Evocations of despair

[Melville]

So Ebert calling Antichrist the most despairing movie he's ever seen got me thinking about depictions of despair in films. What do you think are the best depictions of despair/depression/anxiety, not in terms of being depressing or bleak, but in terms of evoking the feelings of the characters? What films best evoke that feeling of everything just falling apart, like your whole body is aching with nervous energy and you feel like tearing your arm off or doing anything to get some kind of release, but everything you do only makes it worse? Or the more subdued feeling that the only thing lying in your future is endless gray days of hopelessness, a never ending succession of moments that you dread?

The first things that come to my mind:
- the scene in Requiem for a Dream when Harry calls Marion from jail, or the later scene when the nurse tells him that Marion will come to the hospital, and he says "She won't come"
- the scene in Mulholland Drive when [

Show Spoiler

Diane kills herself

]
- the ending of Time Out.

EDIT: wait, I've got a better one for Mulholland Drive: the dinner party, just before Camilla announces her engagement. There's a clatter of wine glasses, and Diane flinches. That moment is brutal.

[Dead & Messed Up]

The Mist

[

Show Spoiler

When David Drayton starts dry-clicking the gun in his mouth.

]

[Bosco B Thug]

I commonly cite Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Seance as the film that's gotten me most racked with feelings of hopelessness and squirm-inducing despair/anxiety.

Can't quite think of another prime example of the top of my head...

[baby doll]

Going back to Ebert's original blog post, when he says the film "says we harbor an undreamed-of capacity for evil," I think he means "despairing" in the sense of it having a bleak philosophical outlook, rather than the characters feeling a sense of despair.

[soitgoes...]

The end of The Seventh Continent. Ugh. Or one of many other scenes in a Haneke film.

[Amnesiac]

The scene in After The Wedding, where Jørgen finally breaks down regarding his imminent death and how much he doesn't want to die. Pretty unforgettable.

[Melville]

Going back to Ebert's original blog post, when he says the film "says we harbor an undreamed-of capacity for evil," I think he means "despairing" in the sense of it having a bleak philosophical outlook, rather than the characters feeling a sense of despair.

I think he means both. But there are plenty of movies with bleak philosophical outlooks, so it didn't seem very interesting to ask which is the best at being bleak. It seems to me that there really aren't many movies that examine and evoke the subjective experience of despair. Most movies display it in an objective manner, from the point of view of an outsider, or they dilute it a whole lot. I'm hoping that Antichrist really delves into it with abandon (though it might be evoking Trier's feelings rather than the characters').

[baby doll]

I think he means both. But there are plenty of movies with bleak philosophical outlooks, so it didn't seem very interesting to ask which is the best at being bleak. It seems to me that there really aren't many movies that examine and evoke the subjective experience of despair. Most movies display it in an objective manner, from the point of view of an outsider, or they dilute it a whole lot. I'm hoping that Antichrist really delves into it with abandon (though it might be evoking Trier's feelings rather than the characters').

Well, all movies display things in an objective manner. That's what photography and film is: a machine that represents the outside of things. Obviously films manipulate our feelings, but I don't know of any that made me lose all hope.

[Derek]

Well, all movies display things in an objective manner. That's what photography and film is: a machine that represents the outside of things. Obviously films manipulate our feelings, but I don't know of any that made me lose all hope.

You don't believe a film can convey the subjective experience of despair without making the viewer lose all hope?

I'll add Bresson's L'Argent and second The Seventh Continent.

[Pop Trash]

Most of Lilja 4-Ever and Wendy and Lucy left me pretty effed up.

[baby doll]

You don't believe a film can convey the subjective experience of despair without making the viewer lose all hope?

I'll add Bresson's L'Argent and second The Seventh Continent.

Isn't that what despair is? To lose all hope?

When you watch Vertigo, and the camera zooms in while tracking out, do you feel like you're falling? We understand that Scotty feels like he's falling, and as viewers, we can empathize with him. But that's not the same as feeling it yourself.

Taking your two examples (L'Argent and The Seventh Continent), both are, first of all, fiercely materialist in their style: no dream sequences or subjective flashbacks; uninflected acting; lots of shots of hands performing mechanical tasks (the passing of money from one hand to another in Bresson's; the nuclear family smashing all their stuff in Haneke's).

Bresson's is despairing only in that there's no hope in the story; the world as a whole is corrupt and evil. In Haneke's, [

Show Spoiler

the family's suicide is motivated by despair.

] But watching neither film did I feel a sense of despair myself.

[soitgoes...]

Bresson's is despairing only in that there's no hope in the story; the world as a whole is corrupt and evil. [

Show Spoiler

In Haneke's, the family's suicide is motivated by despair.

] But watching neither film did I feel a sense of despair myself.

You might want to spoiler tag that.

[baby doll]

You might want to spoiler tag that.

No, before I saw the film, I read reviews that mention that. I don't think it's a big surprise or anything.

[soitgoes...]

No, before I saw the film, I read reviews that mention that. I don't think it's a big surprise or anything.

Maybe it was despairing because I didn't know that going into the film.

[baby doll]

Maybe it was despairing because I didn't know that going into the film.

Well, the movie is pretty "despairing" even before they start smashing everything up.

[Spinal]

No, before I saw the film, I read reviews that mention that. I don't think it's a big surprise or anything.

Yes, you need to use spoiler tags. Please consider this a warning.

EDIT: Sorry for the melodrama, but there have been complaints from other members.

[SirNewt]

Bergman's 'Through a Glass Darkly'

The whole F'n movie is ridiculous. After this film I've massively spread my Bergman intake not because his films aren't great but his films are a rough way to spend two hours.

I'll throw L'eclisse up for consideration as well. No one does despair like the new wavers.

[Derek]

Taking your two examples (L'Argent and The Seventh Continent), both are, first of all, fiercely materialist in their style: no dream sequences or subjective flashbacks; uninflected acting; lots of shots of hands performing mechanical tasks (the passing of money from one hand to another in Bresson's; the nuclear family smashing all their stuff in Haneke's).

Yes, I realize the similarities of their materialist styles, but I realize now that I misread Melville's question. I didn't feel despair myself after watching either of those films.

[Milky Joe]

Almost all of Synecdoche, New York. Specifically I think of all the scenes where he's cleaning.

I also think of Henry Gibson on stage at the end of Nashville, though it's quickly followed by a great dose of hopefulness.

Oh. The raincoat monologue in Lenny.

[chrisnu]

The endings of The Conversation and Safe felt irredeemably bleak.

[MacGuffin]

Most of Lilja 4-Ever and Wendy and Lucy left me pretty effed up.

I saw the last shot of the latter movie as one of good hope for things to come.

[Melville]

Well, all movies display things in an objective manner. That's what photography and film is: a machine that represents the outside of things. Obviously films manipulate our feelings, but I don't know of any that made me lose all hope.

I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you denying that a film can evoke a character's subjective state of mind? That seems patently ridiculous. I'm not talking about literally making the audience member's state of mind identical to the character's, but "calling forth, bringing to mind or recollection, or re-creating imaginatively" that state of mind. I'm talking about using filmic techniques to represent a character's feeling of despair, not necessarily inducing it in the audience (though it can certainly do that too; but it can do that just by showing a bunch of depressing things, or just by catching the audience on a bad day, without trying to evoke a particular character's state of mind). Even a purely materialistic depiction of events can do that, if done right, though I'm mostly thinking of more expressionistic, overtly subjective depictions (e.g. the "chest-cam" in Requiem for a Dream).

Yes, I realize the similarities of their materialist styles, but I realize now that I misread Melville's question. I didn't feel despair myself after watching either of those films.

I'm not sure that you did misread my question. You said a film could "convey the subjective experience of despair", which sounds about right, unless I'm misunderstanding you.

[trotchky]

Punch-Drunk Love
Bad Lieutenant
L'Enfant
Fargo
Inland Empire
The Piano Teacher
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Mysterious Skin
Frownland
Yeast

(The last two are part of what I like to call "The New Grindhouse")

[Melville]

Punch-Drunk Love

Seriously? Which parts?

[trotchky]

Seriously? Which parts?

All the parts before he falls in love.