Inspirations of a bad day

Ever have one of those days so hellish and full of bad luck that they seem as if they couldn’t possibly be real? The kind of day that while you know it may happen to other people, or be the basis for an entertaining film, you quietly believe could never happen to you, until it does?

Having recently experienced my own middle-class, non-life-threatening but exhausting and exasperating day from hell, I decided to look for solace in films set over the course of a single day that remind me of how very tame my day from hell really was, while demonstrating that bad days can often be the material for good films.  

THE ARTHOUSE ESSENTIAL:

Funny Games — YouTube

Easily the hardest film on this list to watch, Austrian director Michael Haneke’s 1997 dark, nihilist classic — not to be confused with or compared to the unnecessary English language remake he released in 2007 — is the ultimate home-invasion nightmare story that lives long in the darkest recesses of the mind.

Meet the Schrobers, a nice, typical middle-class Austrian family and their dog who as the film begins are off for an idyllic weekend at their lakeside country home. Things seem to be proceeding as normal until two strange, seemingly polite but creepy young men show up at the Schrobers’ home and quickly outstay their welcome. The two turn out to be sadistic psychopaths who take the family hostage and turn their pleasant getaway into a living hell.

Blurring the line between reality and fiction and employing fourth-wall break techniques that uncomfortably implicate the audience in its increasingly sadistic horror, Haneke’s film offers little hope for escape from its violence and asks difficult questions about the pleasure that we often take in watching other peoples’ misery.

Deeply divisive upon its release, with some decrying it as “vile,” “despicable,” and in one outraged case, “a complete piece of shit,” the film saw a third of the audience walking out of its premier screening at the Cannes Film Festival. Since then, however, many viewers have realised that the film, as per its director’s stated intention, is not a torture porn horror slasher film but a film that critiques the insatiable fetishisation of violence by the media.

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THE STONE COLD CLASSIC

12 Angry Men — Rent or buy from Apple TV +

Sidney Lumet’s 1957 drama about the high-tension behind-the-scenes arguments of a jury in a murder case remains one of the great legal dramas in movie history. It offers a trenchant criticism of the kangaroo court witch-hunts that were taking place in the US, as senator Joe McCarthy conducted his public investigations into communist influence in the US government, society and the entertainment industry.

Starring Henry Fonda in one of his most iconic roles, the film takes place over the course of one sweltering summer day in the New York County Courthouse where the future of a young immigrant man lies in the hands of 12 jurors of his peers — mostly white American men.

As the deliberations begin, it’s clear that what seems like an easy decision, will be far more difficult and life-changing for those entrusted with making it. As the heat rises so does the tension between them, bringing to light the many bitter conflicts that divide not only the men but the society that they represent.

Featuring a stellar ensemble cast that includes Martin Balsam, Lee J Cobb, Jack Warden and Ed Begley, it’s a Lumet masterclass in directing actors, using the barest of cinematic tricks to create enthralling and engaging high-stakes drama.

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THE DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

After Hours — Rent or buy from Apple TV +

These days, Martin Scorsese is widely hailed as America’s “greatest living director”. But in 1985 Scorsese, who had indelibly changed the American cinematic landscape with critically acclaimed films like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, was almost untouchable in Hollywood, where the dreaded “box office poison” tag following the failures of New York, New York and The King of Comedy.

Despondent but not defeated, Scorsese turned his back on the studios and chose to make a small-budget, independent dark comedy film about one nebbish New Yorker's night from hell. While it remains one of his most underappreciated work, it is one of his best, and perhaps the film that saved his career.

It stars Griffin Dunne as Paul Hackett, an NYC office worker who strikes up a conversation with an attractive woman (Rosanna Arquette) in a bar. She invites him to her SoHo apartment, only to be embroiled in a series of bizarre events that will see him have a night-from-hell he’ll never forget.

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