it's elliott gould in THE LONG GOODBYE. one of the great noirs of the '70s, full of jazzy melancholy - i suspect it was an influence on INHERENT VICE, for those of you who've seen it. altman is a great director in general, i'm a big fan.
i didn't really get into VALHALLA RISING in my one viewing, it was TOO stylised for me at the time i think, but i reckon i would've dug it more on drugs, haha. i think that one fits pretty well with some of my other recommendations anyway.
just to elaborate on a few of my picks to help you choose... WOMAN IN THE DUNES is an absolute must-see, it could IMO be the greatest of all the existential allegories in all artistic mediums. once seen it's never forgotten, it's completely otherworldly and transporting. i wrote about it in much more depth
here but it's probably better to watch it before you read that. the less you know going in the better.
capsule i wrote on ANGEL'S EGG:
paced like a dirge and operating in a largely abstract, serious mode, ANGEL'S EGG is a somewhat westernised post-apocalyptic animé that probably wouldn't please the genre's developmentally arrested hardcores so much as fans of, say, tarkovsky (its outro is very SOLARIS). from what i've gleaned, it's a fairly personal allegory by a director who's rumoured to have suffered a crisis of faith which swayed him from the path to priesthood. heavily informed by christian perspectives and riddled with its symbolism, it's a grand and sombre work which magnifies the mysterious forces underlying how human beings exist and relate to the world, ruminating on various dichotomies: creation and destruction, innocence and experience, being and becoming, the material and the transcendent, truth and myth. i wouldn't like to try to interpret all the gorgeous, beguiling imagery in detail, not only because i don't have the schooling but because it works so masterfully as a tone poem; even when i don't understand what oshii is thinking, i think i get how he felt while he was thinking it.
MORNING PATROL is kind of similar except it's not animated, and it's actually russian rather than just russian-styled. but yeah, another tonally masterful dystopian sci-fi with awe-inspiring imagery.
DON'T LOOK NOW and VINYAN are both comparable to ANTICHRIST mainly because they're anxious psychological horror stories about parents dealing with the loss of a child. again, both full of atmosphere and striking images.
MISTER JOHN i reviewed
here, it's a wonderful and criminally underseen movie about a guy who, upon hearing that his brother has drowned, travels to his home and gradually starts to... become him. maybe it's not as abstract as what you're looking for, but it's a very understated film heavy with symbolism and this real sad, dreamy vibe. aiden gillen stars, dude from THE WIRE and GAME OF THRONES.
HOLY MOTORS is kind of indescribable, it follows an actor who acts out various roles and the lines between performance and reality blur, has a very bleak and elegiac vibe to it. comparable to COSMOPOLIS in that the main character is cruising around in a limo. you might feel something and you might not (i personally think it gradually builds up an emotional throughline but i get why some people find it incoherent), but i guarantee you won't be bored by this movie, it absolutely bursts with creativity and weirdness.
THE TURIN HORSE is the last, shortest, easiest film by probably the most respected arthouse director of the past 25 years, bela tarr. his masterpiece is supposedly SATANTANGO (i haven't seen it because 9 fucking hours i mean come on), but this one is enough to show what an incredible sculptor of images and moods he is. it's elemental stuff, very black metal actually.
A FIELD IN ENGLAND is like WITCHFINDER GENERAL on shrooms. a lot of people seem to hate it but it was one of my favourites of the past couple years; it's disturbing on some kind of primal level, full of hilarious gallows humour, and is just generally a total headfuck. wheatley's upcoming adaptation of ballard's HIGH RISE is possibly my most anticipated movie of the coming year.