Weepies

by tess

Normal people arrange their Netflix queues in the chronological order in which they elect to watch the videos. And that makes sense. For them.

I’ve divided our queue into MINE (183 classic dramas) and, at the bottom, HIS (12 Japanese read-while-you-watch five-hour epics which make no damn sense whatsoever to those of us who didn’t major in The Golden Age of Japanese Cinema: Kurosawa thru Kobayashi). Since I’m not too proud to cop to my deep and abiding love of sob-inducing movies and books, I appreciate the value of selecting a video that fits my specific, albeit fickle, emotional needs. Therefore, MINE are subdivided by their potential weep factor.

A “light day” (haha!) would only require a level one weepie, or The Tear Jerker, which is obviously a movie that delivers sniffles during the good parts no matter how many times I’ve seen it: Armageddon, Gone with the Wind, Steel Magnolias, Regarding Henry.

I reserve a special sliver of my withered, gray heart for those movies that tear me from all sense of reality, effectively trapping me within the suspense of a fictional world from which there is no escape. These are level two weepies, The Cathartic Purge. Ancient Greeks believed that the visceral response of catharsis represented an emotional purification. I relish the afterglow of stumbling to the bathroom, collecting tissues, weeping copiously, sighing noisily, and finally releasing the characters, re-inhabiting my own world. Ahhh, the poignant release of Requiem for a Dream, Always, Leaving Las Vegas (despite Cage), High Art, Ordinary People, or Basquiat.

And finally there are the movies that bear the emotional impact of a medieval spiked battle flail to your knee-pits. Level three weepies, Soul Scorchers, have foregone their redemptive qualities in lieu of a Herculean sucker punch of agony. The Passion of the Christ, Seven, United 93, Frances, City of Angels (despite Cage), The Pianist, and Rush are nearly unwatchable as they suffocate the viewer with despair rendering him incapacitated and abandoned in his own wretchedness. Inasmuch as I adore a really good cry fest, I cannot bring myself to watch any of these movies a second time. I keep them on the list and am tempted occasionally to “go there” but it’s simply too much … the emotional equivalent of running back-to-back marathons. To those of you who can watch any of these movies without drowning in misery — congrats, you’re braver and stronger (and likely saner) than me.