Karim Aïnouz’s Rosebush Pruning, written by Efthimis Filippou and based on Marco Bellocchio’s Fists in the Pocket, begins in deceptively elegant fashion. On a beach, Edward Taylor (Callum Turner) gives etiquette and fashion advice to George, a doctor attending a medical conference, while the blue sea stretches behind them and Edward’s narration immediately establishes his peculiar worldview. He is fascinated by aphorisms such as “People are roses, families are rosebushes. Rosebushes need pruning,” and for him rosebushes are not merely a metaphor but almost erotically charged, an early indication that this family inhabits a world governed by eccentricity, obsession, and unsettling desires.