If I look at a book from the standpoint of what it made me experience, this one didn't just leave me sitting there in the movie theater. I was constantly involved and rarely skipped over anything, plus I exited with an inchoate understanding that I lacked on entering.

The conclusion, oddly, reminded me of the ending of Portnoy's Complaint--“Perhaps now we can begin.” which Roth dubbed a punchline. I couldn't escape noticing that Cordova's films all have ambiguous or unsettled endings, the unsettledness being the point, but though Night Film ends somewhat in that fashion, it is really more settled than it appears in that now we can really begin to live, not because we've slaughtered the lamb (a reference to Cordova's philosophy of life) but because we've ceased to chase or be chased. At least I hope so. That's the conclusion you hope to reach sooner or later (getting there is long with many underground tunnels) and while waiting for you, it sends you a postcard that says "Someday soon you’ll come."

Cordova, in case you haven't already read it elsewhere, is the cult film director who is the White Whale (as opposed to the MacGuffin) of this story.

Picasso, one of those who we are told was forced by personal demons to create powerful work, has said "Art is a lie that makes us realize truth." Turns out there isn't any other way. Art has to lie and the truth requires lies to point us there. So, read it till you get there, someday soon.