Directed by the renound Fabrice Du Welz (Calvaire), 'Vinyan' is the story of a grieving couple who are mourning the loss of their son Joshua - who was swept away by the sea in the tsunami of 2004. Husband and wife Paul (Rufus Sewell from 'The Illusionist') and Jeanne Belhmer (Emmanuelle Béart from '8 Femmes') remained in Thailand in the hope of being reunited with their son, whose body was never recovered.

This captivating culture clash is a collage of unknown Thailand - seen through the eyes of clueless Westerners - who are dragged into the depths of a world that only a few knew existed of; so prepare to have your perceptions pelted at you, your stereotypes spat at you, and your knowledge knocked, as this film goes beyond anything your imagination could have cooked up.

The action starts after a chance sighting of a boy who resembles Joshua - in video footage from a village of orphaned children on the Thai-Burmese border. Jeanne becomes convinced that her son was kidnapped by traffickers, and so sets on mission with a sceptical husband Paul on a blind adventure into unknown and often unseen territory of deep Thailand.

Fuelled by their obsessions and mutual desperation; their quest takes them to the hearts of pirate infested waters, dark jungles, isolated villages.  Longing for some sense of closure, the traumatized couple enter a primeval underworld of child trafficking.

The pair become tangled in the twisted tunnel of trafficking; they inadvertently become the traffickers, and then eventually the trafficked - as the tale takes a turn for the worst as the couple are abandoned on a  remote Island inhabited by a tribe of Thailand's forgotten children. This leads to their break down both physically and emotionally, as eventually they both slowly slip into a realm of paranoid delusions and psychosis.

The film confronts the audience with the visual metaphor of an army of nameless and faceless children with have no identities - but are simply entities of deprivation, isolation and despair - and we are forced to watch as they create a culture of chaos, carnage, and cannibalism in order to survive.  

 
Camouflaged in paint, the forgotten children represent the harsh realities behind trafficking, and illustrate how minuscule the meaning of their lives are to others - as the missing stay missing, none as supposedly lucky as Joshua to have family and loved ones track them down.
 

Although subliminal in action and hidden behind the stunning scenery, the message in the film is relentless and all too clear - and like most things painfully truthful - it is hard to take in but still must be said; altogether making Vinyan one of the most beautiful, brutal and honest films to be released this year.

Vinyan will be in cinemas everywhere in September 2009.