You Belong To Me

Short, sharp and with a landlady so sweet it really, really hurts, Sam Zalutsky’s debut reworks the best of Hitchcock and Polanski for a quarter of the budget but with maximum impact. Jeffrey (Sauli) is a young architect first seen (in a symbolic opening that’s perhaps a little too obvious) building his dream house. An unhealthy infatuation with an apathetic one night stand (Lucas) leads him to rent an apartment from a generous landlady (D’Arbanville) who should really think about fixing those floor boards… To give much more away would be disserviceable, but what is truly remarkable is how intense the film actually gets, despite the limited resources, light-hearted tone and derivative plot. Much of this is down to Sauli’s likable vulnerability, as well as gallows humour and an understanding of the mechanics of suspense. Then there's a performance from undervalued counter-culture icon D’Arbanville (of Bilitis, Flesh and Big Wednesday) that is genuinely unnerving, slightly hysterical and always entertaining. [Michael Gillespie]