Blood Diamond was quite hard to watch. I think it was the mass slaughter that did it, and the fact that the stuff I was watching happened not too long ago for real somewhere...
This was exactly what I was going to say, one of the most frustrating, unfair, angering, saddening experiences I have ever had. For those who don't know it's a documentary and oh man... it is the kind of thing that reminds you the world is full of bad people who hurt good people and there isn't a damn thing to be done about it.
I can't ever watch that movie again. What a fucked up movie.
Mainly the Mom's story part of it- the actress that I forget the name of played it very well and was incredibly moving to me. I couldn't stop crying for a bit after watching it.
The Girl Next Door made me hate life. Being somewhat dubious of its "based on a true story" tagline, I looked into the events this film was based on to find that not only did the events in this movie actually happen, they were far worse in reality in comparison to what was portrayed in the movie. It's rare when a movie can affect me so profoundly, but watching this movie practically had me tears by the end. Even thinking about it depresses the hell out of me.
Probably Irréversible, I've watched it twice and both times left me emotionally stunted for hours. There are a lot of hard to digest films I've watched (The War Zone, Funny Games, Dogtooth, A Serbian Film, Happiness, The Edge of Heaven, Requiem for a Dream...) but none really compere in terms of the visceral physical reaction I have with Irréversible.
The genius thing about that film is that because of it's backwards nature the worst part of it is the good things that happen after all the bad things... That film really breaks me.
Also I hear Blue Valentine is really uncomfortable, I don't know why but I want to watch it.
There are a few scenes that are pretty rough. Basically, there are scenes that involve domination and submission in some uncomfortable ways.
That can be another one but I wouldn't consider it all that hard to watch. I mostly just ended up kinda depressed from watching the natural course of love go from being born to slowly dying and then becoming a hollow husk of its former self. Good movie though.
@cornbredx: Ellen Burstyn is the actress - one of America's finest IMHO - probably most famous for playing Regan's mother in "The Exorcist."
I watched Requiem For A Dream late at night with a friend who suggested we watch it together so that she could know what I thought about it. She'd already seen it & fell asleep in the middle, so I was left by myself, devastated at 2 in the morning, while she snoozed away.
...but do you remember anything else about the film? Something in the plot, the location, whether the homeless friends were young/old/American/etc., approximately when the film was made? IMdB has a pretty good search-by-keyword function, but you usually need to have two or more things to search for, otherwise you end up scrolling & clicking through hundreds of film synopses.
I don't know if it ranks with some of this other stuff, but I haven't seen the anime Berserk mentioned. That ending man... I haven't read in the manga past the ending of the anime, but I can't imagine it goes out on a happy ending.
...but do you remember anything else about the film? Something in the plot, the location, whether the homeless friends were young/old/American/etc., approximately when the film was made? IMdB has a pretty good search-by-keyword function, but you usually need to have two or more things to search for, otherwise you end up scrolling & clicking through hundreds of film synopses.
That's not the one, but thanks for trying.
All I can really say is that the characters were two older men, it took place in Canada, and it was about one step above a student film production-wise.
Schindler's List, or just about any movie featuring Nazis or WWII-era Germany. Contemplating and watching people so willing to commit atrocities deeply unsettles me. Runner-ups would be Requiem for a Dream or the curb-stomping in American History X.
Lake Mungo : Hard to describe, a fake documentary about a family who thinks their dead daughter may be haunting them. The end is still stuck with me...
No, really. I like me some intensely depressive cinema if you can do it well - and if you can't then my response is boredom, not difficulty. I haven't searched out any extreme gore, so all I have left is something that takes a franchise I loved and destroys it's meaning whilst referencing some of its best moments.
Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, though It's been a while since I saw it, I still remember it as a painful experience. Lars von Trier's Antichrist, Dogville and Dancer in the Dark weren't exactly pleasant either. Recently I saw Precious, which wasn't too bad in this sense, but still fairly painful at times.
Some movies I don't even want to see are; The Human Centipede movies and A Serbian Film, as it would be just too much for me. Though The Human Centipede probably doesn't really fit in this category anyway. But just the Idea of this movie makes me sick.
Nothing in movies really seems to phase me anymore, the last thing I remember watching and being uncomfortable was Kids back when it came out on video.
My mom flipped when she saw my brother and I watching this:
There are actually too many for me because film is another one of my hobbies where I watch allot of weird crap from Korea and Japan the dark-side of the sun. I would point out the obvious Visitor Q by good old Miike, and then there is a large ark of animes like Berserk and ghost in the shell.
I can't ever watch that movie again. What a fucked up movie.
Mainly the Mom's story part of it- the actress that I forget the name of played it very well and was incredibly moving to me. I couldn't stop crying for a bit after watching it.
@shagge: Are you talking about Midnight Cowboy? Because that's just the perfect way to realize your hopes and dreams may very well aspire to absolute garbage, and then feel awful about your life.
Nah, this was made in the late 90s at the very earliest, and more likely in the early-mid 00s, but good pull there. Midnight Cowboy is emotionally brutal.
Edit: Ooh, just remembered Philosophy of a Knife. Four hours of (dramatized) real-world atrocities and humanity-ruining interviews. I change my vote.
Mike Leigh's Naked is pretty unrelenting. I'm sure I could think of more when I'm not so tired, but that's what comes to mind. Wonderful film, but relatively torturous to watch. Nothing particularly violent (graphically at least—subject matter can be violent in that sort of realistic way that's much more viscerally affecting than anything graphic), just heavy and bleak and nihilistic. Don't watch the trailer because it makes it look like a romantic comedy or something.
A Good Day to Die Hard was pretty tough for me, John McClane for the most part is a shell of a man who still shoots guns. The scene where John was just swearing and talking to himself while driving that big rig truck through the streets of Russia like a mad men was where I knew he's lost it, even for a McClane. He went from action pack super hero to crazy creepy uncle overnight.
Agreed. So sad and so hard to watch. I didn't know it could hit this low. Him yelling "I'm on vacation" made me want to die.
Had to watch it in school because we were only 2 boys in the class and then we talked about it for about 3 weeks in English class. All I remember was a woman screaming "Oh Mr. Darcy" over and over again and me wanting to cut my eyes out.
First thing that comes to mind is Trainspotting, I watched it in school too. So that it had any emotional effect at all is a good testament to it's strength. Mental instability, based on drug use or not, is probably the one thing that freaks me out the most. It's too fucked to be true, BUT STILL COULD TOTALLY BE TRUE. Too bad there aren't too many good movies on the subject, "though a few phenomenal ones".
Also, The Shining. It's not an outright disturbing or appalling movie, but it always leaves me with a feeling of dread long after watching it. Now that I think about it, both are Stanley Kubrick movies. Hmmm.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was extremely difficult for me to watch. It's funny, I'm interested in horror media, but for some reason I can't deal with them. That's why I love Spookin with Scoops.
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