Movies About Creative Thinking: A change of viewpoint

Part four of seven. Films where nothing changes except the way of looking, and that turns out to be enough.

The most contemplative part of the selection; it goes well in an unhurried evening.

A linguist decodes the language of the visitors and gradually begins to think in its categories.

Topics: language as a frame of perception, communication without shared context, trust between countries under uncertainty, the perception of time.

Aftertaste: quiet, meditative, emotionally stunning at the end. A film that keeps unfolding in your head for days and almost always demands a rewatch.

A TV reporter gets stuck in a single day and lives it again an unlimited number of times.

Topics: cycling through strategies and discarding the ones that do not work, acquiring a skill through repetition, cynicism and its wear, the meaning of routine.

Aftertaste: funny and unexpectedly wise. A comedy that turns out to be nothing like a comedy when you rewatch it as an adult, and that feeling is a pleasant one.

A literature teacher at a conservative school makes his students stand on their desks to look at the classroom from a different height.

Topics: a change of physical position as a change of thinking, poetry against the manual, pressure from family and institution, the responsibility of the one who inspires.

Aftertaste: first the lift, then the weight, and the whole power of the film lies in that shift. One of those things remembered for years by a single scene.

A man lives his life inside a set and gradually starts noticing the inconsistencies.

Topics: attention to small anomalies, the boundaries of a familiar environment, privacy and spectacle, freedom as the decision to walk out.

Aftertaste: deceptively light, slightly unsettling, with a very strong ending. A comedy that reads more seriously with every passing year.

A girl's emotions are shown as a team of operators at a console, each with its own function.

Topics: visualising the invisible, the role of sadness in the psyche, memory and growing up, a team working with incompatible priorities.

Aftertaste: tender and tearful. An animated film that makes adults cry more often than children, and they still leave in a good mood.

A jazz pianist spends his whole life waiting for his big gig and gets a chance to look at that story from the outside.

Topics: a calling and the idea of a calling, the state of flow, the value of an ordinary day, music as a way of being present.

Aftertaste: calming and slightly melancholy. Good to put on right after Whiplash; the two films end up arguing about the same thing.

Next part: when nothing comes.

The whole series:

1. Inventors and engineers
2. Limits that help
3. Obsessed with the craft
4. A change of viewpoint
5. When nothing comes
6. Making it together
7. Documentaries