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Because we so value the complex, sometimes simplistic films pretend to complexity. This pretence - call it a complexistic view of film or art or whatever - is I think what Robert means by 'a complex surface concealing simple ideas.' One particular genre of film that is prone to it is the intermingling tales genre. I actually like the genre but I think it slightly spoils for me Altmanns otherwise very good film SHORT CUTS. MAGNOLIA and LANTANA are other (lesser) works that also suffer. Perhaps the problem is the contrived way that the stories are linked up. In fact such linking amounts to a reduction of the complexity. It simplifies things, yet in doing so the film still seems to want have the prestige of complexity that all those at first seemingly unrelated stories promised. Robert mentioned Antonioni in another post. Here is a filmmaker whose spaces and emptiness, whose minimalist affinities, are actually a sign of complexity. I was watching that wonderful last scene in THE PASSENGER recently and thinking such things. Perhaps another kind of film that is complexistic is (to avert to the discussion of diegesis) is the film that tries to make up for its simplistic 'diegesis' by piling on non-diegetic frippery (ie movies that overdo or otherwise misuse music). Overcutting of some dance films (eg CHICAGO) might be another instance. Instead of the complexity of the dance we are fed the complexistic style of the editing. I suspect that many seemingly minimalist films are often films that appear simple because they are too complex for us initially to see the complexity as anything more than noise - noise being just complexity in which the pattern escapes us. I should test this thesis on Bresson. Now there is a filmmaker who would have no truck with complexisticity. Ross