Dostoevskian descent into hell, Dostoevskian comprehension of evil as inseparable from good and inseparably alloyed to suffering, thus deserving of mercy, no matter how brutal. The piling up of detail, the flow of events, is tight, relentless, funereal, and ominous, shot through half-smoked glass to lend it the surreality of a twilit underworld (compare to Alexander Sokurov's Mother and Son, 1997). With a minimum of strokes, the murderer is fully realized; his face alone is unforgettable; his flicking of coffee grounds at the girls in the cafe window illustrates in one simple gesture his murderous innocence. The killing itself is harrowing, hands-on ugly. The narrative is Spartan, matching its hardness to the tale. The only spurious step is the editorializing by the attorney against capital punishment; he would have been more effective if more reserved in his passion and anguish. To its credit, there's no silly color coding, no overtly intellectual structuralism. This is easily the most transparent, thus powerful, storytelling.