Where Commerce Meets Art: Hybrid Complexity and Narrative Ambiguity in Post-1990s Cinema

This study explores how post-1990s commercial cinema absorbs and reconfigures the narrative ambiguity of art cinema. Through formalist and cognitive analyses of Pulp Fiction, Memento, Mulholland Drive, and Inception, this study identifies a hybrid form of complexity that merges aesthetic indeterminacy with market-oriented storytelling. The concept of hybrid complexity reveals cinema’s evolving balance between openness and control, demonstrating how ambiguity becomes both an artistic strategy and a commodity in contemporary media culture.