I knew there was something I was blanking out. The mutant baby ::ick::
Second Se7en and Jacob’s Ladder
Can I add They shoot horses don’t they? --king depressing.
Normally I really, really hate disturbing movies, but I loved Seven. I even got the special editions on LD (when it first came out) and DVD. I’m not sure why it doesn’t disturb me more. Meanwhile, my horror-movie-loving husband is absolutely creeped out by it - these days he’s more relaxed about it, and admits how well-done it is, but for a while he was worse off seeing it than I am, while I look away from the screen during other films, often half the movie. (Not that I didn’t look away at times during this film, mind you.)
As for Jacob’s Ladder, I know that I saw it maybe a year after it was released, and all I remember regarding my gripes about the film was that first off, obviously it’d been recut after the promotional commercials/previews were made, but before it hit theaters - probably due to bad results with the test audience. I distinctly remembered seeing a character in the promos say the phrase, “I can break the ladder,” and when I actually saw the film, you could see how the film must’ve originally went another direction. The second complaint was I thought the film would have improved tremendously if I’d left the theater after Robbins’ character took the little boy’s hand and started walking up the stairs.
Hell if I can remember anything about it except those complaints, though.
Braveheart, Glory and Menace 2 Society.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance – brutal and nihilistic, spiraling ever downward. The director, Chan-wook Park, is acclaimed, having also made JSA and Oldboy (no laughfest itself), but this film is such a downer.
I actually liked a lot of these movies: *Jacob’s Ladder * is a great movie and I’ve watched it several times, though there are parts of it that I find very disturbing. Ditto for Dead Man: brilliant, I was so glad I saw it that I bought it, but I’m kind of afraid to see it again.
I just thought of another movie I wish I hadn’t seen: Shallow Grave. Maybe that’s where my visceral repulsion towards Ewan McGregor started. I acknowledge that he’s a very talented actor, but this movie was my first exposure to him, and it bugged me. A lot.
I wouldn’t go that far. While Schindler’s List isn’t completely historically accurate (and gives Oskar Schindler some more credit than he probably deserves), it’s a good film, has a pretty profound emotional impact, and isn’t all that inaccurate. It’s close to the book.
It minimizes the Holocaust and uses it for cheap Indiana-Jones thrills. It’s a movie that a Holocaust denier wouldn’t have much trouble with: it focuses on a group of Jews who came through the war relatively unscathed and makes a hero out of an Aryan–who’s always shown to be a foot taller than his Jewish “children,” moreover. The unforgivablest part was when Spielberg ramped up all his manipulative suspense skills to take us into the Auschwitz showers with the women, and then–gotcha! just kidding! everyone is safe! And then he excuses the Nazi by making him psychopathic; the insanity defense. He never addresses the real human evil or the real human cost.
He makes the HOlocaust palatable. The Holocaust should not be palatable.
I would almost put Manchurian Candidate in this category. Extremely depressing film. I literally felt sick at the end.
In the Company of Men might be another candidate for this list. No redemption there. Just depressing.
I just gotta congratulate you for inventing this word!
What is most fascinating about the film is that, in the scenes where he is interacting with the public or his acquaintances, he’s the world’s most creepy freak. In the scenes with his family, he’s the refreshingly normal one.
And no, I don’t think I will ever watch it again, but I liked the reference to it in “American Splendor”, when the Crumb character rides piggyback on some woman just like in real life, and Pekar’s wife offers her psychological assessment. Took some of the ick off.
I just saw this today, but “Open Water”. A great movie, but pretty depressing.
I came in here to nominate Old Boy, but now that I think of it, Sympathy does seem like the more depressing choice. After giving it some thought, I still say Old Boy. What a great movie, what a horrifying premise. Choi Min-Sik’s excellent acting made the ending all the more heartbreaking.
Some others I loved but would have to be dragged into seeing again: Xiu Xiu, The Sent-Down Girl, Requiem for a Dream, Dancer in the Dark.
I knew I’d remember something as soon as I hit “Post”. Add Samaria to that list.
Leaving Las Vegas
Oh man, you suck. This was my first thought when reading the OP, and I was all excited to contribute through all of page 1, then whammo!, you beat me to it. sigh
I love depressing movies. The more I want to jump off a bridge when credits roll, the better.
I loved the following which were already mentioned:
Requiem for a Dream (My litmus test…I give automatic respect to people’s movie taste if they like this one.)
Gattaga
Leaving Las vegas
Death And The Maiden
Jacob’s Ladder (doesn’t fit the OP IMO)
Se7en (also doesn’t fit IMO)
Shallow Grave (??? This is a depressing movie? I thought it was comedy.)
There’s a few from page 1 I’m sure I’ve forgotten, but I wanted to mention those. The movies I haven’t seen mentioned that may apply:
Closet Land
Reservoir Dogs
Tape
I group these because I’m a huge fan of the stage style of filmmaking…its essence being two people in a room. (Tape had three, and 'Dogs had some scenes in the outside world, but it’s close enough.)
Other movies that may apply in essence, but aren’t tremendously good movies:
Awakenings
Julian Po
'Night, Mother
The New Age
And because it’s in heavy rotation on HBO right now, and I can’t get enough of it, a special shout out goes to Solaris. I’m like a mental patient with that one…physically unable to turn the channel.
Short Eyes, a prison movie about what happens to a child molester.
I recall leaving the theater and commenting to my companion: “I’m glad to have seen it, and I never want to see it again.”
I saw this movie at 13, and it still impacts me years later. This is definitely one of the most depressing movies ever, even though it is well written and has good acting.
Wow. Surely this film has had a thread or two of it’s own over the years, but I really don’t understand your post.
It minimizes the Holocaust? How? It’s portrayal of Kristallnacht was stunning. Although the main focus of the film are survivors, the film does not imply that surviving was the norm; rather, it shows clearly that most died. In rather unpleasant ways.
If Schindler was a hero, he was a deeply flawed one, and I think the film showed that very well. He was a womanizing war profiteer with little regard for wife or family, as his father had been before him.
And as far as using a psychopathic Nazi to excuse their behavior, huh? Amon Goeth is an historical figure, an actual man, not a fictional character. So Spielberg had little to do with the man’s character. It has been a long time since I read the book, but IIRC Goeth was indeed a psychopath who was later institutionalized. But there were plenty of ordinary evil men in uniform all over this film.
It’s as if we watched two different films. Odd. But of course, in matters such as these YMMV.
Sorry for the hijack!