Writer-director Oskar Roehler, whose film of Michel Houellebecq’s Atomised was released here a couple of years ago, has now come up with a lively if bizarre lovers-on-the-run tale that’s a mixture of David Lynch weirdness and Baz Luhrmann colourful musical. Lynch’s Wild at Heart is clearly the inspiration for a plot which has a well groomed young German woman, Lulu (Jennifer Decker), falling head over heels in love with troubled African-American World War II veteran Jimi (Ray Fearon) in conservative Germany of the 1950s. As in Lynch’s film, the heroine’s unhinged mother does everything she can to keep the lovers apart, but she’s only the first of many obstacles that stand in the way of the couple’s passion.

Roehler crafts a magical, even surreal fable that’s often as disturbing as it is whimsical. The constantly striking wide-screen visuals are bolstered by a sizzling soundtrack of rock and roll.