what are example of movies with big ending gestures? not twists, exactly. but an unexpectedly dramatic thing happens.
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Parasite!
Though I don’t know if they could have landed it in less extreme ways
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Once upon a time in Hollywood in a more modest way, though you kinda expect it because it’s Tarantino. But without that extratextual context, the blowup was weird
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yep that one definitely had it too. agree it was less built than parasite's. but satisfying in its own way...since you kind of keep expecting *something* to happen the whole movie.
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Now I’m thinking of the same effect in the beginning of stories. One reason the original Matrix felt so punchy was that Neo’s story goes from ordinary hacker tale to much higher drama weird metaphysical tale in an instant when his mouth closes up
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probably a common feature of wizard of oz/alice in wonderland type stories. stories where there's an abrupt change between two worlds with very different moods.
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though yeah...in terms of an unexpected genre mood shift, 'the matrix' *is* something slightly to the left of that.
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Whereas a regular 2-worlds story has more conventional genre-based hero’s journey thing going on, not this bait and switch. So there’s 3 worlds: regular world, feint world, actual other world
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agree, the extra feint sets it apart. this movie en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_(2 might fit the genre fake-out bill. it plays as an indie 'guy goes to europe to find himself, meets an intriguing girl' thing at first, until the abrupt body horror.
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The shared feature is abruptly raised stakes increasing meaningfulness I think. Suddenly everything that came before gets recoded and you have to do a rush of a double take. Like in parasite, the killing adds significance to the rich commenting about the poor-people smell.
Another odd example is in M. Night Shyamalan’s Split. The last scene with Bruce Willis makes you realize the James McAvoy character exists in the same universe as Unbreakable. The scene adds no drama directly but the context does.
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with you on these things increasing meaningfulness…not sure i’d agree the cause is raised stakes though. perhaps in some cases. i think it’s the sheer *bigness* of the gesture that creates meaning. bigness is an inherently strong signal that something is being said.
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it's a statement, maybe, on what the central tension of the work was all along. what boil the work was trying to lance.
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