You will understand the irony of the title in the closing scenes of this acerbic, stylised allegory of colonisation.

Set on a remote Indonesian sugar plantation in the dying years of Dutch colonisation, plantation owners Jan (Hans Dagelet) and Agathe (Renée Soutendijk) are the top of the food chain. Dressed in starched and fussy clothes, they hold tightly to their traditions.

This doesn’t stop Jan visiting servant Siti (Hayati Azis) at night and treating their illegitimate child Karel (Rio Kaj Den Haas) as his own. Perhaps this also is tradition. It was refreshing to see this scene of coercive sex that is portrayed as if Siti does not object given a content warning of sexual abuse, acknowledging the fundamental oppression.

When Jan suddenly dies, Agathe tries to hold onto her status by insisting her foppish son Cornelis (Florian Myjer) and his heavily pregnant bride Josefien (Lisa Zweerman) come out to take over. Cornelis’s apathy soon collides with the unrest of the workers, as personified by mouthy Reza (Muhammad Khan), and Karel’s rights of inheritance.

From the opening scene of Karel being helped to shoot a tiger, director Ena Sendijarevic (Take Me Somewhere Nice (2019)) creates a super-saturated studio set world where every nuance and foible is exaggerated. It shows the ridiculousness of the Dutch trying to create a European world in the humid tropics with the colonisers sweating and fighting off mosquitoes while the locals are cool and collected.

There will be comparisons to Lanthimos and you can see some of the same camp lens of The Favourite or Poor Things but this feels more like a meticulous fever dream with a particular message in mind. This is clearly allegory, with Siti as the Indonesia that emerges from the shackles or perhaps it is Karel. Agathe wants to hold onto the status of coloniser – to return home would mean no servants or wealth. Cornelis doesn’t want the bother, just the money.

The ending is elegiac and you’ll think of that title. Sweet dreams.