This is a tricksy, slightly surreal drama that may have had more impact on me if it wasn’t 9:30 pm and the fourth film of my day.

It is a story of intergenerational violence, as seen through the eyes of Ali (Ekin Koç) the only son in a Turkish family. His mother is frail and ailing, his father (Ercan Kesal) is a brute and they have no words for each other that aren’t accusatory and hateful.

Ali seems to be a gentle soul, he is a professor at a university whose job is in jeopardy, partly because he spent 14 years studying and teaching in the US. He and his wife Hazar (Hazar Ergüçlü) are trying to have children without success and when he finds out that the reason is because of him, this is our first glimpse into male pride and an inability to be vulnerable.

When Ali‘s mother dies, a few small details and his obvious hatred for his father start him on a quest to find out if her death was natural. It is around this time that something happens in the film that, if you are not on the ball, it will cause a great deal of confusion. I was not on the ball. I began to feel like I hadn’t been watching the movie properly, that I perhaps hadn’t really focused on one or two characters, and started to become very lost with what on earth was going on.

I’ll give you a hint – there is a shot with a mirror and a character called Reza (Erkan Kolçak Köstendil) and that’s when the weirdness begins. Interestingly, director Alireza Khatami calls the first half of the film ‘a Trojan horse’ and cites David Lynch as a primary inspiration.

I think my enjoyment of the film was definitely affected by spending most of the second act not really understanding what was going on. Once you realise, it becomes clearer that we are seeing a metaphor for masculine violence and how it is passed down through generations. It is clever, but I’m not sure it is handled well enough to keep the audience engaged while it is happening.