The Most Disturbing Films Ever Made- Part Two

At Left- One of the saddest films ever made. Period.












Chekist USSR, 1992 Dir: Aleksandr Rogozhkin
For all those fond of the idea of not being able to make an omlette without breaking some eggs. This is a brutal film. Srubov arrives in a provincial Russian town shortly after the October Revolution, as part of Lenin's CHEKA (roughly, "extraordinary committee"). All intellectuals, land owners, many Jews, any conceivable "enemy of the people" are tried in five-minute sessions, invariably convicted, stripped of their clothes, and shot- this is the entirety of the film. This mind-numbing procession of murder takes place in the basement of a slaughterhouse, and not one thing- not one indignity- is omitted. Rises above the level of sleaze as I truly believe Rogozhkin is exploring the psychology of a professional killer, especially as the grim duty starts to take effect on Srubov and his men. Overwhelming stuff.

Landscape Suicide United States, 1986 Dir: James Benning
I saw this at a Seattle arthouse theater several years ago. The crowd started at about 30, and within half-an-hour it was me and two other people left. I gather those fleeing were "bored"; as for me, I was stupefied into a state of aesthetic drugging. This is not a narrative film; Benning ostensibly is examining two murderers in this film- one of whom is a high school girl, the other our old friend Ed Gein- but the real "text" of the film are the endless landscape portraits of Middle America delivered in ice-cold repetition, like a visual representation of a Magma album, or an endless drive through a frosted-over grain-and-freight belt Hell. This is a very difficult film to sit through, and I can't imagine it will have a wide following. But for someone looking for a director who is totally committed to the structural mechanics of film, and committed the point of provocation and disturbance- this will be a remarkable experience.

Kapo International, 1959 Dir: Gillo Pontecorvo
A Holocaust film without peer. Susan Strasberg- here a mere child of fourteen- gives a performance far beyond her years as a young girl snatched from her home and sent with her family to Auschwitz. Her parents are, apparently, immediately gassed- and now the girl must survive on her own, descending to horrible levels of betrayal in order to do so. Like the works of Primo Levi or the impossibly depressing This Way For The Gas, Ladies And Gentlemen by Polish former sonderkommando and writer Tadeusz Borowski, Kapo explores the ultimate taboo of the lager- Jewish culpability in their own destruction- and does not hesitate to make clear that, as Levi wrote, the "first and only law of the Camps was survival". Overwhelming, and stunningly beautifully shot; no film- not even Pontecorvo's later masterpiece The Battle Of Algiers- ever looked quite as surreal and simultaneously ultra-real as Kapo.

Silip: Daughters Of Eve Philippines, 1985 Dir: Elwood Perez
Beginning with- by far- the most gratuitous and nauseatingly-real animal slaughter in film history (some kind of Filipino water buffalo being beaten to death with a huge mallet by absolutely real blows to the head, while screaming children look on- as if one taboo weren't enough...) Silip then commences to bring on endless nudity, rape, physical violence and emotional abuse, grown men fighting naked and a graphic depiction of a woman enduring her period. So there. The two female leads are impossibly gorgeous- and quite naked, for most of the film- but there are so many brutal and disturbing goings-on about that I can't really call this a "sexploitation" shocker; it's merely a very disturbing film, well-shot, superbly edited, and therefore all the more unsettling.

Traitement De Choc France, 1973 Dir: Alain Jessua
Famed actor Alain Delon is the draw here, but for me the whole film is all about the absolutely gorgeous Anne Giradot, playing a woman heading into middle age and desperate to do something about it. Arriving at an island clinic run by Dr. Delon, a series of tests begins, some beguiling gratuitous nudity is involved, and then the heart of the matter- what's really going on at this clinic- is revealed. You'll have to see it yourself, because that part is really disturbing. What is even more disturbing, however, is Jessua's unrelenting critique of the Cult Of Youth as he explores the pointless, pseudo-aesthete lifestyle of the bourgeois who flock to his island and frolic naked on the beach, torment servants, engage in meaningless sex and generally fulfil the role of a vampire that any good Horror jaunt would seek to serve. Well made, and with lots of perks- including Madame Giradot's sumptuous bottom- Traitement is a bold film that confronts the viewer with now-aging bodies in a way that would be unthinkable in today's Pedo-standard body type criterion of Hollywood.

Human Pork Chop Hong Kong, 1993 Dirs: Danny Lee, Herman Yau
One of the few black comedies to make this list, Human Pork Chop is that most rare of films: one that explores cannibalism unabashedly, yet not in any manner cliched. Let's face it- at this point of the game, most every cannibal theme has been done to death, or "over cooked", if you prefer. We all know how funny it is to see somebody get killed and eaten; so how does a film keep this tender subject matter fresh, and not just a stew of preserved fat? By being perfectly silly, of course. The film is disturbing; the restaurant owner is likable and creepy at the same time, which is a much needed ingredient to any film addressing a possible murderer who would turn his victims into pork buns. But the police sent to investigate the matter are hilarious in their incompetence and insouciance; this was a pleasant surprise to me on viewing, being convinced as I was that the cannibal genre had been picked to the bone. Fortunately, there was one more joint I could steak my viewing time on.

Avere vent'anni Italy, 1978 Dir: Fernando Di Leo
What starts out as a boisterous Italian sex romp featuring the absolutely delicious asses of Gloria Guida and Lilli Carati ends up joining Deep End (q.v.) as one of the all-time downer endings, and not just that; the violence comes almost out of nowhere, with very little to prepare the viewer for the horrible fate of these two beautiful and carefree young women. A nasty coda to the Free Sex ethos of 70's Europe, or maybe just a cynical and misogynistic manipulation by director Di Leo- who can say for sure. The film is shocking, and that there can be no doubt about; you'll certainly never look at young women hitchiking the same way ever again.

What Have You Done To Solange? Italy, 1972 Dir: Massimo Dallamano
From the delightfully-named "Schoolgirls In Peril" trilogy of Italian adolescent pulchritude slaughter comes the most abstrusely-plotted and effective narrative of perhaps all of Giallo-dom. While Martin Scorcese may dismiss this entire genre as "trash" while he fellates the bloated corpse (and reputation) of Bernardo Bertolucci, make no mistake: this is a GREAT early 70's movie, terrific fun to watch, truly engaging in story and character development, loaded with eye-popping nudity and altogether superior to American efforts in the roman policier genre from the era. Fabio Testi is his usual suave and circumspect self as a teacher at a girl's school who may be the cause of several grisly sexual murders. The plot takes some attention from the viewer, but it's worth it; and the theme- while disturbing enough by its very nature- ratchets up the terror and when the pieces all come together...I'd say this is a profoundly disturbing Giallo, precisely because it's such a good movie.

Onibaba Japan, 1964 Dir: Kineto Shindo
One of my favorite movies of all time, and a Horror film that so rises above the limitations of genre that it excels into its own category. One of the most beautiful films ever made, and starring one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen: Jitsuko Yoshimura, here playing the wife of a soldier presumed dead in some internecine squabble of Medieval Japan. The characters of Yoshimura and her mother-in-law live like wild animals along a reed marsh somewhere far from the battlefields; to survive, they waylay travellers and dump their bodies in a pit. The women sleep nude in the oppressive heat, eat with their fingers, and engage in an ongoing duel of silent hate as they wonder over the fate of the shared man in their lives. Yoshimura- here, a mere 20 years old but showing the acting talent of a much more seasoned performer- escapes the hut she shares at night for rendezvous with the sleazy local fisherman Hachi. Her torrid and breathless sprints thru the tall weeds to meet her forbidden lover are some of the most ardent shots in the history of film; the disturbing parts are made all the more so by the incredible beauty of Onibaba. An absolute masterpiece, and one of the most important works of Art in the 20th Century.

Katyn Poland, 2007 Dir: Andrzej Wajda
The Katyn Forest Massacre is an enduring trauma for the Polish nation and people. In 1939, after an act of singular perfidy by Stalin, falling from the East upon the mortally wounded Polish state already overrun by Nazi Germany from the West, the Red Army rounded up 20,000 Polish Army officers, representing the cream of the intelligentsia and potential leaders for that state. Transferred to the Katyn Forest, these men were all murdered, and buried in pits- a crime for which the Nazis were held responsible for fifty years. And while there are some unfortunate sentimental lapses by director Wajda (this is, after all, a big budget spectacular for Polish cinema, designed to sell tickets) Katyn never loses its power to shock by the sheer scale of the massacre. It should be remembered: each of these men were killed by a single shot to the back of the neck, one at a time. While we are spared the overwhelming scenes of carnage and piles of naked, bloody corpses of Chekist (q.v.), the emotional toll is daunting enough. A beautifully made film that is genuinely depressing, and deeply disturbing for what it says about any society able- or willing- to cover-up such a gargantuan hecatomb, hard on its very borders.

The Spirits Of Death Italy, 1972 Dir: Romano Scavolini
Known by various names, I'm using this one as I think it's the easiest one to locate on the Internets. A lush and vigorously-polished Horror/Giallo, Spirits is a genuine Gothic Horror of the kind Hammer so excelled at filming, only since it is Italian, it is of course a thousand times sleazier and loaded with chopped up corpses and jarring, brutal violence. The story of a young girl who witnesses her mother being murdered by her father (who then, but of course, commits suicide) may sound tame, but trust me- Scavolini manages to keep your interest thru the long atmospheric passages, and delivers an outlandishly over-the-top climax that is among the best of Giallo cinema.

Au Revoir Les Enfants France, 1987 Dir: Louis Malle
It has become popular to bag on M. Malle over the years, and I am not sure why; throughout the 70's, Malle was as good as any French director, and when he skipped the pond to bring fare like Pretty Baby to the screen, he was arguably even better. Les Enfants is, however, his masterpiece, and is an amazing document of the Holocaust which simply could not be more disturbing- because we all know what the fate of the Jewish children at the Catholic boarding school will be when the Gestapo finally tracks them down. The blind, numbing, pitiless savagery of the Nazi regime has rarely been so effectively demonstrated, without descending to cartoon-like levels of jackboot-crunching banality; this is a film with a huge grasp, but a small scope, keeping things on a human level throughout and delivering the final horrific end to the children as a fait accompli not engendered by some blind Fate, but by the actions of real live men with true evil coursing thru their veins.

The Night Train Murders Italy, 1975 Dir: Aldo Lado
Far, far superior to the similarly-themed (and frankly stupid) Wes Craven pseudo-classic The Last House On The Left, this is a vicious, voyeuristic, flat-out-fucking nasty Giallo that features one of the most unbearable rape/murders ever filmed. Two young girls are on a train trip across Europe, and have the hellish misfortune of running into the two most depraved psychopaths to ever pop up in a Giallo- Blackie and Curly (the only two names they are ever known as) latch onto the young women, trap them in a sleeper car, and then engage the vile services of a nymphomaniac older woman who just so happens to be on hand and quite possibly is even more depraved than the two hoodlums. I mean, this is seriously fucked-up shit; as I've said, I have seen it all but...this is a Rape-Revenge film so vile, so repugnant, so reprehensible that...well, the title is in red. And we all know what that means. Watch at your own bloody risk.

The Cannibal Man Spain, 1972 Dir: Eloy de la Iglesia
Another of the few black comedies on this list, Cannibal Man is so disturbing because it is played so straight- and is such a collection of bumbling, bad luck and blind Fate as to almost qualify as the world's only Existential serial killer film. Marcos works at a butcher shop (of course he does) and one night, coming home with the world's biggest asshole cabbie, blows his cool and dispatches the unfortunate driver in a spate of complete bad luck. His beautiful girlfriend wants him to go to the police, and turn himself in; she ends up dead not long after, and I think you can see where this is going. There is clearly some kind of philosophical statement being made her by the director, due to the presence of the curiously epicene/aesthete who lives in the new construction apartment tower next to Marcos' dilapidated hovel. They talk, swim, shower together, etc., and meanwhile the Spanish yuppie muses about how "dead" he feels, etc., while never making an overt sexual move on our killer. What makes Cannibal so disturbing is that people are being slaughtered left and right, hacked to pieces and carried in plastic bags to the abattoir where Marcos incinerates them, and yet...you almost are rooting for the guy, as he can't seem to catch a goddamn break. Marcos is remorseless, yet what the hell is he supposed to do in all of this mess? A genuinely interesting film that you just have to see play out, especially funny moments include a pack of stray dogs who begin to congregate in front of Marcos' house as the smell of all that accidentally killed carrion wafts into the Iberian night air. One of the best black comedies ever made.

Au Hasard Balthazar France, 1966 Dir: Robert Bresson
Has there ever been such a depressing and utterly bleak film that did not once descend to showing actual gratuitous physical cruelty to a poor and humble donkey? My god this film made me sad when I first saw it. A little girl loves her donkey, whom she names Balthazar and keeps, seemingly, as a pet. There are quiet, happy times in the village with child and donkey. Things go awry from there. The little girl grows up and is abused by her lover, the poor donkey is sold to increasingly vicious owners and has all his joy beaten out of him and...you just fucking hate humanity when you see a film like this. Arguably as upsetting to watch the iniquities dispensed to this poor beast as the torments levelled out to Camille Keaton in I Spit On Your Grave (q.v.), at least in that Horror the woman gets her revenge. The boor beast...ends up as some kind of figure for a Christian saint. Or something. Beautifully made, philosophically a very troubling message sent by Bresson as he seems to be endorsing suffering as a way to god. Still an astounding work, and one guaranteed to bring the tears flowing.

Germany, Year Zero Italy, 1948 Dir: Roberto Rossellini
The beyond-grim nightmarish destruction of post-war Germany is the backdrop for this, my favorite Rossellini film, and one of the most superbly shot films I've ever seen. The plot is the genius of the intricacies of the every day that the Neo-Realists captured with such unobtrusive directorial style; a former Nazi who is also a pedophile attempts to "instruct" a young German boy living in literal rubble on how to better help his family survive the day-to-day hell of a bombed out Berlin wasteland. The ending is far too grim to spoil here. Rossellini was a truly great director, but he was never so pessimistic and despondent as in this all-too-little-known masterpiece; very easily one of the Most Disturbing Films Ever Made.

The Joke Czechoslovakia, 1969 Dir: Jaromil Jires
Taken from a classic Milan Kundera novel of the same name and unfortunately not as well read as his many others, The Joke is a classically beautiful Czechoslovak New Wave film with a narrative core deeply rooted in the country's rich tradition of ironic humor, from Hasek's Good Soldier Svejk to Bohumil Hrabal's Prague hotel porters and Milos Forman's grossly incompetent (and horny) village firemen. Keeping very close to the novel's story, Ludvik Jahn is kicked out of the Communist Party and sent to a prison camp at a time of fervent Stalinization in the wake of the Slansky Affair. All of this over a fleeting, jocular reference to Trotsky on the back of a postcard sent to his girlfriend. The endless reach of the Totalitarian state is thus seen at its most banal, yet still brutal; Jahn's elaborate plan for revenge brings the human element back to the story, and the fact that he still endures at all provides a counterpoint to the endlessly grim evocations of dehumanization Jires conjures in his bleak, grey scenes.

Peeping Tom United Kingdom, 1960 Dir: Michael Powell
At the time a lurid sensation, now it can be viewed without all of the baggage and seen for what it is: a near perfect film that deals with subject matter simply out of the mainstream question in the early 1960's of Britain. Serial rapist and killer Karlheinz Bohn supplies porn shops with pictures of "naughty bits", yet soon decides taking nudie pics is not enough: only death images will slake his curiosity. Even today, the death scenes of the murdered women are gruesome and upsetting; the fact that the killer chooses to record their deaths- and also forces them to watch themelves die via a mirror cleverly placed on his hand-held camera- lends a frisson of post-modernism to the proceedings, and Powell in his unsettling Thriller clearly had a vision of where media society would be heading in the years to come. A classic for its age, Peeping Tom has lost very little of its punch to this day.

Deathdream Canada, 1974 Dir: Bob Clark
By far the best of the "Monkey's Paw" legends filmed for the screen, Deathdream is a deeply unnerving film made with a modest budget but superb skill by soon-to-be-hack director Clark. I cannot recommend this film highly enough. After their son Andy is killed in Vietnam, the Brooks family of Everytown, USA falls apart. Marital strife and drinking consume their home, and no one can quite deal with the fact that Andy is gone forever. But, unfortunately, Andy is not gone forever; rather, he returns home in the middle of the night, is strangely silent and removed, cold (literally) and emotionless and...decomposing. The ending scenes to Deathdream are genuinely moving; watching the father bury his son- for real, for good, as the poor dead boy seeks his peace- are heartbreaking. This is a damn fine Horror film, one that rises above others from the period that sought to incorporate politics into its message by never becoming pedantic, and remembering that their characters are human beings, not metaphors.

Maladolescenza Spain, 1977 Dir: Pier Giuseppe Mergia
Without question one of the most shocking films ever made. Like a perverse and fantastic fairy tale as if lifted from the combined imaginations of Calvino and Nabokov, never has the cruelty of adolescence been more unrelentingly displayed than Mergia's lush production of what can only be called borderline child pornography. There have been many coming-of-age tales, but none even remotely like Maladolescenza; Laura and Fabrizio seem to inhabit their own world, somewhere in the woods, where no adults ever venture and there seems to be no law except their own. All is idyllic until the arrival of the beautiful Silvia, who enchants Fabrizio, graphically seduces him, and begins a campaign of terror against Laura. The scenes of sexuality between the children are unbelievable; having seen it, of course I had to place Maladolescenza on the List- because it truly is the apotheosis of Disturbing Cinema. That being said...you are really on your own on this one, and I would be very leery of downloading any film with this title attached. At the outer extremes of what is permissable expression in a free society, this is truly one of the Gauntlet films of this list.