Porto

It grapples with emotional enigma of infatuation, and the question of how such a mighty force can also be so fleeting.

The film’s clever editing (credited to Klinger and Geraldine Mangenot) jumps back and forth through time in intriguing, sometimes intoxicating ways, and even when the drama flags there’s always a stunning image to stare at.

Its strongest evocation of poignant, imperfect memory has to do with its leading man, and the glimpse it provides of a fuller career that never was.

The best thing about Klinger’s time/memory/dream aesthetic is how it looks: the visual equivalent of an audiophile’s nostalgia for vinyl. But the time jumping feels precious, and the screenplay — written by Klinger and Larry Gross — falls too easily into clichés.

Whatever the reason, Porto – much of the action unfolds in the Portuguese holiday spot – struggles to convey its passions, despite considerable effort from its two leads, an intuitive soundtrack and handsome photography.

Between the haphazard zooms and the odd editing meant to evoke the way we re-stitch fragments of memory in hindsight, Porto reads like a short student film pointlessly extended to feature length.

A pretentious load of swill made in Portugal that should have been buried in a locked vault without a key.