He is a profoundly philosophical filmmaker where there is a considerable amount of substance beneath the highly polished aesthetic and sparse dialogue. This is done with sheer auteur intent. You have to put your mind to work with this movie in order to glimpse the existential dilemmas addressed within. I personally do not think of it as any lesser in substance than the brilliant TV series or his trademark features like Manhunter, Last of the Mohicans, Heat and so on. It helps to read some philosophy beforehand which you can find here as well in TimeOut
. Cheers, Filip