DELTA

A young man, withdrawn to a degree that seems almost autistic, returns after years of absence to his village in the middle of the “Delta”, the ramified estuary where the Danube flows into the Black Sea. One of Europe’s few surviving unspoiled natural landscapes, it is a dense labyrinth of tributaries, islands and lush vegetation. His home village is virtually cut off from the outside world, and the villager’s isolation seems to be more than merely geographical. Having left in early childhood, the young man finds he has a sister he never knew to exist. The neighbours are surprised to learn that the shy, frail girl is setting up house with her brother. The pair take up residence in a decrepit shack on the banks of the Danube, then silently start to build a jetty at whose end a new house is planned: a shack on stilts in the middle of the river, far away from the rest of the village. An unusual kind of closeness is growing between the siblings. The evolving incestuous relationship of this reticent, uncommunicative pair is eyed suspiciously by the local community. When the entire village visits the new house to celebrate its completion, matters begin to get out of control.

A film that convinces above all on the strength of its extraordinary images of life in the Delta.