The Inconceivable Mountain
2019 · 10m · USA
Directed by Daniel Witkin
Genres: comedy, drama, fantasy
Tones: absurdist, contemplative, mythic
A musicologist and her dog climb a mountain in search of an indecipherable song. A lost soldier interrupts the pilgrimage and demands their help.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A film that takes the holy-mountain trope seriously enough to break it. Reverence and parody in the same shot — that's a high-wire act most filmmakers wouldn't even attempt.
A sincere quest narrative that keeps tripping into parody without admitting it is the harder tonal posture — Herzog with a Hal Hartley script in the backpack is a precise claim. Tonally ambitious, into it.
A sincere quest narrative about a musicologist and her dog chasing an indecipherable song that keeps tripping into parody without admitting it — that tonal tightrope is the harder thing to pull off and the 1930s-German-mountain-film homage is a specific reference. I'm in.
Reviews
The film is beautifully executed with a rare combination of cinematic reverence, and strange comic beats that spill into parody.