A soldier on patrol in Neither Heaven nor Earth (Film Movement)

Within the first 10 minutes, you feel you are safely in the hands of a master. The shots are framed beautifully, the story so far is enigmatic and intriguing, the acting is impeccable, and so you scrunch down in your seat, put your feet up on the chair in front of you (if you’re one of those annoying people, like me), and dig deep into your bag of popcorn looking for the kernels that are covered in salt.

Captain Antarès Bonassieu, played with a simmering intensity by Jérémie Renier, commands a small Afghan outpost in 2014 that protects the local village while keeping an eye out for Taliban activity. Though clearly an army lifer, this particular assignment is new, but he has already gained respect from his men after only being there a few weeks. When one soldier, William (Kevin Azaïs), freezes up during a firefight, he gives him a reassuring pat on a shoulder before they share a heart-to-heart where William reveals that his son is going to be born any day now. Bonassieu has lost men under his command but never a body. He will go out of his way to retrieve it and make sure it goes home to France for a proper funeral.

However, as his soldiers mysteriously disappear one by one, he methodically explores all the rational possibilities. As his investigation hits dead end after dead end, he becomes more frustrated. When a mystical explanation presents itself, in a well-staged bit of exposition that M. Night Shyamalan would do well to study, the sanity of Bonassieu and his men start to unravel. To reveal more would lessen the increasing sense of tension and dislocation that debut director Clément Cogitore creates. He never completely reveals his hand but shows you just enough to keep you compelled and uncomfortable.

Cogitore has a sense of the mystical in the natural world and steadily builds tension that subsequently causes agita for those who like rules and closure. In that sense, he is reminiscent of an early Peter Weir, but he doesn’t completely have a grasp on his storytelling yet. There is only one fully formed character, the rest being somewhat clichéd or just cardboard. He does an expert job leading us down one path and then feinting to another, but he doesn’t quite know what to do after the feint, or what he decides to do doesn’t quite have the impact as one would hope.

The major flaw is how rushed the last third feels compared to the first two thirds. It’s as if Cogitore realized he had to tell the whole story under an hour and a half and didn’t want to cut any of the setup. Now, the ending is quite logical and in keeping with Bonassieu’s character, but his decision-making becomes so swift and efficient that it takes us too long to catch up to what is going on. It leaves us wanting after being so expertly manipulated with tantalizing clues and some first-rate filmmaking. It is a significant flaw in an otherwise compelling film.