Paolo Sorrentino's icily intoxicating second feature - the sort of film which has you reluctantly dusting off four-dollar words such as existential and oneiric - may very well be about the fact that we are all ultimately alone with our consciences and our mortality. But I suspect it's really about the beautiful sheen of new motorcars, the gloss of a well-groomed waitress's hair and the rustling noise that $9 million makes when it's being counted.
Sorrentino's images could certainly cause the viewer to ruminate on the human condition. They could, however, just as easily be used to sell eau de cologne or insurance services.
Consequences of Love, which might be described as Lost in Translation with guns, but without jokes, introduces us to Titta, a middle-aged Italian insomniac who has been living in the same Swiss hotel for the past eight years. Nobody knows what he does for a living and any attempt at intimacy on the staff's part is coolly rebuffed.
We see him phone home and it becomes clear that he has a strained relationship with his wife and children. Then, following a visit from his less introverted brother, he decides to open himself up a little. "Perhaps sitting at this bar is the most dangerous thing I've done in my life," he says to the pretty barmaid. Heavy.
It transpires that Titta (played by Toni Servillo with a distinguished reserve that recalls the late Fernando Rey) is in debt to the Mafia and is being compelled to supervise the lodgement of large sums of dirty money into Swiss banks. By the third act Titta is collar-deep in all kinds of trouble and is belatedly forced to adopt a moral stance.
About a third as clever as it thinks it is, Sorrentino's film will enrage as many viewers as it enthrals. Those able to put the outbreaks of pretentiousness aside will, however, find plenty to savour.
Utilising elegant, leisurely tracking shots - echoes of the great Chilean Raúl Ruiz - and a brilliant sound design which revels in jarring juxtapositions, The Consequences of Love displays an aptitude for gloss which should see Hollywood battering the Italian director's door down.
