Only the animals...

Weird title, and it’s another obscure foreign film - but it’s brilliant. Yet again, a triumph for the wonderful mubi.com, which I’ve been raving about ever since lockdown, but so far as I know I’m still their only customer.

It’s one of those strange things where you don’t quite know what’s happening, but happily give in because the storytelling is so clever and convincing. We work around a quintet of characters - a young wife having an affair, her strange husband, a well-off woman who’s gone missing and the girl with whom she’s having an affair…And then there’s this young man in Africa; what’s he go to do with anything? This is all knitted together with brilliant cunning, eventually becoming clear without any cheating but some unforgettable moments on the way. Compared with animals, the movie seems to say, humans are a strange set of beasts, ludicrously driven but blind to the forces that control them - but it’s not heartless or cold. There’s a huge warmth and energy here, not to mention conviction and in the performances and staggering intelligence in th way it’s put together. I almost want to watch it again, immediately, just to savour exactly how it works.