Love is the most portrayed subject in recorded history. I don’t know the exact statistic, but I’m certain from the mass of songs, books, TV shows and movies we’ve collectively ingested, it’s safe to assume it holds the title.
It’s because of love that you promise to lasso the moon or wish you owned a gin joint in Morocco. It’ll do crazy things, like break your heart, make you take up prostitution or go on a crime spree with your significant other.
While those are the more extreme outcomes for falling in love, they constitute a few of the moments included in the proceeding movie list. So, if you’re not in the mood for the wistful schlock, try one of these films and see where your evening takes you.
Harold & Maude (1971): Even if you’ve never seen it, you’ve very likely heard of it. Bud Cort plays Harold, an affluent, suburban teen fascinated with death. His fantasies, including suicide and matricide, will tickle your fancy if you’re into the darker comedic bend. Ruth Gordon, as Maude, steals the show as the senior citizen who shows Harold the ways of youth he’s yet to find.
Under the direction of Hal Ashby, the titular characters have a relationship that is closer to the heart than most of us will have in our lives. Along with idiosyncratic films like Midnight Cowboy and MASH, this was where – for a bright and shining moment – America treated its filmmaking seriously.
Wings of Desire (1987): Berlin, near the fall of the Wall. Two angels float through daily life, staying at an arm’s length, observing, until Damien, played by an ethereal Bruno Ganz, becomes infatuated with a circus trapeze artist (played by Solveig Dommartin). After that, he decides to shed his immortality for the sake of love, coffee and a cigarette with Peter Falk.
Wim Wenders’ masterpiece is a symphony to the eyes and ears. It’s a film that demands your attention, embracing you and swooning you into intoxication. As much as we want to be immortal, like Damien, we cannot help but root for him in his calling – that he experiences connection in the purity we all dream it to be.
Wild at Heart (1990): I have to give thanks to David Lynch in this, his most underrated film and All-American ingredient: The road.
Two lovers on the run, Luna (a dynamite Laura Dern) and Sailor (Nicolas Cage, in his best performance) escape the law, the scuzz of the Earth and her avenging mother Marietta, played by a manic Diane Ladd. It’s a simple premise.
But nothing is simple in Lynch’s universe. The asphalt burns the tires but the love between Luna and Sailor burns even hotter. Though stints in jail, murder, a touch of Wizard of Oz and the mischief of the scuzzy Bobby (a disgusting Willem Dafoe) may separate Luna and Sailor, it’s destiny which declares they spend their lives together.
Belle de Jour (1967): I’ll admit that this one is a long shot. Luis Bunuel films aren’t your typical “romantic” fair, yet this entry questions the nature of love and whether it’s attainable from a character who is alien to it.
Catherine Deneuve plays Severine, a bourgeois wife who has her life planned out in terms of wealth and safety. Is it enough? The question is never answered as Severine ventures into a Parisian brothel.
Fueled by fantasy, but failed by reality, Severine becomes twined into a lover’s quarrel that leads to an attempt on her husband’s life. Yet, at the end of the film, Bunuel leaves you with questions – the mark of a great filmmaker: Is fulfillment possible? Does love lead to martyrdom? Is Severine’s husband really paralyzed?
In the Mood for Love (2000): This is the best example of “the one that got away.” That isn’t my opinion; that’s a fact across the board.
Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung are seeking souls separated by class. They cross paths in their shared tenement when they each find out their other half is carrying on an affair…with the other’s loved one.
Wong-Kar-Wai’s direction is subtle in breaking your heart. You want the characters to break through and embrace, but the most you get is a hand embrace and a whisper into a wall.
I promise you, this film will have you yearning for what might have been.
