Films by season & age - Too Much Pressure (Ages 15-18)

Seasons are a great way to explore different ideas through watching a group of films. Why not try watching all the films in a season and make some time for discussion. Topics and discussion points are included.

Of course, we all love movies that offer us an escape from the day-to-day routine. But films can serve another purpose – to reflect the reality that we see around us, and help us to understand it. That role is never more important than at points in history when crisis is either upon us, or seems to be just around the corner – when unease and suspicion are thick in the air, and hope for the future seems in short supply. In those times, it falls to movies to help us try and make sense of the world – and it’s a task at which they have always excelled. Because of that, here at FilmClub we decided to gather up some of the finest examples. In some cases, they’re films which have been made in times of tension – in the occupied

France of World War II, for instance, or the Britain of the 1980s with its mass unemployment. Elsewhere, they’re stories that look back at places and periods defined by fear – Germany just as the Nazis were on the cusp of taking over the country, America in the era of the cold war and the struggle for civil rights, or the African state of Rwanda in the 1990s, when a bloody civil war overwhelmed the country seemingly out of nowhere. We think that each of the movies here is a powerful portrait of a troubled time – and we

hope that when you’ve watched them you’ll agree.

SUGGESTED PAIR

Both Pan’s Labyrinth and The Lives of Others focus on the way in which political repression effects the lives of ordinary people. Alternatively, Doctor Strangelove and Munich both deal with the ways in which

governments can respond to times of crisis.

TALKING POINTS

Do you think movies should concern themselves with the “real world” – or should they purely be there for entertainment? Did you find that the stories in this season being based in reality stopped you becoming

involved with the characters?