Lilting

A mature and moving debut feature from Cambodian director Hong Khaou with strong turns from Whishaw and Pei-Pei.

This delicate low-budget British miniature weaves a complex disquisition on mourning, memory, love and language, with a confident avoidance of overt emotional rhetoric.

The best scene in the film is aconfrontation between them where everything comes to a head, and Vann can barelykeep up with their anger and their jockeying for position.

Lilting has a sturdy and emotionally resonant premise for a modern romantic melodrama.

As with the soundtrack, Miren Marañón’s elegant, faintly triply production design...and Urszula Pontikos’s fine cinematography...lend the film a fragile beauty perfectly attuned to its subject matter.