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Finally Friday and you can relax after a hard week of work. For example, watch a movie. Which, moreover, can not only help relieve accumulated stress, but also give a hint on how to deal with it and how not to.
Cinematography could not avoid stress: this human condition and its causes are a natural resource for dramaturgy that requires the hero to confront circumstances. Here they are, the heroes of stress.
“I’m over it!”
Starring: Michael Douglas, Robert Dewall, Barbara Hershey
Directed by Joel Schumacher, 1992
He was actually fired from his job, a bitchy ex-wife prevents meetings with his daughter, fellow countrymen always create traffic jams, salesmen in useless shops do not allow you to call … And a man in a white shirt and tie leaves his car in a red-hot smoky traffic jam, armed first with a baseball bat, and then and with a gun, crushes everything in its path, including gangsters and dealers … to get to my daughter’s birthday.
Only one wise cop knows what the reason for his personal terrorism is: life tried to crush William, but he is not made of insects.
“Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”
Cast: Carmen Maura, Maria Barranco, Antonio Banderas
Directed by Pedro Almodovar, 1988
An advertising and dubbing actress for dubious TV productions embarks on a pursuit across Madrid: her lover, who has left her, must explain the reason for his departure. But she was not the only one who fell victim to fatal men. The heroine is not allowed to pass by the obsessed mother of her lover’s son, who was once also abandoned by him, and her friend is on the verge of suicide: the police may be following her beautiful fashion models, because she had the stupidity to fall in love with a “Shiite terrorist”.
In the tragicomedy that made Almodovar famous as a kitsch singer, men are weak, narcissistic and incapable of strong feelings. But women are a huge heart of the world.
“After work”
Cast: Griffin Dunn, Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom, Tommy Chong
Directed by Martin Scorsese, 1985
Accepting the invitation of a seductive new acquaintance, the quiet Wall Street clerk could not imagine what awaited him on Friday night in artistic Soho, alien to him. I could not imagine, because I had never seen anything like it in my white-collar life – not such a way of life, not such energy, not such socio-psychological types … not such a temptation of bohemian freedom.
“Case”
Cast: Bohusław Linda, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Bohuslawa Pavelets
Directed by Krzysztof Kislowski, 1981
Everything is calm in Poland so far, and Vitek is just living his young life: he leaves the medical school in search of a calling, meets and breaks up with girls, is fond of religion, cooperates with the authorities, sympathizes with the distributors of illegal literature and tries to calm down the rebellious young patients of the drug clinic. But only Vitek is constantly desperately late for the train and runs after him, leaving, along the platform. And his Poland … It seems that the pressure is increased in it, the air is condensed, it seems to toss and turn, crushed by some kind of load … And is about to explode.
“Good night, Mom”
Starring: Sissy Speysek, Ann Bancroft, Ed Burke
Directed by Tom Moore, 1987
Jessie has been abandoned by her husband, she has epilepsy and agoraphobia, she can barely work, and her teenage son has become a drug addict and criminal. All this can be ended with one shot, and she decides to do this last thing before morning. Only now you need to tell your mother, Thelma … So in the film there is a second victim of stress. But Thelma’s reaction to him is completely different – to fight, not to give up.
And all night until the cursed morning, Thelma tries to convince her daughter that life is worth living.