Kosmos

Applied to arthouse films the phrase 'beautifully shot' can make the blood run cold, bringing to mind tedious hours spent in the company of pretty visuals and half-baked, pretentious stories. Turkish director Reha Erdem certainly reveals a talent for forming arresting images in his new film Kosmos, but his blankly allegorical tale of the arrival of a mysterious stranger with healing powers in a wintry Turkish city tests the viewer's patience with its overwrought symbolism and opaque storytelling. Making it through the two hours of the film rests on the ability to tolerate a hero who communicates with the girl of his dreams through birdsong, animal noises and throwing her a gnawed bone. Yet even as the narrative pushed infuriatingly towards the abstract, Erdem's artfully composed but bleakly realistic images of the snowbound city and its inhabitants – both human and animal – kept me watching. So, yes, it has to be said: Kosmos is beautifully shot. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]