To this point, the jury has been out on Carlos Reygadas. Japón, the first film from the young Mexican, contained bravura sequences but seemed a little too in love with Andrei Tarkovsky to mark out unique territory.

SILENT LIGHT/STELLET LICHT

Directed by Carlos Reygadas. Club, IFI, Dublin, 127 min ****

For all its brilliant fury, the weird Battle in Heavenwas always doomed to gag on its own galloping pretentiousness.

Happily, Silent Light, a luminous, stubbornly unhurried drama detailing an adulterous romance among the Mennonite community of rural Mexico, confirms Reygadas as an enormously gifted director.

This strange film, featuring mostly non-professional actors, requires patience and emotional investment. The studied tableaux and hesitant dialogue are, in their way, as anti-naturalistic as the racing fireballs in a Jerry Bruckheimer thriller.

But from a stunning opening scene depicting dawn skulking over the plains, the picture exerts a disquieting grip on the viewer. Don't miss its brief visit to the IFI. - DONALD CLARKE