Moebius (Moebiuseu)

As an exercise in unrelenting discomfort, it’s hard to beat this monstrous experiment from Korean provocateur Kim Ki-duk. Since the success of his dreamlike Buddhist meditation ‘Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...and Spring’ in 2003, Ki-duk’s films have become progressively darker, stranger and harder to stomach. Darkly comic and entirely dialogue-free, ‘Moebius’ represents a new peak in that trend.

When Mother (Lee Eun-woo) catches Father (Cho Jae-hyun) cheating, she attempts to castrate him. But when he fights back, she turns her insane attentions to their son (Seo Young-ju), slicing off his penis and eating it. It was at this point during the film’s Venice Film Festival screening in 2013 that several critics bolted for the exit, loudly vomiting. It has been (ahem) trimmed since, but this is still strong stuff.

As Father searches online for information on penis transplants, the son ends up in juvenile court for his part in a gang rape – at which point things get really ugly. Extreme cinema aficionados will doubtless get major kicks from ‘Moebius’. For others, the cumulative shocks are likely to induce weariness and boredom.