The classification cards at the beginning of a piece of visual media, be it television or film, will give the rating for the piece of media and then statutory reasons as to why that piece of media has been given that rating. Violence, nudity, drug use, supernatural themes, adult themes, strong language, horror, graphic violence, mild peril, mild language, scary scenes, difficult themes... are all reasons that can be given for the rating from G to R+18.
Owing to the fact that we do not have Foxtel, Netflix, Stan, Kayo, Britbox, Paramount+, Hulu, or the myriad of paid streaming services which exist, in my household, we make do quite admirably with the streaming services from the free-to-air networks in Australia. One of the things that SBS is renowned for, as the world's largest subtitling service, is that they get a lot more foreign language shows and films that they otherwise would do. This has meant that we've seen a lot of films with vastly different structures and methods of story telling than the very formulaic fare from Hollywood, which has a tendency to hit various beat points in a story almost to the exact minute in a lot of films. An 89 minute movie, will generally tend to hit the lowest point in the arc (because films thrive on having a central conflict) at exactly 68 minutes, before the resolution and dénouement ties everything up nicely. But what if it doesn't?
Films which do not live within the chains of Hollywood conformity, are often free to play with the meter and tempo of how stories work; to the point sometimes where they abandon the definite act structure and even to the point where they will just end and leave you hanging; with no resolution at all.
We have seen so many of these kind of films that Mrs Rollo has decided, quite rightly, that there should be an additional classification for television and film.
Rated D:
Disappointment, Downer, Dull.
There is an objective difference between a bad movie, which is just awful to watch, and a film which is a disappointment. A bad movie is almost always because it has been badly made, or because it has been badly written. However a movie which should be rated D, has been deliberately crafted that way because the writers and directors who exercise editorial and production control, wanted the film to be just like that. A film which should be rated D is perhaps even more frustrating to watch than a mere bad movie.
There is a case to be made for movies where the characters do not change and things just happen to them. The device of literary tragedy works because the protagonist actively takes steps, or takes steps which could have been avoided, which lead to their own downfall. That's fine. That's where the implicit rules for how a story works have been followed and we've collected enough plot coupons to be able to cash in and get the proper ending. A film which should be rated D will often contain a case where the audience has been invested in the protagonist and the story just comes to an abrupt end. Maybe there is a logical thread which we the audience follow and the protagonist just loses. They just lose and they don't learn anything and we the audience are left wondering why the jinkies we just spent 89 minutes watching this film when we could have been doing anything else.
Clearly there is a market for movies that are rated D because writers and directors have produced enough of them to suggest that this is the case. I guess that there is a drive in writers and directors to produce a work is different and unique but the reason why we live television and movies with logical conclusions is because as beings which occupy linear time, the entire kosmos that we live in os one of cause, effect, and resolution; to be messing about with that, is to be meddling with the forces of nature.
Of course we run into the settled case law that people will like what they like and don't like what they don't like but presumably when a movie is being classified, there are enough people who have seen the piece of media to at least have the decency to let future audiences know that it should be rated D. Certainly it would have helped us know that the movie that we were about to see is a disappointment and we could have changed our expectations accordingly.
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