueless about his life or what was important to him. Heavy-handed symbolism, to be sure, but at the time it cut me to the heart. Apparently, based on comments on imdb.com, it is not available any more. Too bad. Roddy
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#8
12-07-2009, 11:37 PM
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It certainly is underrated, I'm with you there, it's a great movie, but I wouldn't call it "criminally" underrated. It got a lot of attention when it counted. You're right about that scene, but the whole movie is full of scenes like that. Such a good movie!
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#10
12-08-2009, 12:58 AM
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#11
12-08-2009, 01:16 AM
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One of my top 10 favorite movies, Wilby Wonderful has one of the tenderest scenes between two lovers I've ever seen. Plus, throughout the whole movie you get to see Christina Yang from Grey's Anatomy if she were a realtor. Funny stuff.
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#12
12-08-2009, 01:17 AM
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Years ago I saw a movie on TV featuring Haley Joel Osment. It must have been after Sixth Sense because I recognized him, although in the movie he seemed slightly younger than his Sixth Sense role. Actually I didn't see the movie just the last little bit so I have no idea what it was. His character is dumped by his mother who leaves during the night leaving a note to explain why she can't stay with him.
In the scene where he reads the letter a voice over reads us the contents. Osment's face falls, he begins to tear up and by the end of the letter he is crying with snot running down his face. It is all done with no histrionics, he hardly makes a noise and it is heart rending.
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#13
12-08-2009, 07:00 AM
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#15
12-08-2009, 07:37 AM
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#16
12-08-2009, 07:41 AM
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A little bit. But in AI, didn't his very-upset mom dump him in the woods? I don't recall anything about a note, and this definitely wasn't "the last little bit", more like in the middle 1/3rd of the movie.
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#17
12-08-2009, 07:52 AM
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#18
12-08-2009, 07:59 AM
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There's a french movie called Ponette that is one of the most powerful things I've ever seen. It's about a four year old dealing with her mother's death.
Here is a scene from it. It is the greatest child acting I've ever seen. It blows Haley Joel out of the water in my opinion. How can a 4 year old emote like that. The real power kicks in at 5:40 in but the whole scene is a heartbreaker. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekHiM...eature=related
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#19
12-08-2009, 08:37 AM
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#20
12-08-2009, 09:23 AM
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#21
12-08-2009, 09:36 AM
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#22
12-08-2009, 11:34 AM
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#23
12-08-2009, 11:36 AM
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I don't know if these movies "count" or if I'll be universally derided by the hip cool kids who will respond with, "More than EIGHT people have heard of that movie--you're just buying into the man's propaganda." ::Gulp:: Here goes.
The scene in Ghost World where Enid shows Seymour the pictures in her sketch book of him--he's only seen the stuff where she plays the joke on him, but now she's showing him stuff that shows she cares. Brought a real tear to the eye socket. And in About Schmidt, the very end, when Schmidt finally hears from Ndgugu, the kid he's been writing to. I really did cry then!
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#24
12-08-2009, 12:19 PM
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The final short of Paris, je t'aime, 14e arrondissement (YouTube link), makes me choke up almost immediately when the woman begins her rough, heavily accented French narration; I'm not even sure why, there's just such a palpable sense of loneliness and broken dreams, yet a desire to remain optimistic and carry on with life, perhaps even be happy in those small moments... I don't know, it's just such a powerful little scene, to me, at least.
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#25
12-08-2009, 12:41 PM
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#26
12-08-2009, 12:57 PM
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#27
12-08-2009, 01:32 PM
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Millions, a (somewhat) obscure British comedy from 2005-ish.
A kid sees Catholic saints, as in, they appear to him and converse with him, and sometimes even give him gifts. He keeps asking if any of them are familiar with St. Maureen (his deceased mother). None of them have heard of her. SPOILER:
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#28
12-08-2009, 01:53 PM
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I've mentioned this one many times before, but the end of the Diaries of Adam and Eve segment from Will Vinton's The Adventures of Mark Twain always gets me dewy-eyed.
And it's only plasticene!
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#29
12-08-2009, 02:09 PM
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#30
12-08-2009, 02:36 PM
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I too love that portion of Paris, je t'aime! It's so sweet and sad and hopeful.
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Here's a bizarre one from a very obscure film called Wristcutters: A Love Story. The movie's premise is that people who commit suicide "wake up" in a world very much like the one they left, only more drab and dingy and hopeless. There's no escaping this one via suicide though. Three suicides band together and forge an unlikely friendship. It's not a great movie, but it has a lot of great moments, and my favorite is the opening scene. Whether this is moving to anyone but me, I don't know. I'm pretty weird. Good call on About Schmidt and Ghost World Freudian Slit.
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#32
12-08-2009, 02:42 PM
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#33
12-08-2009, 03:41 PM
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Ditto on Last Night. Love that movie! Out of the whole movie, though, it's the scene with Arsinee Khanjian and her daughter on the abandoned streetcar that sticks with me.
Another favourite is the final scene in After Life. Gets me every time. I won't give it away... anyone curious enough can just see for themselves. The story is set in a sort of waystation on the way to the afterlife and revolves around a group of "counselors" who are responsible for greeting the newly dead. Their job is to help each person re-live one moment from their lives one last time so that they carry that memory with them into the afterlife. It's sweet to see what various characters settle on as their one last memory, and how some struggle to choose. It's a quiet little movie - simple premise done on a low budget, no big special FX to speak of, but if you've got the patience to deal with the slow, measured pace of the movie, it'll reward you with all sorts of wonderful little scenes. Plus it's good food for thought. I mean, do you know which memory you'd like to carry with you into eternity, if you had to pick just one?
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#34
12-08-2009, 03:44 PM
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#35
12-09-2009, 09:32 AM
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If I'm remembering the opening scene correctly, a similar one is at the beginning of The Chumscrubber. I didn't find either particularly moving, though I don't find many movie scenes particularly moving in general. (After thinking about it since I first posted, I still don't have a single contribution.)
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#36
12-09-2009, 10:51 AM
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#38
12-10-2009, 04:32 AM
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Ponette was such a great film. I don't know how a four year old can do that. Definitely the best piece of child acting I've seen.
Not really an obscure movie but a touching moment where I wasn't expecting it. It was in the film Muriel's Wedding, near the beginning. Muriel goes to a bar to hang out with the girls she thinks are her friends. They clearly hate her. Eventually they tell her that she is not one of them and that they wish she'd stop hanging around with them. As they go on she just goes "I'm not nothing." I may have had something in my eye.
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#39
12-11-2009, 02:51 AM
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I was going to describe two scenes from Mediterraneo, but it would take too long to give context. Now I'm going to have to check out Ponette. And Last Night.
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#40
06-20-2010, 11:16 AM
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#41
06-20-2010, 02:42 PM
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#42
06-20-2010, 06:47 PM
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Wrony (Crows) by Dorota Kędzierzawska is about a neglected nine or ten year old girl who accosts a two or three year old girl, to mother and play with her for the day. It's a beautiful, bleak, washed-out, quiet film that captures amazing performances from the two children which children can enjoy but which really speaks to adults.
At one point they play in a boat that floats adrift, and the older girl says mournfully 'All my life has floated away'.
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#43
06-20-2010, 10:51 PM
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Grave of the Fireflies. I don't think I could just nail down one scene, though. That whole movie was rather touching if you forget about the politics of the war and just look at the humanity of it.
mrs.kidneyfailure has yet to make it all the way through Hachi (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1028532/) without tearing up. She's tried about three times thus far and has never made it to the end.
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#44
06-20-2010, 11:21 PM
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#45
06-20-2010, 11:36 PM
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I forgot to add one of my favorites. I think it was made in the '80's. It was called Heartland, and it's about a woman and her little girl in the 1880's on the Great Plains who hire out to a farmer as kitchen help, and the woman marries the guy. I think this movie probably comes closest to how life in the Old West really was like.
Anyway, the woman gives birth to a baby, and eventually the baby gets sick, and the family is really too isolated to get any help for the little boy. The baby dies, and there's a scene where the little girl comes in the room to see the mother washing the dead baby in a little tub before his burial. It's a short scene, and I don't know if they used a wax doll for the baby, but man, that was one dead looking kid lying in that tub of water with his eyes open. Can you imagine what doing that must've been like back then?
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#46
06-21-2010, 08:30 AM
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One of my favorite movie segments is at the very end of Local Hero, when our hero Mac has left the quirky yet beautiful Scottish village and returned to Houston. He walks into his apartment and empties his pockets of seashells. The scene shifts back to that village, and the red telephone box rings. That's it, and it is heartbreaking in its simplicity. (Local Hero seems less and less obscure these days, though--perhaps in part because of the oil spill in the Gulf.) Another favorite: in the French documentary To Be and To Have (Etre et Avoir), the partnership of teacher and learner, as well as group living, is explored in a tiny, rural one room schoolhouse in St. Etienne-sur-Usson. To me, the film as a whole illustrates how education, so much of which is group living, could and should be. At the end, the teacher Monsieur Lopez quietly counsels a particularly shy student who will be heading off to middle school. We next see the group of kids say their final Au Revoir, Monsieur--then they are off. Mr. Lopez stands alone at the door.
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#47
06-21-2010, 08:39 AM
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#48
06-21-2010, 09:44 AM
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The "telephone" scene between Harry Dean Stanton and Natassja Kinski in Paris, Texas . I'm convinced Sam Shepard wrote the entire scvreenplay just to be able to write that scene.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087884/
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#49
06-21-2010, 04:43 PM
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