Black Hollow Cage (4½ Stars)

This is the 33rd film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

Every now and then I see a film which leaves me breathless, because I just don't know what to make of it. Evidently others in the audience at the film festival felt the same, based on the number of people who walked out in the first half hour. "Totally boring" was the way the person sitting next to me summed it up. I disagree. This was an amazing film that I'm desperate to see again as soon as it's released on Blu-ray.

Alice lives in a house in the woods with her father and a talking shepherd dog that she calls her mother. Alice finds a black cube in the garden which speaks to her. Two young people, a sister and brother, arrive at the house one evening. Alice's father begins to fall in love with the girl, but the cube warns Alice that the newcomers mean harm and she should kill them. Alice doesn't heed the warning, and her father is killed. But the cube still has a solution. A door opens, Alice climbs in, and she travels a few days into the past, where she has the possibility to change things.

But then we find out that Alice has already travelled into the past many times before, and every time she's failed.

The film is very slow. I've called other films in the festival slow, but this is the slowest of all. Not everything is explained. Even at the end there are mysteries. I appreciate films like this.