Directed by Monte Hellman. Starring Tygh Runyan and Shannyn Sossamon. Unrated. Opens Saturday, April 28, at the Vancity Theatre

“Hey, this isn’t just another piece-of-shit Hollywood movie,” a filmmaker protests. “It’s my piece-of-shit Hollywood movie.”

That’s one of the sharper, and more comprehensible, lines in the doggedly enigmatic Road to Nowhere, a rare effort from Monte Hellman, who’ll turn 80 this year. He’s best known for 1971’s Two-Lane Blacktop—still the ultimate movie starring singer-songwriter James Taylor (as an unnamed race-car driver). Hellman’s last feature, 1988’s Iguana, was an exploitation item cowritten with Steven Gaydos, a long-time Variety editor who also provides the cryptic road map here.

Shot mostly in North Carolina, this two-hour puzzle stars Vancouver’s Tygh Runyan (Doppelgänger Paul) as Mitchell Haven, the director tasked with turning a real-life murder mystery into celluloid dreams. He falls in lust with his leading lady (Shannyn Sossamon), a nonactor who strongly resembles a woman who may or may not have died in a big switcheroo involving a rich hustler played by Cliff De Young. Or does he play the actor playing the hustler?

We’re initially shown scenes of MH’s finished movie, also called Road to Nowhere, and it’s rarely clear which moments are the “real” thing, the cinematic depiction, or some prep for the film-in-progress. To add metaphorical import, our movie-mad writer-director nightly watches relevant clips from The Lady Eve and The Seventh Seal. The allusions carry to bits of Vertigo and various films noir, while Tom Russell sings dirges that make Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska sound chipper.

Working against all this film-school fun are some questionable performances, especially from Waylon Payne, no Fred MacMurray as an antsy insurance investigator. It’s also uncertain whether the prolonged takes throughout are designed to test the audience’s patience or to take the story into a haunting new realm. In fact, this Road is both beautiful and baffling. And it’s definitely not just another movie.