Metaphors. Don't you just love 'em? Those little cinematic moments that play one way but are suggestive of so much more, like that trip beneath the lawn into the dark, disturbing world of insects that kicked off Blue Velvet, that deadly spike in Marylin Chambers' armpit in Rabid, and any number of things in the cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto. But if you are going to pull this sort of thing off, it's best not to make your metaphors too obvious or too literal, and whatever you do don't have a character stand there and explain it for us.

Lemming is certainly the sort of non-specific title that gets my attention. Given that it's not a nature film, or a Disney animation, or aimed at kids, we can anticipate a degree of metaphor from the start, and when nice, middle-class engineer Alain decides to sort out an blocked sink and finds a lemming jammed in the pipe, we get it. Lemmings, as most will know, are primarily famous for leaping off cliffs in a sort of inexplicable mass suicide, something we now know to be bunkum, which is very clearly explained in the film to Alain's wife Bénédicte by an expert in these matters. The Lemming is obviously dead, but wait, it's still breathing after all, and with a bit of specialist attention is able to recover. A short while later a character who feels trapped and constricted by their life (like a lemming squashed in a waste pipe, perhaps?) commits suicide (as lemmings are fabled to do), but whose spirit appears to live on in another (revived from the dead, just like that lemming). Oh wow, I get it!

Lemming is a curious but intriguing creation, part thriller, part social drama, part ghost story, if you want to read it that way. After establishing lead character Alain as an inventor of improbable objects (a mobile webcam that flies around the house like a remote control helicopter, only really introduced so that he can use it later to spy on his boss Richard), the real plot kicks off when Richard invites himself and his wife Alice round to dinner. They arrive late, and the dinner does not go well – Alice is openly rude to her hosts and bitterly reveals details of her husband's whoremongering. A few evenings later she goes looking for her husband at work and instead finds Alain working late and and very directly attempts to seduce him. Tempted though he may be, he refuses her. A couple of days later she drops in on Bénédicte, asks to lie down for a while, and...

Just how much of the plot to reveal is a tricky call here, as surprising narrative turns are certainly one of the film's strong points, if only because you'd have to be a surrealist on mescaline to see a couple of them coming. Not quite as successful is the cross-genre wandering, which comes across less as a deliberate attempt to wrong-foot the audience than an uncertainty about just what it wants to be, which can prove occasionally frustrating and leave the film feeling a little unfocussed.

But despite this the film remains oddly involving, thanks in part to the unhurried pacing, the vivid sense of place, and the sometimes dream-like manner in which the plot unfolds. But what ultimately sells it are a quartet of very nicely judged performances, the best of which comes from Charlotte Rampling, whose icy hostility and predatory sexuality as Alice is almost worth the ticket price alone.

Lemming certainly wanders into interesting territory. The relationship between Richard and Alice, one devoid of love, trust and positive physical contact, is the flipside of the contented stability that is the one between Alain and Bénédicte. Exposure to them proves infectiously destructive, launching Alain on a downward spiral (amusingly represented by his increasingly visible signs of injury) that leads only to chaos. But too often the film flirts ideas and plot twists that I couldn't help wishing it would grab with both hands, resulting in a work that is pleasingly odd, but perhaps not quite odd enough, if you get my drift. Lacking the clarity of vision and emotional terror of David Lynch or Michael Haneke, whose work the film has been superficially compared to, and even the grind-n-the-seat discomfort of director Dominik Moll's previous Harry, He's Here to Help, it's still very much worth a look, though more for its feel and its characters than its not fully realised plot.

Framed 1.85:1 and anamorphically enhanced, this is a very nice transfer all round, with colour, contrast and detail all of a very high order. Black levels are bang-on and shadow detail very good. Daylight exteriors look particularly impressive.

The 5.1 soundtrack is a subtle but crystal clear and very effective mix, really adding to the atmosphere of individual scenes, whether it be wind in trees, heavy rainfall or, best of all, the strange noises emanating from the kitchen one night, a sequence that as a result is genuinely suspenseful.

In the Interview with Dominik Moll (25:51), the director talks about how the narrative of the film took shape, the casting, the characters, the purpose of specific scene, the importance of good sound design, working with dead lemmings, and his pleasure on hearing that the film is being discussed, even by those who did not like it. The interview is in English, in which Dominik is fluent, and either conducted at the Artificial Eye offices or set dressed by them – there are an awful lot of their DVDs in the bookcase behind the director.

There are 6 featurettes, comprised largely of interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. Knocks (2:57) looks at the character of Alain, A Picture (2:30) examines the process of preparing a still photograph used as a prop in the film, On the Rock (6:06) details the blocking of a key scene by a lake, Substitution (4:16) covers a scene that occurs later in the film that is best not revealed by me at this stage, Little Beasts (10:09) is all about the lemmings, real and CGI (this is really interesting), and Dominik with a k focuses on the director and his working methods.

There are trailers for both Lemming (1:52) and Harry He's Here to Help (1:48). The Lemming trailer reveals a little more than you might want if you've not yet seen the film.

Finally we have filmographies for Laurent Lucas, Charlotte Gainsbough, Dominik Moll, Andre Dussollier and Charlotte Rampling.

Lemming is a film I enjoyed but was never particularly wowed by, a cross-genre tale told with commendable subtlety, but without that certain something needed to really get under your skin. Damned fine performances all round, though.

The film looks very good on Artificial Eye's DVD, with first-rate picture and sound and some interesting extra features. If you have a taste for the unusual, but don't like your thrillers too dark or your twists too strange, then this may be up your street.