Cowards Bend the Knee is a Feuillade serial ultra-condensed and blenderised. If fiction is sometimes barely disguised autobiography, "Cowards Bend the Knee" is its mirror image, twisted and poisoned wish-fulfillment: the mythomaniacal Maddin casts `himself' as a hockey sniper made lily-livered by mother and daughter femme fatales, and resurrects his father as the team's radio broadcaster and his own romantic antagonist.Set in a shadow-suffused hockey arena and a Mabuse-like beauty salon-slash-abortion clinic lined with two-way mirrors, the plot drips with the Grecian formula, as sordid family secrets spawn unintentional murder most foul. Veering into penny dreadful territory with the introduction of a vengeful ghost and uncontrollable extremities as windows into the unconscious, one recalls "Hands of Orlac"; Maddin fixates on his characters' groping and fisting expressionist paws, bathing them in ethereal light and chopping them into dazzling, iris-heavy micro-montages. Room to pant is provided by slo-mo replays, alternately poignant and explosive: lurid, frenzied moments of impulsive violence and carnivorous sexuality lend this bewitchingly onanistic work - easily devoured in one voyeuristic standing - the sublime naughtiness of an antique hand-cranked skin flick.