Recensioni de* critic*

The film is a relentless sensory experience and a potent work of dramatic suspense. Its achievement is to put us inside the head of a scarred Afghanistan vet suffering from PTSD (panic attacks, audiovisual hallucinations, sudden anger).

Dialogue drifts in and out of the sound mix in accordance with his movement, and his PTSD overwhelms his senses in brutal, punishing screeches and hums, complemented by Gesaffelstein's brutalist score (think Kanye's "Black Skinhead" and "Send It Up," which he produced). The amplificatory sound design and the decision to eschew narrative particulars and psychoanalysis in favor of impressionism make for a visceral, impressive thriller bound to please more than just genre fans.

So lean and confident it feels alien in comparison to the bloated schlock modern Hollywood would categorize as "suspenseful." Winocour refuses to deal in absolutes, pumping newfound danger through the veins of a tired genre set-up. The film eventually bends so tight from anticipation that it must explode, as witnessed during a stunningly quick assault that occurs inside Jessie's car.

If the film is sensitive to the way its protagonist processes the world, the interactions between the characters are not always so well drawn, especially as it enters its house-bound home stretch—key to the drama at this point is a subterranean "chemistry" between Vincent and Jessie (and thus Schoenaerts and Kruger) that simply isn't on-screen. As a genre experiment, though, the film doesn't stop evolving.

What makes Schoenaerts a great actor is that his sensitivity and subtle inventiveness (in terms of how psychological reality is revealed through behavior), is equal to the size of his body. His is not just a natural, instinctive gift. It's a smart actor at work, understanding that the most important thing is what's going on in his head. "Disorder" is tense and scary, beautiful to look at and even more gorgeous to hear. In the end, it is also extremely moving. That's the most thrilling part of all.

The trick of Disorder is that it plays right to the audience's suspicions and desires, subverting them to replicate the danger-sense symptoms of Vincent's PTSD and to mirror his attraction to his client, Jessie, the wife of mysterious international financier Imad Whalid. To that end, Disorder uses a crafty ambient sound mix of differently pitched noise tones and throbbing whomp-whomp-whomps and a snooping camera that follows from behind or fixes on security monitors.

In a trim 98 minutes, the French-born Winocour uses a fairly boilerplate narrative setup as a pretext to explore Vincent's ravaged psyche with tactile imagery and ambient sound. With its drab pools of colored light, generic Euro house, and uneasy dance of bodies in uptight configuration, the haute-elite cool of Whalid's party brings to mind Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad by way of a generation influenced by Michael Mann.

Winocour's hyper-sensory approach to Vincent's interiority is deftly established, but it founders amid the no-frills genre fare of the film's back half, as Vincent plays body man to Jessie and a chaste love affair escalates with every new threat of violence.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a common device in films about war veterans, but Alice Winocour, who wrote and directed this slow-boiling thriller (2015), tracks her protagonist's PTSD so closely that it becomes the story's essence.

Post-traumatic stress disorder may be a familiar presence in contemporary cinema, but it's only one dramatic strand in Alice Winocour's invigorating second feature. The French writer-director's interest in genre—in this case, the thriller—is of a practical nature, concerned as much with craft as is with the particulars of plot.

There are hints of John Carpenter – especially Assault on Precinct 13 – to Disorder, a comparison which is bolstered by its chilling ambient soundtrack from French techno artist Gesaffelstein. Schoenaerts' intricately-realised mania exemplifies the idea of the world caving in on itself, and you're always made to feel that Winocour's thematic ambitions always exceed the serviceably generic. Yet, by its closing frames, the film as a whole feels like a proposed idea without a satisfying end game.

The mutual unspoken attraction between Vincent and Jessie never ignites as it should – partly because Jessie's role is seriously underwritten and partly because it's all too predictable... Winocour's second feature suggests impressive potential – but she should perhaps steer clear of formula.