Parky at the Pictures (DVD 30/8/2018)

Following a drastic haircut, Chloe Fortin (Marine Vacth) pays a visit to her gynaecologist (Dominique Reymond), where yonic and ocular close-ups merge in an audacious match shot. Asked if she would like to consult a psychiatrist to explore the causes of her recurring stomach pains, Chloé agrees to meet Dr Paul Meyer (Jérémie Renier), who listens intently as she reveals that she is 25, lives with a cat named Milo and has struggled to find a job since she quit modelling. Although she has had a few lovers, she feels incapable of sustaining a romance and hopes that Paul can find the reasons for her abdominal pains, as a series of tests have confirmed that there is nothing physically wrong with her. 

Starting their second session with the revelation that she had dreamt about Paul, Chloé describes how she had been pregnant and had been intimidated by his insistence on examining her. As the camera crosses the 180° axis and the screen splits in two, Chloé discloses that she had always wanted a twin sister to protect her, as she has never felt any love from a mother who once admitted that she was an unwanted accident. Paul wonders if the pain she feels over this neglect might be the source of her problem and Chloé whispers that his look of quiet concern makes her feel as though she exists. 

She gets a part-time job as a gallery invigilator at a museum and sits in an alcove like a living exhibit. However, she tells Paul that she enjoys people watching and he suggests that they terminate the treatment because he has developed feelings for her. They kiss and move in together, with Chloé having an uncomfortable encounter with her landing neighbour, Rose (Myriam Boyer), when she introduces her to Milo. But a more disconcerting incident occurs while unpacking, as Chloé finds Paul's passport and discovers that his real surname is Delord. 

Over dinner, he explains that he took his mother's maiden name when he opened his practice and merely smiles when Chloé says that he knows everything about her while he remains something of a stranger. Milo stares accusingly at Chloé as she makes love and protests loudly when Paul insists on her removing him from the bedroom. She makes Paul promise to keep nothing from her, but has a sleepless night and dozes off in the gallery, where images from the Flesh and Blood exhibits meld surreally in her imagination. 

During the bus ride home, Chloé thinks she sees Paul chatting to a woman on the street and is dissatisfied when he claims to have spent the entire day at a hospital on the other side of town. Alighting at the nearest stop the following day, Chloé discovers the lookalike is psychiatrist Louis Delord (also Renier) and she makes an appointment to see him under the name Eva Martin. On arriving home, Rose inquires how she is settling in and asks after Milo. Chloé jokes that Paul isn't a big fan and Rose replies that men lack sensitivity. But there's no sign of Milo when Chloé opens the door and she is surprised to find him locked inside a cupboard. 

Entering Louis's building, Chloé sees her hexapartite reflection in the foyer mirrors and notices that he keeps a plastic plant in his waiting-room, while Paul has a real one. While Paul let her speak, Louis makes the running and challenges Chloé when she fibs about having a sister and a dead mother. However, he is intrigued when she mentions his brother and agrees to see her again if she is willing to take the consultations seriously. Nettled by his arrogance, Chloé slaps his fee into Louis hand and stalks out. Paul picks up on her tension and offers to hook her up with a colleague to continue her therapy. The next morning, he denies having a twin and explains that he uses his mother's maiden name because his father had been implicated in a financial scandal and forced to move abroad.  

Having asked Rose to mind Milo for a few days, Chloé pays a second visit to Louis, who remains brusque and sceptical. But Chloé fantasises that night about him walking in on her making love with Paul and joining in. Indeed, she even imagines herself to be conjoined twins being seduced by the siblings. So, she books another appointment with Louis, who shows her into a bedroom and fondles her before pushing her down on the bed with the promise that she will orgasm the next time they meet. He is as good as his word, with Ozon matching a close-up of Chloé's rounded mouth with an endoscopic shot of her climax. 

As she dresses, Chloé spots a slumbering cat named Danton and Louis explains how rare tortoiseshell males are and reveals that they are often dominant twins (as is sometimes the case with humans). Feeling discomfited, Chloé returns home to find that Milo has run away and is taken aback when she sees a stuffed cat on top of a chest of drawers. Rose explains that Luigi belonged to her daughter, who suffers from mental problems and has been in an institution since she was 20. 

Attending a drinks party with Paul, Chloé asks some of the other guests about patients who repress the existence of their twins. She gets tipsy and fails to recognise the female shrink she is supposed to have been seeing (also Reymond). Feeling sick on the way home, she begs Paul to pull over so she can vomit. But she thinks she sees Louis hiding in the hedgerow and runs down the road before collapsing. Paul carries her back to the car, but nothing more is said about the incident. 

When she next visits Louis, Chloé intends breaking things off. But he pounces on her when she enters and demands to know if his brother ever makes her feel this good. She is shocked that he has rumbled her and he claims to have known who she was from the outset. He explains that Paul loathes him because he always wanted to be an only child and went out of his way to drive a wedge between Louis and his parents. She suppresses a smile when Louis reveals that he is 15 minutes older than his mirror twin and came out head first, while Paul emerged feet first and caused their mother to lose a lot of blood. Louis enjoys being the dominant twin and Chloé has a dream of them wrestling in their underwear as young boys (Keisley and Tchaz Gauthier).

On the night Paul proposes to Chloé, she insists on buying a strap-on and keeps thrusting when he calls out in pain. She experiences pangs of her own during the night and discovers she's pregnant. When she breaks the news to Louis, he is confident that he is the father. But Chloé wonders whether he is the jealous one and that he feels emasculated by Paul. Louis hits her and, as she reels backwards, Chloé shatters a mirror. She vows to have nothing more to do with Louis, but he keeps calling the apartment. He even poses as Paul to pay her a visit at the gallery and give her a cat brooch for her birthday. But Chloé is furious when she realises the deception when they kiss and throws a glass of wine over Louis before storming out of the restaurant.

He grabs her as she passes and he suggests she asks Paul about their classmate, Sandra Schenker (Fanny Sage). When Paul leaves for a conference, Chloé looks through his desk and finds newspaper clippings about the Delord brothers and a love letter from Sandra. She tracks her down via the Internet and learns from her mother (Jacqueline Bisset) that Sandra had the potential to become a great actress before her accident. Fazed by seeing the comatose Sandra's face morph into her own, Chloé wants to leave. But Madame Schenker persuades her to have a cup of tea and explains how Louis posed as Paul in order to take advantage of Sandra and she tried to shoot herself after he raped her and Paul disowned her. However, when she asks Chloé if she had also fallen victim to the Debord boys, Madame Schenker accuses her of enjoying being their plaything and denounces her as a hussy. 

Fleeing in distress, Chloé fails to notice that she is being followed home and only panics when a car speeds towards her in the underground car park. On finding a package on her doorstep, Chloé is dismayed to find a jewellery box containing Danton's heart and she asks Rose if she can spend the night in her daughter's room. Spooked by Luigi and another stuffed cat in a hissing pose, Chloé manages to sleep and is awoken the next morning by Paul clutching Milo, who has made a surprise return. He explains how hurt he had been by Sandra's betrayal and claims her obsession with twins had broken his heart. When Chloé tries to defend her as the victim of Louis's cruelty, he refuses to listen and almost believes she deserves her fate among the living dead.

This exchange proves to be a dream, however, and Chloé beats a hasty retreat after waking to find Rose watching over her with a cake on her lap. Her respite doesn't last long, however, as Paul has discovered she has not been seeing Dr Wexler and Chloé grabs the gun from Paul's desk and confronts Louis. She sees Danton basking in front of a mirror and tells Louis that she knows the truth about Sandra. But he insists that she made up the rape allegation after becoming pregnant and he tuts that Chloé has proved to be every bit as hysterical. 

Chloé pulls the gun, but Louis asks if she is sure she is pointing it at him or Paul. He turns to open a door and Paul appears in an identical pale blue shirt. Unsure who is who, Chloé's confusion is magnified by the mirrors around the room and she even puts the gun to her own head before shooting one of the twins. As the survivor cradles his brother, Chloé feels an unbearable pain and sinks to the floor as he belly begins to tear and a small, bloodied hand reaches out. She's rushed to hospital, where Paul watches through the glass as she undergoes emergency surgery. 

He greets her mother (also Bisset) when she arrives and they are informed by Chloé's gynaecologist that she hasn't been pregnant at all, but has been suffering from a cyst caused by the fact she has been carrying her unborn twin. She shows them photographs of the object removed from Chloé's womb, which looks uncannily like two of the sculptures at the museum. When they are allowed to see Chloé, she asks if they have seen the foetus (which she has named Sandra) and seems to take pleasure in being a `cannibal twin'. Paul avers that the correct term is `parasitic twin' and points out that she absorbed her sister rather than devoured her. 

Having hugged her apologetic mother, Chloé drives home with Paul and asks if he ever wished he'd had a brother. As they make love that night, with Milo perched watchfully on a chair, Chloé looks across to the window and sees her twin hovering outside. She bangs on the glass, which shatters as Chloé orgasms and the flying fragments fade into the credits. 

Reuniting with Marine Vacth after her breakthrough turn in Jeune & Jolie (2013), Ozon relies heavily on the enigmatic impassivity created by her sharp cheekbones and sunken eyes to distract the viewer from the slender nature of the conceit underlying this piece of cine-legerdemain. During the twin reverie, he even summons the spirits of Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann in Ingmar Bergman's Persona (1966) to hint at the secret cause of her physical and psychological discomfort. But even Ozon proves unable to hold back the denouement's melodramatic torrent and it's hard not to laugh out loud when the gun-toting Vacth is faced with two Jérémie Reniers in a room full of mirrors. 

Give production designer Sylvie Olivé her credit, however, as she has found some magnificent interiors for Manuel Dacosse's camera to prowl to the menacing, if sometimes manipulative music of Philippe Rombi. Editor Laure Gardette also clearly has fun with the split screens and the match shots, while Ozon and co-writer Philippe Piazzo cope admirably with the convolutions of their source by adding dashes of saucy humour and kinky eroticism to prevent the seething and oddly misogynist scenario from boiling over. Vacth and Renier generate sparks, while also exposing each other's vulnerabilities and psychoses, and they are deftly supported by Jacqueline Bisset and Myriam Boyer, as well as a pair of handsome felines. But much will depend on the viewer's ability (or willingness) to suspend disbelief, as the plot twists become more telenovelettish and the symbolism become ever more campily Freudian.

Former child actor Xavier Legrand makes a confident feature debut with Custody, which continues the story he started in his Oscar-nominated short, Just Before Losing Everything (2013). Rooting the drama in the realist tradition inherited by the Dardenne brothers from Maurice Pialat, Legrand also draws inspiration from contrasting Hollywood films like Robert Benton's Kramer vs Kramer (1979) and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). However, in seeking to replicate the tension of the latter's denouement, he abandons the restraint that had crucial to establishing the scenario. 

Having filed for divorce from firefighter Denis Ménochet, Léa Drucker appears before judge Saadia Bentaïeb to deny her short-fused husband access to their 11 year-old son, Thomas Gioria, who had provided written testimony of his father's menacing attitude towards his mother and grandparents, Martine Schambacher and Jean-Claude Leguay. Lawyer Sophie Pincemaille explains that Gioria's sister, Mathilde Auneveux, is approaching her 18th birthday and will be able to make her own arrangements regarding Ménochet. But she sticks to the facts and allows Emilie Incerti-Formentini to launch into an emotive defence of her client's readiness to abandon a good job to be close to his children after Drucker swept them away without warning. She depicts Ménochet as a caring parent (and responsible hunting club member) who only wants the best for a son whose mind has been turned by a manipulative mother, who has deprived in-laws Martine Vandeville and Jean-Marie Winling of the chance to see their grandchildren.

Drucker has asked sister Florence Janas to help her find a flat so she can give the kids some space. However, as they are looking round, she gets a call informing her that Ménochet has been granted visitation rights and he refuses to believe that Gioria is unwell when he comes to collect him for their first weekend. The blonde tweenager is clearly afraid of his bearded, bear-like father and flinches when he receives a hug in the front seat of Ménochet's white van. He remains silent on the journey to his grandparents' house and only speaks when he asks his father if they can swap weekends so that he can go to Auneveux's birthday party. 

On the way home, Ménochet tells Gioria that Drucker is using him to hurt him and order him to hand over the notebook he knows contains the mobile phone number she has withheld from him. Ménochet calls her and suggests that they discuss the arrangements for Auneveux's party. But Drucker wants nothing to do with him and he retaliates by denying Gioria permission to switch weekends. However, he seems to have calmed down by the next time they meet and is even open to the idea of dropping Gioria off at the venue after they spend the day together. During lunch, however, Vandeville mentions that a family friend had spotted Gioria and Auneveux at a bus stop in the projects and Ménochet is so furious with Drucker for trying to dupe him that he explodes at his son and bundles him into the van, with Winling accusing him of jeopardising everything by allowing his temper to get the better of him. 

As the terrified Gioria sits in the front seat, he tries to think of a way to protect his mother and sister. He directed Ménochet to the wrong block and runs away across the grass when he tries to threaten him. But Ménochet coaxes the boy back into the vehicle before driving him to the bus stop where he was seen. He says he will go door-to-door to find Drucker and Gioria is too scared to resist any longer and allows himself to be led to the apartment with a firm hand of his shoulder. She opens the door in a towel, but manages to retain her composure as a quietly seething Ménochet wanders between rooms. In the kitchen, however, he bursts into tears and assures Drucker he has changed. He envelops her in a hug, as Gioria looks on with trepidation. When she hints that she needs to get to the hall to lay out the party, Ménochet nods meekly and returns home to find Winling piling his possessions on the kerb. 

Having agreed to let her husband pick up Gioria next morning, Drucker goes to the party and reminds Auneveux's boyfriend, Mathieu Saikaly, that she has to finish her education before she makes any plans for the future. She has no idea that her daughter has recently sobbed in a stall in the school toilets after taking a pregnancy test. But when Ménochet texts her to say he is waiting outside with a present, Drucker goes out to meet with him while Auneveux and Saikaly perform `Proud Mary' with their band. She tries to remain civil as Ménochet asks why she derives such pleasure from hurting him. But her patience snaps when he accuses her of sleeping with Janas's friend, Julien Lucas, and pins her to the side of the van before Janas comes out to rescue her. 

In fact, Drucker and Lucas are lovers. But she decides to send him home after the party and returns to the apartment with Gioria, who is already fretting about having to spend Sunday with his father. When Ménochet begins ringing the doorbell in the middle of the night, the boy cowers in bed beside his mother. She hopes Ménochet will get bored and leave. But somebody lets him in and Drucker hears the lift coming up to her floor and calls the police. Fortunately, neighbour Jenny Bellay has heard the commotion and reported the incident and the duty cop advises Drucker to lock the bathroom door and remain in the tub with Gioria because Ménochet has a hunting rifle. He fires at the lock before kicking down the door. But, before he can barge into the bathroom, armed officers pin him down and the film ends with Bellay closing the door as Drucker and Gioria get ready to leave with an escort. 

For all his suppressed fury and hulking menace, Ménochet is too down-to-earth to replicate Jack Nicholson's terrifying rampage in The Shining. Thus, the conclusion to this otherwise compelling picture singularly fails to convince. Ménochet does excel, however, in the scenes in which he uses insinuation and intimidation to wheedle information out of the resentful, plucky, but petrified Gioria. He also turns on the waterworks to unsettling effect when he finally comes face-to-face with Drucker, who is no angel herself, as she connives to keep Ménochet away from her family. 

Those familiar with Just Before Losing Everything will have a better understanding of her motives, as she had to flee from one of her husband's brutish rages. But Legrand avoids making Ménochet a bogeyman and suggests that his problems may be rooted in the troubled relationship with his own father. Similarly, he keeps Drucker's focus so firmly on Gioria that she fails to appreciate what her daughter is feeling after being dragged away from her social circle and the boyfriend she clearly adores. However, Legrand allows this subplot to drift, even though it says a good deal about Drucker and Ménochet's bonds with their offspring and how they each use them to perpetuate their private feud.

Nevertheless, Legrand won the Best Director prize at the Venice Film Festival and there's no doubt that he does a remarkable  job in coaxing such an outstanding performance out of first-time actor Thomas Gioria. He also does well to keep Nathalie Durand's camera close to the action, while never seeming to intrude upon it. Similarly, he and editor Yorgis Lamprinos exert a tight control over the pace of key set-pieces like the opening hearing, Ménochet's first trip to the projects and the party. He also wisely opts against punctuating the action with a button-pushing score. Which makes it even more of a shame that, having steered clear of generic horror tropes, he lapses into soap opera in the final reel.

Having made a modest impression with his first three features, Short Sharp Shock (1998), In July (2000) and Solino (2002), Hamburg-born Fatih Akin was feted as the bright young hope of German cinema after he won the Golden Bear at Berlin for Head-On (2004). This good impression was reinforced by the vibrant documentary, Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (2005), and The Edge of Heaven (2007), a second study of the immigrant experience that earned Akin the Best Screenplay prize at Cannes. 

However, British audiences can be forgiven for wondering what he's been doing for the last decade, as the comedies Soul Kitchen (2009) and Tschick (2016) failed to travel, the documentary Polluting Paradise (2012) was deemed a touch parochial and his Armenian Genocide saga, The Cut (2014), divided the critics despite completing the `Love, Death and the Devil' trilogy started by Head-On and The Edge of Heaven. 

Expectations were raised for Akin's latest outing, In the Fade, when Diane Kruger's Best Actress triumph at Cannes was followed by the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. But this highly emotive and often manipulative rumination on the extremist sentiments seething beneath Germany's superficial placidity seriously lacks the dramatic balance and stylistic nuance that had characterised Akin's earlier works.

Having married Kurd Numan Acar when he was in prison for drug dealing, Diane Kruger is proud of the way he has turned his life around since being released. He dotes on their six year-old son, Rafael Santana, and keeps him busy at his Hamburg office while Kruger enjoys a spa session with her pregnant friend, Samia Chancrin. When she comes to collect them, however, she finds the street cordoned off by the police and is appalled to discover that her husband and son have been blown to pieces in a bomb attack. 

As rain lashes down, Kruger waits with her parents and in-laws while inspector Henning Peker conducts a DNA test to identify the remains. He asks her to recall anything unusual when she dropped Santana off and she remembers seeing a blonde woman leave an unlocked bicycle outside Acar's office. The press speculate that she is Eastern European, as the police rule out a terrorist attack and consider the possibility that Acar's criminal past might have caught up with him. However, Kruger is certain that the bomber is a neo-Nazi who had targeted Acar because he acted as an adviser and translator to the migrant community.

Snorting coke obtained from lawyer Denis Moschitto, Kruger tries to cope with the funeral and the strain of having to deny in-laws Asim Demirel and Aysel Iscan permission to bury the remains in Turkey. She bridles when her mother-in-law blames her for not taking better care of her son and is indignant when she is busted for possessing heroin while Peker conducts an unexpected search of the house. He is convinced that Acar had retained his contacts with the underworld and that he was the victim of a revenge killing by Kurdish, Turkish or Albanian gangsters. But Kruger resents the implication that she was raising a family on drug money.

Still smarting, she orders disapproving mother Karin Neuhäuser to leave with stepfather Uwe Rohde when she accuses Acar of having led her astray (as she had dropped out of university to be with him). She also ushers Chancrin away, as her swollen belly is too keen a reminder of what she has lost. But, as she lies in the bath with blood gushing underwater from her slashed wrists, Kruger hears a phone message from Moschitto informing her that they have caught the culprits and she vows to fight for justice.  

In court, Kruger fights back her fury as married defendants Hanna Hilsdorf and Ulrich Friedrich Brandhoff kiss in the dock. She also refuses to budge when defence lawyer Johannes Krisch asks judge Hartmut Loth to expel her from the court, as she is likely to use the evidence she hears as co-plaintiff to colour her testimony as a witness. Loth rejects the demand, but Kruger takes an instant dislike to the abrasive Krisch (whose resistibility is clumsily emphasised by an angry scab on his balding pate). Moschitto warns Kruger that some of the medical evidence will be brutal, but she insists on listening to share the suffering of her loved ones. However, she lurches at Hilsdorf when the description of the damage inflicted upon Santana by the nail bomb makes her lose her cool. 

Kruger is warned to behave and is touched when Brandhoff's father, Ulrich Tukur, offers his condolences from the witness stand. In revealing that he had found large amounts of fertiliser and nails in his son's garage, Tukur laments that Brandhoff reveres Adolf Hitler and wishes he had acted sooner in turning him in. However, Krisch establishes that the key to the garage could have been found under its usual stone by a fourth party and forces Peker to admit that a set of untraced fingerprints found at the scene could belong to the actual perpetrator of the crime. 

Moschitto reassures Kruger that Hilsdorf and Brandhoff will not wriggle free and, when Greek witness Yannis Economides claims that they were guests at his hotel on the day of the bombing, Moschitto produces a photograph showing Economides at a rally for the far-right Golden Dawn party and website link whose likers included the accused. When Kruger testifies, however, Krisch uses her possession and Acar's past record to discredit her and, when Moschitto refuses to allow Kruger to be drug tested, he concludes that she must have been under the influence when she thought she saw a woman who was several hundred miles away on holiday. 

Infuriated by Krisch's antics, Moschitto gives an impassioned speech reminding the bench that Kruger had been completely compos mentis on the day of the explosion. As applause ripples around the court, Krisch grimaces. But he has created enough doubt for Loth to acquit Hilsdorf and Brandhoff, even though the court recognises their probably guilt. Stunned, Kruger has some red added to the samurai tattoo on her side and flies out to Greece to try and prove that Economides had perjured himself to protect fellow fascists from conviction. 

Narrowly escaping his clutches at the hotel, Kruger follows Economides to a remote spot overlooking the sea, where Hilsdorf and Brandhoff are staying in a camper van. She buys fertiliser and nails from a garden centre and uses Santana's favourite remote control car to build a bomb in a saucepan. The next day, she places the device under the vehicle and waits in some bushes to activate it. But she has second thoughts when she sees a bird perching on the side mirror and returns to her villa to watch phone footage of happier times with her family. When Moschitto calls to urge her to lodge an appeal, however, Kruger's faith in justice gives out and she straps a backpack to her chest and bursts into the camper when the occupants return from a jog. 

As the camera cranes away from the flames raging in an adjoining tree, a caption informs us that the National Socialist Underground carried out several bombings and shot a policewoman and nine people from migrant backgrounds between 2002-07. Their sole motive was that their targets were non-German. Yet, despite this dismaying revelation, Akin and lawyer co-scenarist Hark Bohm fail to generate any sense of co-ordinated conspiracy. Instead, they contrive the collusion between the suspects and a mysterious Greek and exploit the old gambit of making the opposition counsel as Gestapoesquely hissable as possible to make the miscarriage of justice seem all the more deplorable, as it has been brought about by a rogue who is prepared to play dirty against an honourable opponent. 

Such melodramatics might work in a John Grisham adaptation, but they ring hollow when Akin is striving so hard to score political points. His inability to suggest any complacency among the silent majority is also enervating, as he keeps the action entirely in the bubble that forms around Kruger in the aftermath of the atrocity. Family and friends are reduced to ciphers who fail to provide the necessary support, while Hilsdorf and Brandhoff remain shadowy figures whose reprehensible views are never exposed as they aren't called upon to testify. Moreover, the absence of any media reaction outside a couple of iPhone headlines reinforces the sense of phoniness that envelopes the closing sequences, as Kruger makes an effective bomb with effortless ease without any interference from the supposedly well-organised NSU and its Pan-European allies.

Despite the sketchiness of the blissful domestic background, Akin and Kruger (who is acting in German for the first time) harrowingly convey the enormity of her loss. But they are less successful in suggesting the inner workings that prompt her to wreak revenge. For much of the time, Kruger maintains a mask of benumbed impassivity that makes it difficult to read her emotions. But the plot points involving her drug use and the courtroom lash-out at Hilsdorf feel as forced as her over-stylised suicide bid and tip proceedings towards the soap operatic. Rainer Klausemann's showy slate grey camerawork proves equally problematic with its surfeit of split and rack focus shots, as it forever reminds the viewer of the director's staging of action that strains throughout for a naturalism that is further undermined by Andrew Bird's self-conscious editing, Josh Homme's intrusively emphatic score and Tamo Kunz interiors whose unfeasibly chic plushness typifies the film's ruinous disregard for plausibility.

After a decade away, Valeska Grisebach made a welcome return to film-making with Western, which showed that her powers have scarcely been diminished since she emerged as a talent to watch with Be My Star (2001) and Longing (2006). Numbering Maren Ade among the producers, this study of clashing cultures echoes the acclaimed Toni Erdmann (2016) in its analysis of German's stance towards its eastern neighbours. But, with its shrewd insights into human nature, this is very much a parable for the age of Brexit and the migration crisis, as it exposes our endlessly ruinous inability to live and let live. 

Arriving in Bulgaria to build a water supply plant close to the Greek border, a German construction gang led by foreman Reinhardt Wetrek quickly falls foul of the locals when they erect a flag over their camp, scrump for fruit and harass Vyara Borisova when she loses her hat in the river. Watching from the bank as Wetrek ducks Borisova under the water, Waldemar Zang, Detlef Schaich, Robert Gawellek, Jens Klein and Sascha Diener find the incident amusing. But taciturn newcomer Meinhard Neumann is less impressed, as he watches his boorish compatriots wind up locals whose attitude towards Germans is still coloured by the country's experiences during the Second World War. 

As an ex-legionnaire who has fought in Afghanistan and Africa, Neumann is more aware of the need to tread softly and ventures into the village when he finds a white horse grazing on the riverbank. A couple of old-timers come over to chat to him, but communication proves difficult. However, Neumann shoos away some youths hanging around the horse and takes it back to the camp, where Wetrek views it with suspicion. 

The following night, the German realise they are being spied on from a nearby hill and Neumann joins a recce party to see what the Bulgarians are up to. However, his pals abandon him in the middle of nowhere and he is forced to thumb a lift from a passing car. The occupants mention something about smuggling people over the Greek frontier and Neumann explains about his military past and they nod in respect before dropping him back at the site. 

While his colleagues are affronted by the theft of their flag, Neumann keeps his head down during his next shift and wanders back into the village that night. He is recognised from the car and introduced to bigwig Syuleyman Alilov Letifov, who seems to own the white horse. Indeed, his nephew Kevin Bashev was the kid that Neumann had earlier told to stop riding it and they joke around before the German helps his hosts shift a pile of stones. On returning to the camp, he suggests he has been checking on the equipment and nobody suspects that he has been fraternising. 

While mooching outside the camp, Neumann overhears Wetrek on the phone to his partner and pleading with her to give him another chance. He also calls his boss to complain that things are not going well because there is no drinking water and a delivery from the quarry has been delayed. After hours, Neumann returns to the village for a riding lesson with Bashev. He also helps Letifov build a dry stone wall and learns from Zang that Letifov owns the quarry. When the men go off to collect more stones, Neumann helps Veneta Frangova light a barbecue fire and Letifov rewards him by showing him the valve he uses to divert the water away from the site to his tobacco fields. He also takes him to a rock that resembles a face in profile and tells Neumann that it gives off an energy that enables his people to survive. 

Returning to camp with a bottle of raki, Neumann gets a glare from Wetrek, who warns him that he will be sent home unless he starts showing some loyalty to his workmates. His mood is hardly improved when Aliosman Deliev (whom Neumann had met at the quarry) comes to the camp to negotiate the gravel delivery and Wetrek refuses to pay twice for the same load. Amidst much muttering about mafia involvement, Kerenchev drives off and the Germans express their frustration at being prevented from working on a project that is designed to improve the lot of those scheming against them. 

That night, Neumann heads back to the village and keeps his distance when his workmates show up. One joins in a wrestling competition, while Wetrek attempts to apologise to Borisova for ducking her in the river. Neumann wins handsomely at cards and is wandering along a quiet street when he knocks out Bashev after he tries to pounce on him for a prank. He carries him home and Frangova and Letifov accept his explanation that it was an accident and he is introduced to their elderly mother. She is touched that Neumann thinks Bulgaria is a beautiful country and even Deliev drinks his health. Left alone with Letifov, Neumann confides that he misses his dead sibling and Letifov offers his hand and suggests that they are brothers now.

Waking on a couch the next morning, Neumann returns to work with a slight hangover. In his absence, however, Wetrek has borrowed his horse and ridden to the well fitted with the valve to distribute water between three different villages. He switches the lever to send the supply to the site. But, as he rides away, he forces the horse up a steep incline and leaves it dying in the dust after they fall. Neumann is puzzled by the animal's sudden disappearance, but is too busy to go looking for it. However, Letifov is angry that Wetrek has tinkered with the pipeline and asks Borisova to translate as they try to reach an understanding. Wetrek explains that he could improve the water supply if he was allowed to insert longer pipes. But Letifov insists that he can't afford to go six weeks without water while the work is done. 

Neumann helps Frangova dry some tobacco leaves and wishes that she could understand him, as he is attracted to her and wants her to know that he has nothing and no one in Germany to prevent him from settling down with her. On his way home, however, he finds the horse in the scrub and returns to camp with a heavy heart. Wetrek watches him warily and snaps when a couple of underlings speak out of turn. Unwilling to spend the evening in such a tense atmosphere, Neumann wanders off and meets Letifov, who has found his beloved Tornado and is about to put the creature out of its misery. But Neumann does the deed for him and follows him to the quarry to help dig some rocks under floodlights. They are interrupted by a burly man in a camouflage jacket who threatens Letifov for trespassing on his property. But Neumann confronts him with the rifle and forces the stranger to back down and the Bulgarians are surprised to see him lose his temper. 

While out walking in the hills, Neumann sees Wetrek examining the bloodstain left by Tornado and, ignoring his protestations that it was an accident, warns him that he will be lying there next if he does anything so stupid again. Following his shift, he goes to the village for a beer and finds Borisova sitting at one of the tables. She is waiting for Wetrek to translate for him, but he fails to show up and they go for a stroll. Borisova tells Neumann that she loves her home and missed it while working abroad. They have sex and Neumann feels slightly sheepish as he joins Letifov and his pals for a drink. He shrugs when they ask about his military service and he claims that killing somebody is more difficult than it seems. 

As he walks home, he is confronted by Kostadin Kerenchev, who asks him to repay the money he lost at cards because his wife is giving him hell. Neumann hands over a couple of notes, but tells Kerenchev to get lost because he was beaten fairly and squarely. Once out of the village, however, Neumann senses he is being followed and he has to pull a knife when three men jump him and try to dunk him in the river. 

Shortly afterwards, the Germans are invited to a village festival and Wetrek gets into a fight in the river with Zang over the flag. He watches Neumann chatting to Borisova and takes satisfaction from one of the younger men knocking him to the floor for messing with the local women. Sidling over to Bashev, Neumann gives him his knife as a souvenir. But Letifov returns it saying that he doesn't need such a weapon and asks Neumann what he is searching for. He goes to leave, but returns to join his hosts on the dance floor, where he moves awkwardly to the rhythm with his usual solemnity. But he tries to blend in.

There's more than a faint echo in this climactic sequence of Denis Lavant's frenzied gyrations at the end of Claire Denis's Beau Travail (1999). But, while Grisebach also focuses on the crisis in modern masculinity, she is more concerned with the mood on Europe's wild frontier, as she finds new uses for the tropes of the Hollywood Western. Cinematographer Bernhard Keller clearly takes his vista cues from the films of John Ford, while Grisebach latches on to Howard Hawks's obsession with the working stiff. Moreover, the splendidly stoic Meinhard Neumann invokes the spirits of Gary Cooper and Randolph Scott in finding his outsider at odds with friend and foe alike. Yet, despite the key significance of the white horse, Grisebach resists the temptation to overdo the generic allusions, as she roots the action in recent Bulgarian history and Germany's part in it.

The interaction between Neumann and Syuleyman Alilov Letifov is superbly judged, as they find ways to understand each other and offer mutual support. But the rivalry with Reinhardt Wetrek seems a bit strained and there's something resistible about the intimation that Neumann seduces Borisova in revenge for Wetrek killing Tornado. The tensions between the villagers and the quarry owners also feel contrived and occasionally become a source of confusion because the secondary characters are so sketchily limned. But Grisebach deftly demonstrates how quickly feuds can arise and how testosterone-fuelled infighting is almost a way of life in such insular communities. She also passes some astute comments on language and culture and coaxes excellent performances out of the non-professional leads (Neumann, for example, works in a car factory, while Wetrek is a scaffolder). Thus, while this meanders in places and drifts somewhat towards its enigmatic conclusion, this remains a clear-eyed and compelling study of a forgotten corner of a continent that has been conquered by economic stealth rather than military might.

Finally, another prodigal returns to film-making, as Argentine auteur Lucrecia Martel resumes her career after a nine-year hiatus with Zama. In her previous three outings, La Ciénaga (2001), The Holy Girl (2004) and The Headless Woman (2008), Martel used events in her native city of Salta to examine the country's troubled recent past. But, while she may have moved away from familiar territory in adapting Antonio Di Benedetto's classic 1956 novel, she follows the lead provided by compatriots Fernando Birri in the 1950s and Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino in the 1960s by revealing how Argentina's colonial past has shaped its personality, its politics and its prospects. 

At some point in the late 18th century, Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho) finds himself stranded in a dead-end colonial posting for the Spanish government in what is now Paraguay. Standing on the tideline with the sound of cicadas and playing children ringing in his ears, Zama wanders along the beach and spies on some women mud bathing near the dunes. He tries to run when his presence is detected, but he turns to slap the woman chasing him for daring to impugn his status as a man and a colonial official. On returning to his office, he proves equally callous towards a bound black suspect undergoing interrogation. Eventually, an underling suggests letting him go free without charge and, in his desperation to leave, the man knocks himself out by running into a wall. 

Despite being due a transfer to Lerma, where his wife and children are awaiting him, Zama writes to Marta to express his frustration with the broken promises of the governor (Gustavo Bohm). He also promises to help a merchant skipper from Montevideo get his goods ashore and is spooked when the soothsaying son of a a crew member called the Oriental (Carlos Defeo) greets him as the corregidor who pacified the Indians and makes predictions about his future. Zama reassures the crew that the notorious bandit, Vicuña Porto (Matheus Nachtergaele), has been executed and can no longer threaten them. But, when he chases an intruder away from his home, his landlord is worried that his three daughters will be in danger from Vicuña and his brigands. 

Although he stands out in his faded red brocade tunic, Zama is less socially adept than colleagues Ventura Prieto (Juan Minujín) and Manuel Fernández (Nahuel Cano) and cuts an awkward figure at a gathering attended by the glamorous Luciana Piñares de Luenga (Lola Dueñas), who is the wife of the treasury minister. However, she has a soft spot for him and, while sipping brandy, she promises to intercede with her husband to get him a new posting. They reminisce about Europe (even though Zama was born in South America and has never been there) and she urges him to be discreet in front of her mute black servant, Malemba (Mariana Nunes).

Zama acts as magistrate in the settlement and he agrees to grant an encomienda of Indians to a family with no documents to prove their connection to a respected landowner. Realising that Zama has been swayed by the beauty of the couple's mixed race granddaughter, Prieto questions his decision and they fight when he mocks Americans with ideas above their station. Exhausted and aggrieved, Zama returns to his lodgings to be bathed by Rita (Paula Grinszpan) and her sisters. She informs him that she has been assaulted by a soldier named Bermudez (Juan Pablo Gomez) and asks him to avenge her because he has nothing left to lose. He assures her he is in no position as a royal official to take the law into his own hands and leaves to attend to the burial of the Oriental and his son, who have died of plague. The bishop overseeing the dousing of the corpses in quicklime tells Zama that they have confiscated goods from the ship to cover their expenses, as even the Church can't operate solely as a charity. 

Hurrying to break the news of the Oriental's demise to Luciana, Zama discovers she is more concerned with the fact that Malemba has declared her intention to marry, even though she cannot speak to give her consent. Zama assures Luciana that he can find a way around the problem and she promises him a kiss as a reward. Further frustration follows when the governor announces (as a llama casually wanders around the room) that he has been posted back to Spain and that Prieto is to be dispatched to Lerma as punishment for laying hands on a superior. Dismayed that an underling in disgrace has been granted his own cherished wish, Zama goes to see Luciana for some sympathy, only to find she is cavorting in her boudoir with another man. 

Discovering that the governor has taken several items of his own furniture on departing, Zama throws himself into his duties (as far as he is able). When he goes to the beach to fetch some fish, he asks one of the Indian women, Emilia (Maria Etelvina Peredez), why his toddler son crouches like a crab when he walks, but she offers him no explanation. He takes the fish to the tavern where the new governor (Daniel Veronese) is throwing dice to win the ears of Vicuña, which were sliced off before his execution. On winning, the governor promises Zama that he will write to the king to secure his immediate transfer. However, when they call on scribe Fernández to compose the missive, they find him writing a book and the governor is so furious with Zama for having no idea that such an enterprise was going on under his nose that he includes his last few pieces of furniture on his own inventory. Fernández asks Zama to read the text, but he refuses and advises that he keeps it hidden until the fuss blows over. 

Having given Emilia his bed, Zama takes his few remaining possessions to a rundown shack owned by Zumala (Silvia Luque). He asks Emilia to wash his shirt, but she wants nothing to do with him. The governor compounds his misery by refusing to recommend his transfer unless he writes a report denouncing Fernández for writing on government time. He returns home to find that Zumala has died and been replaced by Tora (also Luque), who informs him that he is her only guest, even though he insists he has seen two women with extravagant hair in the vicinity. Stricken with fever, Zama struggles to sleep and is taken aback by the discovery that the governor has moved Fernández into his already cramped office so he can keep an eye on him. Determined to regain some control over his existence, Zama confiscates the manuscript and submits it to the governor, who is impressed by Fernández's talent. But he is crushed to learn that it will take two years to process his transfer and the governor chides him for having an illegitimate son, as this could complicate matters. 

More time passes and the now-bearded Zama seeks to impress the new governor (Rodolfo Prantte) by volunteering for a mission led by Captain Hipólito Parrilla (Rafael Spregelburd) to vanquish Vicuña once and for all. Despite the claims that he has been executed, the bandit remains a potent force and the governor wants to exhibit his head to prove to the superstitious people that he no longer poses a threat to colonial law and order. They set out on horseback through the swamps and find a dead body in a tree. During the night, however, their camp is infiltrated by blind Indians, who steal their horses. As Zama tries to lay low, he is cornered by Vicuña, who taunts him with his own sword and lets him live with his humiliation. 

Despite his hand beginning to smell after being bitten by a spider, Parrilla mounts the sole remaining horse, as the party continues its expedition. However, Zama and three other soldiers are abducted by Indians coated in red dye and they are taken back to the village, where they are stripped and also smeared with the rusty pigment. The next morning, they are returned to their comrades, along with the horse and they press on without discussing the incident. Zama opts not to expose Vicuña. But, when they reach a lake and decide to rest for a while, he informs Parrilla that they are harbouring the fugitive. In trying to arrest him, however, Parrilla is overpowered by Vicuña's men and they are bound together by ropes on the sand. 

Vicuña takes Zama to one side and confides that he has only committed a fraction of the crimes attributed to him. However, he has promised his men that he will make them rich and orders Zama to tell him where the coconuts filled with precious stones are hidden. After killing Parrilla when he plots his escape, Vicuña loses patience with Zama for refusing to co-operate and has him held down in the sand while he cuts off his hands with his sword. At the Conradian conclusion of this futile trek into the heart of darkness, Zama is shown lying in a punt with his stumps bound with mud, bandages and algae. A young Indian boy asks him if he wants to live and he just about manages to nod in the affirmative. 

Although Brazil has a rich tradition of films set in the colonial period, they have been fewer and further between in Argentinian cinema. Thus, it's easier to compare this gruelling study with the likes of Werner Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972), Lisandro Alonso's Jauja (2014) and Ciro Guerra's Embrace of the Serpent (2015), which all pitch hapless individuals into hostile terrain that relentlessly saps his physical and psychological strength. However, Don Diego de Zama drifts with the tide of events rather than attempting to shape them, as he endures a Godotian wait that consistently reminds him - for all his unentitled airs and shabby graces - of his subservient place in the imperial system.  

Boasting Pedro Almodóvar, Gael García Bernal and Danny Glover among its producers, this has been hailed as a politically and aesthetically daring masterpiece by some critics and a capriciously inaccessible bore by others. As one might expect, the truth lies somewhere in between, as Martel makes few compromises to the uncommitted viewer with her elliptical brand of storytelling, stately pacing and anachronistic use of music by the 1950s Brazilian combo, Los Indios Tabajares. She overdoes the symbolism in the opening anecdote about a fish struggling to avoid being left high and dry on the riverbank. But she also generates an atmosphere of soul-crushingly surreal ennui that is superbly conveyed by the pompous, but pitiable Daniel Giménez Cacho. 

Martel also frames the action in a way to expose the dismissively supremacist mistreatment of the black and indigenous populations, who occupy the backgrounds and margins of shots that invariably foreground the Hispanic characters who are making an unholy mess of subjugating and exploiting the New World. She owes much in this regard to cinematographer Rui Poças, production designer Renata Pinheiro and costumier Julio Suárez, whose use of colour, light and space captures a lost world of tatty tricorn hats, sweat-stained shirts and ill-fitting wigs. But sound designer Guido Berenblum also plays a vital role, as he combines the ambient sounds of insects and water with a cacophony of chattering (and often untranslated) voices and grinding noises that seem to come from another time and place to reinforce the state of delirium that sucks Zama under, as he loses any sense of hope, purpose or self.