Offhand, two movies that are insults to all that is good and decent:
Funny Games
Everybody Loves Sunshine
I have to say I’m completely baffled by this. I found all the scenes you mention, especially the one in Reservoir Dogs, to be completely reprehensible, because they’re nothing more than glorified sadism.
The “difficult” scenes in Kill Bill are supposed to be disturbing, but only so much as to set up what kind of story this is. The beginning and the hospital scene present the story as a tale of revenge, to say that by the laws of whatever universe these characters live in, the Bride’s actions are justified. The opening is done as a spaghetti western, and the hospital is done as a 70’s exploitation movie, to reinforce the idea that it’s style that matters here; in other words, to reminds you that this is a movie. And the fight between The Bride and Viveca A. Fox’s character is to establish the code of “honor” that these characters live by. O-ren Ishii’s back-story is also very violent and would be disturbing if not for the fact that it’s made clear – by virtue of its being animated, and by its placement in the story – that it’s just to describe these characters’ motivations, and not for the audience to revel in the violence or to take any of these characters’ stories to heart.
The rape scene in A Clockwork Orange is supposed to be disturbing. The soundtrack is added not just for irony on Kubrick’s part, but to show just how callous to violence the main character has become. There’s no joke there. I hate Reservoir Dogs, and am frankly troubled by anyone who says they “laughed” at it, because it was missing all of that. These characters have been established throughout the movie as being cool, and the torture scene doesn’t indicate that it’s only Michael Madsen’s character who’s enjoying being sadistic, but that the filmmaker and by extension the audience themselves think that it’s cool.
OK. I never *watched a movie of this kind (with fights from the beginning to the end, rivers of blood, etc…) . Actually not even a karate movie. I just didn’t have any interest in this kind of movie and expected it to be just plain boring to me. I don’t particularily like violence, either.
However, a friend of mine insisted to go and watch him. I agreed, because he was somewhat depressed and all that. I thought it would be an ordeal to go through an hour and half of people killing each other in various gory way.
And I was wrong. I was pleasantly surprised. The “gore/violence” is so caricatural that you (or at least I) can’t take it seriously when they chop off arms with blood splashing everywhere, or such things, so it wasn’t disturbing at all for me. On the other hand, I appreciated a lot the way it was filmed, cut in chapters, with various technics used (for instance, anime, black and white, scenes filmed in particular colors, etc…), the “choregraphy” of the fights, the aesthetics of some scenes (like the final fight in a japanese garden under the snow). So, though I wouldn’t rank it as a great movie, I was pleasantly surprised.
And I found “resevoir dogs” for instance, much more disturbing, since though there’s much less actual violence, it’s filmed “seriously”, while Kill Bill is just a parody that you don’t take at the first degree. “Clockword Orange” too is way more disturbing for the same reason (a story meant to be taken seriously).
I don’t know why I even bother listening to other people’s opinions about movies.
That wasn’t hardly anything disturbing. It was fun to look at, and had cool dialogue (what there was of it), and I’ve certainly been a lot more squicked.
Sure, it was a little bloody, but not anywhere near the way people were describing it to me. I must have some deeply sensitive acquaintances. The only really messy scenes were in cartoon and black and white, even.
I enjoyed it a lot.
The only thing I found even a little bit disturbing was the nagging question of what, exactly, is left of Sofie .
Now, don’t tell me what happens next until I get a chance to see the second part.
Could a final climactic battle with Bill be in the offing?