A blind father wanked off by his son while brushing his teeth. A brother sniffing his sibling’s semen-soaked sock before committing murder. Multiple instances of blood sucked off two fingers, whether it’s from a rotting animal or menstrual. Is this an eat-the-rich satire, or a lick-the-cum-from-your-brother horror? These are a few scenes awaiting audiences who check out Rosebush Pruning due to an A-list cast that includes Callum Turner, Pamela Anderson, Elle Fanning, Riley Keough, Tracy Letts, and Lukas Gage. The biggest indicator of what awaits, though, is Yorgos Stefanakos, a non-actor whose name is left off the poster.

Stefanakos has previously cameoed in two Yorgos Lanthimos films, Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness, playing RMF in the latter. Stefanakos is actually Lanthimos’s lawyer and longtime friend, as well as the romantic partner of Efthimis Filippou, the screenwriter of Dogtooth, The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer – and now, for Karim Aïnouz, Rosebush Pruning. Like Lanthimos’s early work, Rosebush Pruning is a transgressive comedy that deconstructs social norms and familial structures. However, Aïnouz is, unlike Lanthimos, a 60-year-old Brazilian gay director.

“You’re the first person to ask me about that,” Aïnouz tells me in London, the day before his film hits UK cinemas. “I don’t know what Efthimis would say, but there was a real encounter of souls when I met him. There’s a sense of humour and irony that’s very queer. There’s this campness that isn’t in the other films he’s written. There’s a queerness here that’s not only about disruption, but it’s a very sentimental way of looking at queer characters.” I note that, perhaps unfairly, Lanthimos’s films are known for their male gaze and appreciation of female beauty. “A friend of mine, Jonathan Oster, watched the movie, and told me, ‘It’s incredible, the way you’re in love with your male characters.’ I guess I do love shooting beautiful men, but it’s also about interesting bodies.”

Rosebush Pruning starts on a Spanish beach with Ed (Turner) educating a Greek doctor, George (Stefanakos), about Demeulemeester and other fashion brands. After a few conversations, Ed considers George his best friend, enough to establish a pen-pal relationship – in this film, that means swapping dick pics. The social desperation makes sense when the gross-out comedy reveals that Ed is psychologically imprisoned in a family mansion with incestuous relatives: an unnamed father (Letts) claims the mother was eaten by wolves; sister Anna (Keough) insists she knows what turns on each individual family member; younger brother Robert (Gage) directs his pent-up sexual energy towards the eldest sibling, Jack (Bell), the most “normal” member of the family in that he’s dating an outsider in Martha (Fanning). The ensuing hijinks comprise the possibility of Jack escaping the family.

“It’s like an autopsy of the patriarchy,” says Aïnouz. “But it’s the consequences of how poisoned these characters can be.” It’s more about the father’s effect on the children? “Yeah. It’s the abuse, which is so huge, twisted, and unexpected.” A year ago, when promoting Motel Destino, Aïnouz told me he was repeatedly praised for his female characters, so Rosebush Pruning would be an exploration of male toxicity. “I don’t think there’s been a time in the world where absurdity has been in our daily lives as much as now. I think it began with the pandemic.”

Rosebush Pruning is unlike anything else by Aïnouz, whose filmography includes Firebrand (a Henry VIII biopic with Jude Law), Motel Destino (a sweaty, erotic thriller in Brazil), and The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão (an evocative melodrama in 1950s Rio de Janeiro). It’s 5pm, and he’s drinking coffee after flying in from Japan where he’s researching his next movie, Last Dance, a period-drama set on a gay cruise with Adrien Brody and Rachel Zegler. “It’s not greenlit yet. Hopefully we’ll shoot it in November.” The obstacle is tracking a boat that fits the actors’ schedules. “We’ve literally been to Australia, India, everywhere. And Rachel’s doing Evita next year. We’ll know soon.”

I don’t think there’s been a time in the world where absurdity has been in our daily lives as much as now. I think it began with the pandemic

Aïnouz compares our interview to breaking down memories to a therapist. He came up with the idea for Rosebush Pruning in 2020 when he asked Filippou to write a loose remake of the 1960 Italian film Fists in the Pocket. (I totally recommend watching it after Rosebush Pruning.) A black-and-white classic, Marco Bellocchio’s drama stunned audiences at the time by deploying the visual language of Italian neorealistic cinema but with incest and murder. The observation that Greek men “have beautiful dicks” isn’t in the original, but the storytelling skeleton remains similar.

Elsewhere, Aïnouz’s visual approach is more Pink Narcissus than Bellocchio. From the get-go, Rosebush Pruning is flooded with bright, vivid colours, whether it’s the hypnotic blues of the sea or the blood-red roses that captivate Ed. Wealthy enough to never work, the fashion-obsessed kids sleep on opulent furniture in designer gear. Ed fantasises that Botega shoes fall from the sky; Martha is mocked by Anna for wearing Cos and Zara. The glorious images are matched by emphatic needle drops (“Paninaro” by the Pet Shop Boys) and Matthew Herbert’s Spanish guitar.

“What triggers the story is horrendous, so the film had to be beautiful.” The director cites the Grimm brothers’ fairytales as an inspiration, particularly how they emerged from the Napoleonic Wars. “I can’t hear the word ‘dystopian’ anymore. It was important this was funny.” Turner, a potential James Bond, jerks off his father. Is it more comedic when the actors are mega-famous? “It’s a strategy! That’s what the star system is for, right?”

While Rosebush Pruning was a hot script that circulated around agencies, not everyone understood it. Some actors rejected Aïnouz’s insistence that the characters had to be “warm and real”. Other actors were enticed by the disconnect between Filippou’s vicious humour and the tenderness of Aïnouz’s past work. “It’s tricky to talk about very rich people without being judgemental. The film is about whiteness, privilege, and the super-wealthy. But what I mean by warmth is that I don’t dislike these characters. A lot of people will say they’re disgusting and vapid. Well, they’re the product of a certain poison that makes them like that.”

Aïnouz expected audiences to be divided. At Berlin, though, critics had their garden knives out. The director tells me he’s avoided online reactions as much as possible. “I am completely opening up to you,” he says. “I am so sensitive to reviews, particularly in the age of social media. I’m just happy to put the film out there. My first feature had so many reviews at Cannes, and I read a lot. But there was one with a bad line, and I spent two years completely paralysed. For two years, I had that line memorised when I woke up in the morning.”

At screenings for Rosebush Pruning, he’s sensed when audience members aren’t empathising with the characters; it’s sometimes felt like rejection. However, he believes it takes time longer than the running time for the film’s effect to sink in. “I’m so proud of the movie. It might sound like a shocking, corrosive, disruptive movie, but for me it’s a subtle way to talk about the patriarchy. It’s a movie I wish I didn’t have to do Q&As for. It’s good to keep certain mysteries. It’s the first baby I’ve made that I feel can walk on its own legs from day one.”

I express my surprise. He’s had films playing Cannes since 2002, and it’s his third high-profile feature in four years. He’s still sensitive to reviews? “I don’t have kids. But I feel like these are my kids. I wonder what it’s like if someone’s told their kid doesn’t look good. I feel like that. It’s not even the movies – it’s the characters. There’s not one character I’ve done that I didn’t love or wasn’t intrigued by. I will never have the thick skin you need for that.”

Rosebush Pruning is out in UK cinemas now.