Safe Place

Every small word and gesture counts for a lot in Croatian multihyphenate Lerotić’s sparse, still, tender-as-a-bruise debut feature: Any bigger ones might throw a severely delicate situation off-balance.

If this film is a resurrection, it’s by turns a startling and intelligent one — but one that ultimately fails to seize the possibilities of its venture like similarly inclined time-splitters.

Lerotić delivers an austere, contained, and sensible film about bureaucratic corruption.

“Safe Place” would have flourished by leaning more into its imaginative, albeit brief, reality-tilting storytelling structure, but many other technical elements elevate this piece.