A beautiful depiction of the grotesque.

It's like a giallo by David Lynch, similar to Argento's Suspiria in its color pallet and surreal quality. At times it devolves into an exercise in film technique and becomes very self-consciously artificial.

The thing I was impressed by is how the film often depicts a moment through a visual fragment, approximating how life is actually experienced. We seldom look at broad images, usually focusing on this bit or that, unconsciously melding our impressions into a cohesive whole.

Where it falls apart is that there's not enough respite from the weirdness to ever establish that sort of cohesion. So we get a kind of 'fevered dream', where the images override reason. It feels like watching someone's pretty nightmare, which while interesting for a time is ultimately fruitless. Long before the movie ends I ceased caring how it would play out.

It attempts eroticism, but there's a paranoia and a guilt tied to sex that overwhelms the effect. The constant association of violence and death with sex makes the presentation grotesque to any but a psychotic viewer. Sex is murder, it seems to suggest, and desire homicidal. Male desire seems driven by terror and rage, all tied in to childhood experiences of traumatic discovery and sexual awakening. In the film, Laura seems to represent every woman - a temptress and a victim, whose body's tears are blood-red.

I'd recommend the movie only to those curious about cinematic effects, or who enjoy a seriously twisted portrayal of the role of sex in the lives of human beings.