so here's the thing

Just once, maybe?

In my mind, films that you only see once can be classified in 3 different groups:

  1. Films that you'll probably never watch again simply because they're bad.
  2. Films that you'll probably never watch again because because they've torn you to pieces.
  3. Films that you'll probably never watch again because they are so incredibly traumatic and uncomfortable they'll make you want to throw up.

That said, I end up liking most of the films I watch from the second and third groups (and they even end up being among my favourites).

Having an interest in absolutely every genre out there, and the fact that I might actually end up liking films from such diverse genres has its advantages, I suppose. Although the fact that I sometimes enjoy films with really twisted and traumatic plots does make me wonder if I'm quite right in the head. Probably not. Although I do have my limits, I must say (you'll never catch me watching A Serbian Film or Salò, for example).

That's why, I want to talk about some of the films from that third group I mentioned before, which I often find mesmerising and which have made me feel everything from a stomach ache and the urge to vomit to even panic attacks; and, even so, I've enjoyed.

Come and See

Elem Klimov / USSR / 1985

I must start admitting that I haven't seen many war films, nor am I a big fan of them. Although it's true that I'm neither blind nor deaf to the fact that, on many occasions, they've completely won me over, as in the case of Come and See. This film tells the story of the occupation of Belarus during the second world war from a child's perspective. As the plot unfolds, the boy witnesses and experiences first-hand all manner of atrocities committed against his people, leading him to join the resistance whilst, at the same time, being forced to grow up before his time (something the viewer can clearly see by the end of the film).

There are scenes that really stick in your mind – so much so that, even five months after watching it, I can still remember some of them perfectly. When you finally get to the final scene where it essentially makes the classic philosophical question of whether you'd kill hitler as a baby if you could travel back in time, it left me staring at the black screen for ten minutes without moving from my seat. Grim, terrifying, violent, macabre, realistic and brilliant.

I once read that François Truffaut said there were no anti-war films, and I completely agreed with him until I saw this one.this could easily be one of the best films ever made.

Happiness

Todd Solondz / USA / 1998

I'm very easily persuaded: if Philip Seymour Hoffman's in it, I'll watch it. It's as simple as that. This film had been on my watchlist for ages, simply because I'd already been warned about how disturbing and unsettling it was. I was never ready to watch it, never in the right frame of mind, until a few weeks ago. The plot is straightforward: we follow the lives of several characters (who are connected to one another) and some of the situations they find themselves in.

It makes you feel uncomfortable right from the start, but at the same time you can't take your eyes off the screen and you find yourself laughing at completely out of place situations and comments from the characters, which makes you wonder whether you're really a good person for bursting out laughing at certain scenes. What's more, some characters' storylines are more unsettling than others, although the sense of unease is always present.

If you want to watch it, it's best to go in knowing absolutely nothing and let the story unfold bit by bit as you watch it, hoping that sometimes you'll be wrong about what you think is going to happen in the characters' storylines.

P.S.: There's a line delivered by Philip Seymour Hoffman that I just can't get out of my head – I miss you so much.

Mysterious Skin

Gregg Araki / USA / 2004

Many of you know that Gregg Araki is one of my favourite directors, but that doesn't mean I can rewatch all his films. I could watch Nowhere 50 times. The Doom Generation 100 times. Splendor another 200 times. Any of them (I can't wait ANY LONGER for I Want Your Sex to come out). Mysterious Skin, on the other hand, no fucking way. It's a classic on every ‘films nobody wants to watch again’ list. And rightly so. Although, mind you, just when you least expect it, and even though you'd never want to watch it again, the Javis slip the very same traumatic plot, told in exactly the same way, into one of their series.

By blending reality and ‘science fiction’, Mysterious Skin introduces us to Neil and Brian, who were victims of sexual abuse during their pre-adolescence. Whilst Neil grows into a more extroverted and ‘carefree’ teenager, Brian reveals a side of himself that is more detached from reality and connected to aliens.

This was one of the films that brought back my love of cinema after many years away from this world. By blending moments as sweet and lovely as the scene with Neil and Wendy in the snow, the relationship between Brian and Eric, and heart-wrenching moments that tear you to pieces, Araki stirred up every single one of my emotions.

After all that, I have to admit that I might well watch this film again. Because I like it far too much and I think it's far too good to have only seen it once in my life, even though I know it practically by heart because of the shock it gave me. I can't keep my word.

Dogtooth

Yorgos Lanthimos / Greece / 2009

If you compare any of Yorgos Lanthimos' films to Dogtooth, they're all child's play by comparison. Dogtooth is the queen of the macabre and the sinister. You finish the film wanting to ask Lanthimos what on earth is going on in his head. When he and Efthymis Filippou come together, you want to ask them what's wrong with them, what their problem is, and whether they're all right.

If a film is about a family living in isolation and cut off from the world, you can be sure that, usually, I'll find it a hit. Because those people aren't going to be oksy, they won't think like us, and we won't understand why they do X or Y. At some point, everything can go completely off the rails and you'll feel extremely uncomfortable, but you won't be able to stop watching what's happening on screen, eyes glued to the screen. And that's exactly what happens in Dogtooth.

Right, some weird parents. Right, they bring up their kids differently. Right, they do whatever they want with their kids. They manipulate them, they overprotect them.

But come on, you know who made the film, and taking that into account, the fact that anything could happen comes as no surprise. But you're still left frozen in your seat because you never know how far it might go or where the line will be drawn.

And that's what i love about films. Often, you know what's going to happen. And when it comes to dark films, even if you don't want to admit it, you know what's going to happen because you imagine the worst-case scenario, because you know what human beings are like. And even if it's not exactly what you expect to happen, it ends up happening (perhaps in a different way to what you'd imagined). We can always choose to believe and trust that we're wrong, but half the time (mainly because of the things we see every single day), we know that the worst possible scenario could well happen.

I might have strayed from the topic a bit, but anyway, I miss Lanthimos' films from before 2018. I don't know if it's because he has forgotten his roots or because he has become too americanised, but I need him to go back to being as bizarre as he used to be.

Honourable mentions

#recs