The interminable art-house endurance tests of the Hungarian director Béla Tarr have never really been my cup of tea. And yet, although The Man From London has been widely regarded as one of his less effective films, I have to acknowledge that there are some elements in the film of extraordinary beauty.

The sound design, which introduces an ominous, almost subliminal rumble of threat to a seemingly innocuous scene; the inky blacks and the whites that glow like a phosphorus flare; the sinuous camera moves, as insistent as the Devil lurking at the shoulder of one of the troubled characters. It’s a cinema that instils menace into the quotidian.

But ultimately the pace is deadly. Tectonic drift moves faster. The dialogue is delivered in a way that suggests that somebody added a load of extra full stops: “I’d like to see. This matter settled. In a nice, friendly. Fashion.” For all its oddity and its beauty, there’s not enough here to satisfy anyone but the most diehard Béla Tarr buffs.

12A, 140 minutes

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