Tic Tac

Like Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Alfredson's first feature plays around with time structure. We know the various stories in his film are unfolding over a single night, but it is for the viewer to work out the actual order in which events occur, because the film darts back and forth in time pretty much unannounced. Among the cast of characters are a pair of very sensitive skinheads who only beat people up on request, a manic husband obsessed with moving to Canberra, a dodgy cop working up a flat-swap scam, and a teenage arsonist who falls in love instead of setting the school alight. Individual scenes are diverting enough, but the entertainment value is more in assembling the jigsaw puzzle than in admiring the slightly banal end result. And since subtitles inevitably iron out the humour in the dialogue, it is less fun than it probably was for the home audience.