Classy arthouse film is a cut above

A BIGGER Splash is the sort of movie that underlines the chasm between Hollywood and European cinema - with a narrative style, arthouse sensibility and unpredictable-ness that sets it well apart from blockbuster territory. Italian director Luca Guadagnino (I am Love, 2009) is not the sort of filmmaker to play it safe, and his latest offering is no typical three-act drama.

Instead, Guadagnino (who wrote the screenplay with David Kajganich) plonked cast and crew on a remote volcanic Italian island between Sicily and Tunisia for two months, then rolled the creative dice (and cameras) in search of movie kismet. The result - a slow-burning, overtly erotic psychological drama - is about as far removed from the Hollywood playbook as can be imagined.

The film's title was purloined from a 1967 painting by David Hockney while the story itself is loosely based on La Piscine (The Swimming Pool), a 1969 Jacques Deray movie starring Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. A pool features prominently in Guadagnino's version, but the ripples are caused by the players themselves.