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Films about grief

Started by peanutbutter, May 30, 2020, 01:11:45 PM

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peanutbutter

What're your favourites? Did they tie into something you were dealing with explicitly at the time or was it more general?


I bawled my eyes out during Inside Llewyn Davis, didn't get reviews calling the character an asshole cos _to me_ it seemed like he was very obviously struggling to process the loss of his relationship but on a personal level and a professional level at a stage in life where his identity was beginning to settle. Didn't explicitly tie into anything I was feeling at the time in my own grieving process (parent) but the timing was right for me to latch onto something and project like hell onto it.

More generally Manchester by the Sea hits on a lot of stuff very well that its destined to be a film I revisit on crappy occasions throughout my life.

Was gonna say Tokyo Story too but... a lot of Ozu has a kind of vibe of respectful grieving of something or another, doesn't it?

Puce Moment

Three Colours Blue is my personal favourite film about grief just simply because it is beautiful and restrained. But I would also say that Solaris is an excellent exploration of the complexity of grief, using a non-realist genre.

Sebastian Cobb

I saw a french film a while back called The New Girlfriend where a man's wife dies and as part of the grieving process he starts wearing her clothes and makeup and pretending to be her. Her best mate catches him and thinks it's sick and wrong at first, but they end up in a relationship because it seems her feelings for her late friend were more than platonic.

It sounds dafter than it is, it did actually deal with it in a sombre and grown up way rather than being some camp surrealist comedy.

https://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/03/romain-duris-copes-grief-cross-dressing-dead-new-girlfriend-317006.html

chveik

Quote from: Puce Moment on May 30, 2020, 01:37:33 PM
Three Colours Blue is my personal favourite film about grief just simply because it is beautiful and restrained. But I would also say that Solaris is an excellent exploration of the complexity of grief, using a non-realist genre.

this.

also Morvern Callar

oh and Oshima's The Ceremony

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Does In Bruges count, or is that more about guilt than grief? Either way, I found it very moving.

It might sound silly, but the year my best friend died, I suddenly found the scene of the Cratchitts mourning Tiny Tim in Muppets Christmas Carol unbearably sad.

Sin Agog

There is much grief to be had in them Apu fillums.

Obvs Don't Look Now

I really like this one slightly more sentimental flick called Rainbow Song from the bloke what did Swing Girls. Had me tearing right up at the end. Fuck Joyce and his 'sentiment is unearned emotion' spiel*


*not really.  I think the full quote was something about sentimentality being used to mask brutal structures, and fuck me was he right


Keebleman

When I was very young - under 10 - I watched on TV a film called All The Way Home with Jean Simmons as a young mother coping with life after her husband's death in a car crash.  I can't remember being especially moved by it - no tears or anything - but it did grip me enough that I watched it right through and I talked about it with my Dad when he got home that evening.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on May 30, 2020, 03:06:59 PM
Does In Bruges count, or is that more about guilt than grief? Either way, I found it very moving.
That's elements of grief in that the older hitman owes his loyalty to Harry on the basis that he avenged his wife's murder.

That George Clooney film 'The Descendants' deals with grief, I think. I was a bit surprised to find out the other day the screenplay was co-written by the chap who plays the Dean in Community.

Butchers Blind

Two ones in recent years aimed at a younger audience, A Monster Calls and I Kill Giants

evilcommiedictator

Watch all of Afterlife and pretend it's a movie?

Dr Rock

Pedro Almodovar's Julieta. Good fillum.

greenman

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on May 30, 2020, 03:06:59 PM
Does In Bruges count, or is that more about guilt than grief? Either way, I found it very moving.

Maybe Mullholland Drive by the same token.

A French film I saw on TV quite a long while ago, whose name I have forgotten. It was about a middle-aged woman whose husband disappears at sea.  He is presumed drowned but she won't accept this and continues to be certain he is still alive, against all probability and persuasion.  Even when a corpse is recovered, she won't accept it is him (it is decomposed/eaten and has no identifying characteristics. 

The final scene has her weeping on the beach, then suddenly looking up.  She seems to see a man standing standing metres away.  He is not quite close enough to be recognisable but she is sure it is him.  She runs at him in exultation and relief, calling his name, and as she runs further and further down the beach, the image seems to recede from her until both it, then she have disappeared into the distance, when the closing credits roll.  That is definitely one of the most poignant scenes I've ever seen in a film. 

studpuppet

Do docs count? I went to the cinema to see One More Time With Feeling with a mate, and it didn't dawn on me until halfway through that all this 'tortured artist' stuff was because his son had fallen off that cliff halfway through the sessions.


Fr.Bigley

The Expendables staring the ex governator, Arnold mcscharzenegger and Sylvester McCoy. There's a right bunch of bad lads trying to give these octogenarians grief left right and centre and make no mistake.

Grief rating 10/10

itsfredtitmus

Although not about a bereavement Jon Jost's Sure Fire (a masterpiece) resonated greatly with me whilst I was going through the early grieving stages

Ponette is also good

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Butchers Blind on May 31, 2020, 12:20:17 AM
Two ones in recent years aimed at a younger audience, A Monster Calls and I Kill Giants

I was going to mention A Monster Calls, glad to see it here. Certainly the best film I can think of at relating grief to children/adolescents.

About Schmidt and World's Greatest Dad are interesting examples of characters dealing with grief in unusual ways - the first because his life becomes essentially meaningless without his dead spouse, the second because he ultimately hated his dead son, but seized the opportunity to exploit the false grief of others for personal gain. I suppose Antichrist also deals with a character dealing with her grief in an unusual way ...

Quote from: greenman on May 31, 2020, 09:41:55 AM
Maybe Mullholland Drive by the same token.

This also came to my mind, specifically because of that "You came back..." moment, which is so perfectly done.

greenman

Probably my favourite this millennium would be Glazer's Birth, I'm guessing the not so great reception of it was down to people wanting a Sixth Sense like thriller rather than an extended take on a characters suppressed grief.

Quote from: Phoenix Lazarus on May 31, 2020, 01:15:55 PM
A French film I saw on TV quite a long while ago, whose name I have forgotten. It was about a middle-aged woman whose husband disappears at sea.  He is presumed drowned but she won't accept this and continues to be certain he is still alive, against all probability and persuasion.  Even when a corpse is recovered, she won't accept it is him (it is decomposed/eaten and has no identifying characteristics. 

The final scene has her weeping on the beach, then suddenly looking up.  She seems to see a man standing standing metres away.  He is not quite close enough to be recognisable but she is sure it is him.  She runs at him in exultation and relief, calling his name, and as she runs further and further down the beach, the image seems to recede from her until both it, then she have disappeared into the distance, when the closing credits roll.  That is definitely one of the most poignant scenes I've ever seen in a film.

Just researched and found out this was Sous le Sable (Under the Sand): 2000

Sebastian Cobb



Head Gardener


PlanktonSideburns

I think police academy 4 is incredible, but is one of those films I never want to see again. I was in bits after