As the air thickens with heat and once-grey Vancouver blossoms into vibrant greens, it becomes clear that summer is upon us. While the season is known for outdoor celebrations and joyous festivities, it means only one thing for this local sad cinephile — afternoons watching the most gut-wrenching films one’s ever had the displeasure of viewing. I love nature as much as the next person, but there is nothing as cathartic as bawling my eyes out in a half-empty theatre in the middle of June.
No Vancouver movie spot understands this desire quite as fully as the Park Theatre, which hosted Vancouver Bleak Week. Running from June 19-25, the festival features nine of the darkest films to hit the big screen, ranging from sad-girl essential The Virgin Suicides, to deep cut In a Glass Cage, to film school classic The Deer Hunter. The Park’s curated selection is only a small portion of the larger, worldwide Bleak Week festivities. Originally beginning in 2022 with the American Cinematheque, the festival first ran out of two independent theatres in California. Fast forward to 2026 and it has expanded to nearly 100 theatres across the U.S., Canada, U.K. and South and Central America. As a collaborative series under a common theme, each participating venue curates their own lineup of devastating films.
The word “bleak” holds a variety of interpretations, so to provide some guidance for curators, the American Cinematheque explains the theme as “stark imagery, unimaginable tragedies, existential fear, nihilism and shocking acts of brutality.” Essentially, if the film makes you question humanity, it'll probably make an appearance. When curating the Park’s lineup, programmer Rachel Fox sourced most selections from local independent filmmakers and supporters of the Vancouver film scene. Names like Sean Baker (Anora, The Florida Project), Osgood Perkins (Longlegs) and Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) are bound to spark the interest of film lovers — at least, they sparked mine.
Fox spoke about how receptive and supportive local filmmakers have been to The Park since its reopening back in December. The theatre, which was previously owned by Cineplex, officially closed its doors back in October. It was then reclaimed by the owners of the Rio Theatre with the financial support of several high-profile filmmakers who came onboard as investors. Many of these filmmakers-turned-investors were brought on board for the Bleak Week selection process and even made appearances at the theatre to introduce the films.
Samantha Quan, UBC alumni and producer of Oscar-winning film Anora, was one such filmmaker. She introduced her selection, The Virgin Suicides, on June 19 to kick off the festival, and was joined by American Cinematheque programmer Stephanie Lopez to speak prior to the screening.
Lopez explained the origin of Bleak Week and the goals of the festival. “It's really a testament to the power of cinema that these depressing, fucked-up movies bring us all together like this. And I think that's a beautiful thing,” she said.
The mic was then passed to Quan, who explained her selection and the depressing yet lighthearted nature of The Virgin Suicides.
“It's bleak, but it also has a warmth and beauty to it, an openness to it — a quirky sense of humour that kind of softens the darkness.”
This interplay between the soft aesthetic, dry humour and disturbing subject matter was what made me first fall in love with the film back in early high school, and years later, it still evoked the dreamy, depressing aura of 14-year-old me. Soft pastels and idealized girlish imagery may not paint an accurate portrait of a depressed teenage girl, but I think it perfectly captures who men think a depressed teenage girl is. She is mysterious, she is unreachable, she is perfect and she is forever immortalized within that perfection.
The Virgin Suicides, based on the novel of the same name by Jeffrey Eugenides, was adapted for the screen by Sofia Coppola in 1999. The story follows the Lisbon sisters as they live their mundane suburban lives in a quiet neighbourhood in Detroit. While the plot follows the lives of the sisters, the audience is never truly let into their inner world. Instead, we simply observe them through the gaze of the teenage boys who exist around them. We take on the role of a voyeur as we enter and re-enter their house through the eyes of various boys and men. This creates an almost morbid curiosity within the viewer and colours their understanding of the Lisbon sisters.
Quan highlighted this as her favourite part of the film. “I think there’s something very special about this [film]. The story is male gaze, but it's a female gaze filmmaker, so it's through her lens, and there's a beautiful balance with that.”
Coppola’s distinct style makes the film gorgeous to watch, with each frame a work of art entrenched with symbolism. However, underneath this visual candy land, a darker reality unfolds. Isolation, sexual repression and objectification underpin the melancholic tone of the film. There are also several visual metaphors that made me squirm in my seat, alluding to the film’s inevitable end; the tree motif in particular struck me, where a street once lined with lively greenery becomes a collection of stumps by the end of the story.
The second film I was able to attend was Grave of the Fireflies, screened on June 20 and offering a slightly more traditional take on bleak. The film, selected by staff at The Park, was a first-time viewing for me. Although I was familiar with Studio Ghibli as a production company, nothing could have prepared me for the pain I experienced. Studio Ghibli — known for feel-good classics like My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away — shook me to my core with Grave of the Fireflies. The film, directed by Isao Takahata, follows two siblings as they navigate the aftermath of the U.S. army firebombing in Kobe. We, alongside Setsuko and her older brother Seita, learn early on that the children’s mother has died during the bombings. With their father serving as a Japanese Navy captain, the children are left to fend for themselves. We watch Seita work tirelessly to provide for Setsuko and ensure her safety, both emotionally and physically. With Seita himself still being a child and coping with an almost complete lack of adult support, we watch the health and well-being of the children slowly degrade.
The death of both children is revealed almost immediately in the film, as Seita’s passing acts as a framing device for the narrative. This creates a tension that lasts throughout the film, as the audience grows increasingly attached to the characters despite knowing of their eventual demise. Needless to say, I was gutted for at least the last third of the film. The pure love between Seita and Setsuko, the needless violence as seen through the eyes of children, and the laissez-faire attitude toward death from the adults all resulted in a heart-wrenching watch. It was beautiful and tragic, and left me weeping in my seat past the credits.
Unfortunately, as I was only in Vancouver for a few days, I was unable to catch any of the other Bleak Week films in the theatre. Out of pure curiosity, I did watch Nightcrawler, selected by Zach Lipovsky (Freaks, Final Destination: Bloodlines). The breadth and diversity of these films is remarkable, with each selection offering a different texture to the lineup. Between The Virgin Suicides, Grave of the Fireflies and Nightcrawler, I experienced a depth of emotion I typically can’t achieve through my average movie-night flick.
I’ve always been drawn to dark subject matter in art. Whether that be through paintings that catch my eye or through music, there seems to be an unrelenting gravitational pull between myself and a good tear-jerker. After much consideration — and years of having my suggestions shot down at family movie nights — I think I know why. The cathartic rush of feeling it all, no sugar coating needed, is the closest art gets to making me feel truly alive and eternally grateful for life, even if that means sitting in a dark theatre for a couple hours on a beautiful summer evening. As Fox put it, “Who needs sunscreen? Who needs sunshine? Who needs roses and the beach? We don't.” Sometimes the only thing you really need is a good cry.
