Ahira's Hangar

As usual, I'm only getting around to seeing last year's Oscar caliber films now that they are on dvd.

Brokeback Mountain and Munich are both wonderful films - you really cannot fault them on acting, directing, or production. They are both brilliant.

They are also both depressing as hell.

I have not seen Capote yet, but my friends said that the acting was brilliant, but the film is depressing.

My friends have also told me that last year's winner, Crash is very depressing and disturbing.

My husband and I were trying to think of movies in the modern era (say the last ten years) which were critically acclaimed - Oscar caliber films - that everyone (both audience and critics) take very seriously - which are not depressing. We were only able to come up with The Lord of the Rings, which still has plenty of sad moments - and ditto with Walk the Line.

Why are so many very good movies so sad? And beyond sad into depressing and/or disturbing?

Can anyone think of other very serious and well made and acclaimed movies made in the last few years which make you feel good by the end? Because after watching Munich tonight, I could use some good cheer.


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Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i>Edited by: Duchess of Malfi at: 11/17/06 12:13 am
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Duchess,
I don't like making a generalization, but it's probably easier to make construct drama from human travail and tragedy than not. For example, I've read in the afterwords L.M Bujold has written in her books, 'I've found an easy way to build drama is to take my main character and dumb the worst possible circumstance on him'. FWIW, did not Shakespeare write more tragedies than comedies, and IMO his comedies are not real guffaw fests. taraswizard
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But Bujold's books do usually manage to be uplifting by the end - most of the characters survive their terrible experiences and grow from them (wait until you get to Mirror Dance and see what she puts Lord Mark through!).

And even some of Shakespeare's tragedies have some very funny moments, such as in Antony and Cleopatra, which had the audience laughing throughout when I recently saw it. There was even a good laugh as Antony was lying dying on the stage, in a very funny line he gives.

Munich, which I watched last night was a brilliantly done film with important things to say - but it was just depressing. Nothing uplifting about it at all.

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Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I can think of two recent Oscar-winning films that would qualify as "uplifting":

Life Is Beautiful (1997), which I've only seen bits of. It's the story of a Jewish man whose sense of humour holds his family together as they endure the hardship of Nazi persecution. I remember this film caused a stir because its director, Roberto Benigni, dared to conceive such grim subject matter in terms of light-hearted comedy - without trivializing the suffering of the Jews. I've avoided seeing the entire movie because I guess it just feels too weird to think of concentration camps as comedy.

Chicago, which won Best Picture in 2003 - a rare feat for a musical - but nobody remembers that year's Oscars because they were overshadowed by the US invasion of Iraq that began at the same time. Chicago I have seen and loved it. A jubilant movie, not depressing at all.

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I'll have to look out for that Life is beautiful MM, and thanks for the heads up. That Shaw quote you posted for danlo is an awesome one (which I shall be appropriating), and I have a great deal of respect for people who dare to point out the humour in tragedy. I believe that there is humour in everything. And of course that nothing is sacred.

--A ____________________________________

A sense of the sardonic preserves a man from believing in his own pretensions. -The Sayings Of Maud'Dib<i></i>

I have seen Life is Beautiful - a rather odd (but good) film - the first half seems like a romantic comedy and the second half is in the concentration camps. The father of a little boy in the camps tries to make his child unaware of the huge danger they are both in, so he clowns around, makes up stories, etc. A hugely strong statement of the power of love, both between the people in a couple and between parents and children. While parts were depressing, parts were also very uplifting. Thank you, Moonwatcher. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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