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Author Topic: Top Five Inscrutable Films  (Read 1756 times)

oldkid

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Top Five Inscrutable Films
« on: March 23, 2017, 06:55:36 PM »
Or, as an alternative title, "Top Five Films Darkening Humor Should Avoid".

You can put on your list your favorite films that are difficult to understand or the five films most baffling.

Favorite Inscrutable Films:
1. The Double Life of Veronique
2. Upstream Color
3. Barton Fink
4. Mulholland Dr.
5. Synecdoche, NY

Most Inscrutable Films, from my perspective:
1. Last Year at Marienbad
2. Anything by Stan Brakhage, but, let's say, Dog Star Man
3. Eraserhead
4. Pi
5. Primer

Honorable mention for both lists: Syndromes of a Century
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Top Five Inscrutable Films
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2017, 09:10:18 PM »
Think most of these are scrutable.

oldkid

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Re: Top Five Inscrutable Films
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2017, 09:38:40 PM »
But they aren't your lists, are they?  All of these I had to seek out help for the films to make enough sense to me.
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Top Five Inscrutable Films
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2017, 10:17:22 PM »
I'm just being difficult and using words that don't exist.

PeacefulAnarchy

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Re: Top Five Inscrutable Films
« Reply #4 on: March 23, 2017, 10:26:45 PM »
Scrurable is a word. And you're right most of those are. Even Upstream Colour which I personally didn't understand is scrutable.

I don't know if this the closest to an inscrutable narrative movie I've seen, but since I watched it recently Doggiewoggiez! Poochiewoochiez! is a good candidate. Eraserhead is The Straight Story in comparison.

Junior

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Re: Top Five Inscrutable Films
« Reply #5 on: March 24, 2017, 12:34:25 AM »
I don't know if I scruted Mulholland Drive, but I do know I liked it a lot. I liked Persona less, even if I scruted it a bit more, but it'd be on my list as well. People tell me I don't scrute The Big Lebowski if I don't love it, which I don't, so maybe that's one? Other than that, scruting comes pretty easy to me, or I've not pushed myself enough. Probably the latter.
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1SO

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Re: Top Five Inscrutable Films
« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2017, 05:01:46 AM »
Or, as an alternative title, "Top Five Films Darkening Humor Should Avoid".

I'm going to pull the 10 from my List of Essentials that DH should avoid.

1. Tetsuo: The Iron Man
2. Naked Lunch
3. The Man Who Fell to Earth
4. Noriko's Dinner Table
5. Love Exposure
6. Satantango/Werckmeister Harmonies
7. Paranoia Agent
8. The 7th Victim
9. Pulse
10. Brewster McCloud

and the short films...
Passionless Moments
Scorpio Rising

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Top Five Inscrutable Films
« Reply #7 on: March 24, 2017, 07:10:54 AM »
Aw, look at you guys helping me keep my sanity.

In truth, I would probably avoid Tetsuo just for the body horror.

Most inscrutable:

There is a difference between an inscrutable film and one that is simply inaccessible. Inscrutable films have no real logic, no grammar and their pieces do not fit together. They offer no key to break through their code. It is not that their meanings and goings on are open and ambiguous. A movie can be open to interpretation while suggesting ways of understanding them. The Seventh Seal operates utterly on metaphoric and symbolic levels so that its meaning is never immediate plain, but those same metaphors and symbols are what allows us to create theories about what is says. The theories will disagree, but they will always be substantiated by elements of the film. Inscrutable films, however, point in no way or other.

  • Synecdoche, New York
  • Eraserhead
  • Under the Skin
  • Mulholland Drive
  • The Double Life of Véronique

Most inaccessible that are not inscrutable:

  • Solaris
  • End of Evangelion
  • The Seventh Seal
  • 8 1/2
  • Upstream Colour

Before someone calls me out about an inscrutable movie that's scrutable or a scrutable movie that isn't: this is not an exact science. Also, I may not be the most scrutinger person. I am certainly no Junior.
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jdc

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Re: Top Five Inscrutable Films
« Reply #8 on: March 24, 2017, 07:24:58 AM »
Or, as an alternative title, "Top Five Films Darkening Humor Should Avoid".

I'm going to pull the 10 from my List of Essentials that DH should avoid.

1. Tetsuo: The Iron Man
2. Naked Lunch
3. The Man Who Fell to Earth
4. Noriko's Dinner Table
5. Love Exposure
6. Satantango/Werckmeister Harmonies
7. Paranoia Agent
8. The 7th Victim
9. Pulse
10. Brewster McCloud

and the short films...
Passionless Moments
Scorpio Rising

Except everybody should watch these:


1. Tetsuo: The Iron Man
2. Naked Lunch

These two almost had me give up on Sion Sono:

4. Noriko's Dinner Table
5. Love Exposure

But I have to say that I liked Guilty of Romance
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Corndog

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Re: Top Five Inscrutable Films
« Reply #9 on: March 24, 2017, 08:12:28 AM »
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

 

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