Existentialism

7 posts

Woman in the Dunes + The Absurd

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Woman in the Dunes is a suffocating, hypnotic film about entrapment, survival, and, ultimately, Pushing on no matter the circumstance. It’s a story that unfolds like a fever dream, trapping both its protagonist and its audience in an existential paradox—one that mirrors Albert Camus’ vision of the absurd.
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The Tree of Life + Nature vs Grace

Terrence Malick’s magnum opus The Tree of Life is striving to be more than a film; it is a philosophical meditation. One which doesn’t unfold in the traditional sense but drifts like memory, weaving between cosmic grandeur and childhood recollection, between whispered prayers and the silent weight of suffering. It’s a film that asks the biggest questions—why are we here, why do we suffer, and where do we find grace?
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Predator + the Übermensch

If you strip Predator down to its core, beneath the layers of mud, blood, and 80s action bravado, what emerges is a tale as old as time—survival, a story of predator versus prey, the hunter and the hunted. However, each blow for blow, trap, and kill actually ends up revealing a cinematic arena where primal instincts clash with existential philosophy.
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Stalker + Art

Andrei Tarkovski's Stalker is a profound journey through existential, metaphysical, and epistemological themes which, compelled by its transcendental style, implores its audience to meditate, look within, and therefore becomes something more than mere philosophy, doctrine, idea, ideology, logic, outlook, reasoning, theory, thought, truth, wisdom, ectara. It becomes a living thing. A conscious art.  
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Lady Bird + Attention

In the 2017 film Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig offers a heartfelt portrait of a young woman. A coming-of-age semi-autobiographical tale set in Sacramento. The film has been celebrated for its authenticity, humor, and emotional depth. But beneath its carefully observed story of teenage rebellion and maternal aggravations lies a profound meditation on a theme central to the works of philosophers Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch: the inseparable link between love and attention.
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Blue Ruin + Resentment

Jeremy Saulnier’s film Blue Ruin offers a gritty, unflinching look at the consequences of seeking revenge. It is an anti-revenge, revenge tale that delves into the mind of its character, Dwight Evans, as he grapples with the complexity of resentment. Between two families the film explores themes including the cycle of violence and the futility of seeking retribution.
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Pulp Fiction + Redemption

Pulp Fiction, by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avery came out of the 1994 Cannes Film Festival as a controversial yet clear winner of the Golden Palm with its style and complex storytelling. Beyond its surface appeal, to which it has in spades, lies a profound exploration of redemption and the rush of catharsis which inevitability follows. Pulp Fiction takes us on a journey through concepts such as Aristotle’s idea of catharsis and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s perspective on redemption revealing the moral layers within the narrative.
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