The other night I saw a film by a Russian art-film maker, with whose work I was unfamiliar. Not knowing what to expect, I was immediately shocked when the music played during the opening credits was Bach organ works. Why Bach in a late-20th-century film? This was the tip-off. The whole experience was about loss of identity in a century of violence: domestic, national, racial, global, planetary.

Did I enjoy it? Certainly not. Did I get it? Apparently. Did I want to swallow it? That's a different question.