Netflix’s movie catalog has grown in recent years into an ever-expanding collection of cinematic content. Not only because of its variety, but also because of the platform’s ability to bring together all kinds of genres, languages and visions of current cinema. As a showcase for independent material, Netflix has also proven in the last five years that streaming is the best place for unusual cinema. In particular, the one that emphasizes disturbing, surprising or strange stories
Of course, this is an obvious advantage. The platform was proposed not only to maintain a selection of content always in renewal, but also to explore new options. The result is an unusual journey through a type of cinema that rarely reaches theaters. Or that at least, until a decade ago he was condemned to anonymity or unequal evaluation as works of worship. But Netflix movies managed to get a good part of their lists and new additions to celebrate the most curious of the seventh art. Also, his wildest and sometimes incomprehensible side.
We leave you a selection of five films to celebrate the rare, unique and dreamlike in cinema that you can find in the list of Netflix movies. From stunning cinematic art pieces to intimate and sometimes meaningless insights. A tour of the less traveled side of the world of great stories.
What Did Jack Do?
The always disconcerting and surprising, David Lynch creates in this film on Netflix one of his most unique works. Which is already a considerable point if we take into account that the director’s career is based on the enigmatic and the absurd. On this occasion, he decides to explore what appears to be a singular variant of film noir. when questioning a monkey. And she does it, for 17 minutes, in a kind of wacky dialogue about an imaginary murder. But in addition, Lynch plays with the codes of film noir while combining a kind of extravagant parody between a procedural and his usual style on the surreal.
The result is an inexplicable journey that laughs and intrigues in equal parts. Lynch has never been too lavish in explaining his obsessions, but in What Did Jack Do? there is a complete breakdown of language. But instead of seeming disconcerting, the short film ends up being a road map towards inexplicable spaces of the cinematographic. Lynch, who also stars in this movie on Netflix, creates the illusion of a certain notion about the unexplainable. But at the same time, it stands as a lucky experiment on rarity as the essential meaning of an enigmatic cinematographic proposal.
Of course, Lynch’s filmography gives for that and a little more. But especially, in this short film the director strives to delve into the root of the surreal. A rare visual document worth checking out.
I no longer feel comfortable in this world
This Netflix movie about an assault, a man with a rat tail and revenge is one of the most absurd and curious that you will find on the platform. a story in which violence is an excuse to join the unequal parts of something larger related to fear as a concept. But in reality it is an exploration of human nature from the inexplicable. And although it may seem a rarity for the sole fact of using meaningless visual codes, is actually a solid plot experience.
However, the main accent of the film is to analyze the limits of ultra-violence and humanity. Also about revenge and fear, the chaotic and how we perceive the singular. So disparate topics can coincide in a single argument? They do so to the extent that the director manages to create a perception of the strange as a common thread towards disturbing places in the human mind. Much more, when the journey leads to how pain, exclusion and the search for answers are linked to create a discourse on the human of enormous depth.
None of that convinces you? What if we told you that Elijah Wood himself plays one of the most disconcerting roles of his career in the film?
Velvet Buzzsaw
Art and the supernatural have often intermingled in peculiar and very strange ways for much of film history. Director Dan Gilroy takes the premise and turns it into something more mundane, but certainly intriguing. Velvet Buzzsaw is a stranger hybrid between comedy, criticism, slasher and supernatural horror. All of the above, seasoned with a good portion on the artistic as a hypothesis on collective identity. With all his load of cynical version of the world of art, he ponders on topics as disparate as death and contemporary uprooting.
The Netflix movie doesn’t make the mistake of taking itself seriously and that’s one of its strengths. Gilroy’s take on the perception of art as part of the need for intellectual commerce is harsh, but it’s also funny. It’s also strange on many different levels. The characters go from one place to another, laughing, flirting with each other, showing off their knowledge and finally, dying in the midst of horrific bloody scenes. As if that weren’t enough, the supernatural appears in brief brushstrokes.
All of which makes it abundantly clear that behind the elegant surface of artists, sellers, buyers and galleries lies a twisted and disturbing version of reality. The director does not lavish himself too much in explanations and experiments in a slightly dual discourse on the origin of the inexplicable: is it born from the artistic? Of his desecration? Of his indirect perception about human nature?
Does such a mix work? In his best moments he does. Another good reason to give the film a chance? A disconcerting Jake Gyllenhaal in the company of John Malkovich.
I Never Died
The story of a philosophical immortal who, in turn, is a “one-man army” is of the things more extravagant in the Netflix movie catalog. Perhaps it is due to the combination of action and existential dramas, paternity dilemmas and ultra-violence. All this in the general idea that human life can become more unbearable as it is longer. And even stranger, that the perception of identity becomes more complicated, meaningless and fickle when the only immortal on earth also tries to understand fatherhood from his long existence.
Such a mixture of elements will fail sooner or later. In fact, it fails in its first half hour, but in the end it ends up finding an extravagant rhythm that is sustained by the belief in goodness. Very simple for a film that tries to reflect on immortality on earth, the values of the spirit and also includes violence in a generous dose? It is not so, when the character begins a journey in search of her identity and finds that living forever is more than just an attribute about time. And yes, one more related to the total experience of being a man in the middle of a world that changes around him.
But in the end, this is an action movie. And all insight into the inexplicable nature of his central character is lost in gunshots and punches. Whatever the case, the film continues to surprise, unpredictable and, ultimately, harrowing in all its weirdness. A rare gem for lovers of the absurd on Netflix.
Circle
This could be called insane version and on a monstrous scale The Squid Game. When fifty strangers wake up in a gigantic and dangerous chamber without knowing how they got there, they must survive at the cost of another’s life. The Netflix film makes irreverent visual decisions and more often than not, to narrate the feeling of claustrophobia and fear around it. So there will be aerial shots, vertical falls without the least sense, a subjective camera that passes to the objective one without explanation.
On the other hand, the plot leaves the sense of urgency as of a tragedy waiting to happen. But really, the strangest thing is his ability to evade traps and clichés. It is a complicated, essential and insane combination of good and evil that will surprise you in its most difficult moments.