Working Towards Understanding: A Place for Narrative Complexity in Modern Art

Mainstream art/entertainment production appears to create works which are reducible to either an easily explained concept or premise, which can usually be understood with one interaction with it. This also fits into the industrial nature of entertainment production, wherein an artist usually approaches a production company with an idea and that production company decides whether they will fund said idea. With examples of works which exemplify not being able to be summed up briefly, intentionally or otherwise, juxtaposed to those which aimed to be easily explained and understood, analyse the current landscape of art and entertainment. Is there a place for narrative complexity and the potential of a lack of understanding in modern art?

Examples could include Inherent Vice, Infinite Jest, Synecdoche, New York, Primer, Donnie Darko, Cloud Atlas, Upstream Color, Mulholland Drive, House of Leaves.

Could focus on film, literature or arts in general.