Black Pond

Watching dream sequences is often like listening to someone telling you about their dream: nonsensical, dull and pointless. Black Pond, a low budget feature by two first time directors, contains a dream sequence which is both suffused with significance and extraordinarily disturbing. Mix this into a film which blends elements of reality TV and broad comedy with a densely elliptical narrative style, and you have one of the most interesting British releases in some time. What keeps all these disparate parts together is the film's bleakly comic portrait of an exhausted marriage.

The arrival of the gentle, but obviously damaged Blake in the lives of Tom (Langham) and Sophie (Handingue) rouses them from their almost catatonic suburban existence. As events take a tragic turn they find a chance of, if not redemption, then at least escape. What remains to be seen is whether Langham can begin to find redemption for his career with this excellent performance. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]