Art House Movie Conundrum

As much as I love movies, I am never into art house movies. Never was, never will. They are just too "deep" for me.

Good old Bala used to ask me to check out free art house movie screenings in KL back in our reporter days at The Sun. He meant well, always willing to share what he perceived as great things with his pals (still does), including moi. I tagged along a couple of times, and each time I came out feeling like an idiot!

While everyone else gushed over a particular film, my mind went blank. What the heck was the movie about? I didn't get it. Either I was profoundly stupid or everyone else feigned cleverness. And if someone happened to ask "So what do you think of the show?", I would produce a safe answer - "It was err, interesting," and quickly walked away before he or she asked another question that was even harder to answer.

Here in Melbourne, the video stores are filled with a huge range of art house movies from around the world. For reasons best known to himself, Alex recently picked one called "Irreversible" starring Monica Bellucci from the shelf.

If you've seen it, you'll know how graphic the violent scenes are and how weird it is - it actually starts from the end and keeps going backwards chronologically. I was totally confused and it took me a while to realise the strange sequence. Watching it really drained me. But I must say, each chapter (about 15 minutes) is only one take, with no cuts in between - pretty impressive acting.

Still, impressive or not, art house movies are certainly not my cup of tea. I don't want to tax my brain when I'm watching a movie. I just want to laugh, get some cheap thrills or marvel at beautiful things. Yeah, that's shallow, I know. But that's just me.