QUEBECOIS writer-director Denis Villeneuve's debut feature is a wonderful - and completely preposterous - story, which we are gently led into by the use of imaginary dates. When August 32 is followed by 33, 34, 35, etc., you can never quite be sure how real everything is meant to be; but you end up accepting all the peculiarities with which you are presented with relative ease.

Simone (Pascale Bussières), a model, has a road accident from which she miraculously escapes unharmed. Having come so close to death she begins to look for a major change in her life when she leavs the hospital. She decides she wants to have a child, and chooses as the prospective father her best friend Philippe (Alexis Martin). When informed of this he, however, is unsure of how to react to her request. What follows is as gentle and as pleasant as waves rolling onto a beach, with the underlying current being that things stay the same no matter what.

From dark and claustrophobic beginnings, the film moves on to vast expanses of white and blue; speed and noise are contrasted with silence and stillness; constrictive tension gives way to a pleasing sense of expectancy. There is great focus on detail, and a marvellously light touch in humour which balances admirably with more macabre or unpleasant situations. There is a constant impression of things slightly out of synch, not quite right, which leads to the viewer questioning, but not too intensely, the whys and wherefores of events. The answers are just as elusive, but that is what makes this picture so appealing.

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