DIVA (1981) ** The French have a long, proud, chequered, often unintelligible history of this: making a movie and then trying to have it be about anything else. I concede that, if you dig around and make unreferenced connections and such, you can eventually come up with some metaphorical stuff about the omnipotence of the artist and the terrors of leaving the protection of the artist's world and engaging the "real" world of gangsters, cops, Cadillacs and sunglasses. But you shouldn't have to dig so hard for those higher meanings-they should either gently fall out obvious (because they fit) or smack you over the head like a mallet. If your great joy is digging through nearly impossible to comprehend material with a reward at the end of the rainbow I'd suggest reading Kant, untranslated. Opera fits in well with film (the relaxed can enjoy the cuts from "La Wally," the uptight can keep looking for higher meaning and validation), they're both so visual and dramatic (!especially when the protagonists cuts the power on his moped and the tapedeck cuts off!), and I like the lighthouse too.
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