A daring and original psychological thriller set in the twilight world of downtown Buenos Aires. Colin Firth is the nervous, repressed British man who runs a dying revival cinema (posters and photos of Montgomery Clift and Charles Laughton adorn his flat) and takes in ruggedly handsome Yank Hart Bochner to pay the rent. The pair become increasingly implicated in each other's lives with the cinephile both attracted to and threatened by his boarder's confident, animal appeal. Director Martin Donovan, who was born and raised in Argentina but has lived for many years in Britain, is obviously a major film buff himself, but thankfully never allows movie gags and sight jokes to become 'in-jokes' at the viewer's expense. And he has succeeded in populating his film with a series of highly colourful types, including a transvestite and a pair of bird-like spinsters, played to the hilt and then some by Dora Bryan and Liz Smith. Only in the final reel does the tension spill over into bloody gore. A major achievement on a limited budget.


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