Top Five "Mind Benders"

In honor of the recent release of Inception, I decided to compile a list of my favorite cerebral flicks.

A "mind bender" is a film that challenges the audience in one or several of many different ways, perhaps with a non-linear plot or with a difficult to comprehend subject matter. These films are typically independent "artsy" works.

Having gone to film school for four years, I have seen plenty of these such films. Keep i mind I am not rating on the confusing-ness of the film alone, but rather that paired with my own enjoyment.

5. That Obscure Object of Desire



Luis Bunuel, the father of surrealist film, is to this day best known for his film collaboration with Salvador Dali in Un Chien Andalou. That film is easily more mind destroying than any on this list but I didn't really care for it. That Obscure Object of Desire, on the other hand, I greatly enjoyed. The film was Bunuel's last, but he continued his penchant for making audiences scratch their heads through some ingenious directorial decisions.

See the two girls in the picture above? Well, they happen to be the same person. Not in real life, of course, but in the film. They play the same character, Conchita, who personifies the desires of the main character Mathieu. Speaking, of, he is a lot older than both actresses, making their romantic tryst quite creepy. Finally there is a band of terrorists running around causing havoc for no apparent reason. If you aren't confused by this film, apply for MENSA.

The device of having two actresses playing one character is this film's defining legacy. Bunuel was the only director who could pull that trick off. He didn't do it for a thematic reason, having one girl turn into the other when she was angry/sad/horny/etc (Hulk syndrome). He hired both actresses and they came in on alternating days. Simple as that. And yet the move prompted endless discussions on Bunuel's decision, perhaps how one actress related to "desire" in a different way than the other, or one represented temptation, the other virginity, blah blah blah ad nauseum... that is one of the true signs of a mind bender; the amount of IMDB forum posts.

4. Blow-Up



Admittedy, I am not a big Michelangelo Antonioni fan. I find most of his work to be pretentious, overly long, boring, and sleep inducing.

So I was pleasantly surprised when Blow-Up kept me not only wide awake, but actually riveted. The film deals with a photographer who believes he may have mistakenly photographed a murder. His suspicions are heightened when a body turns up, then disappears, then reappears... it is all quite discombobulating (its a word look it up). By the end of the film, we still are not sure that a murder did in fact take place.

And then there are those pesky mimes.

Much like the terrorists in That Obscure Object of Desire, the mimes permeate the film, coming in and out, seeming entirely out of place... until they somehow wrap everything up at the end.

The film is about perception versus reality, and a bunch of other deep stuff. Plus it has a rare cameo performance from the Yardbirds sandwiched in for some reason.

3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind



Like Bunuel's work, a casting decision helps the confusion spread, but Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has much more going for it than that. Some nifty forced perspective photography, bizarre flash backs and flash forwards, and scenes that get erased from existence right before our eyes, all add up to make Eternal Sunshine a bizarre love story that will pull on your heart strings while simultaneously reminding the audience that our memories make us who we are. Without them, things go just plain screwy.

Like Inception, much of this film takes place within the fabric of the characters' minds. Arguably the version of the subconcious that we see here is more convincing. Director Michel Gondry did a great job capturing the ephemeral nature of memory. Pretty scary to think what our lives would be like without it... see below for more on that.

2. American Psycho



Some of the other movies on this list are subtle in their insanity, delving carefully into areas of the human psyche and trying to impart some layer of meaning into the viewer. American Psycho does all that, but is in your face, bat shit insane, and not shy about it.

Christian Bale was born to play Patrick Bateman, the main character who is never at a loss for words ("I have to return some video tapes"). A stereotype from a materialistic chauvinistic society, Bateman speaks in sales pitches, hires prostitutes, and, oh yeah, kills people on the side. There are mistaken identities, plot twists, and bizarre moments aplenty in this film, and at the end we are left wondering, was it all real?

While it is indeed confusing on a first watch, American Psycho revels in its strangeness. Some of Bateman's off the wall lines are classics.

1. Memento



My favorite overall movie also happens to fall into the "mind bender" category, so naturally it takes the top spot!

People who try to sum up the plot will say that it goes backwards and leave it at that; but to reduce it to that is to over-simplify the genius of the film. It starts in two different places, and then meets in the middle! One story goes backwards, the other forwards. As if that wasn't enough, the plot happens to concern a mystery being solved by a man who can not make memories. No problem, as he tattoos the most vital clues on his body and leaves himself notes to help in his daily routine. The only question is, can he trust himself?

Here is writer/director Christopher Nolan's reasoning behind the uniqueness of Memento's narrative structure: if the main character doesn't have a clue what just happened to him, why should the audience?

Memento, like these other films, is great because it doesn't spoon feed any information to the viewer. Sometimes, letting people figure things out for themselves can lead to a much more rewarding and entertaining cinema experience.