Cosmos Blu-Ray

When two young men arrive at a family-run guesthouse in rural France, their anticipation of a few days’ peace and quiet is undermined by a variety of sinister occurrences. A small bird is found murdered, its neck in a tiny noose, a strangely sexualized stain appears on a wall, and a slug crawls across the breakfast tray.

Are these all signs comprising a portent of truly cosmic significance, or merely bizarre coincidences? And is it any wonder that one of the visitors, Witold (piercing-eyed Jonathan Genet) has such difficulty writing his novel, or that his companion Fuchs (Johan Libéreau) prefers to find solace in earthier pleasures?

The final film by the late Andrzej Żuławski, director of the legendary Possession (the only Cannes-winning arthouse film to be officially classified as a video nasty), Cosmos adapts Witold Gombrowicz’s legendarily challenging novel into a beguilingly witty combination of (deceptively) lighthearted French farce and a complex, knowing reflection on the absurdities both of humanity itself and the way that we define our notion of the universe according to our individual hang-ups.