Sacrifices

Syrian cinema isn't commonplace on the festival circuit, nor is director Oussama Mohammad, whose second feature took 14 years to make. An elliptical, narratively challenging fable of power relations within an extended family, set in a non-specific place and time, it's inspired by Tarkovsky's iconographic visual poetry, but lacks his foundation in an informing culture, history and landscape. Shot with great beauty, it remains most of the time beyond grasp and understanding, its scenarios and private language hermetic and obscure.