Carnage

Six degrees is closer than it seems.

Delphine Gleize's award-winning debut feature is a wildly original, intertwining story that defies classification. Carnage traces the bizarre, often magical effects a 1,000-pound Andalusian bull has on a disparate group of characters.

The tale begins in Spain as a young bullfighter is injured in the ring and the bull is killed. A little girl named Winnie gets one of the bones as a treat for her giant Great Dane; a struggling actress (Chiara Mastroianni) sells Winnie's parents the bone in a supermarket promotion; a philandering scientist (Jacques Gamblin) and his pregnant wife receive the eyes; a taxidermist gets the horns as a gift from his elderly mother; a Spanish woman (Angela Molina) dines on Toro en Rioja in a restaurant.

With elegance, humor and a remarkable visual command, Gleize weaves these stories together, creating a fresh take on one of the recurring obsessions of modern life: beneath the spontaneity and chaos of our lives, there is some guiding principle that connects us all.