Beginning
When we talk about ‘intelligent cinema’ today, we are, of course, referring to the films of Christopher Nolan. The man who turned comic books into ‘something serious’ finally received the budget he needed to realise his fantasies in 2010 and made his best film (so far, of course). Despite the seemingly complex nature of the plot, the adventures of Leonardo DiCaprio and his team in other people’s dreams are extremely structured and incredibly logically organised — but it is still possible to get confused, so engaging your grey matter while watching is not just desirable, but absolutely necessary.
Mr. Nobody
This lyrical masterpiece by the little-known Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael, who is considered an intellectual filmmaker, is essentially a romantic comedy. More precisely, it takes the best of the genre and mixes it with fantasy, grotesque and even surrealism. The result is Jared Leto, made up to look like an old man (the director’s irony is in full swing), who tells us three different versions of his past. The stories are interrupted and confused, but they are all absolutely true.
Adventures await you here – Discover Free Spin
12 Monkeys
Terry Gilliam, who had not yet gone underground in auteur cinema (simply put, he was still being paid decent money in the 90s), managed to combine his passion for shock value and surrealism with a narrative and visual aesthetics that were understandable to a wide audience in 12 Monkeys. That is why Bruce Willis, who repeatedly returns to the present from a devastated future, seems to be the true saviour of humanity, rather than a jester, as is often the case with Gilliam’s main characters. However, there are still some plot twists here.
The Game
To some extent, David Fincher’s third film was unlucky: The Game was sandwiched in his filmography between such heavyweights as Seven and Fight Club. However, it was in this paranoid thriller that the director’s famous style of dissecting reality layer by layer matured, leaving the viewer unsure whether there is any reality at all. This is exactly what Michael Douglas’ character does in the reality ‘simulator’ created at the behest of his brother (Sean Penn) to find out what he is capable of and how durable this world is. You know how it usually ends.
Entrance into the void
The nearly three-hour film experiment by the scandalous Argentinean Gaspar Noé (everyone has probably heard of Irreversible) is noteworthy first and foremost for its boldness — and it’s not about the explicit scenes or overt cruelty. It’s in the bold and uncompromising cinematic language that the director has chosen to tell what is, by and large, a simple story. But when you follow Benoît Debie’s camera as it soars through the streets of Tokyo, listening to the infernal sounds of human bodies, you realise that there are no simple stories. There are only simple storytellers.
Loop
Once again, Bruce Willis travels through time — this time not to save humanity, but to save himself. And, of course, he encounters himself — only in the form of actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In short, space-time paradoxes are inevitable. Credit must be given to director Rian Johnson, who has elegantly shifted the emphasis that is usual for this kind of film: the few action scenes (beautifully shot!) are less dynamic here than the dramatic confrontation of a man with himself.