Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 3/5/2012)

This adaptation of a Pierre Mac Orlan novel that marked the first of Carné's seven outings with the poet-cum-scenarist Jacques Prévert. Initially, the project was due to shoot under producer Raoul Ploquin at UFA in Berlin, but Goebbels deemed the story of an army deserter to be too decadent for German audiences. So, Carné returned to Paris, where the project received official sanction on the proviso that the word `deserter' was never mentioned and that Jean Gabin's anti-hero treated his discarded uniform with suitable respect.

Arriving back from Tonkin, Gabin wanders along a darkened road in Le Havre seeking sanctuary. He happens upon a rundown bar owned by Edouard Delmont, who notices everything, but rarely asks questions. Here he meets Michèle Morgan, who is herself a runaway from forbidding guardian Michel Simon and they immediately fall in love. Simon runs a gift shop, but is also in cahoots with the knavish Pierre Brasseur, who also lusts after Morgan and takes exception to Gabin defending her honour.

The newcomer is not without friends, however, as genial drunk Raymond Aimos reassures Gabin after the nocturnal shooting of one of Brasseur's henchmen and painter Robert Le Vigan takes pity on him to such an extent that he encourages him to assume his identity and wear his clothes after he commits suicide by drowning. However, while Gabin is able to secure a passage on a freighter bound for Venezuela, he can't forget Morgan and puts his life at risk to rescue her from the clutches of the vengeful Simon.

Updating the action from 1909 and transferring it from Montmartre to the coast, Prévert merged two of Mac Orlan's characters to produce Gabin's fugitive and changed his paramour from a prostitute who murders her pimp to a teenage waif at the mercy of her lustful godfather. But, more significantly, he invested the material with a philosophical gravitas and a sense of foreboding that was reinforced by both the coastal locations and Alexandre Trauner's atmospheric studio sets.

Indeed, the tone became so bleak that the suits at Ciné-Alliance tried to persuade Carné to fashion his story into a lighter, romantic tearjerker, while backer Gregor Rabinovitch urged Gabin to reconsider his participation in such a downbeat saga, in case it damaged his career. Clearly he had never seen Julien Duvivier's La Bandèra (which was also based on a Mac Orlan text) or Pépé le Moko or Jean Renoir's Les Bas-fonds, as Gabin's tragic heroes were already becoming the screen barometer for France's dwindling sense of self-esteem.

But no one before had quite managed to imbue Poetic Realism with such an all-pervading air of fatalism. During the Occupation, Carné was accused of having preconditioned France to defeat by sapping their spirit with this hopeless vision. Yet this is now cited as a key influence on film noir and is considered by many to be the French equivalent of Michael Curtiz's Casablanca (1942).

At the same time that Renoir and Carné were lamenting the state of the nation, novelist, playwright and film-maker Marcel Pagnol was romanticising the lot of the rural and coastal proletariat in a series of features that have always been more highly prized within France than without. Following the success of The Well-Digger's Daughter, Daniel Auteuil is currently working on updates of Pagnol's `Marseilles' trilogy and its influence is evident on Alix Delaporte's debut, Angel & Tony. Somewhat unfairly dismissed in some quarters for failing to put a revisionist spin on the conventional love story, this makes exceptional use of both its Norman coastal locations and leads taking their first starring roles on screen. Slowly revealing pertinent details to allow the audience get to know the characters as they become better acquainted with each other, this is a splendidly controlled drama that instantly places Delaporte among the finest female French film-makers.

Struggling to put her life back together after a spell in prison that threatens to keep her apart from the son (Antoine Couleau) who lives with her estranged father-in-law (Patrick Descamps), 27 year-old Clotilde Hesme has come to use sex to get what she needs. However, her relationships tend to start in personal columns and her low sense of self-worth invariably results in her being used, abused and hurt. Thus, she has high hopes when she responds to an advert placed by podgily coarse fisherman Grégory Gadebois, who is too busy coping with the recent death of his father and the perilous state of his flagging industry to seek romance.

Gadebois is delighted to have a woman as striking as Hesme interested in him. However, he also suspects her eagerness to tie the knot and he attempts to resist her advances. But Hesme is made of stern stuff and she not only finds a job at the local fish market, but she also rents a room from Gadebois's mother, Evelyne Didi. Eventually, she gets under his skin, as she prepares to play the Wicked Queen in an amdram production of Snow White. But the closer the couple become, the more inevitable it becomes that Hesme is going to have to reveal her secret.

Recalling Alexander Korda's 1931 adaptation of Pagnol's waterfront classic, Marius, this occasionally feels like a self-conscious bid to recast poetic realism in a Dardenne idiom. But in paying homage to Pagnol, Renoir and Carné, Delaporte never loses sight of the harsher realities of contemporary life and, thus, gives their trademark humanism an edginess that is sharpened by the naturalism of the performances.

Hesme is particularly impressive, as she attempts to reconcile her recklessness and insecurity with Gadebois's highly conventional concept of a potential wife. However, he also makes a capable transition from the Comédie Française stage to convey the fragility that he strives to conceal for the sake of his disapproving mother and brother Jérôme Huguet, who is determined to find the body of the father who was lost at sea.

With Claire Mathon's photography, Louise Decelle's editing and Mathieu Maestracci's score matching Delaporte's screenplay for precision and restraint, this is a laudably mature picture for a first-timer that's as cinematic as it's authentic. Some of the symbolism is a touch blatant, with Hesme riding a bicycle with a flat tyre and running lines backstage with Gadebois about her blood being unfrozen. But Delaporte shows British social realists how to present a slice of life without it becoming politically preachy or soapily melodramatic.

The emergence of Delaporte confirms the growing confidence of a new generation of French women film-makers. Following in the footsteps of Diane Kurys, Catherine Breillat, Agnès Jaoui, Claire Denis, Anne Fontaine, Laetitia Masson and Catherine Corsini, the likes of Maïwenn Le Besco (whose latest feature, Polisse, is due for release next month), Eléonore Faucher, Karin Albou, Katell Quillévéré, Isabelle Czajka, Pascale Ferran, Céline Sciamma and Marjane Satrapi are flourishing. However, perhaps the leading light of this femelle vague is Mia Hansen-Løve, who who builds upon the excellent impression made with All Is Forgiven (2007) and Father of My Children (2009) with Goodbye First Love.

Carrying echoes of François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer and the criminally underrated Jean Eustache, this exquisite study of love, loss and healing is the kind of sentimental education for which French cinema was invented.

Everything seems perfect to 15 year-old Lola Créton in the winter of 1999, as she is passionately in love with Sebastian Urzendowsky, who is four years her senior and seemingly as besotted as she is. However, during a holiday at the Ardèche home of her parents (Valérie Bonneton and Serge Renko), Urzendowsky springs the news that he is going on a 10-month expedition to South America. He promises to write, but the letters soon dry up and he only renews contact from Peru to terminate the relationship. Distraught, Créton takes an overdose, but survives to cut her hair short and devote herself to her studies.

By 2003, Créton is at university studying architecture. She goes on dates and even invites one chap back to her apartment, although she decides against sleeping with him. Despite having talent, she struggles to impress her main tutor. But Danish professor Magne-Håvard Brekke is more encouraging and Créton grows close to him during a field trip and seems finally to have washed away her regrets during a bracing swim in the Baltic Sea.

Four years later, however, Créton bumps into Urzendowsky's mother and learns that he is living in Marseilles. Despite living with Brekke, she contacts her first love and only a rail strike prevents her from travelling south to meet him. Shortly afterwards, Créton discovers she is pregnant, but miscarries and seeks solace in Urzendowsky. However, his reluctance to commit remains strong and he breaks up with her again. Créton takes Brekke to the Ardèche, where she realises how fortunate she is to have found him when the straw hat Urzendowsky had given her floats away down the Loire.

Divided into three segments, the story is constructed from subtly conveyed details that emphasise the simple human truths in what otherwise might be mistaken for clichés. There may be a shortage of social context, while, as with Delaporte, the symbolism is sometimes cumbersome (most notably in a blissful horse-riding sequence and Créton's various aquatic experiences). Furthermore, the dialogue occasionally strives too self-consciously for that teasing intensity that became a trademark of Eric Rohmer's dissections of young love. However, the performances are laudably understated, with Créton poignantly capturing the pain of rejection and the difficulty of learning to trust again, while Hansen-Løve adroitly stresses the contrasts between her beaux by having cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine employ loose, fluid shots to capture Urzendowsky's restlessness and a tighter framing to convey Brekke's steady dependability.

Amusingly, Hansen-Løve includes a scene in which Créton and Urzendowsky leave a Paris cinema in earnest discussion about the quality of the film they have just watched. She finds it affecting and authentic, while he dismisses it as sentimental, chick flick drivel. One suspects, Goodbye First Love may well divide audiences along similar lines, as might Philippe Falardeau's French-Canadian Oscar nominee, Monsieur Lazhar. Tactfully opened out from a stage play by Évelyne de la Chenelière, this is a potent mix of coming-of-age saga, bereavement melodrama and political parable that could so easily have been unbearably mawkish. Yet, while not avoiding platitudes altogether, Falardeau has succeeded in producing a touching human story whose insights into such complex issues as ethnicity, duty, violence, communication and integration are both shrewd and deceptively provocative.

It seems to be just another morning at a Montreal middle school, as sixth grader Émilien Néron fetches the recess milk and heads towards his classroom. However, as he reaches the door, he sees his beloved teacher Héléna Laliberté hanging from a pipe and the camera remains fixed as he runs off in blind panic to find someone to come and help her. There is nothing to be done, however, and Néron and best friend Sophie Nélisse are crushed both by the nature of the discovery and the loss of one of the few grown-ups not to treat them as children.

Principal Danielle Proulx is keen to play down the tragedy and keep it out of the press. She also wishes to spare the students undue distress and is, therefore, relieved when 55 year-old Algerian Mohamed Saïd Fellag applies to be the supply teacher. Even though the rest of the staff is exclusively female, Proulx thinks it would do the kids good to have a man about the place, especially one whose otherness would provide a welcome distraction.

Despite claiming to have some two decades of experience in his homeland, Fellag has a very different approach to education and his new charges are more than a little bemused by his accent and eccentric locutions. Moreover, they are totally flummoxed when he suggests they do a dictation from Balzac. However, he is sensitive to the atmosphere and swiftly switches to the fables of La Fontaine and sets the pupils the task of creating their own. He particularly hopes that the exercise will help Néron deal with emotions that his parents, Proulx and an outside psychologist are anxious to suppress.

But Fellag refuses to buy into the theory that Laliberté is a pitiable victim and upsets several of his new colleagues by condemning her for selfishly choosing her classroom as a place to end her life in the knowledge that her corpse would most likely be found by a child. Moreover, not everyone approves of his tactile methods. Yet, in talking to Néron, he uncovers the real reason for the boy's distress and finds the right words to console him because he has endured a trauma of his own.

Back in Algeria, Fellag had been a civil servant before opening a restaurant. But business had not been good and he decided to try his luck as an illegal exile in Canada, while his teacher wife remained at home with their two children. However, she was a vocal opponent of the government's reconciliation policy and, on the night before she was due to join Fellag in Quebec, she was murdered in an arson attack provoked by a controversial book she had recently published. But there is no guarantee that the revelation of either Fellag's political persecution or Néron's guilty secret will bring them both the peace they crave.

Some may find the denouement overly contrived, but Falardeau and De la Chenelière (who cameos as Nélisse's mother) largely prevent the drama from becoming excessively maudlin. However, much depends on the naturalism of the teaching sequences - which owe much more to Laurent Cantet's The Class (2008) than Peter Weir's Dead Poets Society (1989) - and the beautifully judged performances of Fellag, Néron and Nélisse, who rapport is entirely believable. Ronald Plante's discrete camerawork is also key, but Falardeau retains the original emphasis on words and the discussion of so many tricky topics related to the treatment of children by both parents and teachers is both cogent and quietly forceful.

Ultimately, this was never going to pip Asghar Farhadi's A Separation for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. But it is well worth seeing, if only for its unfussy dismissal of nannying correctness and its willingness to trust in the intelligence and integrity of youth.

As both Falardeau and Farhadi prove, tackling taboos on screen always takes a degree of courage. But Alejandro Brugues takes a greater risk than most in mocking something as sacrosanct as Fidel Castro and the legacy of his 1959 revolution in the zombie comedy, Juan of the Dead. Billed as Cuba's first horror movie, this may not be particularly original in that its debts to such masters of the undead shocker George A. Romero and Lucio Fulci are as evident as those to knowing spoofers like Peter Jackson and Edgar Wright. But, while working on a limited budget and with the censor always breathing down his neck, Brugues raises a few smiles and succeeds in returning the sub-genre to the Caribbean setting of such prototype outings as Victor Halperin's White Zombie (1932) and Jacques Tourneur's Val Lewton-produced 1943 gem, I Walked With a Zombie.

Life has always been a struggle for fortysomething Alexis Días de Villegas. His wife abandoned him years ago and he only sees daughter Andrea Duro when she comes to visit her grandmother. Unable to hold down a steady job in a Havana that bears the scars of five decades of qualified socialist triumph, Días de Villegas spends much of his time mooching around with fellow slacker Jorge Molina, who is far from bright and invariably too busy thinking about sex to concentrate on mundane matters like work.

Yet even he is mildly surprised when the pair are forced to abandon a fishing trip after reeling in a brain-craving zombie. This being Cuba, however, they decide to say nothing about the incident, for fear it will have adverse ramifications down the line. But things are already getting out of hand, as the creature from the briny is part of a growing army of the undead and few are prepared to believe the claim on the state-sponsored news broadcast's that the attack is part of an American conspiracy.

Something about the crisis sparks the bulb in Días de Villegas's noggin, however, and he suggests that they offer their services as zombie killers to citizens too squeamish to slaughter and dispose of their loved ones. Molina's strapping son Andros Perugorria gets roped into the enterprise, along with Duro (who can't get home because the transport system has broken down) and transvestite Jazz Vila and her muscle-bound buddy Eliecer Ramirez (who can't stand the sight of blood). But the evil dead didn't get their nickname for nothing and Días de Villegas has to summon unsuspected reserves of energy and courage when it becomes apparent that the sea offers the sole source of salvation.

Whether they're Jess Franco, Sam Raimi, Danny Boyle, Bruce LaBruce or Reuben Fleischer, anyone who has ever attempted a zombie plague picture has quickly realised the dramatic limitations of having people being imperilled by ravenous monsters stumbling through empty streets in search of sustenance. Thus, even though Brugues manages some nice parodic nods and the odd funny joke at the expense of the totalitarian regime, he can do little more than recycle the gore-splattered tropes that have made this such a popular subject for aspiring digital directors. Sadly, he also adds some tasteless homophobia that cannot simply be excused on the grounds of socio-cultural difference.

The cast fully enters into the spirit and they are ably abetted by production designer Derubin Jácome and make-up artist Cristian Pérez Jauregui. But the visual effects concocted by Juan Carlos Sánchez and Juan Ventura are less accomplished and cinematographer Carles Gusi and editor Mercedes Cantero have their work cut out to disguise their mediocrity. The standout sequence is a mass decapitation that makes chillingly innovative use of a truck and some wire, but too many gags are infantile and over-reliant on `splatsick'. Thus, while Brugues cannot be faulted for his pluck and ambition, limps badly behind that acme of bargain basement zombfests, Marc Prices Colin (2008).

Some critics have recently suggested that British horror is going through something of a purple patch. But, even if this spurious claim is only vaguely true, Jonathan Glendening's Strippers vs Werewolves resoundingly bucks the trend. Clearly intended to be a gore-drenched comic-book comedy, this makes reckless use of split screens and captions in a desperate bid to spice up action that is never staged with anything more than competence and wastes a cast willing to ham it up to breathe a little life into Phillip Baron and Pat Higgins's moribund screenplay. Released last Friday, this was seen by only four paying customers across the entire country, although its £38 take still trounces the all-time UK lowest opening figure of £7 for Pole Krzysztof Krauze's infinitely superior My Nikifor in 2007.

Following a blast from the past and a burst of Duran Duran's `Hungry Like the Wolf' over the opening credits, the trouble begins when Martin Kemp comes to the Vixens strip and gets so worked up watching a private dance by Adele Silva that he transforms into his werewolf state and gets himself stabbed in the eye with a silver fountain pen. Owner Sarah Douglas (who survived a similar infestation at SilvaDollaz years before) knows exactly what to do and orders bouncer Nick Nevern to dispose of the body. However, he has a crush on naive blonde Ali Bastian and pays a gang of hoodies to do the dirty work for him. Unfortunately, they are caught in the act by Billy Murray and his lycanthropic cabal, who break off from slaughtering the odious Steven Berkoff to reclaim Kemp and plot their revenge.

What no one realises, however, is that Silva is dating Martin Compston, who just happens to be Murray's sidekick. Murray knows all about Douglas, however, and visits his deposed chief Robert Englund in prison to talk tactics. An all-out assault on Alan Ford's bar seems to be the only solution. But sassy stripper Barbara Nedeljakova has been dating commitment-phobic vampire hunter Simon Phillips and keeps ringing him for handy tips about dealing with werewolves, even though he is engaged in his own battles with such ghouls as Lucy Pinder's vampire bride.

Not everyone survives to the big showdown, which is accompanied by an on-screen scoreboard that ensures even the dumbest viewer can keep tally of the body count. But there are no prizes for guessing who wins out in the end and only the most undiscriminating trash fan will be left hoping for a sequel.

Anyone who saw Billy Murray in Steven Lawson's Dead Cert knows what to expect here. But admirers of Glendening's 13Hrs (both 2010) can only be disappointed by this dismally unfunny and often wildly conceived farrago. David Meadows's cinematography is fine, editor Richard Colton works hard to hide a multitude of sins and Kristyan Mallett has fun with the lupine make-up. But there's no escaping the fact that this is poor fare, although don't be surprised if it salvages a little cult kudos from its embarrassing gross.

The usually reliable Martin Compston also headlines Piggy, another lacklustre BritGenre offering that marks the feature debut of writer-director Kieron Hawkes. Clearly influenced by revenge thrillers like Michael Winner's Death Wish (1974) and seemingly in thrall to David Fincher's alter ego saga Fight Club (1999), this should be simmering with consternation and a latent sense of danger. But, despite being capably designed by Paul Burns and photographed by James Friend, it is utterly bereft of dramatic momentum, let alone tension, and the sole reason for sticking with it are the disconcertingly twitchy performances of Compston and his menacing mentor Paul Anderson.

When older brother Neil Maskell is murdered after standing up for him in a pub contretemps, London courier Martin Compston falls into a deep depression. He wants to be supportive to Maskell's pretty girlfriend, Louise Dylan, and offers to help her move to her new digs. But he can't stop blaming himself for Maskell's death and feels inadequate for not avenging him.

Then, one evening, completely out of the blue, Paul Anderson arrives on Compston's doorstep and informs him that he was one of Maskell's closest friends and wants to see vigilante justice done. Spooked by Anderson's seething intensity, Compston has his doubts. But he changes his mind after they stalk the mugger who had stolen his wallet (Sonny Muslim) and teach him a brutal lesson. Indeed, he is delighted when Anderson presents him with a new cooking knife and suggests they should put it to use as soon as possible.

Returning to the pub where the initial incident took place, Compston identifies Roland Manookian and the pair proceed to kidnap him and chain him to a fixture in a toilet block on a rundown industrial complex. Anderson exerts a little pressure to coax Manookian into revealing the first name of one of his cohorts and they leave him in the dripping silence as they go in search of Josh Herdman.

As luck would have it, Compston spots him out with his girlfriend as he is shopping with Dylan and he follows him to his back-alley home. That night, he is ambushed by Anderson and gets his head stomped after a pitiless kicking. Compston can barely watch. But, having revealed his darker side in protecting Dylan from pestering admirer Lorenzo Camporese, he take a more active part as Jumayn Hunter gets his throat slit on some waste ground and Tommy McDonnell is slain in his own bedroom. All that remains is to dispatch ringleader Ed Skrein. However, he is inside after being busted for drug dealing. But he will have to wait, as Compston has made a staggering discovery.

Surely nobody could have reached this juncture without having their suspicions aroused? Yet Hawkes seems curiously unconcerned with investing the action with even a hint of suspense, as he trudges between executions with a grim determination that is scarcely alleviated by the misfiring Dylan subplot and Compston and Anderson's humourlessly macho exchanges. Keeping much of the actual violence off screen, Hawkes relies heavily on sound and Foley designers Alex Joseph and Louise Brown to generate the requisite sense of revulsion at the increasingly sadistic crimes. But, rather like Daniel Barber's Michael Caine vehicle, Harry Brown (2009), this fails to root its savagery in recessional malaise or an attendant crisis of masculinity. Consequently, in the absence of any social or psychological insight in Compston's prolix voiceover, this, for all its slickness and edge, often feels plain nasty.

Finally, this week, Ben Rivers profiles a more contemplative loner in Two Years at Sea. Shot on Super 16mm monochrome stock that was processed in the director's kitchen, this is very much an art film that develops themes first broached in This Is My Land, the 2006 short in which Rivers introduced hermit Jake Williams, the Tolstoy-bearded hermit who lives in a ramshackle house in the middle of a Cairngorm forest in the wilds of Aberdeenshire. Sticking to surfaces, yet constantly prompting the viewer to speculate, the action sometimes barely merits the term. But, whether Williams is pottering about his property, staring into space or embarking upon another eccentric odyssey, this teasing mix of observation and manipulation is rarely less than mesmerising.

Accorded seemingly unlimited access, Rivers first films Williams from behind as he trudges through the snow towards his remote dwelling. Indeed, such is the licence to roam that Rivers even records Williams having a shower and making his breakfast before he heads off to climb a tree and haul down another with a block and tackle after severing some branches. The lifestyle is hardscrabble and simple and Rivers emphasises the isolation of the residence with establishing shots that he contrasts with reflected images of clouds scudding across a leaden sky.

These leisurely nature studies presage a sudden burst of activity, as Williams clears out an old caravan, with the clutter offering fleeting clues to his personality and past. But nothing is as it seems, for no sooner has Williams tucked himself under a blanket for a snooze than Rivers reveals that the caravan has been mysteriously hoisted to the top of a tree. Yet the waking Williams takes in the view with no semblance of puzzlement and even steps outside with the confidence of a sleepwalker.

Rivers makes no attempt to explain how Williams makes a living. Instead, he shows him lying in the heather during a ramble beside a lake with a low mist hovering over the ground. The quiet smile of satisfaction is entirely understandable, as this is an idyllic existence filled with rummaging in workshops while listening to crackling LPS, meals cooked on outdoor stoves and reading sessions in a comfortable chair.

However, Williams has an adventurous streak - albeit a langourous one. In a lengthy passage that Rivers teases out, he strides across the moorland carrying four large plastic water containers and a metal or wooden frame. After a while, Williams reaches a loch and proceeds to construct a raft from his bric-a-brac and complete it with a couple of inflatable li-lo. Gently paddling out into deeper water, he starts fishing with a wooden pole and Rivers playfully allows the makeshift craft to float out of the frame and then, just as slowly, drift back into shot before Williams decides the exertions have all been too much for him and he lies down for a nap.

This is the centrepiece of a splendidly unconventional picture. For the remainder, Rivers shows us Williams loading logs into the back of his car, marking the text of a book he is reading and lugging a mattress out of the main house and up the tree to the caravan, so he can admire the unique view in greater comfort. At no stage, do we glean what Williams thinks or does. He speak once and, for the rest, contents himself with coughing chestily. His contribution to wider society is left unquestioned and it's by no means certain that the memorabilia he has gathered pertains to his life at all. Indeed, he remains as much an enigma as he stares into the light of a nocturnal campfire in the closing eight-minute take as he was in the opening shot when all we saw was the back of his head.

Rooted in the eccentric study tradition epitomised by Philip Trevelyan's The Moon and the Sledgehammer (1971), this is what happens when an avant-gardist and a recluse dabble with structured reality. Adopting a faux detachment to capture the hard graft and poetic solitude of a rigorously alternative lifestyle, this is frequently compelling, as everything Williams does seemingly generates a quirky monochrome magic. However, not knowing whether the activities he performs form part of his daily routine or were suggested by Rivers often makes this as frustrating as it's intriguing. Whatever he does, Williams transfixes. But, the absence of sustained socio-psychological insight is disappointing, while the passivity of the technique means that this is never as innovative or captivating as such masterly shorts as Slow Action (2010) and Sack Barrow (2011).