The Films That Pull You In

"There's always room for a story that can transport people to another place"

                                                                                                                                                                                - J. K. Rowling

I was debating how to start with this whole blogging malarkey – I’ve never done it before but when my sister asked if I wanted to take part in ‘Girls on Film’ it seemed like a good idea.  I thought about films I had seen recently, films I had liked and not liked, but instead, for the first post, I have gone for something a bit more general.  I want to talk about films that give us The Feels.

Now I don’t necessarily mean films that make us cry (although some of them might make the list) or films that make us want to be better people and live more meaningful lives.  I’m talking about those films that you’d be quite happy to sit back down and watch again straight away.  Films you lose yourself in.  Films that everyone you know must watch now, this very minute, why aren’t you watching it yet???  Films that, when they end, you are startled to find that you were not a character in that story, and you do in fact live in a different reality to the one you have been inhabiting for the past 90 minutes or so.

Quite frankly, I tend to get this immersive feeling a little more from books, possibly because reading is a solitary experience, and there are less people around to remind you of your reality.  When reading a good book, I do feel like I’m dragging myself out of the story every time I put the book down.  I get this less with films, but there are a few that stick in my mind, and it’s a bit of an eclectic mix to be honest.

Up

I love this film.  I saw this film (for about the 10^th time) with my husband the day we got engaged.  I recommended this film to my mum as soon as I’d seen it the 1^st time in the cinema, and she texted from the cinema saying ‘I thought you said this film was happy!!’  Every time I watch it, I have forgotten just how devastatingly it begins, and I never have enough tissues nearby.  And every time I watch it I am filled with incredible joy when the balloons lift Carl’s house.

Baaaallllooooooonnnsssss!  Sorry, wrong film...

Inside Out

I have only seen this film once.  I really must buy it and watch it again, as I do think most films improve on repeated viewing (my husband does not understand the need to re-watch things again and again and again – surely it can’t just be me?).  I watched this in the cinema and was practically sobbing out loud by the end of it.  Many tissues were used.  And thinking about a previous post on this blog, does it count as a coming of age film?  I think so.  Different perhaps to the usual but I believe it counts.

Stardust

I wondered if my love of this film was just for Captain Shakespeare but I actually really like all the characters in this.  I think it’s very well written and has some very excellent and clever scenes in it.  A bit different from the last 2 on the list, but I came out of the cinema after seeing this thinking it was the best film I had seen in a very long time (admittedly though I can’t remember what films I had been watching immediately prior to this).

Google 'Captain Shakespeare' and you get this.  Not quite what I had in mind!

Finding Neverland

Again, I remember coming out of the cinema thinking what a good film this was.  And also weeping.  I cry very easily at films.  Not entirely sure what it is about this one that I like so much.  Probably the mixture of reality and fantasy.

Admittedly this emotional scene has lost some of its punch since it became popular meme fodder

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

This is the exception to the rest of the list in that I will probably not watch this one again.  And I didn’t see it in the cinema (the rest I did – I wonder if this is part of the reason I found them so immersive?  It would make sense, given that you can get much more immersed in the story when at the cinema when compared to watching at home, where there are more distractions, and more of a tendency to talk or pause the film, and thus disturbing the flow of the story?)  Anyway, I digress.  I shouldn’t have liked this film.  I don’t really like Steve Carell and Keira Knightley’s pouting can annoy me, but there was something about this odd pairing that worked for me.  I think though it was more the story-line.  The story of an oncoming apocalypse told from the point of view of 2 ordinary people, rather than from the point of view of the important people trying to prevent the oncoming doom.  It made it more real to me in a way that Armageddon (terrible, terrible film) and Deep Impact (which I really like) didn’t quite manage to do.  Although there is much of the film I don't really remember, it made it all rather too real, and pretty devastating to be honest, and when the film finished I was very glad to come back to reality to discover that the world was not about to end and I wasn’t about to die imminently.  Which is why I probably won’t watch it again – I like not feeling like I am about to die imminently.

So there you go, a brief foray into blogging, and more specifically a quick look at films that have drawn me in.  Most of these films I could watch again and again and again, although I do find that it’s never quite the same when you know what’s going to happen next – the immersion into the story isn’t quite as total as that first viewing.  This list is by no means exhaustive, but they are the ones that stick in my mind, at least at the moment.  I’d be very interested to hear which films have drawn in other people – I suspect that the list would be very different for each person.