Review: Confident And Chilling 'Partisan' Starring Vincent Cassel

This is a reprint of our review from the 2015 Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

Like a stone skimming across the surface of a lake of unknowable depth, a beautiful line of inference and connection exists across the enigmatic expanse of Ariel Kleiman's inexplicable yet involving "Partisan." The involuntary flexing of an aching hand cuts back to a man with a bandaged knuckle which then infers (perhaps erroneously) a connection to the bruises that blossom on a woman's face. She is in a maternity ward and suddenly we are at a birthday party and the child is now a boy; the man a paternal figure, if not his father. The boy is surrounded by children of both sexes, but, aside from that man, all the other grownups are women. In such quick, quiet moves we are dropped into the world of "Partisan," a film which expects something of the viewer — indeed it is unusual to encounter a story, let alone a feature debut, that withholds so much — but one that trusts its audience to find its...