A girl cuts her ring finger in an industry accident. The tip of her fingers will float in a container that was supposed to be filled with water but will be colored red instead. This will be the first and last occurrence of explicit violence in this weird film but violence will be ever present. The girl's way will cross with a preservationist and an absent roommate and this is all I will say about the plot. What preservationist stores will be mentioned early in the film but what he really does, no. There are many ways to interpret this story and almost all of them begin in the ending moments. It seems otherwise as the film is going but it's not. What it depicts is totally fascinating but it is only the tip of "what it suggests" iceberg. Its extraits of silence, eerie fractured music pieces, strange ideas, empty surroundings and odd images (and also the lead actress) are why it works. L'annulaire makes it way through its subjects with the accuracy of a surgeon's knife. It's a film so masterfully made that leaves few to complain and much to think about. Images and sounds call extremely little attention to themselves at first but each scene and each movement ventures further into your soul and once it's there, it never leaves. It's creepy, it's scary, it's thoughtful, it's atmospheric, it's mysterious, it's glorious. I haven't seen anything like it. Hal Hartley and the great Kiyoshi Kurosawa come close but ... no. Diane Bertrand is a name worthy of preservation.<br /><br />I can write more or at least tell you what the hell is this film about, but I won't. I just say that it's about the fractures of memory and how loneliness is meshed with them, and about the silence and how it can evoke our deepest fears. We don't think (as) much about our past when we are not on our own and with the same logic, relationships can be defined as different forms of escapism, and this goes pretty much unnoticed all the time. It's better not to be noticed at all. The world may have been a better place if this fracture would have been erased from memories. Collecting the pieces of mahjog from the floor and putting them on their right place is a painful task but doing so for those pieces of mind is impossible. This is a film about the people who want to leave themselves behind but their artificial solutions are no match for a legacy of painful remembrance. We all know that done can't be undone, but it can be covered. Good enough ... but maybe not.<br /><br />You should walk into this film with the least previous knowledge possible. I know this is a clichéd statement but it's really true in this case. Do yourself a favor and see this brilliant movie as soon as you can.