British debutant Peter Strickland’s feel for Transylvania, where he spent several years shooting this slow-burning revenge movie, is quite remarkable. He’s greatly aided by György Kovács’ sound design and Márk Gyõri’s camerawork, which give Hilda Péter’s quest to find the man who raped her a decade earlier a timelessness disconcerting for a modern tale.
A corrosive poverty sears through the countryside’s tranquillity as the intense Péter and son Norbert Tankó pass through. But it’s nothing compared to the suspense that prefaces tragedy when she finds Tibor Pálffy married to the adoring Melinda Kántor, having brutally murdered his partner in crime.