Geeks logo

5 Arthouse Films that are Deeply Philosophical

Films that will not disappoint in stimulating your curiosity, awe and fascination with the cinematic universe

By Wonita Gallagher-KrugerPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
Like

The film has ended, the credits roll, and you sit amongst the crowed utterly speechless. Your thoughts are left to drift in a void of wonder, as you ruminate on the beauty to which you have just borne witness.

This is the feeling you will experience after watching these five arthouse films. If you are not yet familiar with arthouse films, they offer an experience unlike any other human phenomenon. Deeply thought provoking, slow paced and visually mesmerising, arthouse films appeal comes from its artistic, experimental design. This stems from the fact that they are not created for mass appeal nor commercial profit but are driven principally for their symbolism, aestheticism, and realism.

These films are not fit for the restless of heart but require a certain patience and tranquillity that transcends all temporality. The films evoke a poetic hush and slow action marked by a stillness of time that can rarely be found within the narrative conventions of high producing Hollywood films.

As someone who adores cinema and philosophy, I can promise you that these films will not disappoint in stimulating your curiosity, awe and fascination with the cinematic universe as you experience first-hand what film can truly bring once it roams free from its traditional confinements. If you love artistic cinema or philosophy then this lists for you.

IDA (2013) is an enchanting Polish black and white film directed by Paweł Pawlikowski. It tells the story of Ida, a novice nun (played by Agata Trzebokowsk) whose awakened curiosity enables her to unveil the painful past of her family. Ida is sent out into the world to meet her aunt Wanda before she inevitably takes her vowels in the rural covenant she was abandoned in as an orphan baby. Her aunt, a worldly state zealot and magistrate, reveals that Ida is in fact Jewish and that her parents were killed in cold blood during World War II. Ida resolves to find the graves of her family only to be told that none of the Jews had graves, but that their bodies may have been buried somewhere in the woods. Still Ida wants to learn the truth to which Wanda cautions her of the costs of entering into a grave past—“What if you go there and discover there is no God?” Together, the two women set out on journey to the woods which presents a memorialisation of the Holocaust. The tone of the film soon becomes increasingly disquieting as Pawlikowski explores thematic realities of living in the wake of genocide. Throughout the film Wanda urges Ida to renounce her life at the covenant and experience the world to the fullest. After her aunt commits felo de se, Ida heeds her aunt’s advice and partakes in the world of cigarettes, high-heels, jazz music, vodka and sex. However, in the ultimate ending of the film we see Ida adorned once again in her nun’s habit as she returns to her life in the convent.

Ideally, Ida is a film about faith amid evil associated with theology and moral philosophy. As desolate as Ida can be at times, there is something optimistic and hopeful about the picture. The very thing that Ida treasures most dearly to her heart is her faith which triumphs throughout the film regardless of the evil she encounters. To this respect, Ida deals with the complex challenge of reconciling the existence of evil with the existence of God.

Jonathan Glaser’s 2014 film Under the Skin, is a story about a woman (played by Scarlett Johansson) who stalks the streets of Glasgow, Scotland, in search of prey. Although it is not disclosed to the audience until later in the film, the woman is an alien. In fact, everything in the ecosphere of the picture is rendered deeply atmospheric and alien. The cinematography revels in dark, peculiar voids and penumbral shade, rendering the topography as enigmatic as ontology. Smog drapes terrain, characters vanish in mist and headlights blur. This is a film so complex and ambiguous that it is made to be viewed multiple times and is open to multiple interpretations. While Under the Skin heavily ruminates on what it means to be human, under the lens of feminist philosophy it is ideally a thoughtful scrutiny into the very meaning of femininity in an age dominated by misogyny. Under the Skin advances a radical proposition: that even alien life forms become subject to sexist beliefs and violence when enmeshed in a corporeal female body. Thus, despite the image of gender being only skin-deep, the film hints that what is under the skin in our contemporary socio-political reality, matters far less than our epidermal, gendered shells.

It’s a story that powerfully questions modern ways of seeing identity. The alien meets her destiny in an act of savagery that leaves the viewers desolate in the aftermath of our heroine’s dark lesson. That being that the female body comes with the inevitable violence of gendered hatred. By taking up these marginalized points of view in societies structured by binary, gendered oppositions, Under the Skin provides a caution for social change: to look at the complex ontological being that lives Under the Skin.

Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film The Seventh Seal is set in Sweden during the Black Death. It tells the story of a medieval knight who is troubled by scepticism in his religious faith and convictions. Brooding over the existence of God, the knight finds himself in the company of Death—a man with a chalk-white face and black, sweeping cloak—who has come to claim his life. To bide time before his inevitable demise, the knight suggests that he and Death should compete in a game of chess.

Typical of Bergman, the Seventh Seal explores the deeply thematic, philosophical and existential realities caused by the collapse of one’s belief system. Common to most of his filmography, the film raises ontological and existential questions on whether God truly exists or not. We witness this upon the knights return from the Crusades, where he finds his home country aggrieved by the plague. Despite his battle for God, he senses God is indifferent to the horrors humanity faces and is persuaded that God has forgotten about the beings he has fashioned. The knight determined to seek confirmation that God exists, sets out to gain knowledge.

The films black and white cinematography, filled with gloomy atmospheric moments and subject matter, has a surprisingly optimistic ending. While the knight does not acquire knowledge on God, he achieves his personal salvation by performing one redemptive act while he still lives.

Similar to the Seventh Seal, Angels Egg has many thematic and symbolic overlaps with Judeo-Christian faith. Directed by Mamoru Oshii, Angels Egg (1985) is the tale of an unnamed girl living alone in a deserted neo-gothic city. Throughout the film she carries an egg under her garments (believed to contain the last bird) which she intends to protect and hatch.

An unnamed boy carrying a cross-shaped object over his shoulder, peruses the girl. The pair meander through an Art Nouveau cityscape, passing the darkly lit urban tableaux filled with the peculiar shadows of men chasing fish, depilated architecture, and judo-Christian symbolism. The film features very little spoken dialogue but relies on its powerful visuals and surreal narratology. One of the only scenes of dialogue is when the boy narrates the biblical tale of Noah's Ark, in a form that deviates from its original source: the dove never came back to the ark, its passengers no longer recalled why they were sailing and one by one changed to stone. When the pair rest in the Girl’s dwelling, the Girl falls asleep. The Boy takes the egg, smashes it and leaves. On waking, the Girl is grief-stricken. She chases the Boy and, in her hurry, falls into a ravine. Down in the subterranean water her last breath rises to the surface, releasing a million eggs.

The story remains open to a variety of readings and requires multiple viewings. It is a highly and experimental, thought-provoking film with a philosophical turn to it that demands open mindfulness from the audience. Ideally, Angels Egg is about faith—a concept that is represented by the egg itself. The girl and boy are symbolic of two sides of the same coin: the girl embodies the innocence of blind faith and the boy the nihilism of atheism. By shattering the egg, Oshii sets forth an empty terror that is derived from and peculiar to the reorientating apostate experience. This is the nihilism of modernity—the cosmos is in chaos; the God is Dead principle—that leaves readers with a pervading sense of desolation, emptiness and occasionally horror.

Solaris (1972) is a Soviet science fiction art film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Tarkovsky is an unquestionable classic of world and Russian cinema whose filmography is brimming with questions that are essential to the philosophy of mind. Solaris tells the story of a psychologist who is sent out on an interstellar voyage to a scientific-research based space station to determine whether its inhabitants should continue their study of the planet Solaris. While decades ago, the station reported seeing a four-meter-tall infant rise from the ocean, their testimony was discharged as hallucinations by a board of scientists. Now, years later, similar uncanny reports have been made by crew members. Upon arriving at the scene, the psychologist soon discovers a replica of his late wife Hari, who appears confused as to how she got there.

While Solaris remains open to a variety of philosophical interpretations, I will consider its themes of memory and personhood—as advanced by philosophers such as Derek Parfit. In his work, Parfit outlines a quantum teleportation thought experiment to consider the philosophical necessities for personhood. He asks us to imagine a machine has scanned your body, copied that information and trans teleported it to Mars where a further machine has recreated you. This person now existing on Mars is an exact replica of you at a cellular level. Parfit’s question to us is if the person on Mars is the same person who entered the tele transporter on Earth. Without giving too much away a similar question is raised in Solaris through Hari. Solaris deeply questions if a humans personhood and identity can be constituted by borrowed memories and an overlapping memory chain. In conclusion, it stipulates that all of one’s memories are part of their binding identity.

movie
Like

About the Creator

Wonita Gallagher-Kruger

Hello,

I write Little Stories and Film Reviews. Please join me on my writing crusade. IG: wonita.gallagher.kruger

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.