Recently I saw, for the first time, Liliana Cavana’s haunting 1974 film “The Night Porter”. I won’t say too much about it here because you really should see it for yourself (but don’t take the kids — it’s definitely a film for grownups).
One thing that struck me about it, something I especially liked, and which seems to have infuriated others through the years, is that it absolutely refuses to spell out its message. Meaning is suggested, hinted at, but remains elusive. Just when you think you understand it, it moves in another direction.
I realize I enjoy this quality of ambiguity in art. Entertainment spells things out, wraps its message in a tidy little package with neatly typed labels for our enjoyment. In the end, everybody knows what has happened.
Yet art can keep us dangling, forcing us to fill in our own meanings and interpretations. And sometimes those interpretations can bring us to profound, if disturbing, places.
I enjoy a nice tidy entertainment as well as the next person, but there is nothing like a wonderfully, provocatively ambiguous work of art.