Opposites attract, as they say, whereas overly similar folk are like fire and water, or so The Megalomaniacs – presented in the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival’s Rebels with a Cause competition – seems to suggest, forcing eccentric oddballs, each with their own unique kind of madness, together under one roof. The plot might sound a little far-fetched – more focused on throwing an original idea into the ring than telling a spellbinding story – but both the protagonists in this film and the acting performances behind them are so captivating that the unfolding action almost loses its importance.

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Marine archaeologist Sofia (a fanatically self-absorbed Angeliki Papoulia) is determined to prove that excavated amphoras contain ancient sounds and ultimately function like vinyl records. To move closer to her goal, she takes her suitcase, her parrot Punky, and her Bluetooth vibrator and barges into the remote island home of nihilistic craftsman Potter (Jan Bijvoet, comically dishevelled in his fury), whom she expects to create amphora models on which she can test her hypothesis, in order to obtain permission to try it out on real ones. Potter carries out this work, all the while referring to her a moocher, since she hasn’t offered to pay him, mocking her existential leanings and muttering about her nighttime escapades with her vibrator. And so, between assailing each other with complex phrases and quotes ranging from Diogenes to Nobel, and literally bombarding one another with the dictionary, the clash of their egos escalates to the point of outright intolerance. But just as one of them is deciding to yield, death intervenes, introducing yet another twist which feels more satirical than tragic.

Narcissism is attractive not only for the manipulative practices with which it’s associated, as popular psychology has lately been insisting, but also because of the unique kind of obsession it involves, namely immersion in an inner world which makes that person unique and, therefore, irresistibly magnetic. The director invites us into such realms by showing both protagonists in intimate moments of solitude, when they’re hilariously full of themselves. Sofia walks around with her pyjama bottoms off while speaking with a monk on the phone, her vibrator buzzing on the floor, and then irritating the parrot with a fan in her frustration that the Athos monastery complex won’t make an exception and lift the ban on her, as a woman, visiting for scientific purposes. Bare-chested in his kitchen, Potter dons his cooking apron with ceremonial flourish, swept up in his own ritualistic approach as he prepares to cook Punky, whom he himself has killed, to the tune of Mozart’s Requiem.

Stathoulopoulos himself is also consumed by the form he gives to his own ideas: we see fragments of Hieronymus Bosch’s canvases on the “covers” of the film’s four chapters; references to Greek mythology; thunderous classical music – all familiar pieces – ranging from Tchaikovsky through Strauss to Rossini, and every shot composed like a painting through DoP Andrés Felipe Morales’ imaginative lens. Clearly self-deprecating in his approach, the director holds up a mirror to artistic enrapture, exposing its absurdity whilst also admitting that he cannot and does not want to rid himself of it. Ultimately, it’s a fairy tale for megalomaniacs by a megalomaniac, which self-creates and subsequently self-destructs whilst also pleasuring the senses – the greatest virtue of art which is otherwise entirely “useless”, as Oscar Wilde concluded.

The Megalomaniacs was produced by Greece’s StudioBauhaus in co-production with Cyprus’ Felony Film Productions and Colombia’s Candelaria Cine. World sales are handled by British firm Reason8.