This harrowing and eerily powerful first feature from Daniel and Matthew Wolfe may have a down-to-earth story (a cross-cultural relationship which inspires violent family reprisals) but there’s a palpable transcendence to the visual and aural landscape which elevates it above mere social realism, and closer to the territory of Lynne Ramsay and Clio Barnard. Screen newcomer (and Bifa award winner) Sameena Jabeen Ahmed is Laila, living in a remote caravan with boyfriend Aaron (Connor McCarron), keeping a low-profile while two groups of men (one white, one British Asian) compete to track her down. A sheet of plastic cut to line the back of a car raises the spectre of “honour” killings (though the phrase is never used) but Robbie Ryan’s evocative cinematography universalises matters with a kaleidoscope of expressionist images: the country-dark of the Yorkshire moors; the unforgiving glare of a fluorescent light; an expanding pool of spilt nail-polish. Daniel Wolfe has a background in music videos, and it shows – in one talismanic sequence, Laila dances to Patti Smith’s Horses, the growing frenzy of Smith’s voice signalling the film’s descent into madness. Elsewhere, Tim Buckley strikes a lyrical note, while absurdist talk of black forest gateaux lends a bizarre fairytale element to the script. The final movement is as Grimm as hell, and some may find it intolerable, but this latterday western has much more to offer than misery.
