However, there is an intensity about the film-making and performances that stops even the more absurd elements here appearing risible.
Of course, accessible is a relative term when it comes to Stockhausen, in whose operas sacred, mundane, autobiographical and absurd elements collide.
Anyone who thinks that absurd elements of overplanning and bureaucratic constraint are the worst evils Europe has recently experienced should try the Battle of the Somme.
We laugh at the rich — at the shallow consumerism, the obsession with absurd elements of status, at the whole glittering, ridiculous mess of it all.
Inspired by the Surrealists, he filled his shows with absurd elements — playing cards, cow prints, rubber pig noses, question marks — and parodies of the latest trends.
And, I hate to generalize, but I would say that at the far ends of the spectrum men may prefer visceral, absurd elements, like sharks and robots, while women are more drawn to character-based jokes and verbal idiosyncrasies".
For many years, even as writers were discarding the more patently absurd elements of his theory — penis envy, or the death drive — they continued to pay homage to Freud's unblinking insight into the human condition.
"These little slices of our Web experience — social media posts, customer reviews — have become such a part of our daily lives that we can sit back and collectively laugh at the absurd elements of them if they're presented in the right way," Mr. Allocca wrote in an e-mail.
Only the longest period of peace and prosperity in modern European history, a peace and prosperity that might have been due to absurd elements of overplanning and bureaucratic centralization but that also helped create those small rituals of international courtesy that that Icelandic pub witnessed.
I feel that if we ground those reactions, the plot can take on more outrageous and absurd elements.
