Misanthropic Tendencies

Okay, it's been two weeks since I last wrote a post. But as I stated in the last one, I went to Infest two weeks ago, and as I should have anticipated, it took an age to recover. It seems that 3 solid days of heavy drinking is just too much for my frail old body to handle these days. So the week after was spent mostly in bed, in pain, ashamed of the ludicrous amounts of intoxicants consumed in one weekend. Thankfully, I had the week off work, so I was allowed to fully wallow in self-pity until my stepmother arrived last Friday. This being only the second time in her life that she had been in London, this obviously led to more drinking, clubbing and general stupidity.

(This rambling really is leading somewhere, I promise...)

When it came around to work on Monday, needless to say, I still didn't feel as though I had recovered sufficiently to function on a professional level. I wrote a blog entry a few weeks ago about all the things that I hate about fashion, and these seemed to be highlighted last week, perfectly coinciding with my body's decision to sink into depression. Now, I'm not saying that being at work triggered a depressive episode, and I'm not saying I would have been depressed even if I didn't have to work... Let's just say that it was a mixture of both, but one thing which certainly made it a hell of a lot worse, was the office being decked out in fur for the new collection. I think a vegan's opinions on fur should be pretty obvious, but apparently my boss still thought it would be a good idea to throw it at me. To make my opinion perfectly clear: fur is fucking disgusting, and anyone who wears it is fucking disgusting. I went home on Tuesday feeling nauseated. This was made worse by my route home through a South London market street, full of litter, stinking of fish and meat, and teeming with clueless idiots, many of which carrying bibles or pushing prams. To summarise: fur, meat, fish, litter, religion, children and stupid people in one day. I think it's pretty obvious that I was in an extremely misanthropic mood by the time I opened my front door.

I managed to drag myself to work for a couple of hours on Wednesday, but by Thursday I couldn't stand the thought of leaving the house, so I called in sick (which I don't feel is completely untrue). Sat in my apartment, hating humanity, wanting to quit my job and leave the country to go and live on a desert island away from the painful exercise of human interaction, I decided to download a few films in an attempt to hasten away my bout of nihilistic depression and self-righteousness. I downloaded something called The Release Lounge Extreme Horror Pack, which contained these films:

A Serbian Film

Antichrist

I Spit On Your Grave

The Human Centipede

Perfect! Just what I needed; a bunch of movies so sickeningly barbaric I would probably only ever enjoy them in the mood that I was in. Or at least as close to "enjoy" as it was possible to get. (Except The Human Centipede. I have been meaning to watch it all week but the more I think about it, the more it seems to be just pure fetishist vileness, and I haven't got around to it.)

I am not a fan of horror films in the slightest. I find most of them ridiculous, sexed-up, dumbed-down adventures in imbecility, as I have stated in previous posts. However, as A Serbian Film had been much discussed amongst my friends as the sickest film ever made, I watched this first. It wasn't what I was expecting, and maybe it was because I was somewhat numb to the world at the time of watching, or maybe I am just a sick fuck, but it wasn't as shocking as all the controversy led me to believe. Okay, yes, the Newborn Scene is disgusting. But it's unclear, blatantly fake, and lasts a whole of 5 seconds. I'm not saying I wish it had lasted longer; quite the opposite. I believe it was as long as it needed to be. But this is when it occurred to me that people's reactions often shape the way you view films. A Serbian Film was twisted, but for the most part I didn't find it uncomfortable to watch. I still feel that once a person has sat through Irreversible in a cinematic atmosphere, and endured the full 90 minutes of extreme discomfort, you become somewhat immune to films which strive to be disturbing. Irreversible still remains the one and only time I have been close to leaving the room. I think my primary defence against violent or controversial films is their basis in reality. A Serbian Film just didn't seem to have much basis in reality (at least by way of plot), but was instead a brilliant metaphor. As a gore fest, or boundary pusher, I didn't find it as disturbing as some other films, but as a political commentary, I thought it worked very well. The question is, did it need the extreme violence to do it?

Sickest scene: Newborn Porn...

The second that I watched from the pack was Antichrist, and this was probably the one that I knew the least about. I had heard about it when it was first released, again with the cliche label of "most controversial film ever made", but the only scene I knew about was the one in which the fox says "Chaos Reigns". Taken completely out of context, and at the height of my horror film hatred, this sounded completely ridiculous, tired, lame, and I waived downloading it. However, I put it on with an open mind, and by the time the Intro sequence was over, it came across as a film that was vastly underrated. The black and white introduction reminded me of French Art-house, and was so completely removed from what I was expecting that it threw me off guard. This led on to some amazing performances, a brilliant storyline, and some of the most breathtakingly beautiful scenes I had ever seen in a movie. I will admit that I began to question the labels that this film had been burdened with. It did become more and more disturbing as it progressed however, and where this film differed to ASF was that it was believable, which disturbed me a lot more. The gore is limited, but extremely graphic, which is I assume is what led to the controversy (along with the title). But genuinely, Antichrist is one of the best films I have watched this year. Whereas ASF conveys a sense of extreme cynicism towards the world, Antichrist is much more personal. Self-hatred and self-mutilation instead of the inflicted violence that is the motif of most horror films. It wasn't what I expected or what I was looking for, but it was extremely good.

Sickest scene: The extremely realistic snip scene.

Thirdly, I watched I Spit On Your Grave, because after Antichrist I felt as though I should watch something purely sadistic, and I knew exactly what ISOYG included. The rape scene aside, the violence in this one(excepting the rape scene) is deserved. Revenge. It's enjoyable to watch. Because who doesn't want to see a rapist getting exactly what they deserve? It isn't good exactly. It has all the same horror movie cliches and stereotypes as any other, but I couldn't deny a sense of twisted pleasure at watching a group of gang rapists being tortured by the person that they raped. Pure, simple, animalistic revenge fantasies displayed on screen: the perfect cure (or dilution) for a bout of sociopathic and misanthropic thoughts.

Sickest scene: The ringleader of the gang having his teeth pulled out and being force-fed his own dismembered cock.

Whenever I watch films like these, I am often left questioning the violence, or whatever it is that makes them so offensive or controversial. More specifically, I question why mainstream horror such as Saw and Hostel is now acceptable, but films such as Antichrist or A Serbian Film are still denounced and utterly rejected by wider society. Why is one portrayal of extreme violence okay where another is not? Running on a philosophical note, I believe it to be linked with the truth. How close does a movie come to the truth? Mainstream horror is not truthful. The situations aren't truthful, the characters aren't truthful, the events aren't truthful. It's just fantasy like any Hollywood movie. It would never happen like that in a real life situation. The victim wouldn't be a blonde, topless, double D. They wouldn't walk outside into the woods alone to see what the noise was. And they wouldn't tell complete strangers where they live. So audiences can accept it, because it's stupid. But when movies like Irreversible, or A Serbian Film are released, people are offended and sickened, because they are truthful. Irreversible was controversial because it doesn't glamourise rape; it shows it how it really happens. A Serbian Film is controversial because it portrays prostitution and paedophilia; sickening as the newborn scene is, people do commit acts like that. And audiences can't stand it. Which is no surprise considering the bubble of censorship that we all live in. Did the rape scene in Irreversible need to be over 10 minutes long? Yes. Because rape is horrible and drawn out, and nothing like the 30 second rapes seen in mainstream films. Did A Serbian Film need a scene involving a baby being raped? Well yes, because of the concept of the film.

The graphic violence depicted in horror films still pales in comparison to the real violence committed by governments, and by real people, in wars and in everyday incidents. The public can't stand to hear about real horror, but they will happily pay to watch portrayals of it on the big screen. Stop for a second and think how fucked up that is. Maybe I am just a bit too cynical. Maybe people are more misanthropic than they really know. But I am painfully aware of what happens in the real world, which is probably why fictional portrayals of violence don't shock me in the same way that they do some people, because they rarely come close to the violence of reality. So instead of watching ridiculous Hollywood slashers and then complaining about the rare instances where films actually try to portray horror truthfully, I suggest people pick up a newspaper, because there is far more violence and far more atrocities happening in reality than there are in film studios.

[EDIT] I have now watched the Human Centipede, and I believe that actually being one of the victims in that film would have been less tortuous than watching it.