Perplexity, surrealism & absurdism in a musty, shabby & filthy atmosphere. Many signs inaugurate early on the sheer queerness of whatever revolves around Barton Fink - his own madman's facial expressions, a pitiful & empty hotel, faint sounds that obsessessively bother only him, dubious characters & personalities in Hollywood. But the viewer can still hang in this mess, and somehow (with a little effort) make some sense of what's happening. It's only towards the last third that the increasing contradictions explode into no(n)-sense. The only - and cheap - way to read the movie would be that most of these irreconciliable scenes are in fact dreams or hallucinations. Disappointing.