The story can be considered as simple as it gets I guess. The main character, Yella, tries to break away from her husband who is in a desperate state also due to a failed business. While he keeps stalking her, in an attempt to get a job and life of her own she teams up with a venture capital negotiator, who unfortunately does some not exactly legal side business on his own. As he's about to be exposed, the story comes to a crisis when she tries to support him with a blackmailing scheme.
So while the core story is pretty straight forward, it's really the execution which sets this film apart. More specifically, this film succeeds in creating a real atmosphere through minimalistic dialog and camera work dominated by long still and slow panning shots, beautiful lighting and colors contrasting toned down reds and blues, and meticulous sound work which puts you right into the middle of things.
The world created here is one of profound dissociation, where at each moment people seem to be able to relate to each other but can't quite, as everybody is just pursuing his own goals not freely but rather desperately driven and brutally exploitative in consequence.
To support that atmosphere, the film also sports a couple of "magical" stunts which look like an attempt to give it a metaphysical touch. And especially the ending seems to put all past events into a context which wouldn't live up to the tension immediately preceding it. In fact, I found it a bit disappointing on first viewing myself, but it made sense on the second one when I realized that the film doesn't seek a closure which it couldn't satisfyingly present anyway.
Altogether, I'd consider this truly great cinema. It likely won't appeal that much to a viewer who's still fine with run of the mill Hollywood cinema and TV shows, which basically reassemble the same material over and over again thanks to professional writing combined with lack of inspiration and present them in always the same ways, over edited, over color processed, over acted, over scored, over everything. Audiences on the other hand who can e.g. appreciate Russian or Japanese classics will find here a truly original addition to class contemporary cinema I'd say.
So while the core story is pretty straight forward, it's really the execution which sets this film apart. More specifically, this film succeeds in creating a real atmosphere through minimalistic dialog and camera work dominated by long still and slow panning shots, beautiful lighting and colors contrasting toned down reds and blues, and meticulous sound work which puts you right into the middle of things.
The world created here is one of profound dissociation, where at each moment people seem to be able to relate to each other but can't quite, as everybody is just pursuing his own goals not freely but rather desperately driven and brutally exploitative in consequence.
To support that atmosphere, the film also sports a couple of "magical" stunts which look like an attempt to give it a metaphysical touch. And especially the ending seems to put all past events into a context which wouldn't live up to the tension immediately preceding it. In fact, I found it a bit disappointing on first viewing myself, but it made sense on the second one when I realized that the film doesn't seek a closure which it couldn't satisfyingly present anyway.
Altogether, I'd consider this truly great cinema. It likely won't appeal that much to a viewer who's still fine with run of the mill Hollywood cinema and TV shows, which basically reassemble the same material over and over again thanks to professional writing combined with lack of inspiration and present them in always the same ways, over edited, over color processed, over acted, over scored, over everything. Audiences on the other hand who can e.g. appreciate Russian or Japanese classics will find here a truly original addition to class contemporary cinema I'd say.