The Man from London

Tilda Swinton stars in this profoundly nocturnal Georges Simenon adaptation.

In a port town, a railway worker comes into possession of a suitcase of money. Then a police inspector from London arrives, exuding solemn foreboding. The crime narrative is nudged into the realm of dark abstraction by Bela Tarr’s characteristically brooding camera moves, while Tilda Swinton unsurprisingly makes a perfect fit with the director’s universe.

Tarr’s film is possibly cinema’s strangest adaptation of a Georges Simenon novel.