At this point, we’re all tired of movies made in the “network narrative” mode that links several seemingly disparate stories together; Stéphane LaFleur’s arresting debut feature takes a similar tack but its deadpan sensibility suggests an influence well above and beyond the Haggises and Iñarritus of the world. Continental (the subtitle, which translates to a “film without guns,” is a both a sly statement of fact and a provocation) suggests nothing so much as a Quebecois version of Roy Andersson’s static, boxed-in comedies of despair.

The opening vignette, which describes a man getting lost in the woods — or perhaps choosing to disappear — sets the tone: off-kilter and vaguely surreal. The film traces the fallout of his adventure on four otherwise unconnected lives, including several key interludes in a hotel with extremely thin walls. LaFleur and his talented cinematographer Sara Mishara (who shot Maxime Giroux’s brilliant shorts La Rouge au Sol and Les Jours) use light and shadow meticulously to create a mood of drab enchantment, and the mise en scène is so compelling that you hardly notice the (almost total) lack of camera movement. But for all its technical virtues, Continental isn’t quite affecting; its characters seem less like people than props inside in its deadpan tableaux.