Since the Lumiere brothers surprised the Parisian public with their first short, almost 120 years have passed. Over the years, cinema has become not only entertainment, but also a teacher, friend, psychologist for many generations of people in love with him. The most talented masters of the genre have declared themselves in this art form, creating films that make you think and, possibly, change something in life.
Does the genre matter?
We watch drama or comedy, science fiction or "horror", we have a chance to catch the authorās message if the movie is made intelligently and tastefully. And it is not necessary for the film to be a representative of the so-called intellectual cinema. Is it possible, for example, to deny the wonderful Soviet comedy āThe Diamond Armā the right to enter the category under the code name āfilms that make you think about lifeā? And is not the fantastic horror film āAlienā the parable that even the most perfect alien creature, if it is devoid of soul, loses to man, and how great is the responsibility of scientists to all of humanity?
Each has its own TOP-10
There are a lot of films that make you think, and each film enthusiast will be happy to make his own āgolden tenā. We will offer our own version and try to convince the reader that each of the presented tapes is capable of prompting serious thought. So, what are these 10 films that make you think?
"Mirror for the hero"
The film was shot in 1987 by director Vladimir Khotinenko. The story was based on Svyatoslav Rybas with the same name. The tape tells about the eternal conflict of times and generations and, like all the films that make you think about it, gives its own version of its resolution. In the story, philologist Sergei Pshenichny arrives at his fatherās house in one of the towns of Donbass. The son allows his father to familiarize himself with his dissertation on the topic of psycholinguistics and receives a comment that the topic is relevant only to specialists and is useless to a wide range of people. In exchange, the father offers his son his book on the interaction of man with nature. Sergey is not interested in either the book or his fatherās memories of the time of building a bright future. The son accuses the father that enthusiasm and labor exploits were useless to anyone. There is a quarrel. After that, Sergei and the engineer Andrei Nemchinov, whom he accidentally met, find themselves in a strange way in 1949, meet their young parents, fellow villagers there and survive the same repeating day until time releases them back in 1987. Sergei learns about his father something that he never knew about: he was arrested for trying to close the emergency mine to save people from death, he considered the ideals of humanity above the desire to achieve success in production at any cost. Each of the heroes has to make sure that the past cannot be changed, but it can be understood and accepted. Only then can life move on, and people can live in harmony with themselves and history.
"Large"
The 1988 American comedy, shot by Penny Marshall, tells a straightforward story of a 13-year-old boy in an amusement park making an automatic mage want to be big. In the morning, he discovered that he had suddenly become a thirty year old man. Joshua (the name of the main character) has to leave home and look for work. He finds a place in a toy company. Thanks to his teenage spontaneity and hobbies, Joshua becomes a leading employee. He begins an affair with a girl from the Board of Directors, but the childās soul calls him back, and he again finds the machine gun and asks him to return everything as it was. Like other films that make you think about your identification in society, this tape uses a fantastic storyline to emphasize how lacking the full conventions of adulthood are of the simplicity, freshness, sincerity in perceiving the world that is characteristic of children.
"Flying over Cuckoo's Nest"
The drama by Milos Forman, created in 1975 based on the play of the same name by Ken Kesey, represents a clash of a lone hero with the system. This is one of the popular topics that distinguish the best films that make you think about the meaning and value of human life. The action takes place in a psychiatric hospital, where the criminal McMurphy was placed to testify of his sanity. Instead of hiding in the walls of the clinic and avoiding jail, the hero, outraged by the inhuman methods of influencing patients, organizes a riot. The final picture is ambiguous. On the one hand, the hero suffers an individual defeat: after the lobotomy that McMurphy was subjected to, he becomes an indifferent āvegetableā. On the other hand, the days of McMurphy's rebellious antics have become islands of freedom for the mentally ill, and one of the patients named Leader gains the strength and courage to escape from the clinic. Before escaping, he strangles a crippled McMurphy with a pillow with the words "Let's go."
"Twelve"
In the TOP films that make you think, Nikita Mikhalkovās tape ā12ā, released in 2007, successfully fits in. This is a remake of the American tape of 1957 under the name "Twelve Angry Men", transferred to Russian soil. A group of jurors are sentenced to pronounce on the murder of their adoptive father by an 18-year-old Chechen. At first, the guilt seems obvious, and they are not inclined to think about a solution for a long time: everyone is in a hurry to do their pressing business and are ready to immediately issue a guilty verdict. But one of the jurors suddenly votes against the prosecution and tries to convince the others of this. The meeting is delayed, people get nervous, perplexed, and then gradually begin to investigate the facts. They find in the indictment a lot of absurdities and inconsistencies, and some personal circumstances of the jury's life are somewhat similar to the situations in which the defendant found himself. At the end of the picture, the assessors unanimously vote that the young man is not guilty. Reflecting on compassion, the ability to put oneself in the place of another person, despising national and any other conventions, the authors were able to sing a hymn to mercy and the highest human values. The magnificent cast added to the picture a special charm.
"Others"
The refined thriller Alejandro Amenabara, filmed in 2001, undoubtedly falls into the list of films that make you think. This is an impressive and delicate story about a caring mother and a devout woman, Grace Stewart, who settled with her two children in a provincial Victorian mansion. A woman is waiting for the return of her beloved husband from the front and carefully hides children who are allergic to light from sunlight. The old servant left the house, and in return a strange trinity of servants appeared, with the appearance of which mysterious and frightening events began to take place on the estate. Gradually, the house gets out of Graceās control, the children see ghosts, and strange visions dominate her everywhere. She canāt leave the estate because of the thick fog enveloping the area, but she suddenly meets her husband at the gate, who communicates with her remotely and doesnāt finish something. In the morning he goes into the fog, without explaining anything properly. Grace is tormented by secrets, loneliness, fear of a servant who, as she thinks, is trying to harm her. The womanās horror intensifies when she discovers a card from the album of the dead in their room. On it all three are photographed by the deceased. Closer to the denouement, the presence of ghosts is increasing. The final scenes shock both the main character and the audience. The truth is revealed to the astonished Grace: it is she who has long wandered a ghost through the rooms of the castle after she strangled her children and shot herself. The āothersā that the woman was so afraid of were living people who settled here after the Stuarts.
Unable to live in a haunted house, that family is leaving, Grace and her children are looking out of the window as people pack their things and get into their car, bright summers turn green around, while Grace reigns in a calm foggy autumn. This film not only āticklesā the nerves and captivates the plot, it contains a deep thought that it is impossible to set obvious boundaries in order to draw those who are different for you. It is no accident that Grace was not able to maintain the strict rule that the previous door must be closed before the next one is opened.
"The Shawshank Redemption"
The cult American drama of Frank Darabonte based on the 1994 Stephen King novel continues to be the leader in the lists of the best films of all time. The story of how the banker Andy Dufrain, unjustly accused of murdering his wife and sentenced to two life terms, carries out a daring and witty escape from the darkest prison in heavy security. Here, involuntarily, the thought comes up about which films make you think about the price of freedom and the ability to find it, better than this? The authors focused on the fact that the mind, endurance, resourcefulness, freedom from dogma allow a person to survive and emerge victorious from the most hopeless situations.
"Stars on the Earth"
There are useful films in the world cinema that make you think about understanding, patience and love for children. The film story of the Indian director Aamir Khan, created in 2007, also refers to them. The fantasies of eight-year-old Ishan only annoy adults, they do not understand why the boy is in the clouds and does not have time in school. The father, considering the child too effeminate, sends him to a boarding school with strict discipline. Ishan endures mockery and humiliation there, closes himself. Fortunately, a new drawing teacher Ram Nikumbh comes to school, who managed to understand that the features of the boy are not deviations, but a sign of a bright gift. Ram realizes that the boy has dyslexia, which he once suffered from himself. Carefully and patiently, the teacher helps to overcome the violation and reveal the rich abilities of the child. Ishan gradually overcomes difficulties and becomes the pride and glory of his school.
"Love and pigeons"
The tape of Vladimir Menshov, filmed in 1984 in the genre of lyrical comedy, is unpretentious and spectacular. These are often the films that make you think about life. The villager Vasya Kuzyakin receives a ticket to the sanatorium and goes to the sea. A wife and three children remain at home. Under the southern velvet sky, Vasily falls under the spell of a lonely elderly woman Raisa Zakharovna, who tells the unenlightened villager a lot of interesting things about city life, astrology and much more. He decides to leave his family and move to Raisa in the city. However, he soon realizes that this is not his life at all, and, after missing his own, he returns home. Menshov did not need a fantastic alien storyline to enable the viewer to reflect on how he feels and how a person who is not in his world, in the life and atmosphere that he knows and is used to does.
"Short circuit"
The Russian film of 2009 in the form of five independent short stories shot by different directors and united by one idea - these are films about love, which make you think and experience with the heroes the various facets of this feeling. In the first story, the journalist is sent to interview the residents of the house, near which a heating main is laid. Without interest and inspiration, he begins to question people. Where more he takes indecent inscription on the wall, which opens in front of the hero someone's love drama. Another short story tells about the dialogue between a Polish girl and a Russian guy who are trying to communicate with sensations. The third short film is about the experiences of a deaf-mute shoemaker, who fell in love with the owner of elegant shoes in absentia, which he brought in to fix it. The fourth story tells of the circus Kim, who ended up in a "psychiatric hospital" and loved a doctor. The fifth story tells of a restaurant barker, dressed in a big shrimp suit and decided on an unusual move: he kisses all the people he met, enduringly enduring kicks and blows that passers-by give him.
"Dudes"
The musical of Valery Todorovsky, created in 2008, talks about the youth movement in the USSR, which arose in opposition to the formalized Soviet culture. It is also the answer to the question of which films make you think. Bright and elaborate style of dudes challenged not only gray uniform suits in department stores and on city streets, it was a resistance to conformism and a manifestation of freedom of spirit. According to the plot, a Komsomol guy fell in love with a representative of a culture "alien to Soviet people." Love overturned the heroās boring lifestyle and opened the door to a new world full of extraordinary impressions.
Finally
Cinema, despite skeptical remarks about its sunset, remains to this day a powerful and expressive means of influencing the hearts and minds of people. New themes, ideas, talented directors and performers appear, giving reason to hope that we will see original films that make us think about ourselves and about life.