The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

February is the best month for all those heart-wrenching films! We all like a good cry wrapped in a blanket in front of a top-notch performance, and we know the right four movies that will elicit the highest feeling of catharsis through shedding some good tears!

My Girl (1991)

A deeply deceptive film in its premise and the way it originally promoted itself. Vada is an 11-year-old girl whose mother died at birth and her dad runs a funeral home, where she lives. In every other way, her life is that of an ordinary girl just at the brink of adolescence. However, the movie takes the concept of innocence and the inherent sadness of growing up and leaving childhood behind a step further. Tragedy strikes, and through the movie’s complex storyline, Vada learns what it means to lose, and the acceptance of hurt in life. It’s beautifully sad: a must watch!

Watch the trailer here.

 

Pain and Glory (2019)

Repeatedly named one of the best films of 2019, it’s also one of Almodóvar’s best. The film itself is a homage to his craft, as the plot follows a middle-aged director in the midst of a physical, mental, and creative crisis who revisits his memories, the different stages of his life that formed him, and the people he loved and lost. Its sadness is more refined and subtle than outright centred, but it’s all the more powerful for it.

Watch the trailer here.

Taste of Cherry (1997)

The Palme d’Or winner is, among other things, a beautiful, if not sad, celebration of life with all its complexities. The film is an ambiguous and quiet portrayal of a man who drives through a city suburb in search of someone who can bury him after he commits suicide in return for a large sum of money. The film is minimalist in nature, and it doesn’t attempt to say more than is absolutely crucial. It doesn’t pull on the viewer’s sympathy by showing the plausibly tragic life of the man on the verge of suicide; in fact, it barely says anything at all regarding his life. The effect is therefore even more powerful and subtle, beautiful as life is, in all its harshness and sadness.

Watch the trailer here.

A Sicilian Ghost Story (2017)

Loosely based on the real story of Giuseppe Di Matteo, a child abducted and killed by the Sicilian Mafia in the 1990s, the film creates a dark and ghostly fable through which to tell the admittedly difficult story. Focusing on the point of view of his classmate, Luna, the film follows her as she rebels against the silence and complicity that surround his disappearance. It merges any and all boundaries between reality, fiction, and fantasy until all that remains is pure marvellous storytelling, at the heart of which is a horrid tragedy.

Watch the trailer here.