Asking for innocent movies and ending up with Lars von Trier

Asking for innocent movies and getting Lars von Trier: the risk of the fantastic recommendation

There is an unwritten rule in cultural consumption: anyone asking for "gentle" titles for a weekend will, with high probability, end up with a list that is anything but innocent. A recent case: a fan of classic fantasy cinema, delighted with A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), asked for suggestions for a two-day movie marathon. The haul ranged from the war film The Beast in Heat to Born for Hell (1976) and, as a finale, the complete filmographies of Todd Solondz, Ulrich Seidl and Lars von Trier.

The gap between what was asked for and what was recommended

The deviation is no accident. It lies in the nature of taste: what is escapism for some is a commitment to extreme drama for others. The resulting list mixes titles like Agárrame esos fantasmas with Odd Thomas, and even the comedy Roque III. Only the final block, the cult directors, shows that the original request – "no gore, no pavor" – was interpreted generously.

Responsible leisure consumption: who filters?

The underlying question is whether responsible leisure consumption exists. When you ask for films that don't force you to grapple with the abyss, who should do the filtering? The platforms, the algorithms, or the viewer themselves. The resulting list is a testing ground: enjoying the gentle or peeking at the uncomfortable are options, but they rarely share the same screening.

The question remains open: if we ask for a movie so we don't have to think and we're invited to choose between Seidl and Solondz, maybe the problem isn't the recommendation, but our certainty about what "innocent" means.