by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Throughout his career, Bob Dylan has delighted in confounding expectations and reveled in being cryptic, but few projects have been as deeply confounding and cryptic as his 2003 film, Masked and Anonymous, where he stars as rock legend Jack Fate, who has been jailed in a post-apocalyptic, "mythological third-world America" (the words of the film''s director, Larry Charles) in the throes of a civil war, but is let out of prison to perform at a "dubious benefit concert" (the words of Alan Light, who contributes necessary but still confusing liner notes). Within this scenario pass scores of celebrity cameos, all eager to be seen on-screen with the legend himself, particularly after the career revival of Love and Theft, along with numerous Bob Dylan songs, only a handful of which are sung by him and most of which are in radical reinterpretations (several sung in different languages). Perhaps this all makes sense within the film -- Light claims it does in his liner notes and Salon.com''s Stephanie Zacharek raved about it, both citing a sequence where a young girl sings an a cappella version of "The Times They Are A-Changin''," which is absent from the soundtrack (for the record, they were virtually the only two voices praising the film; most critics called it bizarre and embarrassing) -- but condensed to a soundtrack, it''s merely baffling. ... Read More...