->''They speak in the way only the French can, as if it's not enough for a concept to be difficult, [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible it must be utterly incomprehensible.]]'
-->--'''RogerEbert''' on ''AnatomyOfHell''

A ShowWithinAShow is sometimes the stereotypical artistic independent movie, the kind which practically requires a [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic didactic analysis]] to convince people that, though it does not aim to entertain the LowestCommonDenominator in any way, it's a profoundly meaningful work of TrueArt. If one of the main characters makes one, expect CreatorBreakdown. These films are likely to have several, if not all, of these elements:

* Being in a foreign language, usually [[EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench French]]. As part of this, most in-fiction examples end with a "''Fin''" text overlay.
* Absurd length or brevity.
* [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible Impossible for the average viewer to comprehend]], though [[SlidingScaleOfSillinessVersusSeriousness more serious than silly]].
* [[NoBudget Produced on a shoestring budget]].
* DeliberatelyMonochrome.
* [[TrueArtIsAngsty Depressing as hell]] subject matter presented in an unbearably maudlin style.
* Blatant attempts to offend anyone who watches it.
* Challenges the "status quo".
* Bucket-loads of pretentiousness.
* Rapid cuts between different subjects, often playing into all the above points.

In the best cases, use of this trope is an AffectionateParody or a sharp TakeThat to a particular work, director or movement. It's often the goal of the PrimaDonnaDirector.

Please note that only ShowWithinAShow examples are objective. Applying this trope to a real work can be considered quite YMMV.

----
!!Examples of in-fiction films

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Anime/TheBigO'' does this with Memories in general, but specifically there is a short film with relative importance to the plot done in the French style, complete with [[DeliberatelyMonochrome Deliberate Monochrome]], subtitles (because the dialogue is silent), and a big curlicue "Fin" at the end. But it's more of a FilmNoir with art house symbolism than a true art house film.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* The annoying, pretentious hippie art teacher in ''GhostWorld'', played by IlleanaDouglas, made such a film and shows it to her remedial art class. It's nothing but a few minutes of the words "mirror, father, mirror" repeated over and over, to black and white shots of a shadow walking up stairs and baby-doll parts being thrown in a toilet.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* In ''Mr Bean's Holiday'', the eponymous MrBean puts his holiday movie over the story's antagonist arthouse director's surreal police drama, with the dialogue from the original footage oddly matching with Bean's random images.
* Brought up in ''Film/JayAndSilentBobStrikeBack''. (Although it also refers to Damon's role in the film version of ''TheTalentedMrRipley'').
-->'''Ben Affleck:''' ''(to Matt Damon)'' I'm sorry I dragged you away from what ever gay-serial-killers-who-ride-horses-and-like-to-play-golf-touchy-feely picture you were gonna do this week.
* In ''[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060200/ After the Fox]]'', Peter Sellers plays a master thief who is trying to smuggle gold into Italy. As a cover story, he pretends to shoot an art film in a small coastal village. When the ship carrying the gold is delayed, he has to improvise, shooting scenes at random and trying to come up with explanations for his "artistic vision". At the end, the film is shown [[spoiler:at his trial, where a film critic hails it as a work of genius. Of course.]]
* The low-budget indie French movie being made in ''Film/IrmaVep''. So artistique, the lead actress -- Maggie Cheung -- has no idea what she's doing there, and the angsty director has a nervous breakdown.
* WoodyAllen's character in ''Hollywood Ending'' apparently ends up making one of these accidentally: he was blind while directing it. The American critics hate it, but the French love it...
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''InfiniteJest'': Much of James Incandenza Jr.'s filmography.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' has a hilarious example in "''Le Fromage Grand''", which, underneath its rubbish-dump setting and random selections of violent StockFootage, contains a profoundly tragic narrative about a man, a woman, and a lettuce. The lettuce [[EverythingExplodesEnding explodes in the end]], which is claimed to represent [[FauxSymbolism the self-destructiveness of materialism]].
* ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun'' does this once. Mary says the film is very erotic "once you figure out which character is male and which is female".
* Another Diane -- Diane Chambers -- does this in an episode of ''{{Cheers}}''. She creates the short film "''Manchild in Beantown''" to persuade Woody's parents to allow him to stay in Boston and work at the bar.
* Parodied in ''Series/TheGoodies'' episode "The Movies". The film of a nun stripping to a frenzied cello accompaniment, but revealing a whiteface mime, is especially bizarre. It was a parody of KenRussell's films, specially ''Mahler''.
* Something similar happened on ''The Carpoolers'', with the son making a surrealist film out of a wedding home video and declared a genius by the Sundance Film Festival jury.
* ''MarriedWithChildren'''s "''SHEOS''" [sic].
* A sketch from ''Series/TheBennyHillShow'' features Benny as an avant-garde French director being interviewed by a fawning Henry [=McGee=], only to repeatedly burst [=McGee=]'s bubble about his talent as he reveals that all the artsy stuff was actually the result of a low budget or just laziness, like switching from color to black and white after running out of color film, and casting the producer's girlfriend (who has a lisp, causing her to mispronounce a line where she orders soup and make it sound like a profound philosophical statement) as the lead.
* ''BigTrain'' features a parody of French cinema, shot in black and white and spoken in French with subtitles. A woman in a cafe (played by Catherine Tate) tells her boyfriend she's leaving him for "something else" -- a set of traffic lights. She eventually decides to return, but the man has taken up with a lawn sprinkler.
** A similar sketch has the French woman deliver a similarly angsty, introspective monologue to her companion, who sits and nods patiently before, in English, responding with "No, I'm sorry, I don't understand a word you're saying."
* Similarly, ''TheSmellOfReevesAndMortimer'' had spoof French arthouse films (actually ''less'' surreal than most of the duo's output) starring Le Corbussier et Papin, both remarkably skilled farting artistes.
* ''TheFastShow'' also manages to successfully shoehorn a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4EjX_bywCU catchphrase]] into this trope.
* One of the running jokes in ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'' is a film called "''Les Cousins Dangereux''", which would appear to fit the trope fairly well. This is arguably more a parody of "classy" European softcore films. The parody isn't so much that it's art as that Europe is more sexually liberated. Compare the American remake where "classy" and "erotic" are filtered through more stereotypically puritanical American values.
* Howard Moon of ''TheMightyBoosh'' is a fan of director Jurgen Haabermaaster, whose film ''The Doctor and The Pencil'', "an exploration of pain and rage... so playful," features a doctor and a man in a pencil costume screaming at each other while an unshaded lightbulb swings between them; the doctor also pounds a piece of meat with a telephone handset while yelling "MAKE THE CALL" (seen in "The Chokes").
* Abed's film in ''Series/{{Community}}''.
** From what we see, the Dean's commercial -- which is supposed to be a 30-second spot briefly introducing a community college and why people should study there -- spirals out of control to become one of these, as the Dean gets it into his head that he's somehow combatting racism among other things. 
* ''Series/ICarly''
** An episode has Spencer hiring a film involving a goat and a balloon in order to impress a hot foreign girl.
** In the episodes "iQ", Carly falls for a boy, that is presented as highly intelligent and cultured, enjoys these kinds of movies and takes her to one for their date. Carly is horrified to find out that what she thought was the end of the film after several boring hours was only the intermission.
* ''GilmoreGirls'' has "''A Film by Kirk''", which is hilarious to the title characters.
* Parodied in ''TheChasersWarOnEverything'', which presented an [[http://www.craigmelville.com/Chaser_3/Ingmar_Bergman_-_Inflight_Safety.html inflight safety video, Ingmar Bergman-style.]]
-->"When instructed by your crew member, please adopt the emergency arthouse position."
* In ''Series/BeingHuman'', George, in an attempt to be the worst date possible (ItMakesSenseInContext), takes a girl to an incredibly long artistic German film. ([[SpringtimeForHitler She loves it.]])
* One of the French Exchange Student sketches in ''Sorry, I've Got No Head'' has Philippe insisting on watching "Les Deux Cellos de M. Gravice", which is black and white and [[CaptainObvious features a man playing two cellos]].
* Parodied as far back as the 70's in the german sketch show by Creator/{{Loriot}}. Two critics talk about a 5 second clip from a silent movie that shows a man standig up in a trash can with the lid on his head and falling over when trying to move, similar to [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons "Man being hit by a football"]]. It turns into a heated debate about whether the movie is a masterpiece of cinematography or a political allegory for the exploitation of the working class by the establishment.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
* From ''TheMuppetShow'' special ''The Muppets Go to the Movies'': Sam the American Eagle is translating what he thinks is the latest masterpiece by Ingmar Bergman, ''Silent Strawberries''. (It's actually by his brother, Gummo.) It stars the Swedish Chef (who else?), who confronts Beaker, who is the Angel of Death. When the Swedish Chef asks to not die, Death gives him a rubber chicken instead. Now he can join a traveling show, and sure enough, in comes a Swedish Kermit presenting a Swedish Fozzie Bear, who tells a joke about Swedish meatballs. It ends with a sing-along to a Swedish version of "Hooray for Hollywood"; by then, Sam has left the stage in disgust.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner''
** The Brothers Chaps made an animated music video for TheyMightBeGiants's song "Experimental Film", starring the ''Homestar Runner'' cast. It's presented as an in-universe film made by Strong Sad and The Cheat.
** In the Strong Bad Email "narrator", Strong Bad narrates a [[RealTrailerFakeMovie trailer]] for "a four hour film with no dialogue and no plot" from "some smelly French studio".
** Strong Sad makes another in "[[http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail203.html independent]]", which consists of a black and white still of a dying potted plant accompanied by him crying into the wrong end of a saxophone.
** Don't forget "A Staple-Down Life", from DVD exclusive ''Puppets on the Road''.
* The French segment of the ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' [[http://roosterteeth.com/archive/?id=262&v=more&page=3 Going Global]] video is a classic skewering of this trope (the other segments parody other national stereotypes in a very silly, but very "artsy" way).
* [[http://www.weebls-stuff.com/wab/moody/ Moody]] in ''WeeblAndBob''. "My boner has returned!" They also parodied this earlier with "Death".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In ''{{Bobwhite}}'', it is Marlene's ambition to create one of these.
* ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'' has [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=1283 a parody]] of this type of "art house movie". Notable for the pig in a ballerina outfit at the end.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* This is what Professor Delmundo's movie is like in the ''{{lonelygirl15}}'' episode "School's Out".
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_0O9ERDzRc This]] collaboration between NYLON TV and Music/HotHotHeat has a rather loose plot and ends with the word "FIN".
* [[http://www.vimeo.com/10593465 This video]], which took over ''DresdenCodak'''s website on AprilFoolsDay 2010, is a parody of this sort of film. (In part, it's also probably a SelfParody of [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic the way Dresden Codak's webcomics are occasionally perceived]]). It's even in [[GratuitousFrench (bad) French]]!
** [[http://vimeo.com/39131013 The sequel]] from AprilFoolsDay 2012, but this time in [[GratuitousGerman (bad) German]]. (And the [[ShowWithinAShow Film Within A Film]] seems to fulfill this trope here too!)
* [[WebVideo/BrowsHeldHigh Kyle Kallgren's]] student film [[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/teamt/oancitizen/miscellany-and-hodge-podge/33635-notes-from-film-school-pretension PREtension]] is a clear-cut parody of this.
-->''"Things. Stuff. Stuff and things."''
* [[http://www.theartistifier.com/ The Artistifier]] turns any Website/YouTube clip into this.
* Judging from [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJDJO2hc24A the trailer]], the original student film from which the title of ''MarbleHornets'' comes was one of these. It was also [[StylisticSuck hilariously terrible]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* There was a hilarious spoof of this sort of artsy film featured in an ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' episode themed around a drive-in theater. It was in black-and-white, and in French... and the dialogue was made up entirely of lines from French children's songs. (Quoth Yakko, "This is the worst French film I've ever seen! It's also the only French film I've ever seen.")
* In ''CloneHigh'', Joan of Arc made one of these types of films for the student film festival. Said film is comprised of stereotypical symbolism and also weird noises, such as "Whisper Whisper", and, oddly enough, "CelineDion... Celine Dion..." The funniest part of that was at the end, only Freud got it.
* Jay's college film in ''WesternAnimation/TheCritic''.
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''
** The college art film that featured Diane, the female newscaster. Filmed [[DeliberatelyMonochrome entirely in black and white]] in AnachronicOrder and ended with her slumped at a table while a clown flipped a pancake on a stove. It's also worth noting that said pancake was flipped in slow-motion.
** In one episode, Peter makes Carter announce from the Eiffel Tower: "People of France, a good-looking depressed guy smoking a cigarette is not a movie!", to which the French took some offence.
* Sort of in ''FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends''; Bloo writes a trope overdosed hilariously over-the-top movie for a student film festival called ''[[NinjaPirateZombieRobot T-Rexatron Alienwolf 3: A Prequel in Time, the Unrelenting]]'', with weird scenes and purposely {{Narm}}-y lines.
* In ''[[AllGrownUp Rugrats: All Grown Up]]'', all of Tommy's films are like this. One episode features a film called ''Gesundheit'', which was basically 2 hours of closeups of people sneezing followed by the reply "{{Gesundheit}}".
* Several episodes of ''WesternAnimation/HomeMovies'' parody these as well. They even made a film about "zee finest artistes of Eur''ope''!" that culminated in a musical number.
* Parodied in ''MonkeyDust'' where the lead actor in such a movie stops and tells the director he can't go on filming because there is no plot whatsoever to the movie. When the director says that the leading lady's breasts are the plot, the actor threatens to take it up with the scriptwriters -- only to find out that the entire thing has been written by chickens on a typewriter.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' makes fun specially of Fellini on their fake reunion/clip show.
* The Chameleon Brothers from ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'' made one of these, "''La Vie moderne de Pinto''", out of Rocko's ''home movies'', adding shots of flowers blooming, [[FauxlosophicNarration pretentious narration]], and title cards saying "Regret" and "Pineapples", among other things. Of course, the only thing Rocko was concerned about was that the film featured his (pre-censored) [[NakedPeopleAreFunny nudity]]. More HilarityEnsues when he discovers that the chameleons sent it to an Australian Film Festival, which it ''wins!'' Even more HilarityEnsues when Rocko gets a letter from his parents, who saw the film at the festival. Rocko is mortified, but to his amazement [[CrowningMomentofAwesome his parents absolutely loved it]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''
** Barney Gumble's film, ''Pukeahontas'': "Don't cry for me; I'm already dead."
** Also the "Itchy and Scratchy" replacement, "Worker and Parasite."
** And the foreign films that Lisa loves, including one about two soldiers and a goat complaining morosely about the ongoing war ("I am older than time itself").
** Also in "The Italian Bob", Homer is seen watching a Fellini movie which features a midget feeding a fat lady spaghetti.
-->'''Homer:''' Oh I get it. The midget represents dwarfs.
* The ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Chef's Salty Chocolate Balls" has a film festival showing movies such as "A Bunch of Gay Cowboys Eating Pudding", confirming Cartman's claim that this is what independent movies tend to be about.
* One ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' episode revolves around Plucky's attempt to win a student film festival. After struggling to make a really elaborate film, he loses all but the last few seconds of footage at the last moment, and is forced to enter just that. He's saved by the fact that the second-to-last film to be shown to the judges is an unbearably tedious arthouse-style film made by {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Shirley the Loon, which takes up all but a few seconds of the festival that day. The judges are so relieved by the brevity of Plucky's film that they immediately declare him the winner.\\\
 Gogo Dodo's film sort of subverts the trope when it surprises everyone by not being as wacky as they expected (it's actually footage from an old black-and-white Warner Bros. comedy short). He says it was "realism".
[[/folder]]

!!Examples of RealLife films

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* ''WeAreTheStrange'': Think DavidLynch meets TimBurton meets [[spoiler:''DragonballZ'']].
* ''Anime/AngelsEgg''
* The animated shorts of the Brothers Quay offer examples of this: Most of them doesn´t feature any dialogue at all, always take place in a WorldOfSymbolism, and sometimes are DeliberatelyMonochrome.
* The avant-garde cut-out animated film [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh0vVK9LpZU ''Heaven and Earth Magic'']]: imagine if the animated sequences from MontyPythonsFlyingCircus were done by DavidLynch.
* The Critically acclaimed Russian animated short [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Taltn1aLtsM ''Tale Of Tales'']] directed by Yuri Norstein, which is filled with many [[WorldOfSymbolism allegories and symbolic]] scenes which are open to many different kind of interpretation. The scenes also doesn´t seem to appear in chronological order, but are recalled by the association of one thing with another, in order to structure itself like a human memory.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* Creator/IngmarBergman's ''Film/{{Persona}}'' (thanks to PopCulturalOsmosis pretty much everyone doing this trope makes fun of it). Film focuses on two women, one of which made a conscious decision not to ever talk, and the second is her nurse. The first part of film is pretty easy and straightforward, but later it descends into seemingly absurd talks between two women and long, incomprehensible silent scenes of, for example, [[spoiler: nurse cutting her wrist, forcing the other woman to lick her blood and then slapping her face a few dozen times.]]
** It could be argued, however, that the film averts this, as its incomprehensibility is used more for SurrealHorror than anything else.
* ''LastYearAtMarienbad''
* ''[[CelineAndJulieGoBoating Céline et Julie vont en bateau]]'' (''Celine and Julie Go Boating'') is a perfectly straight example of this trope. It's French, three hours long, includes seemingly completely unnecessary scenes, has a plot (when you get to it) whose closest comparison would be ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'', and the ending... borrows heavily from Theater of the Absurd, that's all we'll say. It's actually un film très charmant, if you're patient with it. Jacques Rivette, the director, glories in this trope. Go ahead, see if you can sit through all of "Out One".
* AlejandroJodorowsky made many such movies. His first, ''Fando and Lis'', fulfils all criteria other than "absurd length or brevity" and putting a BlackComedy spin on the angstiness. ''TheHolyMountain'' [[UpToEleven boosts the imagery to such freakish heights of psychadelia]] that even the sternest viewer ''will not get all of it''.
* ''Warum läuft Herr R Amok?'', a film where absolutely nothing happens, despite the fact that the main character kills his family and then himself. Although, the film does a pretty good job of illustrating why Herr R. runs amok. It's just not the violent crime film or psychological thriller everyone expects from the title.
* Jean Genet's ''Un Chant d'Amour'': 30 dialogue-free minutes of homosexual erotica.
* The Soviet Armenian film ''The Color of Pomegranates'', which you might be familiar with from the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5144-MQV0bU clips]] that were used in a Juno Reactor music video. It's a biopic, kind of, about a famous medieval Armenian wool-dyer/courtier/monk/poet/troubador/martyr (in approximately that order). It's filmed to resemble an illuminated manuscript, there's almost no dialogue, and a female actor plays six roles, including the poet himself at one point. It's undeniably a work of integrity, and of significant artistic and spiritual accomplishment, as well as a fascinating ethnography of Armenian costume, art, music, textiles, folklore, monastic life, and religious custom. (A lot to get done in an hour and a half!). Quite beautiful, too. But if you aren't at least vaguely familiar with Sayat Nova's life, the film will make no sense, and if you are, it'll only make maybe 85% sense on a good day. It was initially banned in the USSR it because they couldn't figure out what the hell it was about, and decided that therefore it was probably some kind of dangerous nationalist parable. So they cut a few minutes from it at random, and released it under the title ''Red Pomegranates''.
* David Lynch's works, most notably ''Inland Empire'' and ''{{Eraserhead}}''. Lynch's features actually largely make sense, at least on a plot level. His short films fits the trope much more closely than his features.
* ''Film/MyDinnerWithAndre'' is 110 minutes of Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory sitting in a restaurant and talking. Aside from a brief voice-over at the beginning and end, as Wallace Shawn is travelling to/from the restaurant, that's it. Thanks to director Louis Malle's dynamic camera work, and the sheer intensity of Wallace and Andre's conversation, the movie is quite engaging.
* Creator/AndyWarhol's ''Empire'' is an exterior shot of the Empire State Building for 24 hours. He made dozens upon dozens of films like these, many of them static shots of one person. Remember the "Oscar-winning" movie ''Ass'' from ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}''? Consider that Warhol did a film called "Taylor Mead's Ass" (albeit as a TakeThat at a film critic who complained about his films being - you guessed it - based on shots of Taylor Mead's ass).
* ''[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0284020/ The Cure for Insomnia]]''. It has a running time of ''87 hours''. One could argue that it's ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, and thus, not intended to be artistic at all.
* BobDylan's ''Renaldo and Clara'': it's four hours long, and alternates between being a concert film[=/=]{{rockumentary}}, cinema verité documentary, improvised drama (with a cast full of non-actors), and surreal home movie. Even among Dylan fans it's a LoveItOrHateIt work, with a lot more Love Its than you might expect.
* Most films by Guy Maddin fit this trope. His film ''Brand Upon the Brain!'' was silent, shot with grainy, black and white 16 mm film, and narrated and orchestrated live... all that without getting into the plot. Nearly all of his films are in grainy black and white. Some of them condescend to have a plot, say, ''The Saddest Music in the World''. Others... not so much. If you want Guy Maddin in all his mind-screwing grandeur, try ''Arkangel''. It's what David Lynch would have shot if a particularly deranged Dostoievsky handed him a script.
* ''Calamari Union'', the first major movie of Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki. Filmed in black and white, in eighties Helsinki, with very little dialogue. All its [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters sixteen]] protagonists are guys with black glasses, all called "Frank", except for one called Pekka ([[MindScrew who speaks in English]]). In a very ''Warriors'' fashion, they cross the city at night, trying to reach the Eira neighbourhood, which is a kind of promised land according to one of the Franks. Not all of them make it. No calamari (squids) appear or are even mentioned (though the title might be a play on the historical Kalmar Union). Diverging from the LeFilmArtistique purest tradition, however, the movie is not serious but humorous in a very quirky, unsettling, playful and deadpan (thus Finnish) manner, and presents intelligent criticism of consumerism and urban life. An European CultClassic, like pretty much any movie by Kaurismäki, who admitted he was drunk for the most of the shooting. [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs It shows]].
* ''VaseDeNoces''. A lone farmer who may be the last man on earth slots the heads of dolls onto the heads of doves, collects vegetable matter in jars, sodomizes his pig -- which gives birth to what are presumably human/pig hybrids, tries to raise said hybrids as humans by feeding them at the dinner table, hangs them when he is unable to -- prompting the pig to commit suicide, buries himself alongside the pig with his clothes on and reemerges -- clothes now mysteriously absent, tosses all the vegetable matter from the jars into a pond, fills them with his feces and urine instead, makes tea out of said feces and urine and consumes it, hangs himself. Belgian, [[DeliberatelyMonochrome black and white]], [[SilenceIsGolden no dialogue]], the church choir chanting of medieval composers Perotinus and Monteverdi supplies the soundtrack alongside electrically-generated bleeps and bloops. According to the director, it's about an alchemical quest for immortality. We wish we were making this up.
* ''Film/{{Dogtooth}}'': a Greek film in which a couple keep their children imprisoned in their home to adulthood, teaching them that the outside world is incredibly dangerous, while trying to maintain a completely different world inside, ranging from different vocabulary to incest. Features lesbian incest, passionless sex scenes, long stretches without dialogue and no real ending.
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begotten Begotten]]'', an American [[DeliberatelyMonochrome black and white]] movie with almost no contrast at all (the colours shown are dirty white or dirty black, nothing between), [[SilenceIsGolden no dialogue]], no music, and a story showing [[WorldOfSymbolism an allegory of the Creation of Life]] through a succession of enigmatic and [[{{Gorn}} very gory]] scenes.
* Minimalist cinema, and Chantal Ackerman in particular. One of Ackerman's films, ''Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles'' is three and a half hours long of a woman doing the same things over and over again. That length is the entire point, but it's still put generations of film students to sleep.
* Michaelangelo Antonioni is another king of this trope. For example, ''BlowUp'', a movie involving a murder mystery and a swinging London photographer at one point being molested by two female models.
* Most of Peter Greenaway's ''oeuvre'' fits this trope. While some films, such as ''The Draughtsman's Contract'' and ''Literature/ThePillowBook'' are fairly well rooted in reality and understandable (for the most part) to the average audience, works like ''Prospero's Books'' take neo-baroque to an [[MindScrew incomprehensible]] new level.
* Dusan Makavejev generally makes movies that fall into this.
* Creator/SalvadorDali and Luis Buñuel's film ''UnChienAndalou'' is a prime example. Of course, given the artist... [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7h87hJSBzE Warning:]] EyeScream and major MindScrew abound.
* ''TreeOfLife'' fits this trope, possibly being the most abstract film to get such major stars and a $30 million+ budget. Ironically, due to being French, silent, and black and white, a lot of people mistook ''TheArtist'' sight unseen as one of these when it's actually an incredibly simple and accessible comedy to the point a lot of critics thought it was too light to be deserving of Best Picture and campaigned for the actual LeFilmArtistique in the running that year.
* ''Film/TheGreenElephant'', a [[MemeticMutation memetic]] Russian film, infamous for its gory content. It is filmed on handheld VHS camera, have only 4 characters, and is very depressing, although it has some [[DarkComedy comedy]] [[ToiletHumour value]].
* Catherine Breillat's ''Sleeping Beauty'' starts out similarly to its namesake fairytale with the eponymous beauty being cursed to sleep by a malevolent witch, but very soon, the movie diverges into a strange sort of crossover between ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'', ''TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'', and ''PansLabyrinth'' as its child protagonist goes on an inexplicable and fantastic adventure that is, allegedly, [[WhatDoYouMeanitsNotSymbolic supposed to represent a woman's sexuality]]. When she wakes up from her enchanted sleep, she finds she is suddenly a full-grown adult (despite having slept for one hundred years), and she is quick to [[SuddenlySexuality randomly engage in sexual acts with]] [[BiTheWay both a young man and a young woman]]. To add to the MindScrew, the man is the grandson of her adoptive brother and the woman is a grown up version of a childhood friend, both of whom ''[[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext are characters she met in her dream]]''. And that's all without even mentioning the movie's [[GainaxEnding very inconclusive ending]]...
* French director Robert Bresson has a SignatureStyle that involves meticulous attention to mechanical motions and the use of nonprofessional actors who give intentionally lifeless and mechanical performances. His themes are almost always depressing, to top it off. Of course, he's a critical darling.
* ''LeosCarax'''s ''HolyMotors is a [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruction]] of this.
* ''The Lovers'', a well-made 1958 drama by Louis Malle about upper-middle-class alienation, ennui, and the ''liaisons'' of bored housewives, managed to be permanently recorded in [[AmericanCourts United States judicial history]] by being the subject of ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobellis_v._Ohio Jacobellis v. Ohio]]'', which thanks to a sex scene ran afoul of Ohio's obscenity laws. The US Supreme Court determined that [[ItsNotPornItsArt movies and other works with explicit content but redeeming artistic merit]] cannot, under the First Amendment, be censored. However, it is most noted for Justice Potter Stewart's [[MemeticMutation famous statement]] about "hard-core pornography", viz., "I know it when I see it". Stewart went on to say that this film ''does'' have artistic merit and thus is not porn, making ''The Lovers'' one of the few works ever to officially be declared to be of serious artistic value in a government document. 
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17th Mar '13 11:43:43 AM mikej1995

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In the best cases, use of this trope is an AffectionateParody or a sharp TakeThat to a particular work, director or movement. It's often the goal of the PrimaDonnaDirector.

Please note that only ShowWithinAShow examples are objective. Applying this trope to a real work can be considered quite YMMV.

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!!Examples of in-fiction films

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* ''InfiniteJest'': Much of James Incandenza Jr.'s filmography.
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!!Examples of RealLife films

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9th Mar '13 2:05:38 PM WickedIcon

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8th Mar '13 11:31:52 PM erforce

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