Miss Violence

Sometimes it occurs to me I should be concerned at some of the films that Amazon recommends to me on the basis of my known preferences and this one probably beats them all. It is a very, very good film but I wouldn't truly recommend it to anyone. At least not someone I didn't know very well and could be sure that they could deal with the worryingly believable and atrocious basis of this film. It begins innocuously enough with a daughter's eleventh birthday. And yet wasn't I slightly perturbed at the flat and colourless surroundings, the spooky lack or gaiety, the fact they were dancing to a Leonard Cohen track? And the way the 'father' held his daughter? Almost immediately there is a most dramatic incident and then we are taken back to a measured family routine where everything is under control and we get drawn further into this only seeming innocuous family. There are truly dreadful events represented here and although most of this gradually dawns upon the viewer during the course of the film there are a couple of openly distressing scenes. There is no attempt to set this awful business in the past and we can only guess at how surprising this depiction is to a Greek audience, if indeed it had a theatrical release. People and glass houses and all that so I will say no more other than that maybe we in the UK need such a brave film maker to look further into some of our more murky corners that are, similarly, maybe not too far from home.