Just before the First World War, a Protestant village in northern Germany starts to come apart. While riding a horse, a doctor is brought down by a wire strung between two trees on his land. A farmer’s wife dies. A child is tortured. The pastor ties white ribbons on his children as a reminder to …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 26- The White Ribbon (2009)
In a working-class London neighbourhood, Janet, a widow, has welcomed relatives into her home. In addition to her elderly mother, Kath and her son, Billy, Janet lives with her daughter, Valerie and Valerie's abusive, alcoholic husband, Ray. This mix proves explosive. I thought my family was dysfunctional. Nil By Mouth is brutal, violent and utterly …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 25- Nil By Mouth (1997)
The Heke family are Maori and live in modern-day Auckland, New Zealand. The family is led by the violent, fiercely patriarchal Jake. I first saw Once Were Warriors when I was living in Australia and it really opened my eyes! It unflinchingly deals with such weighty topics as domestic violence, dole culture, child abuse, alcoholism …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 24- Once Were Warriors (1994)
In this 1971 pseudo-documentary by British filmmaker Peter Watkins, new prisoners are given a choice when all US prisons are full. They can either choose prison time or three days in punishment park where they must trek 50 miles in that time in punishing heat whilst the relevant authorities try to hunt them. Water and …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 23- Punishment Park (1971)
Stan Brakhage’s 32-minute film is soundless footage captured during autopsies in a Pittsburgh morgue. The film’s title is a literal meaning of the word ‘autopsy’. Obviously, don’t watch this whilst eating a meal (the first time I watched The Exorcist was whilst eating an evening meal with my dad. But that, as they say, is …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 22- The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (1971)
Mr Lazarescu, an elderly man who likes a tipple and lives with his cats, becomes ill but, firstly, getting an ambulance to come out to him and then getting him to a hospital that will actually provide the appropriate care for him becomes nearly impossible. This Romanian film is admirably directed by Cristi Puiu, with …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 21- The Death of Mr Lazarescu (2005)
How the hell do I describe this film? Someone who looks like Leatherface stabs themself to death in the Evil Dead cabin. After this, we witness the birth of Mother Earth and the Son of Earth who then ‘journey across a dying world’ apparently. This scungy, lo-fi work by E. Elias Merhige features unknown actors …
Actress Nikki Grace lands the lead in a Hollywood remake of an unfinished Polish film, one that may be cursed. As she slips into the role of Sue, the line between Nikki and Sue, Los Angeles and Łódź, rehearsal and nightmare, starts to fade. There are talking rabbits, a screwdriver, a woman dying on Hollywood …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 19- Inland Empire (2006)
In 1950s rural Idaho, eight-year-old Seth Dove lives at a lonely gas station with his brittle mother and withdrawn father. After a vile prank on the English widow next door, Dolphin Blue, he decides she is a vampire. Children start to vanish. Then his brother Cameron comes home from the Pacific, where he worked on …
Continue reading Shocking Cinema- Day 18- The Reflecting Skin (1990)
I remember the first time I ever saw any scenes from The Brood was in the excellent documentary, Terror in the Aisles. I then went on to see the film from start to finish in a Film Studies lecture at university. There's a sinister institution within The Brood that's called The Somafree Institute of Psychoplasmatics. …
