Michel Foucault, towards the end of his life, liked to visit the Joshua Tree desert in California, drop acid with academic admirers and generally explore "liminal" experiences. There's a similar mixture of high-touristy condescension and saucer-eyed awe at the American landscape to be found in Bruno Dumont's explicit new film.

This French director made two brilliant, edgy features in La Vie de Jésus (1997) and L'Humanité (1999), but now steps into self-parody in his first English-language picture, about an LA photographer called David (David Wissak) and his sexy east European girlfriend Katia (Katia Golubeva) who go on a trip to the beautiful and desolate Californian desert and enter their own heart of darkness.

Katia is apparently on the verge of a breakdown and their relationship is largely a matter of shagging and quarrelling. They drift in and out of sulks and moods; they take their clothes off and climb moonscape rock-formations in the burning sun; they have beaucoup de sex, with David signalling imminent climax by yodelling. And all the time, they head towards a terrible but arbitrary nightmare; the film closes with a violent flourish that betrays the director's naive hardcore machismo.

Yet even now I can't relinquish my admiration for Dumont's talent, and the final scene, showing a terrified cop arguing with his superior over his radio, is brilliant. Those interested in Bruno Dumont should certainly see his first two films on DVD. This is a trickier prospect.