In the wake of Inception, I thought it might be fun to create a list of 10 of the best mind mess movies. All of these films are very good, with some masterpieces. What they have in common is a tendency to question reality and confuse what is real and what is not. Also, like the best art, many of these films leave their meaning completely open to interpretation for each viewer. For anyone who likes films to challenge them as well as entertain them, these films are highly recommended.
Last Year at Marienbad (1961)- This strange, jigsaw puzzle of a film is truly polarizing, as it is either considered a masterpiece of postmodern cinema or representative of foreign cinema at its most pretentious and silly. The simple plot of Alain Resnais' film;, a woman in a baroque hotel continuously is seduced by a man who insists they have met before. The couple is somewhat stalked by a man who may or may not be her husband. That is it. The characters are never named. Other characters move like robots-if they move at all. The score is primarily played by organ, giving it an eerie similarity to funeral music. The giant baroque rooms have a lifeless, scary quality that was surely not lost on Stanley Kubrick (see the end of 2001 and The Shining).
Persona (1966)-In Ingmar Bergman's controversial yet lauded film, an actress suffers a mental breakdown on stage, soon never to speak again. She is taken to a remote cottage to be under the care of one nurse. Yet, the more the nurse tries to communicate with the actress, the more their personalties begin to merge. The film uses mirrors, seemingly unrelated but powerful imagery and, most famously, long close ups of each actress in order to present its puzzle . It includes legendary moments for film buffs,such as a moment where the film seemingly burns itself into two parts and a disturbing split close up where the actresses seem to share the same face. Is our identity based only on how we think others perceive us? This film has no answers, only enticing questions.
In a distant future full of intelligent machines, the wealthy and powerful live their lives to the fullest, without limits, without restraint, and seemingly without end. But what happens if the artificial intelligence that makes this “perfect” world possible wants to share in it? David is a former planetary cop who resigned in disgrace. He is a freelance clone hunter now, a glorified gun for hire. He and his junior partner, Rachel, are hired by Montserrat, a brutal Oligarch, to track down a murderous clone that threatens the stability of Montserrat’s private planet. The more David and Rachel delve into the case the more corruption and rot they discover, until they come face to face with their own darkest secrets and must decide which side they are on.
That's the synopsis of the new cult Sci-Fi Hit, CLONE HUNTER directed by Andrew Bellware.
IFC recently had chance to sit down and talk with Andrew about his latest directorial effort...
IFC: Clone Hunter is the fifth science fiction film produced by your company, Pandora Machine. How did you ever resist the urge to make a fine piece of navel gazing mumblecore and do such a mainstream genre film instead? Andrew Bellware: We resisted by the fact that with as little money as there is in genre films, there’s even less in art-house pictures. Ha!
Truthfully, there’s more artistic freedom in making a good “genre” picture -- I mean as long as you have the appropriate amount of spaceships you can basically make any kind of picture you want. Really, nobody makes as strongly political pictures as George Romero. His movies are subversive, man! The zombie proletariat rising up against the bourgeoisie? You’d never be able to do that in an art-house flick.
Besides that -- my first two pictures were a Hamlet we shot on a toy Pixelvision camera and a movie based on John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Nobody but nobody can sit through either of those movies. If I’m going to do an art-house film it’s going to be a day in the life of my cat. It’ll be mostly about sleeping.
IFC: I have to ask you about your company logo sequence with the naked woman at the beginning of the film. Who came up with that one?
AB: You see, it’s Pandora -- the mythological character who opens the box which contains all human misery -- but in our world when she reaches into the box she finds a laser gun and blows you away with it. Right? Get it? OK, yeah, that was my idea. It amused me at the time. Heck, it still amuses me.
To quote David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap, “There is a fine line between being clever and being stupid.” This list below includes 10 films (some of them classics) that are at least marred somewhat by a terrible ending, often through a ridiculous and unnecessary twist. Warning: includes spoilers, but most of them are films you either have already seen or don’t need to waste your time seeing.
1. High Tension (2003)
This one was particularly frustrating for me as a horror fan. For much of its run time, High Tension is arguably the best and scariest slasher film since the original Halloween. It is an intense, gory and unrelenting cat and mouse game between a young woman and a brute of a truck driver who is holding her friend hostage. However, the film is nearly ruined by a totally ridiculous twist: the young woman and the killer are actually the same person. This twist is senseless because A) some of the kills seem to require superhuman strength. They might be possible for the bear of a truck driver, but improbable for a woman roughly half his size; and B) there is a car chase in the middle of the film between the victim and the killer. Did she somehow drive two cars at once and chase herself? Is the audience supposed to somehow suspend disbelief and accept that she (and the kidnapped girl, for that matter) imagined the car chase? If it had maintained the pace it started with and found a more believable ending, this could have been a horror classic. What a waste.
Over the years those of us who work in independent film distribution have had a love hate relationship with Netflix. While they used to carry at least a few units of everything, their business model put a big hurt on Blockbuster and ultimately our bottom line. Netflix can service the entire country with 90-300 units of an indie title. They have no problem making indie film audiences wait weeks for a selection. Blockbuster, on the other hand, needed at least 1,800 units, usually more, to service the entire country. It's not hard to do the math to see where revenue has disappeared. None the less, the near guaranteed sale to Netflix on everything we released eased the pain a bit.
--Until recently, when Netflix has begun to pass on indie titles, even for streaming only. This is a terrible turn of events for independent films. Ironically, it is Blockbuster Total Access (soon to be just Block online) that is now the only champion left for independent film rental product of any real consequence.
Our latest release, the sci fi film CLONE HUNTER, is available through Block Total Access. If you are a subscriber, or are just tired of the Netflix shuffle, check it out. The film streets August 10. If you've never been to Blockbuster Online, you'll be pleasantly surprised by how efficient their interface is. I think its one of the best kept secrets in home entertainment.
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Last Year at Marienbad (1961)- This strange, jigsaw puzzle of a film is truly polarizing, as it is either considered a masterpiece of postmodern cinema or representative of foreign cinema at its most pretentious and silly. The simple plot of Alain Resnais' film;, a woman in a baroque hotel continuously is seduced by a man who insists they have met before. The couple is somewhat stalked by a man who may or may not be her husband. That is it. The characters are never named. Other characters move like robots-if they move at all. The score is primarily played by organ, giving it an eerie similarity to funeral music. The giant baroque rooms have a lifeless, scary quality that was surely not lost on Stanley Kubrick (see the end of 2001 and The Shining).
Persona (1966)-In Ingmar Bergman's controversial yet lauded film, an actress suffers a mental breakdown on stage, soon never to speak again. She is taken to a remote cottage to be under the care of one nurse. Yet, the more the nurse tries to communicate with the actress, the more their personalties begin to merge. The film uses mirrors, seemingly unrelated but powerful imagery and, most famously, long close ups of each actress in order to present its puzzle . It includes legendary moments for film buffs,such as a moment where the film seemingly burns itself into two parts and a disturbing split close up where the actresses seem to share the same face. Is our identity based only on how we think others perceive us? This film has no answers, only enticing questions. 
In a distant future full of intelligent machines, the wealthy and powerful live their lives to the fullest, without limits, without restraint, and seemingly without end. But what happens if the artificial intelligence that makes this “perfect” world possible wants to share in it? David is a former planetary cop who resigned in disgrace. He is a freelance clone hunter now, a glorified gun for hire. He and his junior partner, Rachel, are hired by Montserrat, a brutal Oligarch, to track down a murderous clone that threatens the stability of Montserrat’s private planet. The more David and Rachel delve into the case the more corruption and rot they discover, until they come face to face with their own darkest secrets and must decide which side they are on. 
Andrew Bellware: We resisted by the fact that with as little money as there is in genre films, there’s even less in art-house pictures. Ha!