1/: Primer.

Shane Carruth's ultra-low budget timetravel tale starts with a group of inventors talking high-tech jargon amongst themselves. Few people will be able to follow the conversation but this won't stop the viewer from discerning the relationships between these men. Who takes the lead, who is fed up with who etcetera.

And very cleverly this foreshadows what happens later with the story itself: it dissolves into utter chaos yet this is exactly what Shane is pointing towards. 

Several viewings and a flipchart might help make sense of the last twenty minutes but frankly you're not supposed to. "Primer" stays lucid even when it baffles and its very incomprehensibility becomes a big asset.

2/: Tetsuo

Shinya Tsukamoto's "Tetsuo" doesn't just break the storytelling rules, it breaks nearly all others as well. Completely disregarding anything you might expect concerning visuals, sound and narrative, "Tetsuo" challenges the very concept of watchability itself.

Yet as in a good music-videoclip, the sum of this film's meagre parts actually do combine into a disturbing work of art. Despite its very strong cult status few people will have the patience (and stomach) to actually LIKE "Tetsuo". But if you have seen it you cannot forget it, and its storyholes will prevent you from labelling the film and filing it away in your brain. 

3/: Donnie Darko (theatrical cut)

Note the addendum: this concerns the "Donnie Darko" we saw in theatres back in the days, NOT the director's cut that appeared later and explained too damn much.

I remember leaving the cinema very impressed with a group of friends, and we all had a different take on the ending. The discussions in the pub next door lasted long, and a good time was had by all. Did Donnie have a choice at the end? Did he "steer" things or not? Different camps arose, and everyone was right.

Ambiguity (incomprehensibility's more subtle relative) can be a great thing, and in the case of the theatrical cut of "Donnie Darko", it was.

4/: 2001: A Space Odyssey

If there is one Science-Fiction writer who cannot be accused of ever having written something incomprehensible it is Arthur C. Clarke. No matter how highbrow some of the content of his novels may be, he always explained everything in understandable language. This kept his books readable for basically everyone from age ten onward.

Enter Stanley Kubrick, and the rest is history. You can always do film vs. novel comparisons whenever both exist, but in the case of "2001: A Space Odyssey" the difference is not so much to be found in the content, but in the attitude towards the audience. Clarke takes you by the hand and gently walks you through the story, turning it almost into an Enid Blyton "Famous Five" novel set in space. Kubrick on the other hand doesn't explain anything. Instead, he just throws the viewer into over two hours of often hard-to-interpret images, ending with a caleidoscopical ending that baffled even the readers of the book.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to include "2001: A Space Odyssey" in this list, because I'm not so sure the incomprehensibility here is really an asset (and I'm sure MGM shared this view when the film was released...). Wouldn't it have been an even greater picture if it had been just a bit more understandable for the general public? Not necessarily as much as the novel, but just a bit? Still, movie lovers worldwide had a blast with the revolutionairy images and techniques on display, and we've all been interpreting it to death for over forty years by now. And that's undeniably one of the reasons why it will be a classic forever.

5/: Several films by David Lynch.

If enjoyable incomprehensibility has a king, it's David Lynch. His movies are sumptious-looking, sexy, stunning and often technically perfectly crafted. Yet when Mr. Lynch feels like it he'll send his audience into the forest and leaves them there stranded while he goes home, chuckling to himself. Or so it seems. Be it "Mulholland Drive", "Fire, Walk With Me", "Lost Highway" or "Inland Empire", the viewer is cordially invited to try and make sense of what is happening.

Thing is, with these titles it always pays to persevere and see how far you can get. Sometimes pieces will click together days after viewing it, and a re-watch will make it seem blatantly obvious. So I salute David Lynch for all the times he's tested my brains, and if I feel uncomfortable for each time I fail, that surely is my fault, not his.

In all the examples above the filmmakers tried to make the audience think, and think hard. Therefore I hope we'll see a lot more of these films. There is nothing wrong with giving your brain a good workout and incomprehensibility, when used in the right way, rocks!

(PS: I also wanted to include Mamoru Oshii's "Innocence" but I feared people would run away screaming if I started about "Ghost in the Shell" again...)