There seem to be only two certainties about contemporary, non-Indigenous Australian films: they will be dark and unpleasant, and greeted with exaggerated enthusiasm that quickly subsides into silence. The latest movie to test this thesis is Birdeater, written and directed by Jack Clark and Jim Weir, which won the audience award at last year’s Sydney Film Festival.

There’s a strong whiff of ‘arthouse’ about this film, which is shot from a bewildering array of camera angles, with equally arty editing and gothic lighting. It begins with a hazy sequence in which two young people appear to be madly in love. Lots of staring rapturously into each other’s eyes, grappling beneath the sheets… I could have sworn there was vaseline on the camera lens.