I recently watched Mike Leigh’s 1971 film Bleak Moments – his directorial debut. And while watching it, I again felt something about Leigh’s characters (or at least some of them), which I’ve felt watching some of his other films: they have a caricature-esque level of eccentricity. Others have drawn attention to this too, such as…
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The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer is well known for his defence of solitude; as he said, “A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.” Distinct from…
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Pulse (Kairo) is a 2001 Japanese techno-horror film directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. After having watched Kurosawa’s 1997 psychological thriller Cure (Kyua), widely regarded as a masterpiece, I was keen to check out more of his work. (Cure was inspired by David Fincher’s crime film Se7en; it likewise follows a series of gruesome murders and detectives…
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Depression is not normally a condition that is associated with pain. When we think of pain, we might think of the acute pain of stubbing your toe, the more sustained and intense pain of breaking a bone, or the chronic pain of a physical disease or condition. But depression is painful. It’s just a difficult…
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Many people believe that spending long periods of time in solitude is a lonely experience. And it certainly can be. But there are some important differences between loneliness and aloneness. The former is an unpleasant and painful situation, something we struggle with all too often. The latter, on the other hand, involves a comfortable state…
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