The camera is quintessential Tarr: hovering in anticipation of things that won't happen, tracking like a private eye tailing a perp, and imbuing the black-and-white image with a caustic malaise no other director comes near to achieving.

The mere fact of Hungarian auteur Bla Tarr continuing to direct films without making the smallest concession to popular fashion is a cause for celebration.

Survive the opening five minutes of his realist/fabulist noir - an unrelentingly slow pan up the side of an industrial ship - without chewing your seat or howling and you'll find plenty to stroke your chin over.

Tarr arrange the contemplative pace with a refined aesthetic that, in its formal register, drives oppressive atmospheres and a gloomy existentialism, but whose narrative core weakens the experience with one-dimensional characters. [Full review in Spanish]