The elegantly titled Melancholia draws on Engel’s own state of exile in the UK and the leftist intellectual political thrillers of the 1970s. Krabbé stars a successful German art critic living in London who finds himself lured back into the political convictions of his youth. The narrative, though lean and peppered with B-movie echoes, bristles with meaning and the political heart at the centre of the film and the nagging sense of a reneging upon conviction is eloquently executed. The score, an early commission for Simon Fisher Turner, subtly hints at hidden dangers and carries notes of Hitchcock.