The puzzle aspect of "Last Year at Marienbad" and "Certified Copy" may finally be the least interesting thing about them, but it's probably the most interesting and important thing about a cynical piece of non-art like "Memento," which is possibly what makes that film such a cherished cult item and fetish object in certain Anglo-American circles. One way of removing the threat and challenge of art is reducing it to a form of problem-solving that believes in single, Eureka-style solutions. If works of art are perceived as safes to be cracked or as locks that open only to skeleton keys, their expressive powers are virtually limited to banal pronouncements of overt or covert meanings -- the notion that art is supposed to say something as opposed to do something.
Which takes us back around to that idea that Roger Ebert has phrased as: "A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it." Same goes for criticism.
---SPSmith
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