Caresses

A chain of fraught encounters: a husband slaps his wife; his wife attacks her mother; her mother rants at a friend, etc. All the characters, in other words, have two scenes, one in which they soak up vitriol, one in which it sprays out like vomit. Adapted by Catalan director Pons from a play by Sergi Belbel, this stagey film is full of excruciatingly meaningful dialogue. But gradually it picks up momentum. 'Disgusting' is a word that occurs again and again here, but for the audience, as much as for the characters, prejudices are there to be confounded. Each vignette is bleaker than the last. The undernourished visuals help, just so the fine acting. But it's the words which leave the greatest impression, milking the sexual/emotional ambiguities of 'the family' without resorting to melodrama.