Beyond the veil of madness: School's out
Jonathan Gronli
Issue date: 4/28/09 Section: Entertainment
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The theme is school, and there's quite a bit to go around, so some of these might seem a bit odd, and you might disagree, but that's fine. In fact, I welcome disagreements and would love to debate these things. Some of these are blockbusters; others might be fairly obscure in America, but very popular elsewhere. Some might be obscure everywhere.
For history and anthropology majors, and those planning to go to medical school, something that might be interesting is the film "Unrest." It isn't entirely conventional, and is very atmospheric, as you follow the main character trying to literally survive one of her first medical school rotations, which is done in a med school's morgue. There are tons of Latin American and Native American superstitions being brought up through the entire film.
"Death Watch" would be great for history majors focusing on World War I. A British battalion attacks a German position and end up camping out in what they think is an advance position for the British, a trench miles behind German lines. But there's something wrong in this trench. Not really much here regarding school, other than a young Brit who lied about his age and temporarily dropped out of school to be able to serve his country.
Psychology majors would like a variety of films. There's "Cure," which is, essentially, a Japanese version of "Seven." There's the obvious one of "Scream" as well, which is a horror movie case study on grieving habits and general deviant behavior brought on by dependency issues. There's also "Cry Wolf" which covers the psychology behind rumors and where they could go wrong.
English majors could do well with a couple of films themselves. For more myth-based minds there is "Urban Legend," a film that tries to throw in realistic spins on various urban legends to kill off characters while taking a class titled none other than Urban Mythology. There's also "Candyman," which follows a graduate student as she's writing up her dissertation to disprove the legend of Candyman. What she finds is that truth is scarier than fiction.
Philosophy majors can appreciate any of these, but then again, there are tons of other things. There's "Kairo (Pulse)," which covers the afterlife and technology. It mostly follows students, usually in tech-based classes. The two topics are some points of philosophic debate. There is "Reincarnation," which covers life after death, and time being cyclical (history repeats itself). Some of the characters it follows are students actually taking courses that talk about the topic of reincarnation. "Premonition" (the good version, not the Sandra Bullock version) follows a professor who gets haunted by newspapers that predict, yes predict, only disaster. "Suicide Club" follows police investigating what is causing a popular song to make people, mostly high school and college students, commit suicide.
There are a lot more films that go into these topics, and if you want to point stuff out, talk stuff out or even just point out where I'm wrong by all means, contact me.
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