10 Weird Movies That Purposely Tried To Confuse You

6. Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard)

Jean-Luc Godard may be looked upon with some derision by film fans nowadays, but his 1960s period threw up innovative masterworks at the impressive rate of two films per year. The culmination of this period was 1968's Weekend, which remains arguably the difficult and experimental piece of political cinema ever conceived. Setting aside the Marxist subtexts of the film, the most interest aspect of Godard's vision is his provocative determination to refuse the viewer the chance to "escape" into the film itself. His characters break the fourth wall constantly, complaining about how "rotten" the film is and asking questions about whether they are "in a film or in reality". He flashes puns up on screen, with the blocky letters disrupting the story. Erotic moments, such as a discussion between two characters about a sexual experience, are masked by a lack of lighting and a deliberately overpowering soundtrack, refusing the audience access to the sordid details. As Godard puts it, he is creating "unpleasurable" cinema that does not allow his audience to hide from reality into the world of cinema. The most infamous moment of this war on cinematic narrative comes in the form of a 10 minute tracking shot of a traffic jam of people trying to leave the city. The audience is forced to watch on as Godard plays a visual joke on them - these characters cannot "escape" from the busy city due to the traffic jam before them, much like the viewer cannot "escape" from his/her life into the film because it refuses them that luxury at every turn. The film is a complex study of cinema, politics, literature, philosophy and language that has alienated many viewers over time. However, its attempt to kill off cinematic escapism is impressively confrontational. As the film notes at its conclusion, this is Godard's epitaph to Hollywood narrative film: Weekend is designed to be the "fin de cinema".