Quite how Denmark, a country of 5 million people, has bred so much talent in the past few years is something of a mystery, but every year a new gem is produced from this little northern powerhouse. The second Fipresci prize went to Maelstrom, in the Panorama section of the festival, a truly exceptional account of a woman's psychic implosion after she runs over a stranger in her car. Denis Villeneuve, a Quebecois auteur, has fully capitalised on the promise of his apocalyptic Last Night , shown in Cannes and, subsequently, at the Melbourne Film Festival two years ago. A Ma Soeur is an agonisingly exact observation of two sisters negotiating the onset of adolescent desire. How overblown, ponderous and plain dull this film now looks compared with the works of Fritz Lang, showing in a complete retrospective as one of the festival's supporting seasons of old films, is instructive.
Nothing dates faster, it seems, than a vision of the future.
The Age Company Ltd 2001. Any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited.