True Love Ways

A haunting tale of obsessive love and gruesome depravity, Swiss director Mathieu Seiler's True Love Ways—taking its title from a Buddy Holly song—centers on beautiful young Séverine (Anna Hausburg), who wants a break from her lover Tom (Kai Michael Müller). Going to a bar to nurse his sorrows, Tom is approached by a strangely philosophical man called Chef (David C. Bunners), who offers a solution: Chef will stage a phony abduction of Séverine and Tom will rescue her, ensuring her undying love. Chef actually has a very different plan: he and his minions will take the captured girl to a remote mansion where she will become the victim in their latest snuff movie. But she escapes their clutches, and the rest of the film follows their efforts to chase her down, as she in turn evolves into an axe-wielding avenger. There are plot holes: for example, there seems to be no reason for Chef to involve Tom in the abduction scheme, other than to have him show up at the mansion and try to act the hero, only to get his just desserts. Still, even though the film eventually slips into gross mayhem, the first half is full of luminous, beautifully composed images that are reminiscent of Hitchcock and early Polanski, marking Seiler as a director of uncommon visual sophistication. A strong optional purchase. (F. Swietek)