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The Top 10 Existential Movies of All Time

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The Top 10 Existential Movies of All Time

Unread postby oddone » Tue 09 Jun 2009, 15:12:54

http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2009/06/top-10-existential-movies-of-all-time.html
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Re: The Top 10 Existential Movies of All Time

Unread postby JohnDenver » Tue 09 Jun 2009, 19:50:04

Some cool movies on that list. Philosophical, but not very existential. Existentialism is bleak and dark. It doesn't pull any punches, and it doesn't have a happy ending, because life doesn't actually have a happy ending. You end up writhing in pain and terror on a hospital bed while some ridiculous illness like anal cancer mauls you from the inside etc.
If you want the real thing you need to go with the master, Samuel Beckett:
Waiting for Godot
Happy Days
Endgame
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Re: The Top 10 Existential Movies of All Time

Unread postby Rod_Cloutier » Tue 09 Jun 2009, 21:44:28

The Quiet Earth is a masterpiece I agree. But, that list is incomplete without Solaris (see the original Russian film with subtitles).

Solaris is about humans having 1st contact with sentient plants, and how there are no meanful way for us to communicate or interact. This movie will spin anyone's perspectives.
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Re: The Top 10 Existential Movies of All Time

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Sun 28 Jun 2009, 11:35:19

Repent said:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')olaris is about humans having 1st contact with sentient plants, and how there are no meanful way for us to communicate or interact. This movie will spin anyone's perspectives.


Repent, I have to agree Solaris is a mind bender. When I saw the modern film, I ended up asking "What the he** was really going on there?" Just like my experience seeing 2001 a year after it came out as a ten year old. :)

Then I read the original novel by Stanislav Lem. Wow. Then I read a bunch more Lem - his insight into human nature and our alienation from each other - even though we have great physical proximity is just amazing.

The language in the Solaris novel, and the deepness of the sadness, the limits, and the very nature of the human condition he conveys would be impossible to experience (IMO) in a mere 2 hour-ish film.

Since this dovetails right into the fact that the hordes won't listen to ideas like Peak Oil (much less react intelligently) no matter WHAT the evidence is - it actually makes this story highly relevant for this site.
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Re: The Top 10 Existential Movies of All Time

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Sun 11 Oct 2009, 00:05:06

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '[')solaris is a masterpiece of fiction. Haunting. I couldn't watch the movie.

Do Lem's other books compare?


Sorry PSTARR, I missed your response/question on this - found it by accident just now.

I haven't read nearly all of Lem's stuff, but a sampling. (There's NEVER enough time/energy to do nearly everything I'm interested in, sadly).

ALL his stuff is thought provoking. Some of it is kind of similar in depth/feel to Solaris, but much of it is not. For example:

In one novel, (sorry, I forget which one, it's been years now and quick Google search isn't helping), he wrote about a situation in which a group of spacemen on a strange planet end up trapped for a while in the dark amongst a large group of huddled frightened aliens trying to hide from them. He goes into a fairly deep description of this scene. It is a dismal sort of feeling, like the one you get in Solaris when you realize there is no way to make meaningful contact with the alien life there.

For a long time, I had NO CLUE what the hell the relevance of that scene was -- it didn't seem germane to the central plot of the novel -- yet the length of it made me certain it was important, so I kept wondering. Then, months later, when thinking about Solaris, it suddenly dawned on me -- the masses of frightened, huddled aliens in the dark, hiding from what they're afraid of and not communicating -- IS US -- i.e. the normal state of being for humans. (Again - this dovetails right into peak oil and the lack of effective communication about it).

But anyway -- if this kind of idea intrigues you, then I suspect that reading more Lem might be worth your time. If you catch the right novel - the haunting deep feeling is comparable with Solaris. Others, not nearly so much. (If it helps, another favorite author of mine is Philip K. Dick - and I find the same unevenness in Dick's novels, but when you catch a good one, it is well worth the search).

(Since Lem was Polish, it could be that part of the problem is the translation to English - I've seen reviews suggesting the quality of the translations varies quite a bit for Lem's work).
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Re: The Top 10 Existential Movies of All Time

Unread postby hardtootell-2 » Sun 11 Oct 2009, 01:20:05

IMHO-One of the darkest movies of all time must be "Happiness"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0147612/

enjoy!
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