A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT

Bad City is a ghost town in one of the more rural parts of Iran. Its streets are eerily quiet both night and day.

Within this setting, handyman Arash (Arash Marandi) works hard to make a living. Partly, this is to help run the lovely sports car that he's worked over 2,000 hours to save up for. And partly, it's due to the debt that his ailing druggie father Hossein (Marshall Manesh) owes to the local pusher-pimp Saeed (Dominic Rains).

One evening, Saeed calls round to Arash's family home and insists on payment. When he's told there is no money in the house, he decides to take Arash's car as payment instead. Later that night, he's seen abusing one of his prostitutes, the put-upon Atti (Mozhan Marno).

So it's no great loss when Saeed picks up a mysterious, demure young woman (Sheila Vand) on the street the following evening and takes her back to his plush apartment, only for her to violently turn on him. Arash calls round looking to make a deal that will get him his prized car back, just in time to see the girl silently leave - and find Saeed's dead body that she's left behind. Still, at least Arash is able to claim back his car.

We soon begin to realise that the girl tends to prey on "bad" people. So, surely diligent Arash is safe from her? You'd like to think so, as he's soon to meet her - as he wanders drunkenly home from a night of clubbing. Coincidentally, he just happens to be dressed as Dracula at the time...

A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT is filled with rich, memorable compositions. Its painterly visuals, filmed in sharp monochrome, are constantly easy on the eye - whether it be simply effective set-ups such as a sole figure occupying an otherwise largely empty widescreen frame, or footage of Vand emerging in slow-motion from a bathtub filled with bloodied water, or even the piercing of a fried egg with a fork (ooh, very symbolic).

The pace feels calm despite the brisk editing, aided by the sparse use of dialogue and varied score which at times is designed to emphasise the very obvious nods to the Western genre that crop up throughout writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour's self-consciously hip screenplay.

Speaking of which, it's this self-awareness that puts me off A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT a little. As beautiful as it consistently is, and as sometimes funny as it is occasionally creepy (the girl's address to a street kid one evening in an alley being a prime example of the latter), there's no denying that Amirpour's film feels padded out with stylised "cool" moments such as one character dancing with a balloon in hand, or the girl skateboarding down the street at night, or Saeed's caricature thug demeanour (he looks like one of the Sleaford Mods, with added facial tattoos).

Married with the black-and-white photography, the quirky soundtrack and the decision to base the action in Iran (the language spoken is Persian) despite it actually being shot in California, all of the above results in A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT being alternately pretentious and desperately hip a la Tarantino.

Thankfully those aforementioned Western elements (the desolate town; the near-silent central character; the existential scenarios) and the sublime aesthetics keep the film interesting despite its own almost self-defeating self-consciousness. Keen genre anoraks can look out for references along the way which include the cinema of Jean Rollin, Fritz Lang's M and much more. The leads are likeable too.

StudioCanal's DVD presents the film uncut and in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Sharp images, deep contrast and a welcome lack of noise ensure that this makes for a sterling visual experience.

Persian audio comes in choices of 2.0 and 5.1 mixes. Both offer fine balance between the eclectic score and quieter moments of dialogue. A clean, clear proposition throughout, either mix complements the film well.

Easily readable English subtitles are forced.

A static main menu begins affairs. From there, a static scene selection menu allows access to the film via 12 chapters.

Of the bonus features on offer, first out of the gates are 21 minutes worth of non-consequential deleted scenes.

There is a great 30-minute on-screen with Amirpour and Vand. This delves cannily into how the film came to be, its inspirations (the director got the idea to make it after trying a chador on and feeling like a bat!), how the pair of them first came together, the themes that the film touches upon and much more.

A 19-minute behind-the-scenes documentary finds the director, her mother, the cast and more on screen for a mix of fly-on-the-wall footage, interview and clips from the main feature. One of the co-producers of the film was Elijah Wood, so he turns up to sing his praises. He wears a Kurt Cobain T-shirt; Amirpour's wears a Suicidal Tendencies one. Unsurprisingly, the director cites David Lynch as an influence.

Finally, we get the film's original 103-second trailer.

Sadly we don't get Amirpour's original short film that this is apparently based upon.

The disc is defaulted to open with trailers for GIRLHOOD, CATCH ME DADDY and EVIL DEAD.

A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT is original, visually sumptuous and filled with ideas. It knows that it's all of these things though, almost to the point of being off-puttingly arrogant about it. Almost, but not quite. It does become a tad episodic, but the Western influences and core love story keep things going.

Also available on blu-ray.

Review by Stuart Willis