Jenni's Page

The Book: The Foreigners by Maxine Swann

Reviews and description in amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Foreigners-Maxine-Swann/dp/1594488304

The Movie: Nowhere In Africa, directed by Caroline Link

Link to IMDb page on the movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161860/



Both deal with ex-patriots. I've always been interested in people who can move from one country to another. Such drastic relocations always struck me as being heroic steps to take. The idea of unknown experiences lying ahead of you always gave me some sense of exhilaration, though.

As a child, I used to dream of going off by myself to a new place and not necessarily with enough money to do so easily. I always thought it should be hard. And I preferred to think of myself as living on the edge, having to find a job, any job. And renting a room or small apartment, but always paying in advance. I liked the idea of paying a year's rent in advance from savings I had accumulated while still living at home, and then trying to set myself up during that year without having to worry about where the rent was going to come from, just so I could concentrate on working and using some of my salary to pay for language courses, or anything else I needed to improve myself.

( MORE HERE )

MY TOP TEN 'MOST DISTURBING FILMS'

Some time ago I read on amazon's 'Listmania', somebody's picks for the 'Top 25 Disturbing Movies'. I had seen some of them: namely; Crash, Memento, Mysterious Skin, Mean Creek, Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Schindler's List, American Beauty and The Virgin Suicides. While there are disturbing elements to these movies, I did not find them as disturbing as any of my 'Top Ten'. However, the list is subjective and can be crafted from only the films one has seen. Of the above, I found 'Mysterious Skin' the most disturbing because of its brutal gay rape but more so because of the reaction of the victim (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, a most wonderful actor).


When I was a kid I enjoyed watching scary movies, and of all I'd seen, 'Pyscho' and 'Lost Horizon' were the films that disturbed me the most. The reasons for being disturbing in both cases came down to the believable way in which they were filmed, even though they are both very different movies. It takes great acting, directing, cinematography and a compelling storyline in order to make a film great. And in my own opinion I believe that if a film can achieve being called 'disturbing' then it is a great film because it has moved people.

I think what disturbs me most is when characters are truly evil, in the sense that they don't care about the pain they inflict on others, even on loved ones. Or worse, that they even enjoy inflicting pain, either physical or emotional and that no reaction from their victims disturbs them at all.

Since childhood I have experienced many more films I would describe as 'disturbing'. So this is my list, in order of the movie I find the MOST disturbing, down to the one I find the least, although it is still disturbing. Following the list is a link to its IMDb site. I was going to post a photo from each film but decided not to because some of those were too much.

PLEASE BE WARNED THAT THESE MOVIES ARE NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. ALL OR SOME OF THEM MAY BE VERY UPSETTING TO SENSITIVE PEOPLE.

( THE LIST IS HERE )

EDIT: Sorry, I had to redo the links to ones from amazon.com because the links to imdB were messed up. I apologize for the inconvenience.