The Distance or La Distancia is Sergio Caballero’s second feature film after similarly bizarre Finisterrae (2011). It’s a visually arresting heist narrative about three dwarves hired by the forbearing prisoner of a recently deceased oligarch to steal an enigmatic object called ‘The Distance’ from a power station in the Siberian mountains.

Pay attention to the Russian voiceover narration in the first few minutes as an ambulance is driven across deserted roads. It will inform you that a post-Soviet oligarch, who came into fortune with a Siberian power station, was a lover of the arts. So much so, he not only bought a conceptual artist’s performance, but the artist himself. The nameless artist remained imprisoned for four years following the patron’s untimely death. This voiceover is the only explanation of anything you are going to get throughout the film’s entirety.

The slow-paced start deludes you into thinking The Distance may be painfully mundane before the delicious art-house absurdity comes into full effect. Three dwarves – Scumek, Baransky and the comically high pitched Vólkov – harbour strange powers, telepathy being one of them. They set up caravans in a base to plan their robbery of ‘The Distance’ (a sort of MacGuffin), which is located in the power plant’s turbine room. In fact, the film is essentially an 80-minute build-up to the heist.

Marc Gómez del Moral’s spatially aware style of cinematography consists of slow long shots over scenic and barren Siberian terrains. Aesthetically, it’s pleasing, and with a movie as confusing as this, it becomes easy to clutch onto the beautiful arrangement of images when it grows too bizarre.

You may find yourself detached from some characters, as they don’t have any prominent domain in the film, or simply feel alienated by the absurdity of it all. Everything from the artist with a mud-covered face, in a room with seemingly complicated equations, to the mutant guard of the power plant, who masturbates wearing heels and shouting “Pluto” at orgasm, is really quite bizarre. The least odd thing about The Distance may be the love affair between a Japanese-haiku-speaking smoking bucket and a chimney.

The influence of Dadaism is evident in the irrational absurdity of the film as well as its social and political allegories. The Distance has been compared to Tarkovsky’s Stalker and also bears similarities with the sexually charged humour of David Lynch’s films.

As an art film, the imagery overpowers the narrative, so don’t be upset if the credits begin to roll and you have no idea what you just watched. Though interesting and visually stimulating, The Distance is the type of film which will have you sitting down with a raised eyebrow, analysing the content and wondering what the hell is going on.

If you’re a lover of all things bizarre and the free rein creativity of art-house films, then this is definitely your cup of tea.

3.5/5 stars