Existential dread refers to a deep sense of fear or unease that comes from questioning the meaning and purpose of life. It's when you feel overwhelmed by thoughts about the uncertainty and insignificance of your existence.
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Blaise Pascal evokes a sense
of existential dread in this famous line: «The eternal silence of those infinite spaces terrifies me.»
«The hallucinatory power of ayahuasca and the incantatory lure of rituals fuse with
existential dread in this darkly hypnotic drama... The directors, capture the induced hallucinations with a visual imagination of rare specificity and fury, in which pop - culture memories and exotic natural splendors converge with personal troubles and metaphysical transformations.»
Yes, It Comes At Night is bleak to the extreme, but it's also a finely tuned instrument of anxiety — a jarring, unnerving nightmare movie that's highly effective and full of
lingering existential dread.
The best performance in the film comes from Kirsten Dunst, who uses the
leftover existential dread from her brilliant role in Melancholia to her advantage here in her portrayal of Regan, the closest thing the film has to a protagonist.
The bleakness (well supported by Bruno Delbonnel's bruised cinematography) feels invigorating for the Coens: While many of their successes, from Barton Fink through A Serious Man, bump up
against existential dread, they've never made do with so little comic relief.
The film's other motif of puppets manipulated by unseen hands (carnivorous machines, funhouse mannequins, children's toys, Trevor's «Howdy Doody» nickname) finds allegorical reduction in the perverse hangman's game that forms The Machinist's central means of symbol - dispensation, provoking a slow -
advancing existential dread.
Looking out across 2016 could
instill existential dread, one weekend after another of our contemporary answer to the Roadshow asking us that very question.
by Walter Chaw There's a shopping mall in Colorado called «Colorado Mills» that bubbles with the kind of
nameless existential dread generally reserved for terrariums and introspective box turtles.
Confronted by subjects like death, absence, and emptiness, a viewer might expect an oeuvre weighted down
by existential dread, but in Lee's work, these subjects become lively participants in conversation with -LSB-.....]
It's official: Japanese art legend Yayoi Kusama has jumped from Gagosian to David Zwirner, as she relates on her rather unique website (try staring into her eyes Marina Abramovic - style and see what feelings of
existential dread crop up).
There's a level
of existential dread to this place and the fates of its inhabitants that's both absurdly amusing and genuinely terrifying.
Beneath it all is an air of
existential dread.
An evocative exercise in alienation and
existential dread, Herzog masterfully tackles one of the greatest gothic stories ever with Nosferatu the Vampyre with the unforgettable (as always) Klaus Kinski as the titular blood - sucker.
19th Annual Animation Show of Shows by Hope Madden Whimsy, melancholy,
existential dread — the absurdity of human existence.
by Walter Chaw Four years separate Satoshi Kon's astonishing Perfect Blue and his astonishing Millennium Actress; it seems that what the intervening period brought to Kon's palette is a strong sense of visual humour and an affecting pathos to cut
the existential dread of his identity crises — the year or two distancing Tokyo Godfathers from Millennium Actress further refining Kon as a humorist even as it blunted his razor's edge.
So, Antonioni would find his muse, a perfect foil for L'Avventura's at times aloof, mean - spirited even, alteration on alienation and
existential dread.
An elliptical drama suffused with
existential dread, Safe revolves around California housewife Carol (Julianne Moore), who comes down with a mysterious malady that seems to be linked to the very environment in which she lives, the ill - defined illness eventually causing her to withdraw further and further into isolation.
Arguably, the aggregate of Nineties cinema deals with the evolution from filmic to digital reality (from 1989's sex, lies, and videotape on through to the end of the following decade's American Beauty, The Truman Show, Dark City, The Matrix, Fight Club, and The Blair Witch Project), but it's here in 2007, six years post-9 / 11, that the phrase «it's just like in the movies» gains the kind of
existential dread it deserves.
With multiple witnesses and continually escalating violent and sexual attacks, the film drips with
existential dread.
A fantastical exploration of inner dialogue and
existential dread, this self - referential satire won't be everyone's flight of fancy, but its inventive story and dazzlingly strange universe creates a labyrinthine maze for its viewers to follow along.
The existential dread your character is suffering with in Continue is portrayed masterfully, and the difficulty you will have in helping the character find peace before an untimely demise is perhaps a necessary move on behalf of creator Oda in order to successfully convey the game's message.
It bridges the gap between boo scares and
existential dread.
At last, an animated movie for those of us who have pondered
the existential dread at the heart of the Toy... Continue reading →
While this sobering tale of one family's isolated post-apocalyptic survival is most assuredly a «talky» terror tale, and one that often feels a bit like a stage adaptation, it's also knee - deep in tension, discomfort, and nine different flavors of
existential dread.
«Synced to a different time signature than other contemporary thrillers, The American is all long silent spells and
existential dread.
From its excellent visual approach, production design and score to its witty dialogue, clever plotting and uniformly excellent acting, Richard Ayoade has taken the time to carefully construct a fully realized, living and breathing world that feels genuine in its own twisted little way, The story is a solid interpretation of the source material, with a smart plot arc and fully believable sense of
existential dread that comes from one's life being turned on its ear in the most surprising of ways.
For starters, the winners are all announced in advance, so the talent breeze in with good attitudes, not roiling with
the existential dread of perhaps smiling as someone else grabs their prize.
However, if you are in the mood for some serious dystopian foxfire, riddled with
existential dread and quirkily romantic, you are in for a treat.
Now that we know the movie is close to his heart, rest assured that A Quiet Place won't just offer horror fans jumpscares and
existential dread.
To that end Mike White's new film Brad's Status doesn't exactly give Stiller much new or especially refreshing to work with, but it deserves credit for pushing Stiller to take an uncommon lean into the more unsavory facets of
his existential dread - ridden protagonist.
The existential dread is coming from inside the house.
Through procedural generation we have allowed our engine to create over 18 quintillion unique life events including jobs, relationships, family emergencies, legal troubles, self - destructive tendencies, and even a million different forms of
existential dread.
Just thinking about it is making our heads swirl with
existential dread!
«We're back with a Zook - tastic episode for you, filled with thrills, spills, and
existential dread - ridden monstrosities, oh, and this week's indie game news I guess.
Dead Space relied on jump scares and didn't create the necessary level of
existential dread.
Rather than
the existential dread that an artist like Mark Rothko felt as an individual contemplating the universe, you seem to experience a sort of joy.
Another narrative match with the neo-noir thriller: Otero's method carries a powerful whiff of
existential dread.
An existential dread looms like thunder storms in summer.
Indeed, Googling yourself is just another symptom of
existential dread.
The astonishing craftsmanship required in producing Matelli's hyper - realistic sculpture is met with an equally potent narrative cocktail of
existential dread, a fatalistic sense of human limitations, and a contrarian's dark humor.
The artists exhibiting in this group show consistently use methods of abstraction to create portraits representing facial tensions of inner conflict, emotional confusion, mental anguish,
existential dread or even psychosis.
It is common to see artists and gallerists alike bemoaning
their existential dread over the social and financial hierarchies at play.
Maybe it's a reflection of real life with its ugly moments, like stubbed toes and
existential dread.