Echoes of Antonioni and Hitchcock reverberate hollowly around the cavernous desert spaces in which Bruno Dumont deposits this disappointing existential-alienation road movie. The widescreen vistas are undeniably impressive, but lack the compositional guile that made the long shots in Dumonts Humanité so intriguing.
Moreover, American photographer David Wissak and French girlfriend Katia Golubeva prove hugely resistible characters, whose grinding love-making and sudden mood swings are compounded by the fact they make little effort to cross their language barriers. It should be a relief when some shocking action intrudes upon their ennui, but the impact merely creates a sense of frustration as they approach their connived conclusion.