10 Weird Movies That Purposely Tried To Confuse You

9. A Family Finds Entertainment (Ryan Trecartin)

From one of the earliest examples of narrative abstraction to one of the most recent. Ryan Trecartin is a digital video director whose films are designed to explore the complicated relationship that young people have with their technological devices. He is interested in the ways in which identity becomes distorted and splintered by time spent on social media. If this all sounds a bit arch and overly conceptual, the horrifying cinematic environments that he creates may well be too much for you. Actors play multiple roles at once, their voices sped up and slowed down depending on context. Narrative is effectively non-existent, with the only consistency being that every character incessantly talks about themselves and various minutiae. Slogans, images and logos are flung at the screen constantly and overwhelming. The soundtrack and visuals are edited deliberately haphazardly and jumpily, causing constant disorientation. One example of this is A Family Finds Entertainment, his debut feature, with the press release describing the film as a mash-up of "cheesy video special effects, dress-up chess costumes, desperate scripts, and €˜after school special€™ melodrama", which is a fairly accurate description of Trecartin's work as a whole. Trecartin's films are essentially supposed to be representative of "now". The characters in his films are children on social networking, narcissistically promoting themselves and changing identities incessantly. His convoluted narratives and rapid editing style represent the sheer quantities of information being thrown at internet users on a daily basis, making his films just as dystopian as, but ultimately far more experimental than, shows such as Black Mirror. His videos are a challenge to sit through because of their oversaturated nature, but they are truly rewarding - and utterly terrifying.