Hollis Frampton- Critical Mass

Hollis Frampton's Critical Mass is perhaps the most exhausting film I have ever had the pleasure to watch. It left me physically and mentally drained, nauseous, and lethargic. A film hasn't had this effect on me since Requiem For a Dream.

The concept is simple. Two lovers, male and female, argue over the man's unexplained, two-day absence. The man feels that the woman is overstepping her bounds and that she does not trust him.  The woman feels that true trust comes in closeness and honesty.

The intensity of the  film comes in the way its audio is chopped up, altered. Lines are repeated ad-nauseam, frames skip. Eventually, the audio falls out of sync with the visuals and the film collapses into a loud, feverish series of slow frames. Hanging on every word of an argument feels like digging your finger in a wound, reliving a painful moment over and over.

Even though there is very little plot and next to no exposition, we are still able to learn about the characters and the world they inhabit through some choice dialogue cues. The woman calls the man a hippie, indicating a political division between the two. The woman also accuses the man of being stuck "in his own head," a possible accusation of drug use.

Critical Mass is an anxious, obsessive piece of cinema, a work in bereavement instead of entertainment. Highly recommended.

Underrated Nihilist Films

Nothing captures the blank calmness of nihilism like film. Visuals are able to impart meaninglessness on a very primal level. Walking alone through rural snow is a good example. It's beautiful at first, but walk long enough and soon you'll be in tears. 

Countless films have tried to plainly portray nihilism, but a majority of them have been ignored. 

These five films, presented in no particular order of quality, are underrated gems by masters of meaninglessness. Not for the faint of heart. 

5. I Saw The Devil

I Saw The Devil tells the story of the obsessive, cat-and-mouse conflict between Kyung-chul, a serial killer, and Lee Byung-hun,  a detective. The genius of this film lies in the pace in which the violence escalates. The viewer is made to root for Lee, but as his pursuit of Kyung-chul grows more and more violent, we're left to wonder exactly who has the moral high-ground.

Hint: it's no one.

4. Begotten

This is perhaps the most notorious film on this list, and for a very good reason. Begotten is horrifying. Horrifying in its imagery. Horrifying in its plot. Horrifying in its sound. 

Begotten is the kind of film that could easily have gained the memeworthy status of other shock horror films like the human centipede, if it wasn't for its devotion to 1920s avant-garde style cinematography. 

In the first scene God disembowels himself. All you need to know, really.

3. Le Bete Humaine

A loose adaption of an Emile Zola novel, La Bete Humaine is a simple tale of spacial awareness and moral degradation framed by a relatively conventional murder mystery. 

The characters in this film are all scum. Liars, killers, adulterers. Every time we meet a character who we think will possess a healthy moral character, they are revealed to be just as evil as all the others.

Special attention should be paid to the performance of Jean Gabin. The journeyman actor delivers a performance that is surprisingly subtle and nuanced for the era. Sublime.

2. Funny Games

Another thriller, Funny games takes the cinematic trope of the home invasion horror and add Ferris-Bueller esque fourth wall breaks and a creeping sense of unreality. It raises the ultimate nihilist question.

If the images on the scream are not presented as reality, if we cannot attach ourselves to the characters, suspend our disbelief enough to treat them like real people because of this pervasive unreality, then what is the fucking point of the images?

1. Under The Skin

The most recent film on this list, Under The Skin follows an alien woman who sexually preys on men in Scotland. 

This premise, which could be ridiculous in anyone elses hand, is made effortlessly bleak by the direction and visuals. 

The monsters black skin, the regular motif of empty husks, fog, all of this implies meaningless, failure.