Housed in the cooler-than-your-average Faculty of Architecture and History of Art, ArchSoc are screening modern, challenging films that push the avant-garde in a time of mainstream cinematic sluggishness, presenting works which resurrect the age-old question: what is a film?

This week’s offering, Un Lac (Phillipe Grandrieux, 2008) is a mystifying, beautiful and overwhelming cinematic experience. There are less than 30 lines of dialogue in the whole piece, which is set in a bleak and snowy nowhereland, and focuses on a tightly knit family group dealing with an epileptic son, incestuous urges, a violent, punishing climate and the arrival of a young man from the outside world.

The most shocking feature of the film is its cinematography. The camerawork is up close and personal, shaking and lunging about. We are seldom allowed to see more than a face, or hands, or a small rectangle of the sublime, stark mountainous horizon, backed up with emphasised seismic rumbles and heavy breathing. While watching, you find yourself terrified, but wondering if anything in the least bit frightening is actually taking place.

You should have realised by now that this is not your average 90-minute rom com. It is an artsy piece, with a lot of posturing from its minimal cast. However, a disconcerting psychological energy makes it highly memorable, drawing more on the ferocious landscape than the tiny humans within it. Anyone interested in seeing what film can really do as a medium should get hold of the DVD, pop on some earphones and turn off the lights. You will be shaken.

ArchSoc’s free screenings take place every Monday. Next up is Julien Donkey Boy by edgy American director Harmony Korine (he wrote Kids!), prefaced with a talk and screening by upcoming short film director Jessica Rinland. The following week’s session, on Monday 29th November, will see the last event of 2010, David Lynch’s dark psycho-th riller Fire Walk With Me (1992) – the movie that precluded his TV drama Twin Peaks.