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Graveside humour doesn't come much blacker than this fearsomely satirical gaze into the existential void from the Israeli film-makers behind 2010's Rabies. When a religious studies teacher is suspected of molesting and murdering young girls, he finds himself strapped to a chair in a basement facing a grieving father and a headstrong cop armed with a torturous array of household appliances. As they attempt to extract a confession through pain (this would make an interesting triple bill with Prisoners and Zero Dark Thirty) they are interrupted by chirruping phones, chiming oven-timers, and overprotective parents bearing soup. Underpinning the nail-pulling madness is a macabre metaphor for a society built upon "a fear of terrorist activities, inherent intolerance, and a historical craving for vengeance", with each act of retribution pushing us further towards the edge of madness. The hacksaw-sharp result, which mixes winces with inappropriate laughter, is witheringly bleak, bitterly acerbic, and pointedly cruel.
