From the opening shot of a panic-stricken Dave (Jeroen Perceval) emerging from a swimming pool, his face squished into a pair of tights, to a phone conversation that takes place inside a sunbed, to a knife fight in a carwash, first-time director Robin Pront displays a knack for visually arresting, strikingly cinematic images. This Belgian criminal-family parable is shot in a desolate palette of frostbitten greys and blues, with the backdrop of the kind of steroidal techno that sounds more like a hammer attack than music. This is storytelling as lean and unpredictable as a fighting dog; it’s one of the strongest first features I have seen this year.
