Nick Dawson

As involving and intellectually rich as all Tarkovsky's work.

Another of the film's positive aspects is its narrative style, reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon.

A fable that leaves us unenlightened at the end, it is a curious, worthy failure.

Fine if you like the band - you'll be treated to some cartoons playing over the top of their Discovery album. For everyone else, just daft.

The relationship between Ada and Eka is beautifully written and utterly believable, while the film's central idea of compassionate deception allows Bertucelli to explore the nature of love, culminating in the film's masterful and deeply affecting ending.

With Haskell Wexler's splendid photography and Leonard Rosenman's fine score, the film provides a poetic yet authentic view of Depression-era America with the symbolic figure of Guthrie (an impressive David Carradine) at its very centre.

Every tiny aspect of the universe here comes from the filmmakers' imagination, and while this occasionally leaves us bemused, the film as a whole is a magical, otherworldly trip into undiscovered areas of cinema.