Poésie sans fin

There's hope for the return of Jodo in the first scenes, where the real street is transformed by roll down monochrome photo mural drapes into the street of his youth and we see the child in the shop where his dinero-dominated dad encourages him to put the boot into shop lifters, stripping them naked in the street while his singing mum creates strawberry sponge cakes like the one her brother choked on for her tortured mum.

However it soon becomes obvious that we are in for two hours plus of not very clever ideas punctuated by some striking images in Christopher Doyle's brilliant colours and some kinky sex that loses it's shock impact at this length. Concepts - the broken mirror,monochrome Cafe Iris, real Jodo's appearances, the bunraku black covered scenery changers, the circle of bohemian artists led by the pierette - come back not as motifs but as indications that the maker has run out of new ideas.

We get about half an hour of great material buried in the pretentious and increasingly un-funny stodge.