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movie recommends plz :O

Kurt.Is.God

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I'm looking for something very specific in my stories--some sublime cathartic element. But not like in Fight Club, or Grave of the Fireflies, or any movie usually touted as "powerful".

Eternal Sunshine slightly has it, with the elephant scene and the poem. Mushishi frequently has it with its overarching theme of "your feelings and values mean nothing to nature's cold and beautiful justice". Ghost in the Shell has it near the end, with the museum shootout. It was like the symbolic destruction of humanity. Or something. I don't love Perfect Blue or Paprika, but both have one or two scenes which carry this out absolutely perfectly. Non-movie-wise, songs like Water Curses and Nature's Uplifting Revenge have it. And when I was like 7, I didn't care about the romance in Titanic, but the sinking ship was awesome. Overwhelming emotion, a crescendo, destruction, God. Only not necessarily in a literal sense. It can be hinted at through metaphors.

Also, movies/music/etc can be good without it. My favorite movies (Brazil, Blade Runner, Taxi Driver) have it, but not too much.

Anyway, recommendations?
 

gmanyo

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No Country for Old Men has the exact opposite of this. It's got cold nothingness. Destruction for sure, though.
 

Thalassa

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What one person finds cathartic another might not. I found the French horror film L'Interieur cathartic, as well as Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (original Korean version). I'm pretty sure that largely has to do with me being female and who I am, though.

If you're looking for some kind of bleak, desolate hopelessness there's plenty of films which will give you that, like The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things with Asia Argento.

Zodiac and Wonderland (2003, with Val Kilmer, the John Holmes movie) both stayed with me as brutal true crimes within the past 30-40 which were never solved. I obsessed over the true details of both cases, and loved the supplemental material on Wonderland, as it actually showed the police footage of the murdered bodies in the apartment. Creepy stuff, bro.
 

Kurt.Is.God

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No Country for Old Men has the exact opposite of this. It's got cold nothingness. Destruction for sure, though.

It doesn't have to have actual overwhelmingness or emotion. Mushishi and GITS don't have those at all. They're both really subdued. I guess what matters isn't how much of that "power" is shown, but how much of it is actually there. In Dilbert 3, just mandalas and rotating Illuminati pyramids were enough.
 

Thalassa

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Ooooh. I can't believe I didn't immediately recommend 4.

If you can stand Russian subtitles, it has plenty of symbolic underlying meaning.
 

Kurt.Is.God

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Ooooh. I can't believe I didn't immediately recommend 4.

If you can stand Russian subtitles, it has plenty of symbolic underlying meaning.

Wow, I think I'd love this. I can definitely stand subtitles.
 

Thalassa

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Wow, um Dilbert 3? Is this a troll fest?

You definitely should get something out of Park Chan-Wook's revenge trilogy, I believe Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is the most symbolic, but also the most hyper-realistic.

All you seem to want is suggestive symbolism, do you like David Lynch?

Dilbert 3?

This is all pretty vague. Excuse me, but I'm not really sure I understand what you're looking for, besides that you simply want symbols.
 

Kurt.Is.God

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Wow, um Dilbert 3? Is this a troll fest?

You definitely should get something out of Park Chan-Wook's revenge trilogy, I believe Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is the most symbolic, but also the most hyper-realistic.

All you seem to want is suggestive symbolism, do you like David Lynch?

Dilbert 3?

This is all pretty vague. Excuse me, but I'm not really sure I understand what you're looking for, besides that you simply want symbols.

No, I don't want symbols. I want some sort of cathartic release of power, which can be represented symbolically. I don't think I'm being very clear because I don't quite get it myself.

I'm not trolling about Dilbert 3. I really cried the first time I watched it and got to the mandala. It's that sense of artificiality and trapped-ness and decay. Am I pretentious if I say it's postmodern?

Edit: probably I'm looking for a sense of chaos/some primal force being in control or human-imposed order being trumped by chaos.
 

Thalassa

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No, I don't want symbols. I want some sort of cathartic release of power, which can be represented symbolically. I don't think I'm being very clear because I don't quite get it myself.

I'm not trolling about Dilbert 3. I really cried the first time I watched it and got to the mandala. It's that sense of artificiality and trapped-ness and decay. Am I pretentious if I say it's postmodern?

Only if you don't know what postmodern actually means. Seeing as that I haven't seen or even read about Dilbert 3, I cannot challenge your statement, but I'm quite skeptical that you're even using the word correctly. Sorry if I'm being an asshole by saying that.

Anyway, people are moved by different things, that's what I said in my first post. What sets you have has specifically to do with your personality, life experience, emotions, belief system, etc.

Art is subjective. There's good art and bad art, but even among good art what is outstanding to some is meh to others.

Edit: probably I'm looking for a sense of chaos/some primal force being in control or human-imposed order being trumped by chaos.

Then you will like 4.

That kind of explains why I like horror movies, maybe, I think, too. I mean you could even say that about a film like Zodiac where the murderer is beyond the reach of the law.
 

gmanyo

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I hope you watched the right Dilbert 3. It's not anything like the comic. Although either way your reaction would probably be the same since not many people would like it.

edit:
Slight NSFW warning.
Dilbert 2 (1 doesn't matter at all):
[YOUTUBE="D36NSYUNPhg"]Dilbert 2[/YOUTUBE]

Dilbert 3:
[YOUTUBE="VuPQo2DeFyQ"]Dilbert 3[/YOUTUBE]
 

Kurt.Is.God

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Only if you don't know what postmodern actually means. Seeing as that I haven't seen or even read about Dilbert 3, I cannot challenge your statement, but I'm quite skeptical that you're even using the word correctly. Sorry if I'm being an asshole by saying that.

Anyway, people are moved by different things, that's what I said in my first post. What sets you have has specifically to do with your personality, life experience, emotions, belief system, etc.

Art is subjective. There's good art and bad art, but even among good art what is outstanding to some is meh to others.



Then you will like 4.

That kind of explains why I like horror movies, maybe, I think, too. I mean you could even say that about a film like Zodiac where the murderer is beyond the reach of the law.

Postmodernism--only if you're going to tell me Thomas Pynchon and John Barth and Vladimir Nabokov aren't postmodern. That's all they ever wrote about--people being trapped in their realities like solipsistic bell jars, reaching past, and finding nothing but a sublime of infinite chaotic realities.

Also, of course it's going to be moved by my personal experiences and etc. But I think we have enough common ground on definitions to agree somewhat on what "chaotic, emotional sublime" in a movie would be characterized by. And that common ground would be enough to possibly set me on my way to my next favorite movie.
 

Thalassa

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So I watched the Dilbert 3 thing, and it seemed like someone's crystal meth induced release of sex and pent up aggression. I didn't see anything to cry over, though I thought it was pretty heinously filled with violence, in an especially nasty and base way. It seemed irreverent and sick rather than moving, in my opinion, like an X-rated episode of Robot Chicken or something.
 

gmanyo

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It seemed irreverent and sick rather than moving, in my opinion, like an X-rated episode of Robot Chicken or something.

Ha, that's actually not a bad way of describing it. It does make fun of pop culture. I'd add "sublime" in there.
 

Thalassa

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I'd add "sublime" in there.

I personally would not.

However, I do think they use animation techniques and/or film techniques that mess with your subconscious mind, which may be why you feel that way.

They do that sometimes in Japanese horror films, like I particularly like Spiral. Things frighten you on a deep subconscious level, and you're not sure way. Weird movements and things, images and sounds, as opposed to holistic concepts like "omgz that guy is going to get me with a chainsaw."
 

gmanyo

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I personally would not.

However, I do think they use animation techniques and/or film techniques that mess with your subconscious mind, which may be why you feel that way.

They do that sometimes in Japanese horror films, like I particularly like Spiral. Things frighten you on a deep subconscious level, and you're not sure way. Weird movements and things, images and sounds, as opposed to holistic concepts like "omgz that guy is going to get me with a chainsaw."

I've actually heard that Spiral is pretty good. I want to see it now.

Julien Donkey-Boy might work for what you're talking about, Kurt. Harmony Korine is a p cool thug.
 

Thalassa

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I've actually heard that Spiral is pretty good. I want to see it now.

Julien Donkey-Boy might work for what you're talking about, Kurt. Harmony Korine is a p cool thug.

Julien Donkey-Boy is great. It's probably Harmony Korine's best film, in my opinion. Gummo still has appeal though.

I really liked Spiral, but I dig stuff like that.
 

gmanyo

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Thalassa

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Yeah, Julien is like a refined version of Gummo. Gummo had good parts, but was overall kind of meh.

Well Julien-Donkey Boy is Dogme 95 and involved Werner Herzog, so yes, I agree it's much more refined.

Gummo is more like a comedy with disturbing parts. My favorite part is where that little girl says "I want a mustache dammit, like Burt Reynolds." My ex and I used to say that to each other, lol. I think my attachment to Gummo may be partly sentimental, but at the time I watched it, it wasn't quite like anything else I'd ever seen, and that's why it stood out to me. I believe I watched Gummo for the first time in 2001 or 2002.

I'm also thinking of The Brown Bunny now, but I'm not sure if that fits in the category of what the OP is looking for. It's pretty intense.
 
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