A LITTLE gem of a nasty tale. The starkly beautiful blues, whites and greens of a Mediterranean island provide the backdrop for a disturbing encounter with the dark and dingy recesses of the mind.

A young mother of a ten month old baby (Sacha Hails) spends much time on her own, with her husband away on the mainland for an unspecified period of time. When a backpacker knocks at her door, asking if she can pitch her tent in the garden as the camping site is full, it provides some welcome relief from her solitude. Pretty soon, however, the backpacker (Marina De Van) is shown to have a sinister side to her.

The film's slow and measured pace, the wide panoramic views, are juxtaposed with unpleasant close-ups (a mouth eating food, the inside of a toilet bowl) and corner-of-the-eye images of unidentified watchers, which set the tone of unease. The mother's naivete and innocent desire for company contrasts with the backpacker's almost vacant intensity; the baby must be every director's dream as it provides an effortlessly natural example of what babies do best (crying, eating and sleeping). What is perhaps most horrifying about this story is the apparent lack of motive or reason, the fact that it appears as just an unavoidable sequence of events, matching the gentle rhythms of island life.

The motto of the film seems fairly clear: never trust a stranger. And after seeing this, you probably won't.