Top 7- Films Most Likely to Break You
In years past, I've celebrated films that help people get through exam season but honestly, this year I want to shine a light on the films that will just snap you in two. In some of these cases, it's the emotional power that will destroy you, in others it's just the fight to understand what the hell is happening. In any case, if you want to have the shit beaten out of you emotionally or mentally, these are the films to do it. As a warning though, there may be mild spoilers ahead. I'm going to try not to spoil any of these films but getting to the root of what makes them work so well may need some deeper discussion than usual.
7. Annihilation
Starting with the most recent film on the list and one clearly in the mental breakdown category, Annihilation is damn impressive and slowly suckers you in. Sure, there's a gradual promise of these mysteries that will be solved as you wade into the rest of the film but it isn't until the third act that it really pulls out all the punches. The action becomes largely metaphorical and even if you have a proper grip on what is happening in that moment, the why and the how keep blaring at you (deliberately, this film is made brilliantly). Even once the seriously far out and baffling stuff is done though, the film is unafraid to leave you hanging with an ambiguous ending that will leave you arguing internally for days and probably arguing with similarly inclined friends for months. It's on Netflix but watch it on the biggest screen possible and let it sit with you for days on end. Is that what Natalie Portman is? Or maybe she isn't? Who knows, only another viewing will tell.
6. Enemy
Denis Villeneuve has made five English language films so far and all of them have been brilliant. Of all of them though, even Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, Enemy is the most mentally draining. It starts kind of simple, with Jake Gyllenhall seeing someone in a film who looks very similar to himself. In fact, almost identical, spookily so. He decides to research this and ends up falling into a web of secrets and lies that I still don't understand. Further viewings may help but that's no guarantee. either. Still, the film manages to completely enrapture you and you will be trying to pull all the strings to see where it goes long after the film ends. It helps that the film ends on a really terrifying jump scare that will be the straw breaking your very fragile back.
5. Under the Skin
This was my proper introduction to how far films could go in terms of sheer insanity, although I only initially watched it because I heard it was good and Scarlet Johannsen was naked in it. I highly recommend the film but definitely not for that reason, as it's some of the least arousing nudity I've ever seen, due to the really troubling context of it. The story is vague but essentially, it's about Johannsen as an alien, who's arrived on Earth in order to seduce young men and... Do something to them. This isn't me being coy and not telling you what, I'm genuinely not sure what happens in those sequences. With Under the Skin, there's definitely a cerebral level of damage but for the first time on the list we're really heading into emotional damage too. Her character grows in tragic, unexpected ways, owing some level of debt to The Man Who Fell to Earth. If you give it a shot, just watch out for the baby scene. It will leave you number than a general anaesthetic and you will be scrambling around trying to work out why.
4. Primer
Very nearly the peak of cerebral complexity, Primer is a time travel movie. Cool, fun, we like those, right? Not quite. In the pantheon of time travel films, this is less at the fun "oops, almost wiped myself out of existence" end and more in the "hang on, so which version of them did that and how is that possible and uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" as your brain collapses. See, most time travel films kind of fall apart when you question the logic of them but Primer deliberately taunts you, asks you to figure it out. You won't, that I can guarantee. Admittedly, I've only seen it the once so maybe I'm not quite there but if you google this film, you will find complex graphs and timelines as people who have seen the movie ten times or more are still doing their best to patch the events together. If you're looking for a real goddamn challenge, Primer is your kind of film.
3. The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Easily the feel bad film of last year and a good contender for all time bad feels, The Killing of a Sacred Deer is the single most uncomfortable I have ever been in a cinema. Never has a film so physically manifested itself in me, curling me up into a ball, tying knots in my stomach and almost actually compelling me to walk out. That said, I couldn't look away, the film compelled me completely. In it, Collin Farrell is a surgeon who, for some horrible reason in his past, has had a curse put on his family. Slowly, they will all lose control of their limbs, stop eating and eventually bleed out of their eyes until they die. Well, they will, unless Colin Farrell kills one of them. At that point, the other two will be saved but only after that horrific sacrifice. If that sounds like feel good fun then you're a monster but you're also on the same page as the director who feels like this is a comedy. There are some horrible twisted laughs but for the most part, this is a movie designed to ruin your day, week, month, maybe life. And I love it. It's amazing and is going to completely break you.
2. Requiem for a Dream
Requiem for a Dream has the greatest score of all time, a symphonic orchestra that barrels towards an inevitably horrific ending and it's what makes the film so incredibly effective. Aside from that though, there's plenty in Darren Aronofsky's magnum opus of misery that makes it the incredibly impressive film it is. At its core, it's about addiction, the heroin addictions of three of the characters and the diet pill addiction of another and it tracks the misery that will cause to the very end of the line. The reason I think it works so well is it's split into three acts, the first of which shows the characters living good lives under their addiction. As soon as we hit that second act though, events spiral downhill faster than you can ever imagine and the third act will take you to depths you didn't even realise existed. I'm yet to watch Requiem for a Dream again, so deeply did it traumatise me but it's powerful and as deliberately provocative and upsetting as anything Aronofsky has ever done.
1. Inland Empire
David Lynch was always going to appear on this list but I imposed a rule on myself that I wouldn't give any directors more than one slot, as otherwise this list would genuinely have been half David Lynch. When it came to choosing what would make the list though, even with the fractured worlds of Mulholland Drive and the nightmare dreamscape of Eraserhead, I never had any doubt that Inland Empire would occupy the top spot of this list. It is truly (and I've been saving this phrase for the ultimate example) a mindfuck of a movie and is guaranteed to break your soul in half. There's an emotional power there somehow and it left me feeling exhausted but what puts this film on the top of the list is how sensationally baffling it is. Inland Empire is a three hour movie where only half an hour makes sense. The other 150 minutes are filled with stalking terrors, breaches between film and reality and Rabbits. Why the Rabbits? And why are they so damn creepy? I have never in my life seen a film like Inland Empire and that includes everything else David Lynch has ever made. I can't guarantee you'll enjoy it if you're not already a fan of his work but whether you like Lynch or not, I can guarantee that this film will completely break you, more than you ever thought film could.
7. Annihilation
Starting with the most recent film on the list and one clearly in the mental breakdown category, Annihilation is damn impressive and slowly suckers you in. Sure, there's a gradual promise of these mysteries that will be solved as you wade into the rest of the film but it isn't until the third act that it really pulls out all the punches. The action becomes largely metaphorical and even if you have a proper grip on what is happening in that moment, the why and the how keep blaring at you (deliberately, this film is made brilliantly). Even once the seriously far out and baffling stuff is done though, the film is unafraid to leave you hanging with an ambiguous ending that will leave you arguing internally for days and probably arguing with similarly inclined friends for months. It's on Netflix but watch it on the biggest screen possible and let it sit with you for days on end. Is that what Natalie Portman is? Or maybe she isn't? Who knows, only another viewing will tell.
6. Enemy
Denis Villeneuve has made five English language films so far and all of them have been brilliant. Of all of them though, even Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, Enemy is the most mentally draining. It starts kind of simple, with Jake Gyllenhall seeing someone in a film who looks very similar to himself. In fact, almost identical, spookily so. He decides to research this and ends up falling into a web of secrets and lies that I still don't understand. Further viewings may help but that's no guarantee. either. Still, the film manages to completely enrapture you and you will be trying to pull all the strings to see where it goes long after the film ends. It helps that the film ends on a really terrifying jump scare that will be the straw breaking your very fragile back.
5. Under the Skin
This was my proper introduction to how far films could go in terms of sheer insanity, although I only initially watched it because I heard it was good and Scarlet Johannsen was naked in it. I highly recommend the film but definitely not for that reason, as it's some of the least arousing nudity I've ever seen, due to the really troubling context of it. The story is vague but essentially, it's about Johannsen as an alien, who's arrived on Earth in order to seduce young men and... Do something to them. This isn't me being coy and not telling you what, I'm genuinely not sure what happens in those sequences. With Under the Skin, there's definitely a cerebral level of damage but for the first time on the list we're really heading into emotional damage too. Her character grows in tragic, unexpected ways, owing some level of debt to The Man Who Fell to Earth. If you give it a shot, just watch out for the baby scene. It will leave you number than a general anaesthetic and you will be scrambling around trying to work out why.
4. Primer
Very nearly the peak of cerebral complexity, Primer is a time travel movie. Cool, fun, we like those, right? Not quite. In the pantheon of time travel films, this is less at the fun "oops, almost wiped myself out of existence" end and more in the "hang on, so which version of them did that and how is that possible and uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" as your brain collapses. See, most time travel films kind of fall apart when you question the logic of them but Primer deliberately taunts you, asks you to figure it out. You won't, that I can guarantee. Admittedly, I've only seen it the once so maybe I'm not quite there but if you google this film, you will find complex graphs and timelines as people who have seen the movie ten times or more are still doing their best to patch the events together. If you're looking for a real goddamn challenge, Primer is your kind of film.
3. The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Easily the feel bad film of last year and a good contender for all time bad feels, The Killing of a Sacred Deer is the single most uncomfortable I have ever been in a cinema. Never has a film so physically manifested itself in me, curling me up into a ball, tying knots in my stomach and almost actually compelling me to walk out. That said, I couldn't look away, the film compelled me completely. In it, Collin Farrell is a surgeon who, for some horrible reason in his past, has had a curse put on his family. Slowly, they will all lose control of their limbs, stop eating and eventually bleed out of their eyes until they die. Well, they will, unless Colin Farrell kills one of them. At that point, the other two will be saved but only after that horrific sacrifice. If that sounds like feel good fun then you're a monster but you're also on the same page as the director who feels like this is a comedy. There are some horrible twisted laughs but for the most part, this is a movie designed to ruin your day, week, month, maybe life. And I love it. It's amazing and is going to completely break you.
2. Requiem for a Dream
Requiem for a Dream has the greatest score of all time, a symphonic orchestra that barrels towards an inevitably horrific ending and it's what makes the film so incredibly effective. Aside from that though, there's plenty in Darren Aronofsky's magnum opus of misery that makes it the incredibly impressive film it is. At its core, it's about addiction, the heroin addictions of three of the characters and the diet pill addiction of another and it tracks the misery that will cause to the very end of the line. The reason I think it works so well is it's split into three acts, the first of which shows the characters living good lives under their addiction. As soon as we hit that second act though, events spiral downhill faster than you can ever imagine and the third act will take you to depths you didn't even realise existed. I'm yet to watch Requiem for a Dream again, so deeply did it traumatise me but it's powerful and as deliberately provocative and upsetting as anything Aronofsky has ever done.
1. Inland Empire
David Lynch was always going to appear on this list but I imposed a rule on myself that I wouldn't give any directors more than one slot, as otherwise this list would genuinely have been half David Lynch. When it came to choosing what would make the list though, even with the fractured worlds of Mulholland Drive and the nightmare dreamscape of Eraserhead, I never had any doubt that Inland Empire would occupy the top spot of this list. It is truly (and I've been saving this phrase for the ultimate example) a mindfuck of a movie and is guaranteed to break your soul in half. There's an emotional power there somehow and it left me feeling exhausted but what puts this film on the top of the list is how sensationally baffling it is. Inland Empire is a three hour movie where only half an hour makes sense. The other 150 minutes are filled with stalking terrors, breaches between film and reality and Rabbits. Why the Rabbits? And why are they so damn creepy? I have never in my life seen a film like Inland Empire and that includes everything else David Lynch has ever made. I can't guarantee you'll enjoy it if you're not already a fan of his work but whether you like Lynch or not, I can guarantee that this film will completely break you, more than you ever thought film could.
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