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K. Waste posted:It's an optimistic ending in the same way that Enter the Void is, in that Noe criticizes our perception of reality and time more than the ineffable structures of our existence, which operate independent of us in ways that are often explicitly cruel. The phrase, "Time destroys everything" would be oppressive and cynical if the story were told in chronological order, but Noe specifically structures it so that we go from destruction to innocence. Time has destroyed everything, including destruction. The point is that if time is this cruel, impartial observer, then it necessarily also becomes the redemption of innocence. No. There is too much in the film, there is too much about Noe himself, that says this wasn't his intention. The nihilistic elements are too strong. All I left the film feeling was the inevitability of Alex's sickening rape and the destruction of the lives of these two guys. The rapist gets away with this poo poo, at the start of the film the rapist dad from Noe's earlier film narrates, free from the jail he ended up in, Noe gives lines to the boyfriend about wanting to try anal which is about as sickeningly ironic as you can get. If you want to say you felt optimistic at the end of this film i'd say you have some very odd emotional reactions. edit: spoilers harpomarxist fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 17:56
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I can almost see the whole "Time Destroys Everything" thesis being optimistic in the big-picture sense of "in 1000 years when humanity is extinct, your rape and murder will no longer matter in the grand scheme of things" but that's kind of an odd brand of optimism.
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Sep 5, 2014 18:09
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caiman posted:But it's impossible to ignore the bounds of narrative chronology. Noe does take us from destruction to innocence, but it's difficult to stay there very long, at least for me. After the pulsating white transitions into the end credits, the realization that the happiness we just witnessed is about to be untangled and destroyed is what ultimately stays with me and makes the ending seem so pessimistic. What we end up with is not only an understanding of how time is about to ruin everything, but also Noe rubbing it in our face. Rubbing our face in it would be much more effective with a chronological narrative. It's not 'cinematic trickery' at all, I don't feel. The illusion of the continuous camera literally suggests that time is occurring all but in reverse, that we in fact need to suspend our cynical suspicion that time fundamentally operates in one direction, and that this direction is always towards destruction. Take the opening scene, which actually features the protagonist from I Stand Alone revealing that he was arrested for molesting his daughter. The two men agree that "time destroys everything," but this leads directly to a setting called The Rectum. Their words floating out the window, they are figuratively talking out of their asses. The implication is that these cynical reprobates have already accepted the sinful imperfection of mankind and the cruelty of time, but this is because they are corrupt. The Rectum itself is a rather overt allusion to The Canterbury Tales, specifically "The Summoner's Tale." A big part of The Canterbury Tales written in the recent aftermath of the Black Death, is to revoke spiritual hypocrisy and cynicism, especially against those who exploit religious ignorance for personal gain in times of oppressive darkness (such as a plague). "The Summoner's Tale" is the most explicit, literally comparing religious hypocrisy to the Devil's flatulence. The punishment for Friars in Hell is revealed to be that they are doomed to love the smell of Satan's rectum, to buzz around it like flies lapping up the noxious blasphemy that they disseminated their whole lives. The point is that spiritual cynics speak from a perspective that damns all of humanity so that they can excuse their own debasement. They need to believe that the world is fundamentally cruel because this absolves them of their hypocrisy, which is that they secretly love cruelty. (The Rectum is an S&M club.) This is further emphasized as it is progressively revealed that Pierre, Alex's ex-boyfriend who professes to care so much about pleasuring the woman, is actually the one who ends up destroying her rapist, while Marcus, who talks big game, is easily put out of commission. The Rectum is a zone in which the hypocrites and cynics reveal their true selves. So while the ending is certainly 'rubbing our noses in it,' Noe is actually attacking cynics. He contrives a grueling tale of cruelty and debasement that concludes with innocence and perfection. It takes pleasure in showing the cynic their hyperbolic view of man's debasement and then categorically rejecting it. It's not at all dissimilar to Pier Paolo Pasolini's adaptation of The Canterbury Tales, which concludes not with "The Summoner's Tale," but with Pasolini as Chaucer sitting back in his chair with a bemused smile on his face, as if he's so pleased with himself that he's devised such a cruel and ironic punishment. Really, he's taking pleasure in that even more so than the cynic he is capable of rendering man's hypocrisy and cruelty, and still sitting back and appreciating the perfect beauty of God's creation. EDIT: Unrelenting cruelty is not the same as nihilism or cynicism. Both of those philosophies specifically speak to a basic suspicion of man's ethical nature, the belief that everything is a guise for power politics and hypocrisy. This is not the worldview that Irreversible expresses. It is framed on both sides by aberrant individuals whose debased nature can't possibly be disguised and a woman whose innocence is above suspicion. He is rejecting cynicism. The hypocrites and cynics and speaking out of their assholes. The Butcher's daughter did not want to be raped. K. Waste fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 18:20
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K. Waste posted:Rubbing our face in it would be much more effective with a chronological narrative. It's not 'cinematic trickery' at all, I don't feel. The illusion of the continuous camera literally suggests that time is occurring all but in reverse, that we in fact need to suspend our cynical suspicion that time fundamentally operates in one direction, and that this direction is always towards destruction. It's cinematic trickery simply because time doesn't actually move in reverse. And we have no reason to think that Noe's characters live in a universe that literally moves in reverse. Just like Memento, we understand that it's a cinematic trick. That Alex is fine and happy at the end of the film's artificial perspective is no consolation to us, because we understand that in reality effects happen after causes, and no matter in what order Noe showed us the events, we know that the horrible poo poo hasn't happened yet and inevitably will happen. A real downer. K. Waste posted:Take the opening scene, which actually features the protagonist from I Stand Alone revealing that he was arrested for molesting his daughter. The two men agree that "time destroys everything," but this leads directly to a setting called The Rectum. Their words floating out the window, they are figuratively talking out of their asses. The implication is that these cynical reprobates have already accepted the sinful imperfection of mankind and the cruelty of time, but this is because they are corrupt. The Rectum itself is a rather overt allusion to The Canterbury Tales, specifically "The Summoner's Tale." A big part of The Canterbury Tales written in the recent aftermath of the Black Death, is to revoke spiritual hypocrisy and cynicism, especially against those who exploit religious ignorance for personal gain in times of oppressive darkness (such as a plague). "The Summoner's Tale" is the most explicit, literally comparing religious hypocrisy to the Devil's flatulence. The punishment for Friars in Hell is revealed to be that they are doomed to love the smell of Satan's rectum, to buzz around it like flies lapping up the noxious blasphemy that they disseminated their whole lives. This is all good subtextual stuff, but it's just that. None of this changes what actually happens in the movie. Spatulater bro! fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 18:35
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:I can almost see the whole "Time Destroys Everything" thesis being optimistic in the big-picture sense of "in 1000 years when humanity is extinct, your rape and murder will no longer matter in the grand scheme of things" but that's kind of an odd brand of optimism. There's a different word for that kind of optimism. Guess what it is!
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Sep 5, 2014 18:42
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:There's a different word for that kind of optimism. Guess what it is! "dope"?
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Sep 5, 2014 18:44
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:There's a different word for that kind of optimism. Guess what it is! It's optimism in a certain context: Uncle Boogeyman posted:I'll tolerate you poo poo-talking Talking Heads and I'll encourage you poo poo-talking The White Stripes, but poo poo-talk Tortoise and we have problems.
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Sep 5, 2014 18:44
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caiman posted:Strange thread for you to be in. I dunno - does one have to unreservedly enjoy every aspect of every film that is deemed to belong to this genre? I'm glad I still have boundaries, personally. I'm not sure why enjoying John Carpenter's The Thing means I have to wallow in rape.
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Sep 5, 2014 18:52
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caiman posted:Strange thread for you to be in. Serious question: would you call enjoying those things a pre-requisite for enjoying horror?
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Sep 5, 2014 18:54
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Wizchine posted:I dunno - does one have to unreservedly enjoy every aspect of every film that is deemed to belong to this genre? I'm glad I still have boundaries, personally. I'm not sure why enjoying John Carpenter's The Thing means I have to wallow in rape. penismightier posted:Serious question: would you call enjoying those things a pre-requisite for enjoying horror? You by no means are obligated to enjoy it, but to be like "gently caress that guy for depicting ugliness," for me at least, runs contrary to my feelings about art in general, let alone horror films.
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Sep 5, 2014 18:54
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Wizchine posted:I dunno - does one have to unreservedly enjoy every aspect of every film that is deemed to belong to this genre? I'm glad I still have boundaries, personally. I'm not sure why enjoying John Carpenter's The Thing means I have to wallow in rape. No, but if he's decided to rule out every film or filmmaker that depicts violence to women, he's got a pretty short list of horror films to watch.
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Sep 5, 2014 18:55
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caiman posted:It's cinematic trickery simply because time doesn't actually move in reverse. And we have no reason to think that Noe's characters live in a universe that literally moves in reverse. Except that is how the story is told and what happens in the film. Irreversible is not a chronological story. It doesn't matter if the characters are 'aware' of this. quote:Just like Memento, we understand that it's a cinematic trick. That Alex is fine and happy at the end of the film's artificial perspective is no consolation to us, because we understand that in reality effects happen after causes, and no matter in what order Noe showed us the events, we know that the horrible poo poo hasn't happened yet and inevitably will happen. A real downer. But we also know that the way a story is told affects its meaning. This is not a 'cinematic trick' in Memento, either. The story is told the way it is for a reason. quote:This is all good subtextual stuff, but it's just that. None of this changes what actually happens in the movie. What happens in the movie is that we go from two naked criminals (one of whom is a convicted, incestuous rapist) to a pregnant innocent reading a book in a park. We have gone from debasement to innocence. This is not subtext, this is what happens in the movie. And Noe tells us this is "irreversible." If you played Irreversible in reverse, it wouldn't make sense. Now, if you re-edited the movie so that the scenes occurred 'chronologically,' it would be a sadistic, cynical, nihilistic film. The movie as it is merely depicts sadism. EDIT: There is no secret version of Irreversible where innocence is repudiated by sadism. There is, however, an extant film that goes from destruction to innocence, that the title tells us is irreversible. Noe is rubbing your nose in your own cynicism.
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Sep 5, 2014 18:57
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penismightier posted:Serious question: would you call enjoying those things a pre-requisite for enjoying horror? No. But choosing to at least watch movies that depict them probably is.
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Sep 5, 2014 18:57
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I think I kinda agree, and that's sort of a shocking thing to realize.
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Sep 5, 2014 18:59
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caiman posted:Strange thread for you to be in. Not really. It's possible to write about something without it being part of you - it's not like we're arresting John Carpenter for stabbing teenage girls, after all. Nor do I think that Noe is himself a rapist or an abuser of women. However, there's something in the way he makes movies that makes me feel like he's enjoying depicting those acts - particularly the abuse of pregnant women, which features in all three of his movies. E: in response to lots of posts - it's not the acts portrayed in the movie that are disquieting me, it's the thought of what is going on in the mind on the filmmaker.
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Sep 5, 2014 19:03
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caiman posted:No. But choosing to at least watch movies that depict them probably is. I mean, horror covers a lot of ground and you can definitely find movies that don't wallow in that poo poo if you look for 'em. Hell, you can still watch Vampyr, and that ain't nothing. That being said, even at its most abstract, horror is a mirror of real world ugliness. I don't think facing that reflects poorly on the viewer, or the filmmaker for that matter. Jedit posted:Not really. It's possible to write about something without it being part of you - it's not like we're arresting John Carpenter for stabbing teenage girls, after all. Nor do I think that Noe is himself a rapist or an abuser of women. However, there's something in the way he makes movies that makes me feel like he's enjoying depicting those acts - particularly the abuse of pregnant women, which features in all three of his movies. I think Noe is trying to shock in a way that often feels juvenile, but I'd never accuse him of getting off on the acts themselves. Although you could argue he is getting off to the audience's reactions to those acts.
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Sep 5, 2014 19:08
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That's always dangerous ground to tread, however, that's why they came up with the word "lascivious".
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Sep 5, 2014 19:08
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Jedit posted:Not really. It's possible to write about something without it being part of you - it's not like we're arresting John Carpenter for stabbing teenage girls, after all. Nor do I think that Noe is himself a rapist or an abuser of women. However, there's something in the way he makes movies that makes me feel like he's enjoying depicting those acts - particularly the abuse of pregnant women, which features in all three of his movies. Maybe. Maybe he's a complete sadistic loving psycho who deserves to be locked up. I'm of the opinion that the art is separate from the artist (even if the two seemingly tie in to one another, which is what you're saying). That's why I can't get on board with people who, for example, boycott Polanski's films or refuse to watch Triumph of the Will, or whatever.
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Sep 5, 2014 19:09
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Well, with Triumph of the Will it's almost the other way around, a common way people justify it is that the art is tied to the artist -- it's a Nazi film but she (dubiously) wasn't one. I find that horseshit equivocating.
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Sep 5, 2014 19:11
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:That being said, even at its most abstract, horror is a mirror of real world ugliness. I don't think facing that reflects poorly on the viewer, or the filmmaker for that matter. Yeah. I can't imagine someone saying "I love horror movies, as long as they don't show: this, and this, and this and this, and..."
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Sep 5, 2014 19:12
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caiman posted:Yeah. I can't imagine someone saying "I love horror movies, as long as they don't show: this, and this, and this and this, and..." Ehhhh, I mean, I get it. People have different tolerances for different things. My girlfriend loves The Snowtown Murders, a movie she had to coax me into watching because I found the subject matter intensely disturbing. But she won't ever watch A Clockwork Orange because of the rape scene. Everyone's got their limits. I unreservedly love horror, but I don't have much desire to watch August Underground.
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Sep 5, 2014 19:14
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penismightier posted:Well, with Triumph of the Will it's almost the other way around, a common way people justify it is that the art is tied to the artist -- it's a Nazi film but she (dubiously) wasn't one. I find that horseshit equivocating. Yeah I wondered if that may be a bad example.
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Sep 5, 2014 19:15
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Jedit posted:Not really. It's possible to write about something without it being part of you - it's not like we're arresting John Carpenter for stabbing teenage girls, after all. Nor do I think that Noe is himself a rapist or an abuser of women. However, there's something in the way he makes movies that makes me feel like he's enjoying depicting those acts - particularly the abuse of pregnant women, which features in all three of his movies. Repeating an image does not make you deranged. It is extremely common for directors, musicians, etc. to repeat ideas in an attempt to "work through" something and "best" portray it: many composers will repeatedly toy with arrangements until they find the "perfect" version of what they want.
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Sep 5, 2014 19:17
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caiman posted:Yeah I wondered if that may be a bad example. I get your point though, and I'm fairly sympathetic to it, though I also find myself having a harder time with some movies as I get older. I can't do French Extremism, period, anymore, and I have trouble with films like Frozen (the ski-lift one, not the cartoon), American Crime, or Deadgirl that seem to just wallow in their own misery. It's a complicated line.
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Sep 5, 2014 19:18
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I guess for me horror is all about pushing my own boundaries, taking myself out of my comfort zone. By its definition horror is intended to arouse fear, shock or disgust. Maybe it's a personal thing, but I revel in allowing the genre to do its thing.
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Sep 5, 2014 19:21
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caiman posted:I guess for me horror is all about pushing my own boundaries, taking myself out of my comfort zone. By its definition horror is intended to arouse fear, shock or disgust. Maybe it's a personal thing, but I revel in allowing the genre to do its thing. Yeah, and I don't tend to look to movies for this, so I wouldn't really call myself a horror fan. But I really enjoyed, say, As Above, So Below as an adventure film with some mild scares. And a lot of the sci-fi side of horror works out that way: The Thing, Alien, etc. aren't all that scary, but they masterfully build tension.
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Sep 5, 2014 20:25
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penismightier posted:I get your point though, and I'm fairly sympathetic to it, though I also find myself having a harder time with some movies as I get older. I can't do French Extremism, period, anymore, and I have trouble with films like Frozen (the ski-lift one, not the cartoon), American Crime, or Deadgirl that seem to just wallow in their own misery. It's a complicated line. "Complicated" is right. I certainly go for some hosed up horror from time to time, but over the summer I read a couple of true crime books (Devil in the White City and Bully, if you're curious) and remembered that the most grueling horror movie usually still can't compete with even an average true crime book (especially one with pictures, yeesh). But true crime seems like it gets away with it more because it has the veneer of moral responsibility behind it. There's a Harlan Ellison quote where he talks about how he doesn't even like the term "horror" as relating to fiction because of this. Piggybacking off this a bit, I'd like to return to Irreversible for a second, and in particular the elephant in the room that is the ten minute rape scene. I'm very much of two minds about it. There's a school of thought that the most responsible, morally correct way to portray violence is to portray it in its full realistic hideousness. So in that respect, I think I understand what Noe et al were going for. And by stranding the audience in it in real time, it really communicates just what a shattering, awful experience it is in an unvarnished, painful way. Perhaps this is how sexual violence should be portrayed on film. In theory. In practice, with the Cannes walkouts and the internet/print thinkpieces and the IMDB trivia about digital genetalia and the French Extreme movement, Irreversible becomes "the movie with the ten-minute rape scene" and sitting through it is a badge of honor for those hardcore enough not to look away. It becomes, in effect, a geek show, and seems to erase whatever positive moral or social value might have been there in favor of securing its place on a future Buzzfeed "top 10 most disturbing movies" list. Uncle Boogeyman fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 20:38
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Exactly, whereas some of the most visceral and genuinely affecting moments of violence don't even occur within the confines of horror because they're heightened by a more character-based sense of pain. I'm thinking of Michael Caine getting his finger shot off in Children of Men, which was all done at a distance with almost no blood, but feels genuinely transgressive in a way that the French stuff is just playing at being.
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Sep 5, 2014 20:49
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:Piggybacking off this a bit, I'd like to return to Irreversible for a second, and in particular the elephant in the room that is the ten minute rape scene. I'm very much of two minds about it. I think the scene is both, and I disagree that the second one necessarily negates the first one. Its inclusion on "most hosed up poo poo EVER" lists and the like may garner it some superficial attention, but when someone actually sits and watches it they (hopefully) recognize the depth of realism on display and find it painful to watch.
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Sep 5, 2014 21:00
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penismightier posted:I'm thinking of Michael Caine getting his finger shot off in Children of Men, which was all done at a distance with almost no blood, but feels genuinely transgressive in a way that the French stuff is just playing at being. The scene is awe-inspiring and affective, but Noe's stuff is also very affective. I don't even think he's playing at being transgressive. And where precisely do we draw the line? How extreme is so extreme that we can deduce that someone is just trying to provoke the spectator? And what's wrong with provocation? I know this isn't stuff you're specifically saying but I think there's way more room for 'extreme' depictions of cruelty than you're giving due credit. It's not an either/or situation. The different approaches serve unique purposes. That being said, Children of Men, though perhaps less graphic, is thoroughly similar to Noe's films. The style of long (occasionally, significantly enhanced digitally) shots following and observing action both go along way to granting it and Irreversible their oppressive feel. But both films similarly try to depict oppression in a viscerally immediate way even if one is superficially more/less graphic about it, and ultimately for the purposes of subversion. It's not surrealism, but it's certainly derivative of theater of cruelty - attempting to shock and provoke the spectators sense of injustice. And in both cases, this provocation isn't just there for provocation's sake - the sadism and oppression in contrasted with an overtly optimistic (even unrealistic) conclusion that is basically a call to basic compassion. The point, I feel, is that we are being invited to recognize the oppressive nature of something close (but not quite the same) as what the film depicts so that we can more realistically reject it, rather than simply living in denial. caiman posted:I think the scene is both, and I disagree that the second one necessarily negates the first one. Its inclusion on "most hosed up poo poo EVER" lists and the like may garner it some superficial attention, but when someone actually sits and watches it they (hopefully) recognize the depth of realism on display and find it painful to watch. Exactly. Criticism of the way Irreversible was received is helpful primarily as social and cultural criticism, but it's not particularly helpful when trying to critically assess the film, because the response to the film isn't particularly critical in and of itself. It's reducing the film to a particular scene rather than the role that scene serves in the broader framework of the narrative. The people making 'most hosed up scenes' lists aren't concerned with theory, explicitly. They get voyeuristic legitimization out of saying they sat through it. They don't necessarily care about the film itself and are, thus, not particularly good critics. To me, Irreversible is told the way it is because it's about the reclamation of identity after horrifying trauma, just as Children of Men is about the reclamation of spirituality from contemporary cynicism.
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Sep 5, 2014 21:11
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:In practice, with the Cannes walkouts and the internet/print thinkpieces and the IMDB trivia about digital genetalia and the French Extreme movement, Irreversible becomes "the movie with the ten-minute rape scene" and sitting through it is a badge of honor for those hardcore enough not to look away. It becomes, in effect, a geek show, and seems to erase whatever positive moral or social value might have been there in favor of securing its place on a future Buzzfeed "top 10 most disturbing movies" list. Someone once pointed out that the transgendered woman is used in the same way in Irreversible.
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Sep 5, 2014 21:45
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Someone once pointed out that the transgendered woman is used in the same way in Irreversible. As what? A geek show? Her presence in the movie exclusively highlights the oppressive aggression of the male characters. Seeing her as a 'geek' I think speaks far more to the cynicism of the viewer than what is actually occurring on the screen. She's the person whose place Alex takes when the rapist corners them both, and when Marcus finds her, he begins acting like the rapist. Calling Irreversible a geek show is a strong charge because it implies that we are explicitly asked to patronize gawking at something for the pure joy of looking upon it as Other, confident in the social security we get from putting him/her away from us. How does Irreversible encourage this apart from portraying sadism and violence? Crank is a 'geek show.' You don't need to try to get joy out of Statham debasing himself because that is what the film encourages by contriving a situation where this is necessary in order for him to survive and seek revenge. Crank has a comedic rape scene.
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Sep 5, 2014 22:01
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The only thing that makes Irreversible a geek show are the people who discovered it on a disturbing movies list and fast forwarded to "the good parts".
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Sep 5, 2014 22:16
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I mean if we are categorizing Nihilistic cinema as horror then Baise-Moi or gently caress Me is horror, that movie is rough to get through and the rape scene is actually longer I think than Irreversible. Kind of curious if people talking about Irreversible have ever seen it cause , it's actually a feminist film, it's just horribly nihilistic. Basically women are hosed, forever. Or how about Dead Girl I think it was called. Where the two teenagers find a undead woman and just use her as a sexual object or The Woman or May.
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Sep 5, 2014 22:20
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Someone once pointed out that the transgendered woman is used in the same way in Irreversible. I don't remember this, can you refresh my memory? Hollismason posted:Kind of curious if people talking about Irreversible have ever seen it cause , it's actually a feminist film, it's just horribly nihilistic. Basically women are hosed, forever. Simply pointing out that women have it rough is not really great shakes as far as feminism is concerned. Pretend I cut and pasted those gifs from Seven Psychopaths here.
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Sep 5, 2014 22:35
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Hollismason posted:Kind of curious if people talking about Irreversible have ever seen it cause , it's actually a feminist film, it's just horribly nihilistic. Basically women are hosed, forever. It's sex-negative, definitely. But it's not totally nihilistic. There is hope in the reclamation of innocence. This goes back to the film's construction of time. Yes, putting the scenes in reverse chronology can not reverse the 'cause-and-effect' of human action. But the rape very specifically is the interruption of the previous (actually later) cause-and-effect change. It is an unprovoked tragedy. It happens for no discernible reason other than that the rapist can. The movie is told 'in reverse' so that it in effect becomes about the reclamation of innocence - the reconstruction of a woman after a horrific trauma, the recognition of her total innocence and lack of any culpability or shame. Uncle Boogeyman posted:I don't remember this, can you refresh my memory? In the film, Marcus and Pierre are revealed to have discovered le Tenia's location after viciously threatening a transgender prostitute. Later, before Alex is raped, it is revealed that le Tenia is assaulting the transgender woman, and potentially intends to rape her.
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Sep 5, 2014 22:44
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penismightier posted:Exactly, whereas some of the most visceral and genuinely affecting moments of violence don't even occur within the confines of horror because they're heightened by a more character-based sense of pain. There's also audience expectation to consider too I think. If the opening credits of a film say "REGIA DI LUCIO FULCI" I'm not nearly as shocked when somebody gets stabbed in the eyeball later in the film. Or really at all. Visceral violence outside of the context of the genre tends to be more shocking in general.
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Sep 5, 2014 22:47
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K. Waste posted:The scene is awe-inspiring and affective, but Noe's stuff is also very affective. I don't even think he's playing at being transgressive. And where precisely do we draw the line? How extreme is so extreme that we can deduce that someone is just trying to provoke the spectator? And what's wrong with provocation? I know this isn't stuff you're specifically saying but I think there's way more room for 'extreme' depictions of cruelty than you're giving due credit. It's not an either/or situation. The different approaches serve unique purposes. Yeah, I'm not sure, especially because I tend to like a certain degree of provocation - unlike a lot of y'all in this thread, I'm a big Funny Games fan.
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Sep 5, 2014 22:54
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penismightier posted:Yeah, I'm not sure, especially because I tend to like a certain degree of provocation - unlike a lot of y'all in this thread, I'm a big Funny Games fan. Funny Games is a great film and it thrills me that people respond to it in such a hostile way.
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Sep 5, 2014 22:59
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InfiniteZero posted:Funny Games is a great film and it thrills me that people respond to it in such a hostile way. Eh, it's aight. It's no Cache.
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Sep 5, 2014 23:01
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