The latest film from German filmmaker Angela Schanelec is a spellbinding relationship drama that eschews conventional melodrama in favour of a formally audacious and elliptical approach to love, gender and trauma.

“Computer programmer/beekeeper Jacob gets a “television” implanted in his brain by a race of telekinetic bees, which causes him to experience severe hallucinations.” So goes the setup for David Blair’s unclassifiable 1991 work Wax, Or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees, but this description only encapsulates a portion of the hyper-digressive, decidedly peculiar contents of this singular, visually arresting film.

The ensemble comedy masterpiece directed by Imamura’s mentor Yūzō Kawashima, co-written with Imamura and Keichi Tanaka offers a sly critique of the Meiji Restoration period, as the film exposes the encroachment of Westernisation in Japan, against rapidly dissipating ideas of honour and tradition, as sacred promises are ruptured, and deception offers the only turns to fortune.