Berberian Sound Studio

Shy sound engineer Gilderoy (a masterfully restrained Toby Jones) leaves Surrey and the world of nature documentaries to work on a lurid Italian horror film in Katalin Varga writer/director Peter Strickland's evocative celebration and sly deconstruction of 1970s Grand Guignol cinema. Thrown by the shock images for which he supplies sound effects by hacking away at various vegetables (the grotesquely violent scenes are never shown) and by the unpalatable behaviour of the people around him - a sex-crazed director, sleazy voice talent, a supremely unhelpful secretary - Gilderoy becomes increasingly disturbed. As the film takes its toll on this mild-mannered man, Strickland cleverly forces the viewer to question what they are hearing and how it keys into Gilderoy's spiralling nightmare. Some knowledge of the genre would be useful for deciphering some of the film's more esoteric pointers, but even without that familiarity this is a dazzling curio in which every sound effect reverberates with multiple meanings.