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Review

There is nothing more satisfying than watching a talented filmmaker smartly toy with their material. Belgian director Olivier Masset-Depasse easily satisfies by not only turning Cages into the powerful melodrama that it promises to be from the first act, but also going much further. The story is simple: a young ambulance driver is forced to quit her career after she goes mute from the trauma of a car accident. When she finds her longtime boyfriend cheating on her, she realizes that in becoming the timid, clumsy and terrified person that she now is, she has lost his love. In a desperate attempt to prove to him that she can regain on her own the confidence she once had, she ties him up and sets out to run the bar they own during their annual animal impersonation contest. Defying expectations built in the first half, director Masset-Depasse drives the film off of a surrealist cliff, taking us to worlds we had never expected to see when the film began, only to bring the narrative back to a complex yet realistic conclusion. A piece of truly unique filmmaking, Cages is better experienced than described, an exercise in letting everything fall apart in order to watch it come back together. (French with English subtitles)

 -- Michael Lerman