10 Controversial Movies Worth Watching


Disclaimer - This post contains R rated movies (and graphic content) which is not meant for anyone aged less than 17.Please do not click on 'Read more' if you are under 17.
Even if you are 17,you are supposed to have parental consent before you watch R rated content.

The Dangerous List - enlisted.


1. 'A Time To Kill' directed by John Grisham 



From the bone chilling description of the brutal rape of a ten year old African-American child (named Tonya Lee) to the struggle of a 'white' lawyer to protect the enraged father who had shot the criminals in a fleet of rage,the movie is a wonderful direction,both in terms of material and cinematography.Combined with a magical stunt of storytelling,this is indeed a must watch but of course,as convention goes - a matter of controversy.
Nonetheless,this is one of the masterpieces that speak directly of abuses to the civilization right from Hollywood. 


2. 'A Clockwork Orange' directed by Stanley Kubrick 


There were a number rape scenes in the movie - and a number of gestures as well which isn't suitable for most adolescent people,who would neither have the capability to comprehend it or let it penetrate without traumatising themselves.I checked for the rating of the movie and most of the uncut versions are meant for people above 18 (the age limit had been raised by BBEF in 1971) in some countries and above 15 in others.In India,like three other movies in this post,this film has been left uncertified.
But I think this is one of the most brave attempts from within Hollywood,again,to showcase the brutalities that are tearing through our soul,muscles and bones in the unwitnessed side of the era of consumerism.MUST-WATCH for intellectual-cinema lovers.


3. 'Dr. Strangelove' directed by Stanley Kubrick


I find it way too (un-)loved to make a comment in the beginning.So,I'll include a few lines from filmsite.org's review of the movie,"In addition to numerous sexual images and jokes throughout the film (including large phallic cigars, mating airplanes, guns, Ripper's impotent "loss of essence", and the orgasmic atomic bomb that Kong rides between his legs), many of the absurd, omnipresent names of the male, military characters (caricatures) have sexual connotations or allegorical references that suggest the connection between war, sexual obsession and the male sex drive : Most of the film's recurring images have to do with symbolic analogies for body and sphincter (or body cavity) control --- planes coupling, Coke machines spewing (or not), arms uncontrollably Nazi-saluting, bomb doors not opening, the powerless inability to recall the planes, and more. It has a vast combination of sexual, anal, erotic and infantile imagery, so to speak -- withholding, giving, controlling, failing to control, etc. [The outlandish influence of co-writer Southern, who also contributed to The Loved One (1965), Barbarella (1968), Candy (1968) and The Magic Christian (1969), is characteristically evident in this film's screenplay.] "

Do I even need to mention something,anything more?
Personally,again,I loved the living hell out of the movie that exhibited nothing but naked truth in an extremely molecular form - and as the world has got a pretty wrong conception of molecular being synonymous to simple,I think it would be better to mention that molecular tends to beyond,beyond our capability of interpretation (what we term knowledge) and therefore,is definitely everything else but easy.


4. 'The Da Vinci Code' directed by Ron Howard 



This movie (and the book by Dan Brown) is wholesome proof to how hypocritical the defenders of religion are and have been since ages.I have no idea how a radical Christian as Tom Hanks ever agreed to act as one of the protagonists of the story because all that it ever claims is of every damned need of being anti-religion in order to live and love and love living.The character of Silas symbolising terrorism,connecting Opus Dei and corporal mortification and every doubt that has been suppressed deep inside your limbic system.

By the way,the reason why I mentioned the movie unevils the trechareous face of bureaucrats as the other side of terrorism is because it was banned in several radical Islamic countries,including Pakistan.

There are two things that still bug me in my nightmares :-

1.The extent of knowledge I have about Mary Magdalene (Jesus's wife) [from authentic,educational sources based in the United States itself],the Salem witch trials (which was a hoax),the murder of women freethinkers by Catholics,Catholics playing a vast and important role about controlling ISIS. (After all,I do study my bit of Quantitative Sciences). 

2. The mechanism of hiding the truth,banning,censorship and how the state manages mindf*ck every single time.

5. 'Haider' directed by Vishal Bhardwaj 


(Photograph Source : Google Images)

Beginning from the mild,submissive interpretation of the Oedipus Complex of the son,the cunning character perfectly portrayed by the uncle (father's brother) and the extremely complicated persona of the mother combined with one of the most controversial issues alive on earth - the ownership of Kashmir and the rebellious spirit of the people,this is indeed a true masterpiece.Defending the cultural and human rights in so cinematic a form could not have been an easy task for the director.Again,the spaces provided for judgement,the true spirit of liberation is what makes this mentionworthy not just in this list but as a must watch for all cinema lovers.

6. 'Salo'/'One Hundred Twenty Days of Sodom' directed by Pier Paulo Pasolini 



'Salo' aka 'One Hundred Twenty Days of Sodom' is one of the most controversial movies made on the planet! That we are raped on our faces everyday and the state is nothing but a rapist in the present times,the cinema oddly (and very bravely) tries to capture the same by the method of personification! Not only does it sound dangerous,it looks worsely so and does to you what the director had intended to while making the film - it makes you feel seriously icky,like you'd want to puke the next second.
Watching this is not everyone's cup of tea and is not recommended,either.After you've been able to digest your share of Freud and Nietzsche and Kubrick can you think about gicing Salo a try and that too after judging the capabilities of your nerves.If 'A Clockwork Orange' seems to harsh,do not even imagine yourself watching Salo.If you have been able to healthily understand Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'Dr.Strangelove' and you think you are capable of taking things you aren't capable of taking in,give this a try.The cinema is dangerous but personally I did not find it bad despite the superbly negative approach it had adopted (though most of my male friends who have watched this did. -__- ) - this is exactly what the state is,it is just a documentation that tells you the truth about institutions on your face.


7. 'Viridiana' directed by Luis Buñuel




(Photograph Source)

This is a beautiful manifestation of what you can readily call movie material.The soft,frivolous,feminine,exploited Viridiana (played perfectly by the beautiful Sylvia Pinal),the movie is also one of the most controversial movies screened at the Cannes film festival owing to the incestual tendencies of human relationships it focuses on.Not something out of the world but not a bad movie either,considering that it was made more than five decades ago,like more than half a century!

8. 'La Dolce Vita' directed by Federico Fellini 





(Photograph Source)

From reckless sexual contact that changes course before you can fry a pancake,this film is subject to some real controversy.From a statue of Jesus Christ contrasted with bikini girls waving hands flirtatiously to nauseating orgy-turned-mayhems,this is pretty much sickening in a word.Again,this is a movie that justifies the necessity of love on the planet,the existential crisis as we progress towards our so called modernity,entangling further into an endless web of crises.Apart from this,the film also captures the ruthless,dirty concept of the paparazzi culture that tweaks down anything and everything to hunger of some kind.
This is nothing like Salo but is distressing at points.Not something I really loved either or would watch again and again but is worth the time (runs for two hours and fifty-five minutes) - it does open you up,gifts you a substantial vision or two about the high society,the dreaded ends of civilization,claustrophobic intercourses etc. etc.


9. 'Hail,Mary' directed by Jean-Luc Godard 




Anyone who has watched Jerome Bixby's 'The Man From Earth' is going to love this,too whereas the vice versa might not apply since I have a strong feeling that this must have been the movie the makers of 'The Man From Earth' had drawn inspiration from and is like,a thousand times better than that.This is a dangerously beautiful film,it's a beautiful film - from every angle you can judge it from. From perfect jump cuts to the portrayal of life in the most peculiarly curiosity-inciting manner,from several scenes depicting full frontal nudity to the winds touching the poppy fields,the crops bowing down,the arrival - the mark of an arrival,the intense combination of philosophy,science and logic,the poetic approach,the bravery sums up to a must watch (and even more so because Pope John Paul II made negative remarks about the same).One thing that is to be noted is that just like all the other movies enlisted here,this too does not focus on the peachy,cheap sides of sexuality.This is more about the complexity,the mysticism - which will never get the audience aroused but will make them think.The ultimate set of paradoxes presented by the Jean-Luc Godard is honestly a bigbanger. You just have got to watch this one,all philosophers,professors,film critiques,liberal arts students.

This also imparts an exceptionally agnostic flavour and is definitely not made from a radical atheist viewpoint.This,for example,does not deny on your face the conditions imposed as existence and not-existence.This is something beyond theories (though Godard is acclaimed to be an INTP theorist) and beyond imposed definitions,which is the very reason why it has remained a little underrated - the cons of producing purely intellectual content intertwined with spirituality (isn't that what we call life?).


10. 'Un Cien Andalou' or 'An Andalusian Dog' directed by Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel



(Photograph Source)

I had no idea of what the movie had in store when I was first watching it.And guess the greatest mistake you could have committed back then? I was having lunch. And out of the blue,one fine night,a guy came about with a razor,slit his hand and then slit his woman's eye.The blade passed through the eye,the clouds passed the hallowed moon.I shrieked and stopped eating lunch. That one scene was not scary,that was psychologically distressing more than anything else.
There were other scenes to stress the watcher up - like an androgenous woman poking at a severed hand (that from the wrist) with a stick who gets run over by a car,two dead calves toasted between the lid and the lid prop,a man whose canines were simultaneously elongated as he molested a woman (half-consented and half not ; I guess that is how it always is,anyway) and being able to feel her ass at the same time (signifying skin is skin and muscles are muscles and a soul is free.),a couple half-burried in the beach as they get accustomed to what is unfreedom,at its best.




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4 Comments

  1. If I come across these movies I would not miss the chance. I seldom watch movies, but am lucky to have watched clockwork orange. I guess it is an easier version of the novel, the language of which took me a day or two to hold a grasp of.

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    1. Unfortunately,I have not been through the novel and judging by how dystopian the movie had been,I didn't feel like going through it. I might try it,still. Even if you rarely watch movies,please do not miss 'Hail,Mary'.One hell of an experiment.

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  2. Re 4. 'The Da Vinci Code' you write: "This movie (and the book by Dan Brown) is wholesome proof to how hypocritical the defenders of religion are and have been since ages."

    Doubt phrase "wholesome proof" - particularly within a work of fiction, is a statement of fact.

    IMHO more a statement of our internal prejudices.

    The statement can be True or False, it requires viewers to determine which, which requires understanding of our own prejudices.

    For most to recognize, then minimize such impacts from our own internal prejudices remains a lifelong challenge.

    Whether we be an offender or victim is often only a fleeting moment, perhaps with consideration, or to act without.

    Is hard to learn to think before we act.



    Do still find George Orwell's "Animal Farm" worth reading, viewing my preference the anime versions, with 1955 version by Halas & Batchelor (perhaps like as it clearly held young children's attention), or 1999 version by John Stephenson & Alan James.


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    1. I wouldn't be saying..."Well you know,what I mean to say is...I think...I might say that Mussolini might have been a bad guy."
      I did not mean that I radically insisted upon the FACT that all of it had to be true.But that there was something definitely VERY WRONG with orthodox Muslims protecting the interest of orthodox Catholics.Some easy truths the world so vaguely dismisses.

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