The weepies

I’ve seen many movies which have been painful to sit through for various reasons – mostly due to cliched plot and bad acting.   Others are painful because they hit some nerve – a spot which you thought was patched up and buried out of memory, or maybe something resonates with an issue with which you are currently struggling.  

I was a mess after seeing Schindler’s List, and despite its technical virtuosity and profound message, I will never watch it again.  I remember constantly checking my watch in the theater, thinking: “when is this going to end? I can’t take much more…”   The violence and cruelty weren’t over-the-top and cartoonish – I’m used to the Frank Miller and Tarantino style.  Rather, they were sickeningly real – not in terms of gore or camera work, but because of the tone with which the characters committed them.  Remember the term “the banality of evil”?  That’s the tone.

Despite that, I’ve been pretty good at holding it together during a movie.  Until I saw “Wit”.   I had seen it a couple of times before while it was playing on HBO, and was emotionally floored.   I had lent the DVD to my friend in NC, and it took her several attempts to make it through all the way to the end.  It’s an unflinching look at how a College Professor deals with her cancer, from diagnosis, through treatment, up to her last moments.  It’s absolutely brilliant in its simplicity, and brutal in its honesty.

I have always wondered what Roger Ebert had thought of it.  He typically only reviews movies that play in theaters, which is a shame since HBO and Showtime produce films of amazing quality.   Well, apparently, it’s one of his favorite movies – and lo and behold, he can no longer make it past the very first scene.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/07/when_a_movie_hurts_too_much.html

If you’ve never seen it, rent it now.