http://www.girishshambu.com/blog/2008/06/cinema-revulsion.html
Marc Raymond, thank you very much for the information on Bela Tarr.
Maya, thank you for telling me about that painting of Caravaggio. It is disturbing.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3052/2551143676_c302ffec59_o.jpg
Apart from paintings, I found some photos disturbing and great at the same time, such as NAN ONE MONTH AFTER BEING BATTERED (1984) by Nan Goldin, and some photos by Joel-Peter Witkin.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3023/2551143684_73b5a65098_o.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3067/2551143680_4c088b7670_o.jpg
Talking about gender in horror films reminds me of two scenes which give me guilty pleasure—Ryan Phillippe’s shower in I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (1997, Jim Gillespie) and a scene in which Matt Bomer and Taylor Handley were tied up in THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING (2006, Jonathan Liebesman). I wish they were tied up for a different purpose.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2314/2551143686_a7ee76933a_b.jpg
As for the question “What, in your opinion, are difficult-to-watch films that are nevertheless rewarding and valuable?,” I think I would like to answer it by making a list of my favorite films which are difficult-to-watch because they involve body pain. Most of them are not real horror, but are feel-bad films. I can’t guarantee that they are rewarding and valuable. I just like them very much.
1.CRY IN SILENCE (2006, J. G. Biggs)
2.EXTASE DE CHAIR BRISEE (2005, Frederick Maheux, Pierre-Luc Vaillancourt)
This short film is included in the compilation dvd called L’EROTISME.
3.IMPRINT (2006, Takashi Miike)
4.IN MY SKIN (2002, Marina de Van)
5.IS IT EASY TO KILL/PRAY? (2005, Sherman Ong)
6.I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978, Meir Zarchi)
7.MONDOMANILA (2004, Khavn de la Cruz)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3136/2551143692_51d355cd72_o.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3049/2551143690_891c5d2c1e_o.jpg
8.PAIN (1994, Eric Khoo)
3 comments:
Great post! I'm a fan of Joel-Peter Witkin, and the image you show is maybe his most disturbing photo. He raises important issues about artistic complicity, because he photographed corpses in a morgue but asked for the corpses to be cut up for his photographs - for instance, a male corpse was beheaded so he could photograph the headless body. Andres Serrano has produced similar images, though his are more glossy than Witkin's.
I Spit On Your Grave is significant as an exploitation film of the 1970s, and was infamous in the UK as a 'video nasty' in the 1980s, but in artistic terms I think it has little merit. I felt that Extase De Chair Brisee was nothing more than a bad imitation of I Spit On Your Grave.
Did you know that a Nan Goldin self-portrait will be included in an exhibition at Tang (Silom Galleria) opening next week as part of La Fete?
I don’t know much about Joel-Peter Witkin, and I haven’t heard of Andres Serrano before. Thanks for the information. I like the inspiration of Joel-Peter Witkin very much—the incident when he was a child and saw a little girl being decapitated.
“It happened on a Sunday when my mother was escorting my twin brother and me down the steps of the tenement where we lived. We were going to church. While walking down the hallway to the entrance of the building, we heard an incredible crash mixed with screaming and cries for help. The accident involved three cars, all with families in them. Somehow, in the confusion, I was no longer holding my mother's hand. At the place where I stood at the curb, I could see something rolling from one of the overturned cars. It stopped at the curb where I stood. It was the head of a little girl. I bent down to touch the face, to speak to it -- but before I could touch it someone carried me away.”
This incident somehow reminds me of an incident at the Victory Monument in Bangkok when I was a little child. There was a bus accident which decapitated a female passenger who just stepped out of a bus. The head of that woman flew through the air and fell at the feet of a bystander who was waiting for a bus at that bus stop. The rumor said that the bystander suddenly fainted. I’m glad I didn’t see this incident with my own eyes. Just listening to the rumor about this incident makes me feel bad enough.
I’m not sure about the artistic or aesthetic values of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and EXTASE DE CHAIR BRISEE. But judging from my own feelings and emotions, these two films are very powerful for me. I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE made me not want to have sex for a very long time, while EXTASE DE CHAIR BRISEE makes me think it is a very “beautiful” film in its own unique and perverse way. :-)
I’m sure I will go to see Nan Goldin’s photos. I’m glad they will be shown at Silom Galleria, because it is easy to go there.
We'll have to agree to disagree about Extase De CHair Brisee. :-)
Serrano is one of my favourite photographers, because I'm interested in art which represents blasphemy, sex, death, and bodily fluids, and he has produced several series of photographs about each of these themes.
I'm looking forward to the Galleria exhibition, too. It will also feature Orlan, amongst others.
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