The Nightingale, directed by Jennifer Kent, is the most harrowing film I've ever seen.

I'm not exaggerating. The entire film is one long nightmare.There isn't a single frame, a single scene that isn't in some way harrowing, brutal or intense beyond measure. Never before has a film personified pure, absolute rage before. People are absolutely going to hate this one.It's about Claire, an Irish convict, who chases a British soldier through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. We're with Claire every muddy, bloody step. Every brutal image, every nightmarish waking moment, every emotion, we're there with her. It's relentless. It's so agonizingly hard to watch. Which is why it's such a raw, brilliant piece of filmmaking. It's probably the most powerful and poignant depiction of violent colonialism in Australia, or any country, I've seen. The suffering, the horror, the violence white Englishmen exhibit just by existing on occupied Australian soil, it's thrust on display here. There's a scene in the third act where violence (that never occurs) overhangs an entire conversation, and you feel the raw, agonized raw building up in Claire's face, having endured everything she has. This is pure black grimdark, bleak as a Siberian winter. I don't think I've ever seen a film with this much screaming before. By the time the credits rolled, I had a splitting headache. This is maybe the darkest, most uncompromising, unforgiving, punishing film I've ever experienced. You don't watch this movie, you get violated by it.It'd be easy to slip into exploitative territory, but it never doesi, entire subject matter being the suffering of the convicts and the indigenous natives. It's never sensationalized, but it is relentless and it is unflinching.Anyway. I wanted to throw my thoughts online while they're still fresh. This film is incredible, devastating, dark, relentless, and a furious commentary on race, class, slavery and colonialism. If you can stomach it, I'd highly recommend it.I also got to meet Jennifer Kent and tell her how much I loved the Badabook, so that was nice. via /r/movies http://bit.ly/2Ia7IVP