system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Gritty and "realistic" movies that are dark and depressing but have no real message past "Everything is shitty and you should feel shitty" are actively harmful and shouldn't be praised.

I am speaking of movies that try too hard and get praised by niche fans for "pushing the ceiling" of cinema. 

For example, movies such as the Poughkeepsie Tapes, Anti-Christ, A Serbian Film, and the most infamous rape in all of cinema, Irreversible, just rubs me the wrong way with what it's intended message is supposed to be. They're all setting out, no matter what the director pretends to say, to shock the audience. What value can there be possibly gained from seeing people be mutilated and defiled, and then at the end, have the film basically say "wOw, wAsn'T THaT fuCkEd uP?". Was the message "don't be killed by serial killers, that's bad?". In my own opinion, these movies don't dive into their shocking topics, and instead bank on your shock registering as being impressed by the movie.

Before you judge me as somebody who only likes "happy endings", I will tell you right now I can enjoy bleak and dark stories a lot, provided that they give me something positive and impactful by the end.

For example, The Road is a really bleak film. Like, "I'm probably not gonna watch this ever again" levels of bleak. However, no matter how bad things got, there was always, always a ray of hope in the boy character. His relationship with his jaded father figure was a sight to see. That no matter how bad things get, hope springs eternal as long as they believed there was hope. That is a good message while still being surrounded by bleak and depressing imagery. 

Movies like Schindler's List, Dear Zachary and Hotel Rwanda, while bleak and dark, are also a positive force on people. It shows them how things ARE in the world right now, but at the same time, show that people live with it. They still focus on people who, while flawed, are ultimately good at heart. They have depth and you have reason to want them to not die horrifically or fail in their goals.

Movies are, at the end of the day, supposed to be an art form that lets us have an escape from reality, or at least, provide us with a new perspective on life. Movies that only set out to make people feel like shit and not even have the decency to leave them with anything of substance to think on are just terrible movies, regardless of their technical aspects being impressive. (Irreversible had a an impressive soundtrack because it was made by one half of Daft Punk, but I still hate the movie's premise as a whole).

One caveat: Surreal horror like Junji Ito or Lovecraft, while mostly bleak and makes humans powerless, I have no problem with because it doesn't make any sort of claims about being realistic or sending out any particular message. They're avenues of creativity, and I enjoy that a lot.
gpt
>What value can there be possibly gained from seeing people be mutilated and defiled, and then at the end, have the film basically say "wOw, wAsn'T THaT fuCkEd uP?". Was the message "don't be killed by serial killers, that's bad?"

The message isn't "don't be killed by serial killers" its "sometimes people get murdered by serial killers". There isn't always a ray of hope out there, some peoples lives are just complete shit, often with little ability to do anything about it. 

The point was to make you appreshiate your own rays of hope a little bit more.