Award-winning Belgian director Van Passel uses the Parisian boarding house of the title as one of those risky metaphors representing old Euroland.

"Rancour bred from the frustrated desires of the inhabitants has fed on itself... until it brings about the wreck of a small community - the crystallisation of the Europe of 1913," he says.

Of course, these clever metaphors only work if you realise what they are metaphors of... and you are left none the wiser after watching this.

OK, with storm clouds gathering, the love affair between impoverished German artist Richard Grunewald (Dingwall) and lowly French maid Louise (Delpy) isn't without irony.

But the rest of the analogies based on the boarding house guests fail to register, with most of them coming across as cartoon grotesques.

There's the old dear permanently face-down in the soup, a couple of Hungarian tarts, an Irish jack-the-lad and the couple who run the dosshouse.

The Burrells (West and Walters) view their beloved Parisian villa as a corner of France that will remain forever England.

"No French in this house please - we're British," waspish maid Ella instructs Louise on her arrival to take up a new post.

The early atmosphere is beautifully created with nods in the direction of both the cityscapes of Moulin Rouge and the wretched flophouse of Delicatessen.

So far, so good - then the affair begins. We get some measure of Richard when he bets Ella a bottle of champagne he can hook Louise.

The vulnerable widow and mother eventually falls for his wiles but then falls pregnant - a situation Richard wants nothing to do with.

To get away with a storyline as grim as what follows, the narrative has to have been assured and convincing - but it isn't.

So we get a relationship hurtling along with neither rhyme nor reason - he's a heartless cad and she's a bit of a drip that's been done up like kipper.

There's really too much going on to command attention and too many unformed characters flitting in and out without rational explanation.

A classic example of style triumphing over content.

Tim Evans