Film Reviews by DB

Starts slow, but the moment that I knew I was hooked was when Victoria sits on the ledge of a building, several stories up, and I found I could hardly watch. At this point she's just hanging out with some sketchy guys, who are also begging her to stop taking such a silly risk. The single take engenders a powerful sense of connection to the action, and forces the viewer into a present-moment awareness that's uncomfortably like real life.

What starts out as a kind of live-action role play, as a wealthy man dresses up as a hunchbacked homeless woman, quickly moves into much stranger territory. The second scene has him performing in a motion-capture suit, eventually performing a weird highly sexual dance with a woman that becomes transformed into alien pornography. In the third, he's a bestial imp, a savage leprechaun who violently kidnaps a beautiful fashion model, who sings him to sleep in an underground cavern.

It could be seen as a version of Shakespeare's "all the world's a stage", but as the ironically named Mr Oscar proceeds through his nine appointments for the day, we are left to wonder what is really going on. Oscar seems compelled to fulfil his roles by some tremendous obligation. There seems to be some kind of audience watching. One of the most quietly effective scenes involves him playing a frustrated parent driving his adolescent daughter home from a party. In another, he apparently murders another version of himself.

The central performance by Denis Lavant is wonderful and gives this movie its heart.