Barocco

A unique film, but not for everyone. If you mixed two parts Hitchcock and one part David Lynch and threw in a bit of social satire to go in with the mix you still wouldn't quite manage to come up with something as unusual as this.

The Hitchcock link is obvious, as it is constantly referencing Vertigo, though reversing the sexes (the woman ends up transforming the man into the image of her lost lover). I mention Lynch because in a similar way (and I really do wonder whether Lynch might have caught this some time) this works as a deliberately dreamy experience where everything is off-kilter and defies conventional waking logic, and mixes the comic, the tragic and the numinous throughout.

A very young Depardieu is terrific as firstly the callow, vapid puppy-dog boxer, and then as the complex, brutal yet ultimately loving and tender assassin. The satire is a pretty broad and actually quite simple attack on the manipulations of the media and the political elite. In fact Techine is really more interested in running with his wonderfully atmospheric vision of a dystopian 'future' world.

This is a very unusual, flawed, startling, sometimes confusing, but ultimately unique film that will appeal if you aren't hung up on conventional logical narrative story-telling and fancy some top-flight acting and serious atmospherics.

It doesn't all work, but there is plenty here that I know will stay with me for a long time to come - it doesn't get much better than that!