With its ensemble of idiosyncratic characters including an odd taxidermist, a stressed bodyguard and a wardrobe dwelling tribe, Avida is a gently amusing, at times bewildering film that revels in its own absurdity. Gleefully incoherent, directors Gustave Kervern and Benoe?t Dele’pine’s off-kilter Tati-esque world gradually veers off into a more surrealist milieu. Exquisitely shot in black and white (by cinematographer Hugues Poulain) yet full of grotesque imagery, Avida will divide and perplex audiences.

Opening with a suicidal picador (Fernando Arrabal) morosely spearing a rhino and then himself, a indistinct plot emerges when, in a wonderfully executed sequence, a scraggly deaf-mute dog handler (co-director Gustave Kervern) inadvertently kills his paranoid employer (Jean-Claude Garrie’re). Meeting his new co-workers, the dog handler is lured into a harebrained scheme to ransom the dog of Avida (Velvet). Chaos ensures when the dog falls foul of a lion’s pit, whereupon the dog-nappers have it stuffed in a gruesome scene. Ludicrously, this leads to the culprits becoming entangled in Avida’s death wish to be carried up a mountain.

At this point, Avida’s plot looses stream. A homage to Salvador Dali and the only scene in colour redeems the entire film. Coupled with the Chief Seattle quote bewailing the similar condition of animals and humans, the ending draws disparate threads and lends a vague structure to the madness. It certainly explains the presence of a hallmark of the film; numerous shots of humans and animals freakishly taken out of context to elaborate their linked weirdness.

Avida will send those seeking lucid plots, traditional humour or a ‘real’ point, hurtling to the exits. By suspending logic and believability, however, Avida amuses (at the very least for its first half) and is a genuinely unique addition to cinema.