MC Inventory: Best Film that You Find Impossible to Fully Decipher

[dreamdead]

So we've all watched a film that was nigh-impenetrable. With this challenge, I'm interested in the film that you find impossible to fully decipher but still feel yourself drawn to, so that you review it again and again seeking to unpack new layers and images.

[Skitch]

So we've all watched a film that was nigh-impenetrable. With this challenge, I'm interested in the film that you find impossible to fully decipher but still feel yourself drawn to, so that you review it again and again seeking to unpack new layers and images.

I should go with what I watched last night, Akira, but this is too perfect a description for PISTOL OPERA.

[Raiders]

Inland Empire and The Holy Mountain for films that I love yet must admit I am always left searching for some missing puzzle pieces at the end of it.

And no points for anyone mentioning Last Year at Marienbad or Un chien andalou...

[Bandy Greensacks]

The Sea That Thinks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5NBeuRAH5Y) and Un homme qui dort (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ToPoGaA24c) are two that immediately come to mind. Both brilliant, both exceedingly difficult to decipher.

[Spinal]

This is a tough one for me to answer. It's not often that I will watch films again and again. And when I am drawn to a film, it tends to be because I feel that its secrets have been opened up and revealed to me, even if it is simply my own personal interpretation. For example, I no longer consider films like Mulholland Dr. and 2001: A Space Odyssey to be puzzles because I have an interpretation that satisfies me personally, even though it may be different than other people's interpretation.

So, I guess the film that sticks in my head as an answer to this question is Walkabout. Although I feel like the basic themes are straightforward enough, there are still certain scenes and images that remain a pleasant mystery.

[Ezee E]

The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut.

[MadMan]

I vote for Lost Highway.

[Skitch]

I vote for Lost Highway.

GREAT pick.

[Dukefrukem]

Mulholland Dr is a good choice. Certified Copy is another.

[Boner M]

Love Streams, especially the last 30 minutes or so.

Also, Syndromes and a Century and L'intrus.

[bac0n]

Head.

[dreamdead]

L'intrus.

Great choice. This is totally a worthy candidate. Denis might be the ideal filmmaker for such a list, as I'm remembering snippets of Beau Travail that would also match up with this thought.

[MarcusBrody]

I'm not sure it's my all-time choice, but of the films I've seen recently Holy Motors is the film I most enjoyed while knowing that I was completely baffled for much of it.

[Pop Trash]

Love Streams, especially the last 30 minutes or so.


Care to elaborate? I saw this last year but I don't remember the ending being especially baffling.

[Boner M]

Care to elaborate? I saw this last year but I don't remember the ending being especially baffling.
Naked old man in a chair? That turns into(?) a dog(?)?

[Dead & Messed Up]

I feel like I'll be perpetually stuck at understanding 80% of Primer.

[Russ]

Nicolas Winding Refn's Fear X (with a teriffic performance by John Turturro, ref-other thread) remains impenetrable for me, and memorable for the fact that, on the surace, it seems to be narratively structured as a standard genre piece that is meant to be "fully deciphered."

Until the end, when it clearly isn't.

That, and Olivier Smolders' Nuit Noire, a very challenging and demanding film that evokes a Lynch/Kafka cinema-state, yet is ultimately quite rewarding. It may come off as completely cold, barren, dark and alien, but it's chock full of hauntingly beautiful insects.

Plus, IMDb descriptions like this one intrigue me:

http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff324/astrojester/nuitnoirekeywords_zps6162b4d8. jpg

[Skitch]

I feel like I'll be perpetually stuck at understanding 80% of Primer.

I'm at about 85% now and 75% later this week.

[Ivan Drago]

Mulholland Drive, House (1977) and Upstream Color.

[MadMan]

GREAT pick.Thanks.

And yes both Primer and Upstream Color make the list, too.

[Morris Schæffer]

Torque

[dreamdead]

For me this topic will always center on Tarkovsky. Did some reading up on Mirror recently and that reinvigorated my desire to return to that film, but I always feel that I'm ever so close to understanding a zoom, a recurrent image, or a motif and yet ever so far.

[Spun Lepton]

Begotten