Deadpan [and] very funny even though you feel uncomfortable laughing.

Dario Grandinetti's riveting performance as the vaguely menacing yet bureaucratic Claudio is a reminder that repulsive or unfathomable characters can be as fascinating as likable ones.

The film does not serve up its ideas in easily digestible bites. The audience needs to work with a dislocated string of scenes that sometimes highlight absurdity, sometimes violence and frequently say very little at all.

It was an impressively fervid work, but nothing about it suggested that, given the opportunity to scale up, Naishtat would take it easy on the audience.