An utterly dark and depressing movie: which is also probably why I've enjoyed it so much... Its theme easily reminds us of "Requiem For A Dream" or "Trainspotting" (another British masterpiece); its heavy, discomforting atmosphere of deep sadness and unrecoverable loss, as well as its long, silent frames of bleak, grief-stricken faces, marked by unspeakable pain and suffering, are reminiscent of "Another Day"; and its overall "dragged out" or "self indulgent" artistic approach is evocative of "Elephant", or Bela Tarr's "Satantango". This film is nothing less than a raw and torturous foray into the very heart of darkness and despair; its main subject, as set forth in the very first lines of the movie, is nothing else than the excruciating agony of existence, from whose unbearable hollowness or emptiness the characters seek shelter in drugs, lust, or isolation. From this perspective alone, an obvious link can be drawn to Louis Malle's "The Fire Within", a masterpiece of the 1960's French New Wave cinema, or to its modern-day Nordic 'remake', "Oslo, August 31". Then again, it is obviously not a film for everyone, and neither are those mentioned above, to whom this movie is more or less comparable... After all, not everybody enjoys his or her cup of coffee dark, with NO sugar...
