Cinema is, at its most basic level, a depiction of our lives. The grandeur of a movie screen image can make us laugh, cry, or just stare in awe as a kaleidoscope of colours, forms, and noises come together to create…something new. When we watch a movie, we choose to enter through an adventure door at the director’s request, and we allow them to take us somewhere utterly unknown.
A social commentary is the manipulation of a story with the purpose of making some form of criticism on social concerns. This is frequently done by the director in the hopes of bringing about change by informing and educating the general public about a pressing issue. In this sense, social critiques frequently appeal to the public’s sense of justice and hope for a resolution that will result in a shift in society to correct the wrongs.
Below are some films that goes against the society and its ideologies.
1. Reservoir Dogs
In Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, six criminals with pseudo identities are hired to steal diamonds. All six are strangers to each other. Whilst attempting the robbery, they get ambushed by the police. The gang gets shot on their way to escape. The survivors find a place to hide in a warehouse. However, the realization hits them that they were set up. All of them tries to find the traitor midst them.
2. There Will Be Blood
In Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood Cruel Daniel Plainview turns into an oil prospector from the silver miner. He moves to oil-rich California, with his adopted son HW. Through his son, Plainview tries to project the image of a trusty worthy family man. He started conning the landowners in order to buy their valuable properties. However, a local preacher Eli Sunday starts doubting the intentions of Plainview and starts a feud that threatens the life of them.
3. Fight Club
In David Fincher’s Fight Club, suffering from insomnia, a man fed up with society and his life, meets a stranger, Tyler Durden, a soap salesman. When his apartment gets destroyed by a fire, he finds himself living in the filthy house of Tyler. To get out of their boring lives, both men forms an underground fighting club for men who are also fed up of their everyday life. However, their solid partnership comes unraveled when Tyler’s attention gets distracted by Marla, a fellow support group member.
4. Joker
In Todd Phillips’s Joker Arthur Fleck, a failed comedian, finds himself alone therefore seeks connection in the streets of Gotham City. Working as a clown in different places, Arthur earns for his ailing mother. Isolated and disregarded by society makes Fleck descent into madness when he transforms himself into a mastermind criminal known as The Joker.
5. Taxi Driver
In Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, a twenty-six-year Vietnam veteran, Travis Bickle, a lonely and insomniac taxi driver in New York City. He drives the cab at night to make his living and in his odyssey, he imagines the life he wants to live by playing different scenarios in his head. Despite living in the city for a long time, Bickle still finds the place strange and finding it difficult to blend in. The city has broken his heart by treating him as an outsider and rejecting him. Being an angst-driven person, Travis changes into a complete sociopath filled with rage and disgust for the values of society.
