# How Films Use Absurdity to Reveal Hidden Truths
When we think of movies that tell the truth, we usually imagine straightforward documentaries or realistic dramas. But some of the most powerful films hide their deepest messages behind layers of confusion, strange imagery, and illogical storytelling. These movies use absurdity not to confuse us, but to show us things that normal storytelling cannot reach.
David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive stands as one of the clearest examples of this technique. The film begins as a conventional mystery, with two women trying to solve a puzzle about identity and Hollywood. But as they get closer to what they think is the truth, the movie becomes increasingly strange. A cowboy walks ominously across the frame. A singer falls unconscious but her voice continues. The closer the characters get to answers, the more the film breaks its own rules.
This isn’t a mistake or artistic confusion. Lynch is doing something deliberate. By following dream logic instead of real logic, he forces viewers to experience the same frustration his characters feel. The film’s final act reveals that what we watched was actually a nightmare, a twisted version of reality shaped by jealousy and desperation. The real truth – that one character hired someone to kill her lover out of jealousy – emerges only after we’ve been pulled through an absurd maze of false clues and impossible events. Lynch subverts the classic mystery formula by showing that the hollowness we feel isn’t about life itself, but about how we fail to communicate with each other.
The 1985 film Clue takes a different approach to the same idea. Based on the board game, Clue was written as a screwball comedy with an outrageous script. The film initially flopped because audiences expected a traditional whodunit with clues and red herrings. Instead, they got jokes, chaos, and multiple endings. But beneath the comedy lies serious historical truth.
Set in 1954, the film tells a story about the Cold War through satire. One character, Mr. Green, reveals he works for the State Department and is gay. He explains that he must hide this fact or lose his job on security grounds. This seems absurd – how could someone’s sexual orientation be a national security risk? Yet this absurdity reflects actual history. The film is referencing the real expulsion and harassment of gay and lesbian workers from federal employment during the early Cold War, an often-forgotten episode that people rarely discuss seriously. By wrapping this painful truth in comedy and ridiculous plot twists, the film makes the absurdity of the historical reality itself visible. The joke becomes the point: the government’s fear was the real madness.
Eugene Jarecki’s documentary The Six Billion Dollar Man: Julian Assange and the Price of Truth uses a different kind of absurdity. The film spans fifteen years, multiple countries, and countless characters, creating a complex web that mirrors the confusion of modern information warfare. Jarecki discovered that many widely believed stories about Assange and WikiLeaks were false or incomplete. The widespread accusation that WikiLeaks published diplomatic cables without redaction turned out to be untrue. Claims about Assange’s activities in Sweden were more complicated than reported. The film reveals these truths not through straightforward explanation, but by showing how the story itself has been distorted and misunderstood.
The Adult Swim Yule Log films take absurdity to an extreme. What begins as a cozy fireplace video slowly transforms into something completely different – a dadaist horror film that parodies Christmas movies while being a genuine example of the thing it parodies. The first film features a log that hunts characters, a tiny man living in the fire, and time-travel complications. The second film swaps horror for a bright Hallmark movie parody with a creature feature twist, complete with shrimp fudge and coral reef saving. These films are intentionally ridiculous, yet they work as both parodies and genuine Christmas stories. The absurdity allows them to comment on generational trauma and the expectations we place on holiday media without ever stating these themes directly.
What connects all these films is a simple principle: sometimes the truth is so strange, so painful, or so difficult to accept that normal storytelling cannot contain it. Absurdity creates space for truth to exist. When a film breaks its own rules, when it becomes illogical and dreamlike, when it piles on ridiculous details and impossible situations, it can show us things that realistic narratives cannot. The confusion we feel as viewers mirrors the confusion of the characters and the confusion of the real world they represent.
These films teach us that truth-telling isn’t always about clarity. Sometimes it requires us to get lost, to feel frustrated, to question what we’re seeing. The absurdity isn’t hiding the truth – it’s revealing it by showing us how difficult truth actually is to find and understand in a world full of lies, confusion, and competing narratives.
Sources
https://time.com/7341218/40-years-movie-clue/
https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/david-lynch/mulholland-drive-derrida-meaning
https://tedhope.substack.com/p/where-awareness-can-prevail-over
https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/horror-movies-december-2025-hbo-max-adult-swim-yule-logs
