Siberian auteur Andrei Zvyagintsev has steadily become one of the most significant voices in Russian cinema. Since winning a Golden Lion at Venice with his feature debut, The Return (2003), he has held up a mirror to the regimented and detached society being fashioned by Vladimir Putin in The Banishment (2007), Elena (2011) and Leviathan (2014), which was nominated for an Academy Award. Subtlety has never been a Russian screen trademark and Zvyagintsev's symbolism is a little laboured in his latest Oscar-nominated outing, Loveless. But there is no denying the artistic integrity and political potency of this intense blend of social realism and procedural noir.

Following shots of gnarled trees in a frozen landscape on the outskirts of Moscow, 12 year-old Matvey Novikov heads home from school alone. He pauses to pick up a strip of police cordon tape and wraps it round a branch jutting over a stretch of muddy brown water. As he tries to do his homework, mother Maryana Spivak shows some potential buyers around the flat she is selling because she is about to divorce husband Aleksei Rozin. She teases Novikov about being a cry baby and pays him little further heed before Rozin gets home. They discuss custody of their son, with Spivak refusing to take him on because she feels entitled to a fresh start after putting up with Rozin for so long. Unaware that the boy is sobbing behind the door, they consider sending him to boarding school, but Rozin is aware that his boss is a fundamentalist Christian who insists that he is married with children. 

Novikov can barely get out of the apartment fast enough the next morning, while Rozin listens to news on the car radio about a Mayan prediction of the end of the world. Eyes glued to her phone, Spivak takes a train into the city to spend the morning in her beauty salon. She coos about her new lover and despairs of Novikov while chatting to stylist Evgeniya Dmitrieva, who is equally dismissive of her 19 year-old daughter. Meanwhile, over lunch in the office canteen, Rozin consults colleague Roman Madyanov about company policy on divorce and remarriage. They eat joylessly, while gossiping about a worker who hired a fake family for a corporate function in order to keep his job and Rozin's terror of being unemployed with debts is contrasted with Spivak's hope that he loses everything for making her life a misery. 

After work, Rozin goes supermarket shopping with pregnant girlfriend Marina Vasilyeva. As her mother is away, they have the apartment to themselves and make love before Vasilyeva tearfully asks for reassurance that Rozin isn't going to abandon her and the baby. Across the city, Spivak leaves the salon and is collected by Andris Keišs, her wealthy older lover, who takes her to a posh restaurant. As the camera prowls through the room, a woman gives a stranger her phone number while on a date and a group of singles cluster together for a selfie. Spivak plays footsie under the table while flirting with Keišs and they return to his luxurious pad for energetic sex. Returning to bed with some wine, Spivak tells Keišs that she loves him and confides that she has always found intimacy difficult because her mother showed her such little affection, while she quickly realised that marrying Rozin and having a child was a mistake. She recalls the agony of giving birth and the sense of revulsion she felt for Novikov, who has barely crossed the mind of either parent, while they spend the night away from home. 

Returning after dawn, Spivak checks her phone before curling up in bed. But she is woken later in the morning by a teacher asking after Novikov, as he hasn't been to school for two days. Spivak calls Rozin, who is in the canteen queue and is quick to blame his wife for failing to notice if their son was home. He is convinced the boy has simply run away and will soon return and cop Sergei Borisov is of the same mind, as he explains to Spivak how staff shortages and a need to tackle more serious crimes prevent him from doing anything more than logging the notification. But she is stung by the suggestion that she might have reported Novikov missing to cover a murder and Borisov suggests that she goes online to find a local search team if she is so concerned that something untoward might have happened. 

By the time Rozin gets home, Spivak is already being interviewed by search chief Aleksei Fateev, who is dismayed by how little the pair know about their son and his life. While he initiates a search of the neighbourhood, volunteer Varvara Shmykova accompanies Rozin and Spivak to see if the latter's mother, Natalya Potapova, has seen Novikov. They argue incessantly during the three-hour car journey, with Rozin playing loud rock music and Spivak wanting to smoke. Eventually, they arrive and have to climb a fence and bang on the door to make Potapova respond. She is more concerned about her lost phone than her missing grandson and berates Spivak at the kitchen table, while Rozin half-heartedly joins Shmykova in searching the grounds. Potapova spews bile at Spivak, who similarly lays into Rozin on the way home, as she bemoans the fact she didn't have an abortion and allowed him to ruin her life because he needed a wife and child to boost his job prospects. She pities Vasilyeva for falling for his spiel and suggests he'll dump her when it suits him. But this remark pushes the usually placid Rozin over the edge and he pulls off the road and orders Spivak out of the car. Left in the middle of nowhere, she lights a cigarette and tries to call Keišs to rescue her. 

While Spivak sleeps, Rozin joins a search of the parkland near the high-rise estate. He also joins Fateev and Borisov in checking CCTV footage and they reach the conclusion that Novikov either disappeared or was kidnapped. Out shopping with mother Anna Gulyarenko, Vasilyeva interrupts the meeting to complain that she feels neglected and Rozin has to reassure her that things will return to normal soon. She smiles with relief and takes a selfie with Gulyarenko, who mumbles that all men are the same and that Vasilyeva must be mad for thinking Rozin is any different. 

Having tracked down Novikov's only school friend, Artyom Zhigulin, Fateev coaxes him into revealing that they hide out in an abandoned apartment block in the woods. They launch a search around the building and Rozin (who has taken time off work) remains stoic as he wanders through rooms piled high with rubble and with leaking ceilings. There's no sign of his son, however, and Spivak's trip to a nearby hospital with Keišs and Shmykova proves to be another dead end. 

As snow falls, both parents help put up posters around the neighbourhood and accompany Fateev to the morgue, where they are so relieved that a badly decomposed body isn't their son that Spivak lashes out at Rozin and he cowers crying in a corner. But this is the last time they join forces to look for Novikov. Tajik builders renovate their flat and Rozin moves in with Gulyarenko. However, as his toddler son gets in the way of the television as he watches news reports from Ukraine, Rozin unceremoniously deposits the boy in his cot and leaves him to bawl for his mother. Across the city, Keišs watches the same bulletin. But Spivak is unconcerned and, putting on a tracksuit top with the word `Russia' emblazoned across it, she goes for a jog on the running machine on the balcony. As she slows down, she looks directly into the camera, with a look that is both despondent and accusatory.

Ending with a shot of the police tape fluttering from its branch close to a lamp post bearing Novikov's missing poster, this is a grindingly sombre snapshot of modern Moscow. Disquieted by the lack of empathy in Putin's Russia, Zvyagintsev uses the story of a lost soul to deplore the deterioration of community spirit amongst a rising bourgeoisie preoccupied with easy living and instant gratification. Countless characters are shown glued to their phones, as the world passes them by. But Zvyagintsev and co-scenarist Oleg Negin are just as concerned by the mundanity of the content they look at when the country is beset by corruption, avarice, religiosity, self-obsession and neglect. With government agencies understaffed and the military interfering in the affairs of sovereign states, this appears to be a Russia that has gone backwards since the collapse of Communism. Yet, while he dots the action with barbed criticisms, Zvyagintsev has no solutions to offer other than the population remaining united. 

He similarly avoids speculating on Novikov's fate, although he suggests in the closing coda sequences that Spivak and Rozin have learnt nothing from their experiences. The ferocity of their mutual loathing was inspired by Ingmar Bergman's From the Life of the Marionettes (1980) and Spivak and Rozin bring a chilling intensity to their antipathy towards each other and their indifference towards a son whose existence and absence is little more than a nagging inconvenience. Yet, while the passively aggressive Rozin is undoubtedly a nasty piece of work, there's a disagreeably chauvinist undertone to the depiction of the female characters, with only Shmykova's volunteer possessing untainted decency. 

Elsewhere, Zvyagintsev does little to disguise his disillusion and occasionally allows his frustration to coarsen his allegorical finesse. But his artistry remains impeccable throughout, as he channels the influence of Alfred Hitchcock, Michelangelo Antonioni and Michael Haneke, as well as Romanian new wavers Christian Mungiu and Christi Puiu in capturing the sinister undercurrents of everyday life. In this regard, he is superbly served by cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, production designer Andrei Ponkratov and editor Anna Mass. Andrei Dergachev's sound design and Evgeni and Sasha Galperine's score are also admirable, as they reinforce the sense of unease that permeates both the dysfunctional drama and the vigilante search. Yet, while this treatise on the demise of love is primarily Russocentric, it also has a universality that makes it even more soberingly resonant. 

A clash of personalities informs Glory, which confirms the excellent impression that the Bulgarian directing duo of Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov made with The Lesson (2014). Based on a true story and co-scripted by Decho Taralzehkov, this slyly sombre satire on the gulf between town-and-country life feels like something that Milos Forman or Jiri Menzel might have remade in 1960s Czechoslovakia from an original idea by Frank Capra or Preston Sturges. Superbly played by leads reuniting with the film-makers from their feature debut, this exposé of national foible has a dramatic precision that is as honed as its socio-political edge.

Bearded railway worker Stefan Denolyubov sets his Russian Slava watch by the talking clock and watches yet another story about corruption within the transport ministry while eating his breakfast from a pan. Dishevelled and solitary, Denolyubov turns a blind eye to two men siphoning fuel from a train in a siding before starting his day's work tightening bolts on a stretch of  country track. As he shambles along, he finds a couple of banknotes worth half his monthly salary and starts to whistle. However, when he spots a bagful of money beside the line, his conscience is pricked and workaholic PR consultant Margita Gosheva interrupts a fertility appointment with docile husband Kitodar Todorov to send a camera crew to Denolyubov's backwater in order to capture the good news story that might deflect attention away from a scandal involving spending on carriages. 

Much to the amusement of Gosheva's staff, Denolyubov has a debilitating stutter and they have to edit around his excruciating efforts to state that he contacted the police without hesitation on finding the cash. Gosheva is called away from the meeting, however, as Todorov needs her to start a course of daily injections to increase her chances of conceiving. As she slips off her skirt in the conference room, Todorov covers his wife's modesty with an EU flag as her curious colleagues sidle past. Meanwhile, out in the sticks, Denolyubov is mocked by his workmates in the local bar for handing in a windfall and he is embarrassed to find that the first notes he discovered are still in his pocket when he undresses for bed. 

At the behest of transport minister, Ivan Savov, Denolyubov takes the train to Sofia to receive a reward for his honesty. However, he gets lost in the city centre and Gosheva has to send Todorov to collect him before dropping off the syringe that she left at home. Unfortunately, in calling Denolyubov's phone to track him down in Macedonia Square, Todorov causes him to spill a drink down his trousers and Gosheva has all the men on her staff remove their own pants to find a suitable replacement pair before Denolyubov meets the press. Micromanaging every aspect of the presentation, Gosheva is furious to see that crusading journalist Milko Lazarov has managed to worm his way in and she orders her underlings to keep him away from Denolyubov. 

As Savov is to present the lineman with a new digital watch, Gosheva removes the wind-up Slava from Denolyubov's wrist (leaving a white patch on his weathered skin) and he becomes increasingly agitated about its whereabouts, as it was a gift from his father. Gosheva slips outside for her injection and berates Todorov for equating her forgetting the kit with a reluctance to have his child. Thus, she is distracted when she returns to the cocktail party being held in Denolyubov's honour, after he has posed for pictures with Savov, who is irritated when his guest asks why his pay cheques keep being delayed and why nobody does anything about fuel thefts on regional branch lines. 

Despite Gosheva detailing her minions to keep Lazarov and Denolyubov apart, the reporter slips the hero his card before he is whisked away to have his emergency trousers removed in the gents. Left standing in his underwear, Denolyubov frets about his Slava and calls the ministry the following morning (using a dial phone) to find out when Gosheva will be returning it. She is too busy congratulating her team to bother about a watch that appears to have vanished into thin air and tells her assistant to fob off Denolyubov with a feeble excuse. Calming himself down by petting his beloved rabbits, the lineman feels belittled. But he grows more frustrated when he struggles to set the timer on the new watch and fails to remove the stain from his good trousers. 

As a last resort, he returns the missed call from Todorov, thinking he is Gosheva's chauffeur. He is about to have sex with his wife, who is furious with him for interfering in her office business and snatches the phone to inform Denolyubov that the ministry porter will return the watch the following Monday. However, nobody knows where it is and Gosheva leaves a substitute at the reception desk while she goes to see doctor Georgi Stamenov with Todorov. As Denolyubov is aghast to discover that Gosheva is trying to dupe him, he calls Todorov in the hope that he can help and Gosheva admonishes him for replying in the middle of an appointment (just as she had done during their last consultation). 

Stung by Gosheva's accusation that he is a fake hero who is trying to wheedle money out of the ministry, Denolyubov contacts Lazarov, who pretends to be interested in the missing Slava while coaxing the lineman into divulging details of the graft involving his workmates. He is delighted when Denolyubov declares that he told Savov about the diesel racket and persuades him to appear o on his television show the next morning. Arriving after spending the night with a prostitute, Denolyubov is nervous about making his accusations from a script, but he knows this is the only way he will recover his watch and goes live on air just as Gosheva is waiting for a crucial examination at the clinic. Seeing the item on TV, she changes out of her surgical garb and takes a cab across town to fire off a press release denouncing Denolyubov for slandering Savov and rendezvous with a bent copper who might be willing to take care of the yokel if he refuses to back down. 

She returns to the clinic in time for her appointment, but Stamenov is unimpressed with her attitude and, for once, Gosheva is shamed into silence. While she is being examined, however, the police descend on Denolyubov's house and plant a wad of cash in order to arrest him for stealing from the sum he had so nobly returned. Confused and concerned about his rabbits missing their feed, Denolyubov is handcuffed and led from a cell for his interrogation. He pleads his innocence, but the corrupt cop and his partner convince him that the only way he can go free is if he makes a public apology to Savov and confirms that he knew nothing about fuel thefts on the railways. 

Worried that his rabbits will suffer in the heat unless he can get home to water them, Denolyubov agrees to record a mea cupla and has to borrow a shirt from cameraman Dimitar Sardzhev because he is only wearing a sweaty vest. As he arrives home, however, he is set upon by the fuel thieves, who bundle him into the back of their car. Back in Sofia, Gosheva arrives for a press conference at the ministry after learning that she has provided two healthy embryos. She can barely contain her delight, as she sits at the back of the room, while Savov addresses the press. However, her mood changes abruptly when she sees a newspaper item about a lineman throwing himself under a train and she scurries back to her office to call the reporter for details. 

In her panic, she gets drunk and searches her office for the missing watch. But she fails to find it and winds up spending the night in the front seat of the car because Todorov is unable to move her. When she wakes the next morning, she leans forward gingerly and catches sight of Denolyubov's watch under the mat. Gosheva calls the journalist to confirm the name of the dead lineman and is mightily relieved when she discovers that Denolyubov is okay. She gets Todorov to drive her to his address and rings the doorbell with a degree of trepidation that becomes shock when he answers the door with his head shaved and badly swollen. Smiling weakly, she proffer the Slava and, as Denolyubov reaches for his giant wrench, the action cuts away to Todorov turning up the jazz music on the car radio that will drown out his wife's cries for help. 

The off-screen climax is a masterstroke that continues on through the closing credits, as Todorov whistles along with the jaunty tune before venturing out of the car to see what is keeping his wife. Such finesse is entirely in keeping with the meticulous direction that ensures this underdog tale is consistently amusing and moving without ever becoming smug or mawkish. Grozeva and Valchanov must take the bulk of the credit, with the latter deserving extra kudos for the exceptional dexterity of his editing, which keeps the viewer on edge by frequently cutting away from scenes a fraction of a second before actions are completed. Such a daring tactic could easily prove irksome, but Valchanov's timing is as immaculate as one would expect from a picture that places so much emphasis on ticking watches and body clocks. 

Krum Rodriguez's nimble camerawork and Hristo Namliev's wry score are also spot on, as are supporting performances by the likes of Kitodar Todorov and Ivan Savov. But the exceptional Stefan Denolyubov and Margita Gosheva - who had played a grasping moneylender and a virtuous teacher in The Lesson -  dominate proceedings, as the shabby nobody and chic wannabe whose contrasting stammer and garrulousness reinforce the extent to which they occupy different worlds despite only being separated by a length of railway line. The unthinking manner in which Gosheva robs Denolyubov of his dignity and sense of self is so chillingly depicted that one is left wondering why the genial Todorov was ever attracted to her. But Grozeva and Valchanov wisely avoid making Gosheva too monstrous or Denolyubov too saintly, with the consequence that this rings all too true as a snapshot of a country divided along so many lines that it's a wonder it functions at all. 

Reuben Östlund must have suspected that he would come away from the Academy Awards empty handed, as only four films have ever managed to follow a Palme d'or victory at Cannes with the Oscar for Best Foreign Film: Claude Lelouch's Un Homme et une Femme (1966), Volker Schlondörff's The Tin Drum (1979), Bille August's Pelle the Conqueror (1987) and Michael Haneke's Amour (2012). The odds are even worse for an English-language film, as Delbert Mann's Marty (1955) remains the only Cannes winner to scoop Best Picture. By combining Swedish and English in The Square, Östlund almost guaranteed he would be pipped by Sebastián Lelio's A Fantastic Woman, which also turns the spotlight on prejudice, snobbery and injustice. Indeed, this recreation of events surrounding a 2014 art project that had been devised by Östlund and producer Kalle Boman revisits several of the themes that Östlund had explored in his distinctively darkly humorous manner in Involuntary (2008), Play (2011) and Force Majeure (2014), 

Since Sweden abolished its monarchy, the royal palace has been converted into a modern art gallery known as X-Royal Museum. The senior curator is Dane Christian Nielsen (Claes Bang), who is the epitome of artsy trendiness. Yet, he struggles to explain a pompous piece of postmodernist jargonese on the museum website when challenged by an American journalist named Anne (Elisabeth Moss). She shrugs at his response and terminates the interview, while trying to work out whether her handbag really would become a work of art if placed in a gallery. Outside, as an equine statue is hauled down from in front of the palace, workers install in its place an exhibit made up of neatly arranged cobbles that is fitted with a brass plaque that reads: `This Square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within its boundaries, we all share equal rights and obligations.' 

One morning while walking to work, Christian sees a distressed woman (Sofie Hamilton) running away from a thuggish pursuer. When she asks a stranger (Robert Hjelm) for help, Christian feels compelled to support him and they manage to repel the angry man, while the other commuters on the square melt away. The have-a-go heroes congratulate each other on their response to a crisis and Christian walks away feeling good about himself. However, when he checks his pockets for his phone, he realises he has been robbed and he suddenly becomes as invisible as the man sleeping rough nearby when he asks a woman if he can borrow her mobile to report the robbery. 

Arriving for work, Christian goes to a meeting with the PR company handling the launch of The Square. The account manager (John Nordling) dandles his new-born baby while his hipster hotshots (Daniel Hallberg and Martin Sööder) waffle on about the need to generate a controversy that will persuade journalists into writing something about what is, to all intents and purposes, a dull bunch of stones. Christian protests that this is a significant work of art that encourages viewers to reflect on the world around them and the PR people nod sagely before promising to return with an eye-popping campaign. 

Christian ends the meeting by describing his experience and assistants Michael (Christopher Læssø) and Maja (Maja Gödicke) later join him at his desk to watch the progress of the tracking device in his phone. However, he is scooted off by Elna (Marina Schiptjenko) to address the Friends of the Museum, who have been invited to a sneak preview of The Square. He begins by talking about its creator, Argentinian artist Lola Arias, but is interrupted by a phone ringing. Christian uses the interruption as an excuse to ditch his notes and speak from the heart (a gambit he has just rehearsed in the washroom). While he receives a warm round of applause, no one bothers to listen to the chef (Jonas Dahlbom), as he outlines the menu he has laid on for the guests. So, he bellows at them until they let him finish. 

Having tracked down the signal to a residential block in a rundown part of the capital, Michael suggests that Christian posts a threatening flyer through every letter box demanding the return of his property. He is sceptical, but Michael convinces him that aggression is the only language the thieves will understand. They get the giggles composing the text over supper and wine and belt out a track by a band called Justice, as they drive to the estate on the outskirts. Christian is disappointed with Michael when he refuses to go inside and post the letters and questions whether he can trust him in a professional capacity when he is willing to let his high-profile boss risk detection. But, having put on gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, Christian gets a rush out of dashing along the corridors and down the staircases. Sat in the car, however, Michael (who is black) keeps being pestered by likely lads and he is mightily relieved when Christian comes back and they can speed off. 

Undaunted by finding the heirloom cufflinks he thought had been stolen, Christian heads for work the next morning through a city centre full of people being ignored as they beg. He calls into the 7/11 he had denoted as the drop-off point for his stuff to see if anyone had left a parcel and gets waylaid by an angry woman who demands that he buys her a chicken ciabatta without onions. Smiling graciously, Christian orders the sandwich, only to toss it on to the table with a curt insistence that she fishes out her own onions. 

At the museum, an invigilator stops the only person who has shown any interest in an exhibit comprised of small hills of dirt and a neon sign reading `You Have Nothing' from taking a photograph. In another room, Sonja (Annica Liljeblad) starts a Q&A session with a celebrated artist named Julian (Dominc West). However, their dialogue keeps being interrupted by the interjections of a man with Tourette's Syndrome (Stefan Gödicke) and Julian insists on continuing, even though some of the audience members are offended by the graphic language. Meanwhile, Christian gets a call from the 7/11 to inform him that a package has been left for him and he is so pleased that his ruse has worked that he gives all of the cash in his wallet to the chicken ciabatta woman, who is begging outside. 

That night, Christian dances furiously at a museum function and plays a harpsichord during an impromptu tour of the royal apartments. While queuing for the bathroom, he bumps into Anne and, despite promising himself that he will not sleep with her, winds up back at her apartment. He is taken aback when a chimpanzee wanders past and starts looking at drawings on the sofa. But Anne enters the bedroom to initiate a vigorous session of love-making that ends with an argument over the disposal of the condom. Christian insists he will handle the matter, but Anne stomps in carrying a pedal bin and accuses him of thinking so highly of himself that he protects his semen. She tugs at the condom and Christian lets go for fear it will break and Anne dumps it in the bin and strides off with a sense of seething satisfaction. 

Distracted by a note left at the 7/11 threatening chaos for accusing the author of being a thief, Christian is late for a meeting at the PR team announce that the museum is competing for attention with terrorists, natural disasters and the bile of right-wing politicians. Consequently, they have created a promotional film to stop people in their tracks by showing a young blonde beggar girl being assaulted inside The Square. Michael and Nicki (Nicki Dar) can barely suppress their mocking amusement at the concept, while Sonja and Maja are stunned. But, when Christian pops in to drag Michael and Nicki away, he gives the artwork a cursory glance and urges the publicists to develop their theme. 

Christian sends Michael and Nicki to collect the note from the 7/11 and the former is cornered by a tweenage immigrant boy (Elijandro Edouard), who points out that his parents have grounded him because the letter posted through their door accused him of being a thief. When Michael tries to explain that he isn't Christian, the kid becomes aggressive and knocks over a rubbish bin in demanding to be taken seriously. Back at the museum, Anne finds Christian to ask why he has been avoiding her since they slept together. Sonja interrupts briefly to tell Christian that a cleaner has sucked part of the `You Have Nothing' piece into their sit-on vacuum and he promises to come and help her sort things out. But, first, he has to endure a dressing down, in which Anne suggests that he enjoys using his status to seduce women and he struggles to gainsay her without tripping himself up. One of the invigilators tries to eavesdrop on them from beside a noisy exhibit of some piled schoolroom chairs, as Christian tries to deflect Anne's assertion that she finds him both fascinating and sinister. 

Alone in his apartment, Christian is reading the migrant boy's letter when he hears someone rattling his door handle. He is relieved to find it is daughters Lise (Lise Stephenson Engström) and Lilly (Lilianne Mardon), although it takes a while before he is able to stop them squabbling. In order to keep them amused, he takes them on a tour of the museum and they are puzzled by the exhibits, including The Square. He also takes them shopping. But, while he is waiting for them to meet him, Christian receives a phone call from YouTube congratulating him on the promo film going viral. Leaving a beggar (Copos Pardaliam) to mind his bags, he goes searching for his daughters. 

By the time he arrives at the museum, we have seen the footage of the tiny child being blown to smithereens while holding a kitten inside The Square. Elna is waiting in Christian's office to inform him that he must abide by any decisions that the board takes on his future and he reluctantly agrees, despite protesting that he had nothing to do with the offensive content. That night, they both attend a fund-raising gala, where Christian has arranged for performance artist Oleg Rogozjin (Terry Notary) to interact with the guests a a human ape. Initially, the antics are greeted with nervous laughter. But one man storms out after Oleg knocks his glass out of his hand and squares up to him when he tries to laugh off the incident by making monkey noises. Christian stands to call for applause to end the show, but Oleg is in no mood to back down and leaps on a table and begins pawing a woman (Madeleine Barwén Trollvik) before he pulls her behind him by the hair. A number of men in dinner jackets leap to their defence and, with one woman calling for them to kill Oleg, the set about beating him to a pulp. 

Returning home in a downpour with Lise and Lilly, Christian runs into the boy from the flats at the foot of the stairs. He demands that Christian comes to speak to his parents to clear his name and apologises for getting him into trouble. Sending the girls upstairs, Christian tries to reason with the boy, but he starts knocking on doors in order to humiliate Christian in front of his neighbours. Outside his own apartment, Christian gives the kid a push and he falls backwards down the stairs. Bundling his daughters inside, Christian tries to ignore the cries for help (as does everyone else in the building) and it's only when he's sure he is gone that he goes down to the dumpster and scrambles through the bin bags in an attempt to find the piece of paper on which the youth had scrawled his phone number. 

Back on his sofa, Christian records a message in which he apologises for his baseless accusation. However, he feels the need to justify his actions and claims that he is not solely responsible for the divisions in society. He even suggests that those on the lower rungs have misconceptions about the privileged that match their own mistrust of the marginalised. But his inability to express himself causes him further problems when he announces his resignation at a press conference and one journalist accuses him of imposing a limit on what might be considered acceptable levels of free speech. When Christian suggests that freedom to say what one wants comes with a degree of responsibility, the reporter condemns such self-censorship. Another demands to know why the girl was blonde when the migrant crisis in Europe suggests she should have had darker hair. But Christian strives to put a lid on things by quoting the plaque in the middle of The Square. 

Next day, the papers are united in their condemnation of the museum for its sick provocation and a priest, a rabbi and an imam join forces to condemn Christian. That afternoon, he goes with Lilly to watch Lise perform in a cheerleading competition. On the way home, he stops on the estate to apologise to the boy who tumbled down the stairs, only to learn that his family has moved away. As the film ends, Lise and Lilly look at their father from the backseat and wonder what is going on. 

Coming in at a gruelling 151 minutes, this scathing satire on the slow death of complacent Western liberalism will seem astute or harsh depending on the viewer's political standpoint. As in his previous pictures, Östlund refuses to compromise in his depiction of protagonists sinking further out of their depth and his insights here into class, race, gender, political correctness and the commercialisation of culture have jagged edges that carve through audience preconceptions. Echoes abound of Luis Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock, Federico Fellini, Roy Andersson and Paolo Sorrentino, as Östlund takes dark comedy to its bleakest extremes to chart the decline and fall of a smug, superficial chauvinist who makes so many poor choices that one is forced to question the judgement of those who placed him in a position of such power and influence. 

This is, of course, the whole point, as we are the guilty ones who allow status, privilege and freedom of speech to be abused by our failure to hold the rich, famous and powerful to account. But there is still something ghoulishly satisfying about watching a preening popinjay like the mischievously named Christian getting his just desserts, even if some of us do hope that the experience of being reduced to nothing under the unblinking gaze of his daughters will prove his first step on the road to salvation. 

Oozing bourgeois hubris and passive hypocrisy, Claes Bang excels as the third-rate alpha male whose shortcomings are exposed with such cruel precision. His scenes with the marvellously pugnacious Elijandro Edouard and the typically riveting Elisabeth Moss are particularly squirm-inducing and, by all accounts, there are some astonishing out-takes of the condom sequence hidden away in Östlund's vaults. He is splendidly served by production designer Josefin Åsberg and cinematographer Fredrik Wenzel, as every gallery space, office and dwelling sheds light on Christian's milieu and mindset. A few gags fall flat, such as the Tourette's interlude, while he lets Christian give Anne the slip a little too easily. But, as the exploding waif and human ape sequences show, Östlund is a film-maker prepared to take chances, as he knows that the more he risks alienating the audience, the closer he is getting to their truth.

History was made at the 90th Academy Awards in March, when Daniela Vega became the first transgender performer to grace the glittering ceremony. She also saw the film that has made her a star, Sebastián Lelio's A Fantastic Woman, bring home Chile's first Oscar, in spite of stiff competition from Loveless, The Square, Ziad Doueiri's The Insult and Ildikó Enyedi's On Body and Soul. But, even if it had gone home empty handed, this potent follow-up to The Sacred Family (2006), Navidad (2009), The Year of the Tiger (2011) and Gloria (2013) would still have confirmed the Argentine-born Lelio among Chile's finest film-makers, alongside Pablo Larrain, who co-produces with German auteur Maren Ade. 

Following spectacular views of the Iguazau Falls, we see 57 year-old Orlando Onetto (Francisco Reyes) having a massage in a Santiago sauna. He returns to work at the clothing company he owns and gets into a flap over a missing envelope. Unable to find it, he goes to a cabaret club, where Marina Vidal (Daniela Vega) is performing with her band. Despite being half his age, she flirts with him from the stage and joins him for a Chinese birthday meal at her favourite restaurant. Orlando gives her a note inviting her on a trip to Iguazau and she smiles when he admits to having lost the tickets. They return to his apartment, where they make love. But Orlando wakes in the night feeling unwell and falls down the stairs in the middle of suffering an aneurysm. 

Marina rushes him to hospital, but he dies on the operating table. The doctor (Alejandro Goic) is puzzled by her appearance when he comes to break the news and Marina is stung when he asks if she is using a nickname. Wandering outside in a daze after falling to her knees in a bathroom cubicle, Marina calls Orlando's brother, Gabriel (Luis Gnecco), and, in a grief-stricken panic, runs away into the night. She is tracked by the police and returned to the hospital, where she is being quizzed about her identity when Gabriel arrives. He explains that the family would appreciate a little sensitivity, bearing in mind that Orlando fell ill in the bed of his transgender lover, and the cop allows Marina to leave.

Still in a daze, Marina reports for work at the amusement centre café where she's a waitress. Her boss, Alessandra (Antonia Zegers), checks she is okay and cuts her some slack when she gets a phone call from Orlando's ex-wife, Sonia (Aline Küppenheim). As they divorced because of Marina, Sonia is curt in demanding the return of Orlando's car and personal effects. She also insists that Marina moves out of the apartment at the earliest opportunity. But her morning goes from bad to worse when she receives a visit from Adriana Cortés (Amparo Noguera) of the Sexual Offences Investigation Unit. She inquires about the nature of their relationship and asks whether Orlando paid her for sex. Marina is nettled by her questions and refuses to answer whether they had slept together before Orlando's seizure. She also opts not to explain why his body was covered in cuts and bruises, but reassures Cortés that there was no physical violence involved in their tryst. 

Driving around the city, Marina thinks she sees Orlando reflected in her sunglasses and sitting in the back seat of the car. She gets a visit from his son, Bruno (Nicolás Saavedra), who keeps calling her Marisa and seems both fascinated and appalled by her and the relationship she had with his father. He orders her to leave the apartment or face the consequences. But Sonia is more accommodating when Marina returns the car (while listening to Aretha Franklin's `(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman'). Nevertheless, she still calls Marina a `chimera' and uses her former name, Daniel, in insisting that she stays away from the wake and the funeral for the sake of her distraught seven year-old daughter. Marina is hurt to be frozen out in this manner and promises to be discreet. But Sonia makes it clear that she will humiliate Marina if she shows her face. 

Cortés summons Marina to headquarters and subjects her to a medical examination by a doctor (Roberto Farías) who takes photographs of her naked. When Marina objects, Cortés reveals that traces of marijuana were found in Orlando's blood and she threatens to open a case against her unless she co-operates. Offended by being treated like a criminal and by Cortés pretending that she is doing things for her benefit, Marina complies. But she rejects Gabriel's offer of a portion of his brother's ashes in return for her guarantee to stay away from the requiem. 

Needing some affection, Marina attends a lesson with her singing coach (Sergio Hernández) and he hugs her before accompanying her through Geminiano Giacomelli's aria, `Sposa son disprezzata'. Walking home, she is buffeted by a headwind and leans at an angle to force her way along the pavement (a conscious tribute to the cyclone sequence in Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr., 1928). Arriving home, she finds her bag packed on the landing and she goes inside to finish the job before calling her sister, Wanda (Trinidad González), and her stoner boyfriend, Gastón (Néstor Cantillana), to collect her. 

Angry at the family taking her dog, Diabla, Marina jumps out of the car and stalks into the wake. Everyone turns to look at her and Sonia's daughter bursts into tears. As she walks away, Gabriel tries to apologise for her exclusion. But Bruno follows her with a couple of pals, who bundle her into the backseat of their car and cover her face with sticky tape to teach her a lesson. They dump her in a backstreet and speed off, leaving Marina to look at her distorted face in the window of a parked car. She slouches through a rough neighbourhood before seeking solace on the dance floor of a gay disco. Having hooked up, she has sex in a back bar and looks up to see Orlando staring at her from across the room. Throwing herself into the music, Marina imagines herself dancing with an ensemble in tinsel uniforms and tries to feel positive about life. 

Having slept on Wanda's sofa, Marina goes for a manicure and looks at herself in a large mirror being carried across the road. She goes to work and notices one of the customers has a key similar to the one she found on the floor of Orlando's car. It belongs to a locker at the Finlandia sauna and she ventures inside. Her skin glistening in the heat, she approaches the locker with trepidation and is disappointed to find it's empty. 

Rushing outside, she takes a cab to the cemetery and arrives just as Sonia, Bruno and Gabriel are driving away. They tell her that she has missed the funeral, but she is more interested in getting Diabla back and runs up the bonnet and on to the roof to stamp her protest at their cruelty. Inside the facility, she follows a man into the basement, where she meets Orlando who pins her against the wall for a farewell kiss under a red-tinted light. She asks to see the body before it's cremated and squeezes Orlando's hand before he is pushed into the furnace and the flames begin to burn. 

As the picture ends, Marina is settled in a new flat with her dog. She dresses up to perform. However, she doesn't sing at the cabaret club, but at a small concert hall, with her vocal coach on piano and a string quartet backing her on George Frideric Handel's `Ombra mai fu'. It's an ethereally beautiful end to a drama that seems to be forever dragging its hem in the dirt of sordid reality. And, for once, there isn't a reflective surface in sight, as Marina is being seen for who she is and not as how others might see her. 

Such touches typify the care that production designer Estefania Larrain and cinematographer Benjamín Echazarreta take in capturing the world envisaged by Lelio and co-scenarist Gonzalo Maza. As in a Rainer Werner Fassbinder or Pedro Almodóvar film, the setting is crucial to establishing and sustaining the tone. Moreover, Lelio is fortunate in having Matthew Herbert's hauntingly Herrmannesque score to counterpoint the slings and arrows that the exceptional Daniela Vega has to suffer, as her lover's family exact their revenge for the pain caused by what they considered to be his depraved defection. 

The supporting performances are also notable, with Aline Küppenheim's jilted spouse and Amparo Noguera's cop treating Vega with a contempt that understandable where the former is concerned, but deeply disturbing in the case of a professional who should be expected to maintain a certain degree of detachment and who must surely have encountered a transsexual in the line of duty before. But, as Paulina García discovered in Gloria, people can rarely be relied upon to react as one might hope they would to events that shake them from their torpor. 

Yet, while the focus keeps coming back to the prejudice that Vega has to endure, this is primarily a study in bereavement that deserves to be discussed alongside the likes of Anthony Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply (1990) and François Ozon's Under the Sand (2000). She may not be required to delve too deeply into her pain beyond thumping punchbags, suppressing her righteous outrage and shedding the odd tear. But this is a performance of devastating dignity. 

Moreover, this quietly empathetic feature is even more effective in the subtle manner in which it makes its case for transgender rights without once resorting to overt politicking. One wonders whether Lelio will exercise similar restrain in his English-language debut, Disobedience, which he has co-scripted from a Naomi Alderman novel with the ever-excellent Rebecca Lenkiewicz and which centres on the lesbian romance between a married Orthodox Jew (Rachel Weisz) and her childhood friend (Rachel McAdams).

For a long time, Robin Campillo was known for his association with Laurent Cantet. Having edited Les Sanguinaires (1997) and Human Resources (1999), he shared writing credits on Time Out (2001), Heading South (2005) and The Class (2008) before returning solely to editorial duties on Return to Ithaca (2014). However, Campillo has also been steadily building his reputation as a director since making his debut with the zombie saga, Les Revenants (2004). Now, he follows the provocative realist immigrant drama, Eastern Boys (2013), with 120 Beats Per Minute, an account of the work done by the French wing of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) at the height of the AIDS crisis in the last two decades of the 20th century.

Following an attack on François Rabette, a symposium speaker from the French Agency for the Fight Against AIDS (AFLS), the Parisian chapter of ACT UP gathers for a debriefing under leader Antoine Reinartz. Activist Adèle Haenel is unhappy that Simon Guélat threw a fake blood bomb before she had finished making her protest at the microphone and objects to the fact that Nahuel Pérez Biscayart took it upon himself to handcuff Rabette to the stage set, as it has prompted negative publicity in the press and from sympathetic protest groups. However, the meeting is unanimous in the need to draw attention to the refusal of companies like Melton Pharm to speed up their research into protease inhibitor treatments, as they don't consider helping the LGBT community to be a priority. 

Haenel is again to the fore during this raid, which sees 26 year-old Arnaud Valois participate for the first time. He is HIV- and catches the eye of Pérez Biscayart, who is highly protective of Théophile Ray, who has haemophilia. Once again, the splatter walls, windows and logos with fake blood bombs, while arguing with the medics and executives who object to their militancy. Several members of arrested by the police and they discuss their actions on the Métro with a mix adrenaline-fuelled pride and self-guying wistfulness before dancing the night away at their favourite disco. 

Specks of dust caught in the lights morph with images of infected cells under a microscope, as Reinartz leads a small discussion group on the latest pharmaceutical developments. Midway through the session, Ariel Borensten keels over and he informs them that his doctor has informed him that his condition is advancing unusually quickly. Everyone is supportive and urges him to see another consultant. He is feeling stronger at the next full meeting, when he volunteers to join Pérez Biscayart in a cheerleading troupe to raise awareness during the Gay Pride march. Reinartz finds the rally dull and is sniffy when Ray's mother, Catherine Vinatier, comes up with the slogan, `AIDS is me, AIDS is you, AIDS is us.' Aloïse Sauvage scolds Reinartz for being so gloomy and Pérez Biscayart leads the assembled in chanting the suggested slogans because anything that causes people to stop and think is better than nothing. 

Following a guerrilla visit to a local school (where they receive a mixed reception from staff and students alike), the ACT UP principals wind up in another disco, where Pérez Biscayart and Valois get together. During safe sex, the former reveals how he was infected on losing his virginity to his married maths teacher, while the latter recalls the first time he slept with someone with Kaposi's sarcoma lesions. They are honest and tender, but Pérez Biscayart feels extra responsibility for Valois because he is still negative. 

Reinartz leads a delegation to speak with Samuel Churin from Melton Pharm and he insists that he had no trial results to show anyone because the process is proving trickier than anticipated. Valois is unimpressed with his patronising attitude, especially when he criticises them for their attack on his offices. But the room is divided when they report back to the ACT UP membership, with Pérez Biscayart being particularly angry that the drug companies are not doing more to develop treatments. He shocks Valois when he reveals how his condition is deteriorating and he demands that a representative from Melton Pharm should be invited to address them directly rather than hiding behind mediators. 

During a break, Valois asks Pérez Biscayart what he does for a living and he replies that being positive takes up all his time. He is touched that Valois knows so much about their fellow members as individuals rather than simply as activists or victims. Shortly afterwards, however, Borenstein dies after urging his comrades to treat his demise as a rallying cry similar to the one that brought about the 1848 revolution that overthrew the monarchy of Louis Philippe. Following on from the funeral, Reinartz issues stickers to use on the homophobic books that have started to appear to whip up suspicion and fear during the AIDS epidemic. 

Vinatier also speaks on the need for hospitals to do more to monitor blood supplies, as Ray contracted the disease after receiving an infected transfusion. However, Pérez Biscayart and Felix Maritaud object to her proposal that those responsible should be jailed and a heated argument breaks out, as Haenel implores them to remain focused and show respect for each other. But it's clear that fewer members respect Reinartz's leadership and Valois is surprised by the vehemence of his lover's anger with Vinatier for advocating a cause that is more media friendly than the plight facing gay men, drug users and prostitutes. Most are able to see the bigger picture, however, and they join forces in a protest outside the health ministry to call for needle exchanges to reduce the risks among addicts. However, the police are waiting for them and they are bundled into the back of a van before being able to make much impact. 

During a break at the next meeting, Pérez Biscayart asks Valois about his past. He reflects on a lover from Marseilles who had spooked him when he realised he was showing signs of infection. Scared, Valois became abstinent for several years and it was only when he decided to call the man's home that he discovered he had been taken to hospital. Pérez Biscayart is taken aback that Valois made no effort to visit his friend and doesn't even know if he survived his relapse. But he agrees to them moving in together and Valois learns how to change a drip and dressings.

After a lengthy wait, Churin finally agrees to attend an ACT UP meeting. Haenel and Guélat accuse him of engineering a shortage of the experimental drug and Reinartz asks Churin to leave, as a sign of their disgust at Big Pharma's attitude to the disease. But, when he proposes using hospitalised sufferers at Gay Pride to stop them from becoming invisible, Pérez Biscayart brands him an impostor and he storms out. However, he has been told by his doctor that his condition is deteriorating and he is confined to hospital shortly after a brief trip to the seaside with Valois. Reinartz visits him and tries to make small talk and offer encouragement. But Pérez Biscayart can't hide his disdain and he asks him to go. Valois passes Reinartz as he leaves, but says nothing before providing his lover with a little compassionate relief before confessing that he has painted their new apartment white. 

Shortly after a lie-down demonstration in which President François Mitterand is accused of being a murderer and Reinartz declares the fight against AIDS to be a war, Pérez Biscayart comes home. His mother, Saadia Ben Taieb, helps Valois prepare his room and sleeps on the fold-down couch to be near her son. That night, however, Valois gives him a fatal injection that is not detected by the doctor when he comes to issue the death certificate. Ben Taieb is touched when so many ACT UP friends come to pay their respects and she agrees to let them have some of his ashes to turn his funeral into a political protest. As everyone chats and sips coffee, Valois asks Reinartz to spend the night with him. 

Valois breaks down after making love with Reinartz. But, as the River Seine turns red with homemade blood, both are front and centre when the group infiltrates a party for health insurance bigwigs. In addition to waving placards and blowing whistles, they also scatter Pérez Biscayart's ashes over the buffet and the film ends with the principals dancing in strobe lighting at the disco, as life, like the struggle, has to go on. 

Based on the experiences of Campillo and co-writer Philippe Mangeot (who is a leading educator and activist), this is the latest in a lengthening line of powerful pictures about the way in which the LGBT community responded to the AIDS epidemic and how it came to shame politicians and the pharmaceutical industry into finding solutions. Although much is made of ACT UP's role in ministering to addicts, sex workers, prisoners and heterosexuals, the emphasis here is primarily on gay males, with the love story between Pérez Biscayart and Valois providing the emotional focus. But Campillo and Mangeot also echo many of the themes touched on by David France in How to Survive a Plague, his unflinching documentary about ACT UP in the USA.

As in his collaborations with Cantet, Campillo allows the characters to communicate through open discussions rather than intimate conversations. But, while this reinforces the docu-realist tone of the action, the romance always reminds viewers that they are watching a dramatised reconstruction. The performances are admirable, with the Argentinian Pérez Biscayart proving pricklier as the back-row radical `living politics in the first person' than the more puppyishly devoted Valois. Yet, despite the coy disclosures in the bedroom and meeting hall, neither character is delineated in any depth. Reinartz and Haenel are forced to rely even more heavily on their innate screen presence to raise their activism above cipher level, while the majority of their comrades remain part of a largely anonymous claque. 

However, Campillo and Mangeot succeed in putting a personal spin on ACT UP's activities and internal divisions at a time when governments and business were either too ignorant or disinterested to recognise the severity of the pandemic. More might have been made of this institutional lethargy and the paranoia and prejudice that the AIDS crisis provoked. But the decision to concentrate on assertive action makes sense and Campillo avoids melodramatising the confrontations with the authorities and the scientists. Similarly, he doesn't dwell on the symptoms and sufferings of Borenstein and Pérez Biscayart or the medical details and legal consequences (if any) of the latter's euthanasia. Consequently, the raw emotionality is markedly less manipulative than in recent Hollywood offerings like Jean-Marc Vallée's Dallas Buyers Club (2013), with Emmanuelle Duplay's production design, Jeanne Lapoirie's photography and Arnaud Rebotini's electronic score all avoiding self-conscious period specificity. Conversely, the occasionally protracted proceedings risk becoming intellectually dry. But this is always a film with its heart in the right place and it deserves to be greeted with much finger-clicking.

With LGBTQ issues still very much a taboo in South Africa, it's hardly surprising that lesbian dramas like Helena Nogueira's Quest for Love (1988) and Shamim Sarif's The World Unseen (2007) and such gay offerings as John Greyson's Proteus (2003) and Oliver Hermanus's Beauty (2011) have been so rare. But first-time film-maker John Trengrove is not solely content with exposing homophobia in the tribal lands in The Wound, but he also raises the Xhosa initiation ceremony known as `ukwaluka' and questions its continued relevance in a progressive society. In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela claimed to have experienced `fire shooting through my veins' while undergoing the ordeal. But, in disclosing details of this once secret ritual, Trengrove cautiously follows the example of Senegalese maestro Ousmane Sembène, who denounced female genital mutilation in what turned out to be his final feature, Moolaadé (2004).

Leaving his unrewarding job in a Queenstown factory, Nakhane Touré returns to his village in the Eastern Cape to mentor an initiate at the traditional ukwaluka ceremony. Gabriel Mini is worried that living in Johannesburg has made nose-pierced son Niza Jay Ncoyini go soft and asks Touré to ensure that he completes the three-week trial. Following the brutally brusque circumcision session, Touré takes Ncoyini to a hut and gives him a joint to help cope with the pain. He informs him that, as an `umkhwetha' or initiate, he will remain in seclusion for eight days of fasting and reflection and reminds him that he is there to guide him along the route to manhood. 

While Touré is committed to the ideals behind ukwaluka, he has also come home to see fellow `khaukatha' or caregiver Bongile Mantsai, a married father of three, who has been his clandestine lover for many years. Leaving some initiates to camp by the river, the pair find a quiet room to have rough sex and Touré congratulates Mantsai on becoming a father for the third time. He says little about his own life, however, and remains distant while changing Ncoyini's dressing and reassuring him that he will heal quickly and come to look back on his initiation with pride. 

Mini is delighted to see his son sticking it out when he comes to the bush. But the other boys think Ncoyini is a city snob and Mantsai threatens to punish him during a campfire confrontation that Touré finds distasteful. However, when Ncoyini goes to sit in a car and listen to music on the radio, he sees Mantsai following Touré away from an elder telling the group a story and he asks about the nature of their friendship while bathing in the river the next day. Touré reveals that they had caught birds together when they were boys and warns Ncoyini to keep away from him.

The next time Touré and Mantai are alone, the former tries to kiss his lover. But he forces him to his knees and stalks away without a word after climaxing. There is still a tension between them when Mantsai allows some of the other caregivers to pick on Touré while they are overseeing a woodcutting task and Ncoyini is intrigued by the way in which Mantsai treats his friend. When Touré wakes from a nap, the youth reassures him that his secret will remain safe with him, but they argue after Ncoyini wanders away from his hut to join Mantsai's group on the riverbank. 

Touré has been into town to take out some money because he knows Mantsai is struggling. He accepts sheepishly and the pair wander into the veld with a bottle of hooch. They reminisce about old times and Mantsai returns a gentle kiss. However, he warns Touré not to get involved with Ncoyini, as he knows he's gay and can only cause him trouble. When he protests that he only comes home each year to see Mantsai, Touré loses patience with him and asks why he keeps denying his true self (a question that Ncoyini had also asked Touré) and they fight before Mantsai returns the cash and says he can't keep up the charade any longer. 

During a confessional session, in which the initiates explain why they wished to undergo ukwaluka, Ncoyini refuses to speak and Touré defends him when fellow caregiver Thobani Mseleni accuses him of disrespecting elders Zwelakhe Mtsaka and Menzeleli Majola. He further ruffles feathers when he refuses to show the other's his scar and, when Sibabalwe Ngqayana teases him about his expensive trainers before making a homophobic slur, Ncoyini claims that his trucker father is a serial adulterer who brings shame on his mother. Seeing the furore, Mantsai summons Ncoyini and warns him not to push his luck and he seethes when the boy suggests that he is jealous because Touré wants him to himself. 

The next day, Mantsai breaks the rules by taking all the initiates into the hills. Touré and Mseleni follow and he insists he is merely taking the group to see the nearby waterfall. Touré insists they accompany them and is negotiating access with a white farmer fencing off a parcel of land when Mantsai steals a goat from the back of the stranger's truck and runs off with it into the woods. He orders Ncoyini to slaughter the creature, which he does as Mantsai grinds Touré's face in the dust for daring to challenge his authority. Everyone looks on in stunned silence before Mantsai leaves with his initiates and Touré turns to see Ncoyini with blood spattered all over the white body paint he has to wear during his initiation. 

That night, Ncoyini gets drunk while the others sing around the campfire and he is disappointed when Touré fails to return to their hut. But, when he asks where Touré has been, he receives a tongue-lashing for not taking the ukwaluka seriously and a reminder that they come from different worlds and any hope that Ncoyini has that Touré will join him in Joburg is a pipe dream. As he walks away, Touré is confronted by Ngqayana, who tells him that rumours are flying that he and Ncoyini are lovers. When Ngqayana refuses to apologise for his remark, Mantsai beats him up and has to be restrained and he glares at Touré for putting him in such a situation. 

Touré follows Mantsai to the waterfall and they embrace in the pool before making love in the undergrowth. Unfortunately, Ncoyini finds them sleeping naked together and demands to know if Mantsai's wife knows about what he gets up to in the mountains. Dressing hurriedly, Mantsai chases after Ncoyini, who turns his ankle and has to lay low beneath a branch. Touré finds him there the next day and gives him some clothes so that he can hobble to the main road. 

Back at the camp, the elders bless those who have made it through their initiation before they set light to their huts. They are escorted back to their loved ones in the township and Mantsai joins them after failing to find Ncoyini. But Touré takes Ncoyini on a circuitous route, as the teenager curses the macho nature of South African society and wishes people would stop thinking with their genitals. He also urges Touré to have nothing more to do with Mantsai and tells him to spread his wings and accept who he is. As they reach a peak overlooking the river, with the highway in the distance, Touré punches Ncoyini, who plummets to his death. Risking his own liberty to protect Mantsai, he hitches in the back of a truck to the city and prepares to take his chances, knowing he can never go home again.

Rather lazily described in some quarters as `the South African Brokeback Mountain', this is as much about the contrasts between tradition and progress, the town and the country, and wealth and poverty as it is about homosexuality. Much has also been made about a white director critiquing tribal practices. But Trengove co-wrote his script with Thando Mgqolozana and Malusi Bengu, who are respected authors in their own right, and there is nothing patronising or fetishistic about the depiction of the ukwaluka rituals. However, Trengove provides an unflinching examination of the physical and psychological scars left by the process and binds this into the other socio-political issues facing young black men in the Rainbow Nation.

Gay musician Nakhane Touré and fellow debutant Niza Jay Ncoyini acquit themselves well alongside stage star Bongile Mantsai, although the characterisation sometimes lacks depth and too many of the minor roles are ciphers. However, Trengove ably conveys the envy, ignorance, hypocrisy and self-loathing that are sparked by the group's exposure to Ncoyini's city ways. Moreover, Paul Özgür's widescreen photography is exceptional, while Matthew James's sound design reinforces the immersive sense of place.