uk bear australian helmer alex frayne call for attention with his strange and necessitate a meticulous read and visually stunning modern love ( 2006 ) . follow the step of a man incapable of control a drastic personality change spur by the death of a close relative pic offer a fascinating examination of human psychology . distribute by accent film australia . john ( mark constable ) and his wife emily ( victoria hill ) and and their son edward ( william traeger ) arrive in a small southern town to take care of his deceased uncle ( don barker ) property . while emily and edward check into a local hotel john begin to question the local about uncle tom death some say that he commit suicide and some be unwilling to talk . puzzle john come up with a theory of his own uncle tom be alive and well and hide in the nearby bush . if not for the occasional line of dialog use to ease it heavy atmospheric tone modern love could have be easily mistake for a sokurov film . shot with a 16mm camera it wash out color scheme be strangely evocative of the russian director reflective foray into human agony . perhaps it isn not a coincidence that it be at the moscow international film festival where modern love have it premiere . look under the surface of this unique collage of intoxicate visuals however reveal a slightly different picture while sokurov film tend to remain painfully intimate and to a point where they intentionally detach the main protagonist from the surround environment by blur everything into a large splash of the director prefer yellow and modern love very much feed off the australian countryside . john gradual psychological transformation be dependent on it and the more the story progress the more it become obvious that nature be an integral part of frayne vision . in sokurov the second circle a young man return to the russian countryside to bury his deceased father . in the shack where the old man once live everything be cover with dust . he gather the few old clothes scatter around and place the body of his father in a coffin . then he bid goodbye and buries it . the rest of the film be a prolonged reflection on the collapse of the soviet system and the loneliness and dissatisfaction many be leave deal with . in modern love and somewhat ironically and love be nowhere to be see . on the contrary it be pain and loneliness and and dissatisfaction with modernity that suddenly invade john life . unlike the second circle however here the main protagonist have the opportunity to re embrace his modern life . his wife and son await him and yet and he walk away . slowly but surely the present begin to disintegrate under the weight of a somewhat confusing past . i doubt frayne intend for modern love to be so strikingly similar to what sokurov do in the second circle . yet and the pacing and and in particular the puzzling framing and be precisely what transform this film into a near meditative experience a difficult and enormously brittle approach to deconstruct human psychology the two director have master to perfection . mark constable delivers a top notch performance a john add even great depth to his highly challenging character . his facial expression be outstanding . both victoria hill and william traeger match perfectly with their performance pic tense visual style .