What's TOO CLOSE for comfort?
October 23rd 2006 01:57
When is particular subject matter considered taboo for horror movies? One person’s degradation could be another’s escapism? What one person finds deeply disturbing might barely make another person blink.
There is certain areas that are generally considered very thin ice. Child abuse is one of them. An example of this is the Spanish film In a Glass Cage (1987), which was refused classification and banned in Australia last year when distributors tried for a belated theatrical release down under.
In a glass nutshell, the film tells of a former Nazi doctor-turned-pedophile, paralyzed from the neck down after a suicide attempt. He is forced to accept a boy as his nurse under threat of blackmail: the boy secretly witnessed the doctor's torture and murder of another boy, and possesses the man's diary, which details his wartime experiments and his subsequent descent into pedophilia and murder. Before long, the boy displays his ambition to follow in the older man's footsteps.
That is Modern Horror. No buts about it. I haven’t seen the film so I can’t comment on the tone, subtext, or intention of the screenwriter/director Agusti Villaronga, but to focus down so unflinchingly into the dark abyss of human corruption one needs to employ an enormous sensitivity and exhibit a stern intelligence. Reviews I’ve read of the film state the director harbours a very grim perspective, but maintains a searing honesty which keeps the film from becoming exploitative. The Australian Office of Film & Literature felt the film to be too damaging to any kind of audience.
What are the criteria for banning films? Should films like In a Glass Cage be made at all? What about real events, like the disasters of 9/11 and the Asian tsunami? Is time alone enough of a separation from events to warrant turning tragedy into “entertainment”?
There were people who felt Wolf Creek (2005) was too similar to the Falconio murder and Ivan Milat backpacker murders. That it painted too dark a picture of Australia and would unnecessarily damage our tourist trade. No doubt there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of victim’s families who have felt the major 9/11 films (United 93, World Trade Center, both 2006) should not have been made, and that the wounds are still too raw.
Would it okay to make a big-budget disaster flick about the tsunami next year? Would it be okay to make a horror flick about that German cannibal who put an ad in the paper asking for victims and got a guy who was very willing to be eaten (for the gorehounds the cannibal drugged his victim, kept him in the bath conscious, then cut off the man’s penis and cooked it up and they both ate it. The victim became furious that the cannibal hadn’t properly cooked it, before passing out …). Actually I read somewhere that there are filmmakers interested in dramatizing this ghoulish true story, but others are appalled that the cannibal, who was caught, is on a heavily reduced sentence due to a technicality (the victim had given consent).
What’s too close for comfort?
There is certain areas that are generally considered very thin ice. Child abuse is one of them. An example of this is the Spanish film In a Glass Cage (1987), which was refused classification and banned in Australia last year when distributors tried for a belated theatrical release down under.
In a glass nutshell, the film tells of a former Nazi doctor-turned-pedophile, paralyzed from the neck down after a suicide attempt. He is forced to accept a boy as his nurse under threat of blackmail: the boy secretly witnessed the doctor's torture and murder of another boy, and possesses the man's diary, which details his wartime experiments and his subsequent descent into pedophilia and murder. Before long, the boy displays his ambition to follow in the older man's footsteps.
That is Modern Horror. No buts about it. I haven’t seen the film so I can’t comment on the tone, subtext, or intention of the screenwriter/director Agusti Villaronga, but to focus down so unflinchingly into the dark abyss of human corruption one needs to employ an enormous sensitivity and exhibit a stern intelligence. Reviews I’ve read of the film state the director harbours a very grim perspective, but maintains a searing honesty which keeps the film from becoming exploitative. The Australian Office of Film & Literature felt the film to be too damaging to any kind of audience.
What are the criteria for banning films? Should films like In a Glass Cage be made at all? What about real events, like the disasters of 9/11 and the Asian tsunami? Is time alone enough of a separation from events to warrant turning tragedy into “entertainment”?
There were people who felt Wolf Creek (2005) was too similar to the Falconio murder and Ivan Milat backpacker murders. That it painted too dark a picture of Australia and would unnecessarily damage our tourist trade. No doubt there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of victim’s families who have felt the major 9/11 films (United 93, World Trade Center, both 2006) should not have been made, and that the wounds are still too raw.
Would it okay to make a big-budget disaster flick about the tsunami next year? Would it be okay to make a horror flick about that German cannibal who put an ad in the paper asking for victims and got a guy who was very willing to be eaten (for the gorehounds the cannibal drugged his victim, kept him in the bath conscious, then cut off the man’s penis and cooked it up and they both ate it. The victim became furious that the cannibal hadn’t properly cooked it, before passing out …). Actually I read somewhere that there are filmmakers interested in dramatizing this ghoulish true story, but others are appalled that the cannibal, who was caught, is on a heavily reduced sentence due to a technicality (the victim had given consent).
What’s too close for comfort?
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Comment by PokerPro
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Some filmmakers are choosing to hold up a mirror to society, not taking any moral stance. is this reprehensible?
There are films were the director's intentions are thoroughly questionable. I Spit on your Grave and Salo: 120 Days of Sodom are two examples ...
There are others, like The War Zone and Mysterious Skin, which appear to be films about purging inner demons as well as existing as cinema of trangression.
Films that offer images and concepts which add nothing to the human experience, but instead detract from it is a powerful statement. Would you say there are photographers and authors capable of similar effect? Are there photographs that should never have been captured? Novels that should never have been written? Critics said Brett Easton Ellis's novel American Pyscho was appalling piece of cynical pornographic filth, yet is now regarded (but still criticised) as a scatching satire on greed, sanity, excess. In my opinion Mary Harron's film version caught those themes more succintly that the novel.
Comment by Damo
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Dozens of movies deal with threat(s) on social security ... can you be more specific?
Comment by PokerPro
I just spent an hour on IMDB looking up all the movies you named Bryn! Have you seen "The Last House on the Left". I havent seen it but I have great respect for Wes and I have heard that, again, this movie was simply too much.
At the end of the day, I guess it depends on how sensitive you are to these things. If I feel in need of a good scare or an insight into the depravity of sections of the community I watch the news or read the paper.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
do you mean my 50 Horror movies you should see before you DIE! ..?
Yes, I've seen Last House on the Left. I didn't like it at all. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and not so much from some the scenes per se, more from the overall production values and tone ... I found it to be a very grim film with little aesthetic quality to it at all ... He's done better work since then.
If you liked the movie of American Psycho, don't read the book. I agree, Christian Bale, one of my fave actors, really embraced the role of Patrick Bateman. If you're gonna read any of his books read Glamorama. But, then even that has some pretty full on dodgy stuff, which I wonder how they're gonna film (Roger Avary is directing). HIs latest Luna Park is a great tribute to Stephen King and well worth reading too ...
Comment by PokerPro
Especially Eraserhead which I have been meaning to watch. Lynch is a wonderful freakish man.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
David Lynch, when asked to describe Eraserhead, simply says "It is a dream of dark and troubling things." He refuses to offer anything more ... Now that's what I call keeping your canvas off-white ...
Comment by Damo
'Report for Work for the Dole'
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
I agree with you pretty much 100%. I think the public should be informed as to some of the potentially offensive/disturbing content within a film, ie sexual violence, graphic drug use, etc ... I hate a small panel of supposedly informed people making a decision for millions of others.
However, there are reprehensible filmmakers out there, who are not only smug and arrogant, but also ill-balanced and contemptuous. Thier films become subversive for the wrong reasons ... I don't think there are many of these films that get much of a distribution. I Spit on your Grave I find very questionable, because over 40 minutes of the film is focused on the rape and degradation of the lead female character. It smacks of the director's appalling misuse of content. It's a revenge flick, but after 15 minutes of gang rape, you wonder where on earth the director's intentions actually lie ...
Salo is a difficult film to defend due to its gratuitious manner. I appreciate the Fascism analogy and it's a very well made film both in its use of composition and byt its manipulative perspective (as opposed to Grave which is slopped together by a hack), however the graphic depiction of degradation, humiliation, torture and mutilation makes all other films of confrpntation pale in comparison. You wonder why on earth you are sitting through it ... The film is just as powerful today as it was back in 1975. Whereas the violence of Clockwork Orange, like you say, has softened somewhat by today's standards. The codes of morality have shifted to a degree.
Comment by suitably*wounded
Eternal Days; Author: Illness, M.
In my absence I've thought about this a lot and I must say that I feel it should be left to the individual whether or not something is fit for consumption ( ! ). And although there have been films too horrific for me to continue, like Baise-moi, I still think that had I the intestinal fortitude, I could have learned something from there extremism. So, I'm assuming that there *is* redeeming value, even if it languishes in Cannibal Holocaust. Or Og forbid, something currently with Lindsay Lohan.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
welcome back shadow warrior;
Lindsay Lohan needs to be HUNG, DRAWN & QUARTERED ... that'd make for a great snuff flick!!!
Comment by The Voices in my Head
The Voices in my Head
Anything that depicts sexual violence. I have vomited during 'Eye for an Eye' and 'The Accused' and left just in time to prevent it during 'A Time to Kill.' I hate that shit. There is absolutely never a reason to depict sexual violence in a movie.
Directors do not need to bring us into 'their story' by depicting sexual violence, they do it to bring us into their pocket. Once the word is out, people flock to it, because let's face it, we are sick as a society, sometimes.
Voices~
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
So, why is it okay to depict any other kind of violence, just not sexual violence ...?
We are most definitely (spelt correctly) a sick society ... We are also confused and are constantly struggling to understand our own failings of humanity. Films are a reflection of our true and fabricated selves ... just as any kind of "art" and "trash" is ...
If a director and/or screenwriter can hold a mirror up to society within an intelligent context that challenges sensibilities, provokes a reaction, or mananges to elicit a passionate response from the audience, then he/she has done something interesting.