The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears

Deliberately disorienting, this stylish Belgian horror movie will delight fans of Italian giallo as it finds an odd emotional connection even though the surreal plot never quite comes into focus. Yes, it's kind of like a David Lynch movie: gripping and beautifully murky even though it's impossible to make any sense of it.

At the centre is Dan (Klaus Tange), who returns from a business trip to find his Brussels flat locked from the inside, but his wife (Ursula Bedena) is missing. The police are no help, so he starts poking around the building himself, looking for clues and listening to outrageous stories of death and disappearance. An elderly neighbour (Birgit Yew) spins a long tale about how her husband was abducted into the ceiling. So Dan becomes convinced that his wife is being held in secret compartments in the walls. But everything is so wildly nightmarish that it could all be in his mind.

The film plays out like a feverish drug trip as Dan enters a series of mind-boggling scenarios. Filmmakers Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani use a variety of gimmicks to illustrate these anecdotes, including animation and retro black and white, while punching the gonzo insanity of it all with a riotous 1970s-style score. The building's art nouveau architecture takes on a life of its own, as do the creepy noises coming from the corners of every room. But all of this would be style over substance if the film wasn't anchored by a powerful sense of emotion that shakes us to the core.

Each of the actors plays it dead straight, even as the situation escalates into a hyper-violent freak-out. And as Cattet and Forzani indulgently refuse to explain anything, the film becomes thrillingly, viscerally unpredictable. Even so, we do begin to understand the inner workings of the characters, and we feel every jolt ourselves. It's far too subliminal for mainstream audiences, but adventurous moviegoers and those who love art-house horror will want to see it again and again.