Hughto (and his cinematographer, Apolonia Panagopoulos) favor stark, flattened compositions, often shot with a blunt wide angle lens uncomfortably close to the character. The images have a claustrophobic pull that’s drawn as much from comic books as from cinema: this might be the most effective translation of the graphic novel’s sensibility to film since Ghost World. Jesse Gilbert’s sound expertly fuses the film’s warring halves, the music (and the musique concrete of the elaborately detailed ambiences) constantly destabilizing and complicating the already intricate structures.

For all its formal elegance and conceptual intelligence, the film might remain a particularly clever exercise were it not for its cast. Curtis Winter, in the lead role as Cid Benengeli, private eye and captive, is astonishing. Winter (a filmmaker and publisher of the gorgeous music and photography journal The Colonial) never resorts to the cartoonish or the overblown.
concluded...