This might just be Frances McDormand’s most powerful, incredible performance ever. The final confrontation has me shook

I’m still unsure about how Verhoeven handles sexual exploitation (see my thoughts on ‘Elle’), but this film combines everything I like about films dealing with the rawness and sheer chaos - both of communication, raw survival instinct and the transactional nature of death - joining a body of films that includes ‘Andrei Rublev’, ‘Hard to be a God’, ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’, modulating the comedy and fantasy of the fairytale action of ‘The Princess Bride’ with absolute, unbridled sexuality (inviting comparisons to the rape and sexual abuse in ‘The Virgin Spring’) and unending violence

I never want to see a man wanking over a cake ever again