Saying that an image is telling such a complex story is a bit off I think. It's your mind that's taking what it wants and thinking up all of these things, the image is merely providing you with the opportunity.
EDIT: I don't mean that in a bad way, in fact I think it goes to show that when we ponder these things, ask the questions, and think of the "stories" ourselves, they are much more impactful and give us a time to find out more about ourselves and the way we feel about various things.
Also, just because you watch videos with a simple mind, doesn't mean that someone else doesn't wonder those exact same things about the video that you notice about the picture.
At what point does an image lose it's story-telling?
Lets take an image and now we're going to make it into more of a motion capture and have the camera move around a bit. Now lets add some moving environments... people....sounds...voices....
And all of a sudden it's telling less of a story?
Also, if you go to Art Museums there are short videos in some rooms as well, which I think tell amazing stories. There was one that showed a huge crowd of men running from these crows who were trying to eat them all, and it was like a flight and fight for survival. The men ended up getting into huge hot air balloons and shooting the birds, but in the end the birds destroyed every last one and killed every man. I can't really do the video justice with my explanation....
All of the men where fairly generic and were all black. There were noises and faint sounds of voices, but nothing comprehensible. It was a really figurative and really mind exploring video.
It made me think a lot more and gave me more of an impactful story than most things I've seen in an art museum.
