The Art of Discomfort

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The Art of Discomfort

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By Ben Elliott

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We usually think of movies as an escape from reality — a fun time. But since the earliest days of film, there have been filmmakers who revel in not just holding up a mirror to our reality but forcing us to sit in a state of heightened discomfort as we engage with things we really do not want to think about.

Michael Haneke and Lars Von Trier force us to linger in moments of despair and cruelty with no way out. The Sadfie Brothers trap us into pressure cookers where there can be no happy endings. Go all the way back to 1929, and you’ll find Luis Bunuel trying to upset bourgeois sensibilities with a severed eyeball in Un Chien Andalou.

Un Chien Andalou

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Two of the films playing at The Triplex this week come from auteurs who each excel in their own micro-genres of cinematic discomfort. Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things continues to explore the intersection of power and sex that has fueled his previous movies like Dogtooth and The Favourite. Jonathan Glazer returns nine years after Under the Skin with another bracingly cold look at humanity in The Zone of Interest.

These kinds of directors are usually labeled as provocateurs. And their movies raise the question: Are these essential works that force us to confront the worst parts of ourselves? Or are they pieces of sadistic cruelty from authors who resent their audience?

Zone of Interest

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Basically, are these guys (and they’re almost always guys) geniuses or jerks?

Unfortunately, the only way to engage in this debate is to watch these movies and play the director's game, which might leave you upset and angry and ready to trash the movie to anyone who asks what you think. Or, if they do really know what they’re doing, it will leave you angry and upset and inspired by the way humanity still shines through the cracks of the darkest stories.

Which, hopefully, makes the discomfort worth it.

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