Calvaire

Fabrice du Welz's debut strands a second-rate touring cabaret singer at a remote Ardennes inn when his van dies, and the lonely innkeeper slowly decides the stranger is his departed wife. From there the whole waterlogged village closes ranks around the delusion, and the film curdles from melancholy into full rural nightmare. There is a scene of the locals dancing in a tavern that is more disturbing than most films manage with a knife. Grim, muddy and beautifully shot, it carried the French extreme wave over the border. Not one to mistake for a cosy folk tale.