It’s often said that, as a filmmaker, Claire Denis operates on pure instinct. Nowhere is that more evident than in this visionary collage revolving around a stern recluse who is transformed by a life-saving heart transplant.

Inspired by writer Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophical musings on the new organ he felt was an intruder in his body, Denis’ film is much more than a geographical odyssey detailing grizzled Michel Subor’s journey from his home on the Franco-Swiss border via black-market deals in Korea to the Tahitian paradise where he once may have fathered a son. This is also an interior journey into a miasma of guilt and longing. Objective reality seemingly elides into subjective association as Subor progresses, complicating a definitive reading of events. Yet Denis’ freeform image-making casts an immersive spell that’s something to behold. Those who really love her movies perhaps love this one most of all.