Alexandra's Project (2003)

If ever I were to describe a film as harrowing it would be this one. Excruciating throughout, Alexandra's Project is the cinematic equivalent of being on the verge of a panic attack. The first half of the film had me wound up tauter than I've been in a long while. Both lead actors give phenomenal performances, a husband and wife pair whose relationship hides an almost unfathomable darkness in its domestic ennui, manifesting itself in the most sadistic possible way. It falls apart a bit towards the end, but that doesn't really detract from the blistering emotional trauma we bear witness to; no memory is left unmaimed, no scrap of happiness is allowed to survive. I think part of the reason I found the film so affecting is that I knew nothing about it going into it, the first half of the film remains just ambiguous enough that you aren't really sure what's going on before you're dunked headfirst into a very, very deep pool of cruelty.

The Last of England (1987)

Where's Hope? 
The little white lies have carried her off beyond the cabbage patch.

They've murdered her? 
Yes.

And Tomorrow? 
Tomorrow's been cancelled owing to lack of interest.

This begins like a long-form version of the clips Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor would play during their live shows, though admittedly that comparison would probably make more sense in reverse. It proceeds to get progressively more putrid, a downward spiral of rot and sexuality; Jarman's own deeply personal apocalypse in 8mm audio-visual montage. Everything is in decay and forgotten, visions of a Britain left gutted and hopeless by Thatcherite policies. It makes for difficult watching and many of its scenes outstay their welcome, but you can't deny the anger and contempt that seep through every still. This is film-making at its most venomous.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973-74)

While director Kinji Fukasaku is now most well known for authoritarian high-school free-for-all Battle Royale, it's his pentalogy of Yakuza films, Battles Without Honor and Humanity, that originally cemented him in the cinematic landscape. The series largely follows a Yakuza member, Shozo Hirono, through 25 years of post-World War II Japan and as the title suggests, there is no romanticising of gangsters to be found here; it is every bit as bloody, backstabbing and chaotic as you might expect from the Yakuza underworld.

In spite of an almost unrelenting string of deaths and political manoeuvring one thing that struck me about the series is quite how much fun it manages to be. I think this is in large part due to the sheer energy of it, everything is so dynamic, kinetic and in your face, moving the plot along at breakneck speed. At times this can be confusing, but I think that only reflects how the Yakuza's allegiances and standing can change at the drop of a hat - greed and egos fuelling an unbroken chain of violence and murder in a lawless world.

I'm usually wary of films that are broken up into many parts (particularly when several of those parts end up being a wholly unnecessary cash grab - this seems to be becoming increasingly common of late) but I really enjoyed the segmented nature of this one. With each film you better understand the Yakuza and their idiosyncrasies and it was enough just to hear the main motif of the series to get all fired up again - excessive brawling and backstabbing await!

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002)

"Quickly outlander, I haven't much time."

Morrowind, quintessential stranger in a strange land experience, captured a sense of Otherness better than anything else I have come across. The island of Vvardenfell is an odd and desolate place, riven through with mistrust, pervasively lonely and populated by a people that are wholly foreign; their language, politics and culture a far cry from our own. That alien nature lends itself perfectly to exploration - it's not just the bizarre land that you are exploring (menacing mist and towering mushrooms, ash storms and the corpses of giant hollowed-out crabs) but the very people themselves, growing to understand them and their background, their beliefs. You learn of mythical figures in their history, the people that made their world the way it is, and eventually you may even meet them too; having heard so much about them these meetings becomes all the more powerful an experience. Vivec, warrior-poet deity of the Tribunal Temple, is particularly interesting - a being that is on some level aware that they are a fiction, they don't actually exist, and yet in recognising that their universe is a fiction they are able to alter it, rewriting history such that they were always a god. Much like the rest of the setting, it is completely bizarre and fascinating to uncover.

Morrowind was such a defining feature of my childhood that I'm not sure I can separate my own nostalgia from the genuine qualities of the game; I would say it had a greater impact on my interests than anything else I ate up as a kid. Revisiting it feels almost like coming home and I still get goosebumps whenever I hear the title theme:

Planescape: Torment (1999)

"What can change the nature of a man?"

Many things can and I would say that Planescape: Torment is among them - if nothing else it is a deeply memorable experience that sticks with you for a long time after it's finished. One might be inclined to argue that it is as much a book as a game, what with the majority of the contents taking the form of reams of wonderful dialogue, but I think that would be doing the interactivity of the thing a disservice. It is through player choices that the story becomes your own, the conclusion becomes one of your making and is all the more affecting for it. I felt so much more engaged with the Nameless One's plight than I ever have in any game that has allowed for a blank slate character to worm your own personality into. I think this is as much to do with the games premise, a fundamentally human search for identity, as it is the wonderful writing.

But ah, such wonderful writing it is, among the best in video games by no small margin. My favourite example is a scene that takes place in the private sensorium (where memories, experiences, sensations are stored in stones for the perusal of all) - if you've played the game you'll know exactly the one I mean. The scene is told simultaneously from three separate perspectives, only one aware of the others, and it is utterly gut-wrenching, an absolute marvel. I wish that I could write like that. The phenomenal writing is extended to the characters, each fascinating in their own right and with a depth that comes to surprise you; there are no shortage of secrets to be uncovered here. The way the story unfolds, re-contextualising things that you have heard before as you gradually piece together who you are, who you were - it is sublime (of course then there's also the gleeful post-modern stabs at videogame idiosyncracies - take the Modron cube, a pocket dimension serving as mechanical auto-generating dungeon parody of the archetypal RPG).

Consider the setting itself, the city of Sigil and the planes, very loosely something out of D&D but turned on its head, perverted and twisted and endlessly interesting. Sigil exists beyond the wants and needs of the player. Or does it? What footprint have your past lives left behind that you are not yet aware of? How much of this was shaped by you? Explore Sigil's streets and you'll find that each person has their own story to tell and that every one of them is in some way meaningful. The sheer scope of the setting is impressive too, Sigil is connected via portals to all the planes of existence and so the potential of the game becomes bigger than is ever truly possible. Whether or not these portals actually exist in-game is moot - in the player's mind the whole place is steeped in possibilities, pregnant with potential and the lingering unknown - more captivating than any stolid truth could hope to be. It doesn't need to exist for the player to wonder what might await them at the end of any alleyway.

Ultimately, Planescape serves as a moving meditation on any number of themes - the ties between memory and identity, the indivisibility of the self, the inescapable clutches of mortality, the sting of regret, egocentrism, self-sacrifice, cruelty, kindness and the irreducibility of life. That it manages to do so by keeping it all inextricably tied to player interaction and choice and to be so deeply affecting in the process is a remarkable achievement and I suspect that I may not get the chance to play anything quite like this for a long time to come.

"Endure. In enduring, grow strong."