Thank you for your responses, and I apologize for not getting back to them sooner. I was up in a cabin in the mountains writing, then off travelling, and when I finally got back home, I had an issue with Comcast and after dealing with them for a while, switched to Direct TV, but they took forever to get my internet... Anyway I only had my phone and tablet for internet-----and I really don't like typing long responses on those. I haven't seen Port Djema but it sounds interesting. Existentialist movies, like many existentialists, seem to focus on depressing themes and nihilistic motifs. Those are the ones that most closely reflect, or even take us near, the existential crisis. But they don't have to be that way. The Lego movie, for example, is very existentialist and it leads us to a happy ending, where the characters have more or less realized their individual potentials and their existential freedom. I believe I have seen the Bicycle Thief, as I remember bits of it---but I don't remember it that well... I will have to watch it again. That is cool about your time in Tanzania. And I do agree---the line between civilization and chaos is very fine------as Americans are discovering right now---even if they don't realize it. There is most certainly chaos in the White House for example...
Yes, I think it is very much an existential movie. Those are most certainly existential choices he makes---and you could most certainly make an argument that they metaphorically represent existential choices we all make. We could compare his choices to Kierkegaard's take on life.
The original VANISHING POINT with BarryN Newman and Cleavon Little released in 1971. It doesn't get get much more basic than that.
Repo Man is my favorite movie with existentialist overtones. All this crazy shit happening around Otto, but he doesn't care, he doesn't have a place in the world. And in the end, just for kicks, he decides to go for a ride in a flying saucer car.