Golden Braid

Inspired by Guy de Maupassant's short story 'La Chevelure', this is slighter than usual for Cox, but as witty as ever. Bernard (Haywood) is a fastidious clock-repairer with a history of collecting as many women as he does clocks. But his home is his true repository of pleasure, full of antiques and works of art, and chiming to the music of time. Into it he brings his newest conquest, the married Terese (Dobrowolska), but it's a perfect lock of golden hair, found secreted in a dresser, that unlocks his erotic passions and threatens to tip him into insanity. Though essentially a melancholy chamber piece, sustained by Haywood's quietly expressive performance, it is not without bursts of deliciously dark humour. Nino Martinetti's cinematography ensures a rich painterly surface, and the film is edited to produce a slow metronomic rhythm which lulls one rewardingly.