Absolutely stunning

Rating: 8/10 (27 May 2011)

This at once reminds of Bergman's trilogy, and of "Through a Glass Darkly" especially. It's little people, and everyone is little under such a huge theme as the nascence of violence and terror, that are almost fatalistically sent on their own trajectories. It takes skills as a dramatist to make something such as this, with complex ideas framed in place and time.
But the big philosophical ideas apart, the technique, writing, the photography, the way the actors perform, the execution of this film is simply stunning. The voice over narration that begins sets the place but does not lazily tell, it is elusive and leads into the action. Like much else in this film it is superbly balanced, not too much or it would undercut the action.
The set scenes between actors achieve a finely tuned naturalness and rhythmically counterbalance the forward action of the script and the interplay between the actors so another degree of interest is revealed and what it might lead to.
It is not predictable, not with the range of characters, the events that occur and a very strong evocation of place in a film in quite some time, make this worth watching again and again.