Great Films That I Will Never Watch Again

SPOILERS

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

This is a great film, and I watched it at a time in my life where I could really relate to the protagonist, McMurphy.  I was in high school and maybe I wasn’t dealing with anything truly important in life, but I had the anti-authoritarian spirit in me, and saw bravery in McMurphy’s actions.

I loved the story of how McMurphy battled with Nurse Ratched and the dysfunctional institution.  He didn’t always succeed, and wasn’t always rational or honest, but that just made him more human and his victories more impressive, including his final victory where he inspires Chief to escape.

The reason I won’t watch this film again is because it absolutely horrified me to see McMurphy lobotomized at the end of the film.  It still haunts me, and was something I couldn’t get over for a few days.  It is just so brutal to have a character you relate with and admire have his personality ripped from him so gruesomely.  Death would have been (and was) a more merciful option for both McMurphy and myself.  I recommend seeing this film, even though I just gave away the ending, but be warned that it may be the most emotionally disturbing defeat a character ever suffers that I have seen on film.

Antichrist

Lar Von Trier is a crazy, emotionally disturbed person willing to put things on film that will give anyone outside of satanic cult nightmares.  He is also an incredible filmmaker who creates works of art.  Sometimes his films are normal.  No, scratch that.  They’re never normal, but sometimes they aren’t disturbing.  Antichrist, however, is not one of those non-disturbing films.

The film has great style, is beautiful at times, and features an interesting and original plot.  A couple, grieving the death of their young son, retreat into a cabin surrounded  by nature.  Here the husband acts as his wife’s psychiatrist, and starts uncovering a sinister side to her, while the nature surrounding them seems to mimic this evil nature.

Oh, by the way, the scene of the son falling out a window to his death is in black and white and intercut with a sex scene featuring full penetration.  It’s quite the odd mix, but not as disturbing as, say, a deer walking around with a fetus hanging halfway out.  That scene comes later.

The disturbing things progress throughout the film, ending with things I won’t go into full detail of.  But, just to give an idea, they have scenes of violence (including genital mutilation) mixed with large amounts of sexuality.  If reading that fairly general description made you uncomfortable, imagine watching a few scenes of it where Von Trier is not afraid of showing everything as realistically (and gruesomely) as film allows.

This is not a slasher film, where acts of vulgarity are made with the sole intention of creeping out or scaring the audience.  Yes, these scenes will scare you, but despite the grotesqueness, they are actually artfully done.  They are made to disturb, but at the same time they really improve the film, helping with the atmosphere and story.  I had a strong enough stomach to sit through one viewing of Antichrist, and am thankful I did since it was a great film, but I am more than satisfied with only seeing the film once.

Clerks and Clerks 2

Clearly the least impressive films on this list, but also the ones I have seen the most times.  And, unlike the others, they won’t leave you emotionally disturbed.  But despite how much I enjoyed these films, I will try to never watch them again.

The reason for this is simple: they are not well made films.  Sure, they are comedic and have some surprisingly solid themes of existentialism, but that’s about where the positives stop.

The acting can be bad, especially O’Halloran as Dante.  The scripts are funny enough to keep me laughing, but at times are wordy, simplistic, and forced.  The editing sucks, with the pace often dragging.  The cinematography is fairly awful, especially in Clerks 2 where the color truly shows how bland the film was shot.

Let it be said that I love what Kevin Smith does, making good films that really show his personality.  Outside of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, none of them feel like he sold out or pandered too much to a broader audience.  I laugh at his films and have always enjoyed them, and am sure I will watch Clerks 3 if it does indeed come out.  But unfortunately, I am resolved to never see the first two Clerks again, and instead will try to watch other films that I will hopefully get more out of.

Funny Games

Funny Games by Michael Haneke is about a family taken hostage by two young men, who proceed to torture them both mentally and phyisically.  We are already getting off to a great start.  The film is very well made, as Haneke is very talented and can experiment with storytelling to great effect.  It is similar to “The Cabin in The Woods”, in the sense that it makes the audience think about traditional horror films.  But unlike Whedon’s film, which I enjoyed immensely, this is not an easy-to-watch popcorn flick.

Haneke is very experimental in the way he shoots the film.  One of the intruders, Paul, breaks the fourth wall and addressed the audience.  When the second intruder Peter dies, Paul uses a remote to rewind the film and save him.  And after the family’s son is killed and the husband’s leg broken, there is a 10-minute long shot of the couple trying to recover and escape.  This shot features minimal camera movement and a pulled back view that gives the audience a sense of them watching something very real and gruesome.

This film doesn’t feature as much gore as Antichrist, but at times seems more bloody because of the sense of reality Haneke gives the film.  The torture the family goes through seems real, and the plain, unsympathetic nature of the kidnappers makes the torture all the more brutal.  This is part of the reason why I have no motivation to see this film again, but there is a more important reason.

Honestly, I did not enjoy watching this film.  This is not to say it is a bad film, since it is well done and is both artistic and innovative.  But the simple truth is that the film is hard to watch.  Partly due to the cruelty and suffering mentioned above, but also due to the film’s style.  It is slow, which works for the film, but at times made me disinterested.  After the film, I felt as though I could appreciate what Haneke was doing, but could not say that I enjoyed the experience.  Perhaps that prevents this from being a “great” film for me, but despite my lack of enjoyment I still maintain this is a well-executed film with plenty of style and meaning.

Lars and the Real Girl

You know how people seem to think of Ryan Gosling as a cute, sweet, down-to-earth guy?  Well, I think of him as a psycho who fell in love with a sex doll.

That happens to be the simplified plot for Lars and the Real Girl, a movie that is very heart-felt, yet terrifyingly creepy.  Ryan Gosling plays Lars, whose relationship with an inanimate object tells a tale of recovery and people bonding together.

It also is a movie about a guy who falls in love with a sex doll.

I know that there have been creepier movies, but the problem is that this movie is so well done, and Ryan Gosling gives such a great performance as the emotionally crippled Lars who is an incredible boyfriend to a piece of plastic, that you become completely immersed into the world of the film.  And that creeped the hell out of me.

I had to stop this film a few times and just walk away for a bit, because I found it so realistically creepy.  This film does a great job with a plot that could have easily been done in a way that makes it impossible to take the characters’ emotions seriously.  You really care for everyone in it, and really feel the pain that Lars goes through.  But I just can’t sit through the creepiness again.  Something about Gosling creepily caring for his fake girlfriend in such a sensitive way scares me.