Has anyone seen City of God? That movie was great, but watching the shit the antagonist of the movie does and the suffering everyone goes through was rough.
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I have, and yeah, what I remember is that while some of it is beautiful, it’s overall a very bleak portrait of poverty and its effects.
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I think it’s above with the even more happy happy Germany Year Zero.
Seeing as Italian neorealism is knocking it out of the park we should really add the Bicycle Thieves.
Which is even better.
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It is beautiful, until the last ten minutes or so when Jud kills Billy’s kestrel as revenge for not making a bet on the horse racing.
Kes is a good film, most if not all Ken Loach films are. Maybe I find it depressing because I grew up in a similar culture of Northern English toxic masculinity and saw Kes at a time when I was desperately trying to escape it.
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Sorry to hear that. But yeah, what I too remember of many movies is heavily influenced by where I was in life at the time. (And sometimes even just by the mood I was in while watching it.)
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As a school kid in 1970s’ England, I was disappointed at how depressing all the stories were that we were given to read in English class. Fortunately, my dad was an avid reader and sci-fi and fantasy fan, so I got to see a more positive side to literature than things like “The Lotus Eater” and “Kes”
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How about the highest-grossing movie to ever be filmed entirely in Afghanistan?
The film was definitely powerful, depressing, and, to my mind, just a little bit condescending to the audience. Specifically, I thought there was a little bit too much exposition where characters were unnaturally saying things out loud that any native Afghan would have known without being told. Most audiences who knew anything about Afghanistan under the Taliban would have known it too, or figured it out on their own. (One example that comes to mind is the morality police telling burka-covered women to cover up their ankles then going on to explain that it’s necessary to keep the men from getting aroused. I feel like the real guys would just say something to the effect of “keep those ankles covered!” because the rest would be implied. Lots of small moments in the film felt over-explained for the sake of the audience.)
Adding to the depressing nature of the film was George W. Bush’s praise for it and use of it as part of a post-hoc rationalization for invading and occupying the country.
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“Hey, family, you know how we all loved watching “The Snowman” last Christmas? Well, I’ve found another Raymond Bigg’s film for us to watch this Christmas!”
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Another one I have seen which I will never watch again.
Rabbit Proof Fence was very sad, but not nearly as demoralizing as most of the films mentioned.
Yep, and I can’t believe it got a sequel.
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Maybe it was the state I was in at the time, and combined with the fact that Rabbit Proof Fence is based on real events & the others are not; it took a lot out of me.
I’d never known about Australia’s “Lost Generation” before and the movie is… intense.
I own the DVD, but I can’t say I’ll watch it again.
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Yes, City of God is one of my favorites. The story is bleak, but the ending is not (relatively speaking).
My understanding is that it’s a TV show, not a movie sequel? It’s perhaps a story that needs continued telling?
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I am aware.
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I know; no disrespect was intended. I meant to convey that this is why that movie hit harder than any of the others listed.
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None taken.
I saw it in the theater when it first came out, it’s one of the few movies where I was moved to tears.
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The tears get me towards the end when two of the three girls made it back. When the main character says: “I lost one”, I lose it.
The kidnapping scene is equally hard.
It’s a brilliant movie more people worldwide need to know about.
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I’ve cried at some movies but generally the sad ones aren’t the ones making me cry. It has been stuff like Hedwig & The Angry Inch (i almost always cry at the end), and the first time i saw Coco i used every ounce of willpower not to just bawl at the end because at the time i had lost my grandma, but i was practically shaking in my seat trying to hold it together 
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That’s probably a good thing.
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I got as far as the part where the face meets the fire extinguisher. I then stop, as, I figured that, whatever was going to happen in the rest of the film was going to be so horrible that it made that scene acceptable. 
@Hover_Board From what I remember, the TV series of City of God was less crushing than the film; though the ever present threat was pretty wearing.
@Grey_Devil The funeral scene in Guardians of Galaxy II hit me right in the “recently deceased father”.
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