Before The Revolution (15)

Starring: Francesco Barilli, Adriana Asti

The catch of this Uruguayan horror film is its structure, one continuous shot that takes us through a perplexing tale of disturbance, murder and madness.

A portrait of a young man (Francesco Barilli) in early 1960s Parma who discovers he isn't driven enough to be a revolutionary – he has "a nostalgia for the present" – its storyline is desultory and maddeningly vague, unrelieved by its visual elegance. Adriana Asti as the young aunt the hero is in love with is touching, but the real fire in Bertolucci's work would come five years later, with his masterly The Conformist.