Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 24/5/2012)

After arriving in France from Algeria, Tahar Rahim worked in a factory with his cousin Farid Larbi. However, he lost his job while recovering from tuberculosis and, by 1942, he is making a living selling black market contraband to his fellow immigrants. He lives in a room above the café run by Marie Berto and is arrested by Inspector Bruno Fleury in a raid intended to catch Larbi, who is wanted for union activity. Under interrogation, Rahim agrees to inform on the comings and goings at Paris's Grande Mosque, which is also the base of Moroccan potentate Michel Lonsdale.

Attending the Mawlid celebrations, Rahim is impressed by singer Mahmud Shalaby and offers to sell him the doumbek drum he received in exchange for a packet of cigarettes. They agree to meet at Slimane Dazi's Club Andalussia and wind up drinking the night away in Pigalle. Next morning, however, Rahim overhears Dazi warning Shalaby that the Gestapo are beginning to crack down on Jews and that he should watch his back.

Rahim withholds this information from Fleury and is soon afterwards dismissed from his service after Lonsdale complains to the French authorities about planting spies in a place of worship. However, Lonsdale provides a sympathetic ear when Rahim tells him about Shalaby and he explains that the mosque is engaged in forging documents to protect endangered Jews. Larbi is also now working for the Resistance alongside Stéphane Rideau and he sends Rahim to deliver some papers to a family in the 11th Arrondisement. But he is too late and finds himself protecting the children hidden by a neighbour.

This selfless act touches both Lonsdale and Lubna Azabal, who is being given sanctuary as a prominent member of the Algerian Communist Party. Rahim asks her on a date, but she is arrested and executed and he becomes more determined that ever to thwart Major Christopher Buchholz and Gestapo chief François Delaive by not only protecting the Jewish children, but also Shalaby, even though he is dismayed by the discovery that his new friend is homosexual.

Thus, when he realises that hospital orderly Zakariya Gouram (who had supplied him with merchandise) is an informer, he guns him down in the street and helps Rideau smuggle a group of Jews through a network of underground tunnels to a barge waiting on the Seine and even risks his life by going back for the small girl who has returned to the mosque to fetch her teddy bear.

Fast forwarding to 1944, the action closes with Rahim returning to the Grande Mosque as Allied troops are greeting by enthusiastic crowds. He clutches an Algerian flag in the basement where he first heard a firebrand urging his fellow Muslims to treat the war as training for the conflicts to come. But he has not forgotten about Shalaby and he makes his way to the Andalussia to catch his eye in the middle of a performance.

Although Si Kaddour Ben Ghabrit and Salim Halali - the characters played by Lonsdale and Shalaby - actually existed, Rahim's anti-hero is a fictional construct rooted in fact. Consequently, he always feels rather blatant in his mistakes and misconceptions. Nevertheless, this is a fine companion piece to Rachid Bouchareb's Days of Glory (2006), which centred on the indigènes who fought with the Free French Forces.

Moreover, it is also an accomplished second feature by Ismaël Ferroukhi, who debuted so promisingly with the generation gap road movie Le Grand Voyage in 2004. Abetted by cinematographer Jérôme Alméras and production designer Thierry François, he notably achieves (on a budget of just €8 million) telling contrasts between the gloomy backstreet dives and the mosque's light and airy oasis of calm. However, while he touches on a number of intriguing themes, Ferroukhi ultimately puts entertainment before enlightenment, as was the case last week with Radu Mihaileanu's The Source, which was also co-written by Alain-Michel Blanc.

As he demonstrated in Jacques Audiard's A Prophet, Tahar Rahim is capable of fierce intensity, but he is too often required to hold expressions of puzzlement in tight close-up, which contrast starkly with the ever-dependable Lonsdale's more nuanced display of deceptive sang-froid. Similarly, too many minor characters are ciphers, with little attempt being made to delve into Larbi and Azabal's political beliefs or the extent to which Muslims were prepared to risk their lives for the persecuted Jews in the days before the Rafle du Vel d'Hiv, which was recalled in 2010 by Rose Bosch in The Round Up. Consequently, Rahim's epiphany feels as contrived as the disappointingly unsuspenseful denouement. So, while this avoids lapsing into melodrama, it lacks an urgency to match its authenticity.

The world is again under threat from the Fascist menace in Timo Vuorensola's Iron Sky, an amusingly conceived and brilliantly realised homage to the sci-fi second features of yesteryear that is only let down by a screenplay that runs out of inspiration on entering the final reel. Impeccably designed by Ulrika von Vegesack and Jussi Lehtiniemi, handsomely photographed by Mika Orasmaa and replete with budget-defying special effects by Samuli Torssonen, this is closer in tone to one of Roger Corman's killer Bs than such Troma offerings as Peter George's Surf Nazis Must Die (1987). But the makers of the cult online spoof Star Wreck can't quite do justice to their splendid premise.

It's 2018 and US President Stephanie Paul is desperate to win a second term and has sent a rocket to the Moon in a bid to boost her poll ratings and secure the rumoured deposits of Helium 3 that could solve the nation's energy problems. However, as she awaits news with Secretary of Defence Michael Cullen and PR guru Peta Sergeant, it becomes clear to Houston that astronaut Christopher Kirby has a problem.

Having seen his travelling companion gunned down by trenchcoated stormtroopers wearing gas masks, Kirby is taken to a vast industrial complex on the dark side of the Moon, where Führer Udo Kier is presiding over the Fourth Reich and making preparations to attack Earth. At this juncture, a handy English lesson given by blonde teacher Julia Dietze fills in the backstory that a cabal of Nazis managed to escape from Germany by rocket in 1945 and they have since been building a colony in readiness to complete the job started by Adolf Hitler.

However, the incredulous Kirby is just as bemused by what he is seeing as racist captor Götz Otto, who cannot believe that a black man would have the wherewithal to cross space. Deciding that Kirby's claimed friendship with President Paul might come in handy, Otto sends him to mad scientist Tilo Prückner (who just happens to be Dietze's father) and he lightens his skin with an albinising serum so he can just about pass for Aryan. Otto then loads Kirby into a spaceship that Prückner has converted to run off the computer in the newcomer's mobile phone and they blast off to Earth to gather a sufficient supply of similar devices to power the colossal Gotterdammerung invasion craft.

Naturally, Dietze (who is betrothed to Otto, but curiously attracted to Kirby) stows away and becomes separated from Otto when he heads to Washington in the hope of forging an alliance with Paul that will enable him to usurp Kier. Consequently, Kirby takes the opportunity to teach Dietze something about Nazi reality and she emerges from a screening of Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940) - which had been shown back on the Moon in a heavily truncated form to suggest the benevolence of the Reich - with a look of horror on her face.

Meanwhile, Otto is heading back to his lunar bunker to launch Meteorblitzkrieg with a fleet of giant zeppelins in the vanguard. Delighted by the prospect of a war (as embattled commanders in chief always get re-elected), Paul addresses the United Nations and is appalled to discover that every member state except Finland had been using its space satellites for bellicose purposes. However, even she is powerless to do anything but look on as Sergeant and sidekick Kym Jackson fly into battle at the controls of the USS George W. Bush.

Considering he only had €7.5million at his disposal, Vuorensola has worked wonders in bringing this story by Finnish sci-fi author Johanna Sinisalo to the screen. Occasionally over-reaching to compensate for the shortage of genuine wit in Vuorensola and Michael Kalesniko's screenplay, the cast play it hilariously straight, with Paul riffing on Sarah Palin and Otto recalling the square-jawed machismo displayed by Casper Van Diem in Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers (1997), which had a fascistic enclave of its own in the form of the Terran Federation. However, this owes more to Dean Parisot's Galaxy Quest (1999) than more serious speculations and, thus, even lacks the comic edge of Tommy Wirkola's zombie Nazi romp Dead Snow (2009).

There are several smile-worthy gags and the visuals are exceptional. Even the bombastic score by Slovenian avant-garde ensemble Laibach has its moments. But this is too slick to qualify as Z-grade cult trash and not politically incorrect or consistently funny enough to surpass the `Springtime for Hitler' segment of Mel Brooks's masterpiece, The Producers (1968).

There are more flights of fancy on offer, albeit of a more benignly fabulist kind, in animator Michel Ocelot's Tales of the Night. As he proved with Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998) and Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest (2006), few produce pictures as consistently ravishing and there is a timeless magic to the newly minted fairytales in a sextet that owes much to the artistry perfected in the 1920s by the German silhouettist Lotte Reiniger. Brimming with princesses, sorcerers, mythical beasts and sumptuously coloured backdrops, this is a glorious demonstration of sublime craftsmanship. But, as with many portmanteaux, the vignettes are of variable quality and the device linking them is quirky to the point of being irksome.

The six tales are concocted by an unnamed man and woman working in conjunction with Théo, an elderly theatre technician who maintains an ingenious machine that can create the costumes designed by the young pair before they go behind a curtain that opens each time onto a wonderland of vibrant hues and textures against that provide the setting for their enchanted shadow plays.

Staged some time in the past, `The Werewolf' opens with a betrothal ceremony. However, once the couple are alone, Yann reveals to his new fiancée that he turns into a wolf whenever there is a full moon. Undaunted, she demands to witness his transformation and he explains how he can only revert to his human form by placing a golden chain around his neck. No sooner has Yann become a lycanthrope than his beloved steals the chain and tosses it down the deepest well in her father's chateau.

Feigning tears, she then rushes to tell everyone that Yann has been devoured by a beast in the woods. But her younger sister refuses to accept her account and ventures into the woods, where she is attacked by a bear. However, a wolf comes to her rescue and, as she rides on its back, she reveals how she had pawned her jewellery to feed Yann while he was in prison and given him a fur discarded by her sister to keep him warm.

The wolf realises he has become engaged to the wrong sibling and hides in the garden as the younger girl explains to her father that she thinks Yann is the wolf who saved her. Her sister mocks the story and betrays that she knows the secret and the whereabouts of the gold chain and she is furious when it is recovered and Yann is returned to his human form to pledge his life to her sister, who loves him no matter what his physical appearance.

This rather Aesopian fable is followed by `Ti-Jean and Beauty Not Known', a saga with a Caribbean flavour that begins with Ti-Jean disappearing through a hole in a cave and emerging in the Land of the Dead. An old man walking on his hands informs him that, as the only living being in the realm, he can claim the hand of the king's daughter. However, he will have to get past a giant bee, a monstrous mongoose and a gigantic iguana and the old man provides Ti-Jean with datura leaves, venomous manchineel apples and a spiked piece of meat to kill each in turn.

As he approaches the palace, Ti-Jean encounters the bee. But, instead of harming it, he gives it a hibiscus plant full of pollen and is allowed to proceed. Similarly, he presents the mongoose with a dish of his mother's feroce stew, while the iguana is delighted to receive some guava and bananas from his aunt and father's gardens. Seeing as though nobody had ever survived these ordeals before, the king is surprised to see Ti-Jean and throws him in jail after telling him that he will only be allowed to marry Beauty Not Known if he passes three tests.

Unfazed by the prospect of being diced by the king's chopping machine, Ti-Jean wonders how he is going to retrieve the 11 golden-shelled turtles lost by the youngest princess when he is confined to his cell. But the mongoose comes to thank him for the feroce and goes in search of the missing turtles to repay the favour. The iguana likewise recovers the blue diamond that the youngest princess dropped while swimming in the sea.

But even Ti-Jean wonders how he is going to identify Beauty Not Known among the king's three identical daughters. However, the bee (who has now shrunk down to normal size) promises to land on Beauty's nose. Yet, despite being offered half the kingdom, Ti-Jean chuckles that he would rather be alive than dead and leaves to find his girlfriend.

The scene shifts to the Mexico of the Aztecs for `The Chosen One of the Golden City', which sees a stranger arrive in a magnificent metropolis and notice that everyone is happy. He spots a young woman between the Pyramids of Gold and asks why the mood is so bleak. She explains that each feast day, the Great Shepherd selects the five prettiest girls and they are presented at the Esplanade of Sacrifice to a dragon known as Our Benefactor, as he provides the citizens with riches in return for a maiden to devour.

On learning that the woman has been selected for the ritual, the visitor promises to protect her. Suddenly, the Great Shepherd urges everyone to start the chant known as the Revelation of the Chosen and the beast opts for the traveller's friend. He shouts out in protest and the Great Shepherd insists that the ceremony continue with the Triumph of the Chosen cantata, as he had lost his own daughter and doesn't see what alternative there is to satiating the monster's hideous appetite.

But the foreigner is adamant and he distracts Our Benefactor, who chases him across the city. All seems lost when he swallows his adversary whole. But he uses his sword to slaughter the creature from the inside and everyone starts to rejoice. The celebrations are short-lived, as the Great Shepherd's prediction that the golden edifice would crumble if tradition was not upheld comes true. However, the newcomer rallies them by explaining the benefits of work and the pleasure of leisure and he is proclaimed the new leader with the spared victim as his bride.

Harsh lessons also have to be learned in `The Tom-Tom Boy', an African yarn about a boy who annoys everyone in his village by drumming when he should be learning how to cook, hunt, farm or defend the tribe from its enemies. Moreover, he is told off for disturbing the king, who has succumbed to a mysterious ailment that has even baffled the wise, but temperamental witch doctor.

Going into the savannah to sulk, Tom-Tom Boy pelts a menacing monster with boabab fruit and earns the gratitude of the imperilled Keeper of the Magic Tom-Tom. As a reward, he offers to teach Tom-Tom Boy the art of drumming and he sticks to his task even though his hands are sore from all the practicing. Eventually, he is permitted to try his new skills on a passing porcupine, which begins to dance as though a spell had been cast over it.

En route to his village, Tom-Tom Boy sees the king's daughter and she stops gathering herbs needed for her father's medicine and begins to dance. She is amazed by his music and he soon has everyone dancing with uncontrollable joy. However, the witch doctor says it is unseemly to dance while the king is sick. But the princess takes Tom-Tom Boy into his chamber and he is soon leaping around like the rest of his subjects.

The king's recovery, however, coincides with a raid by a rival tribe. But Tom-Tom Boy quickly sends them into jigging retreat and the people are mightily relieved. However, the witch doctor is jealous of Tom-Tom Boy's new power and he steals the Magic Drum and starts to play. When his rhythms have no effect, the princess realises that the magic lies in Tom-Tom Boy's hands and the king kills the witch doctor and vanquishes the encroaching foe and everyone lives happily ever after to the beat of Tom-Tom Boy's drum.

Tibet provides the setting for `The Boy Who Never Lied', as a king pays a visit to his cousin to show off his talking stallion Melonghi. The host is unimpressed, however, as his princess daughter possesses a singing mare named Somaki. But the first king thinks he can top this wonder, as the stable boy who tends Melonghi is so honest that he has never fibbed in his entire life and the other monarch wagers half his kingdom if he can induce mendacity.

The princess disguises herself as a weary traveller and reaches the mountain top retreat where the boy keeps Melonghi. He has never seen anyone so beautiful and instantly becomes besotted with his guest and shows her the astonishing vistas visible from the surrounding peaks. The woman seems taken with the boy and wishes she could stay here forever. But she suddenly falls ill and declares that the only thing that can cure her is a dish made from Melonghi's heart.

Distraught, the boy wanders into the field with an axe, but he cannot kill the horse and crumples with unhappiness. Melonghi asks what is wrong and tells the boy to fetch Somaki, as she can help him find a solution to the problem. Next morning, the boy finds Melonghi dead after eating poisonous grass and he prepares a meal for his ailing beloved with tears in his eyes. But she disappears as soon as he presents her with the bowl and he realises he has been tricked.

Crestfallen, the boys tries to invent a lie that will convince the king that he did no wrong. But he is too honest and confesses everything. However, the princess and her father are ashamed at having tested such a noble youth and brought about Melonghi's death. But the story ends well, as the princess consents to marry him and share her kingdom, while Somaki announces that she is pregnant with Melonghi's foal, who will grow up to become the new prince's inseparable friend.

The final fable, `The Girl Doe and the Architect's Son', takes place in medieval France, where Maud and Thibault are deeply in love. But, just as they are about to kiss, her sorcerer guardian Zakariak unleashes a ferocious beast that forces the boy back and a huge spider descends from an unseen web to pluck Maud off the ground and deposit her in the uppermost room of a mountain-top fortress.

Ignoring the advice of his own mentor, Thibault boasts that he learned to climb while helping his father build the nearby cathedral and he scales the heights without the slightest difficulty. He reaches Maud's window and urges her to accept the wicked Zakariak's marriage proposal, as he has a cunning plan. So, on the day of the nuptials, Thibault opens a trapdoor in the high altar and catches Maud as she falls through and whisks her along the network of tunnels that his father had constructed.

They ride off into the forest on waiting horses. But Zakariak refuses to be beaten and fires a terrible spell from a turret high in his citadel and Thibault suddenly finds himself alone. He is convinced that Maud has been turned into a timid doe, when a crow descends and frightens it away, Thibault is worried that, because all the deer look alike, he will never recognise her again.

His guardian suggests that they seek out the Fairy of Caresses, who lives in a hideout built by his father in Hollow Cliff. They are followed by the pesky crow who manages to slip inside the secret entrance to a fabulous hall that glitters with green and blue gems. However, Thibault is grateful for the bird's assistance when it perches on a lever that opens a portcullis and then taps open the egg in which the Fairy is sleeping after the shell proves too tough for his sword.

The Fairy tells Thibault that he has to caress the doe for it to turn back into Maud, but she cannot help him identify her. She notices that the crow seems to know the truth and tells him to visit her cousin, the Blue Fairy, on Bird Island, who will be able to translate its cawing. Thibault strokes the crow and asks if it would be willing to make the journey and the bird turns into Maud, who had been following in the hope that she could earn his kindly touch. As the credits roll, the Fairy of Caresses laughs at Thibault's guardian for wondering if there is a scientific explanation for love and slyly hints that she may well have been so willing to help the boy find his true love because she is his mother.

No other 3-D animation would take its inspiration from Tibetan thangkas, the paintings of Nicholas Roerich, the architecture of Eugène Viollet-le-duc and the illuminated Gothic manuscript Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. But Michel Ocelot has never been one to patronise his audience (no matter what its age) or shy away from confronting it with the less palatable aspects of human nature. Nor has he stinted on the sumptuous detail that make the backgrounds to his ombres chinoises so exquisite.

Here, though, the interludes are a vexatious mix of prattle and pretension, as the young couple bicker over the look and content of the tales (with the woman rightly arguing that several of her characters are eminently resistible). Moreover, it's never made clear who this trio are or how they have access to such atmospheric facilities. Ultimately, this shouldn't matter. But, as they neither comment on the moral of the stories nor suggest their relevance to modern living, they feel like an excuse to show off the learning involved in the creation of the sumptuous artwork.

For once, one might have forgiven a dubbed voice track rather than subtitles, as the vast amount of text draws the eye away from the glorious visuals. Moreover, English dialogue might have tempted a few more grown-ups into selecting this as a half-term treat for children tired of Hollywood's increasingly soulless CGI animations. Nevertheless, those who do see it will marvel at the expressiveness of the shadow puppets' eyes and those who have to miss out at the cinema can always check out Ocelot's 2000 compilation, Princes and Princesses (which adopts much the same format and style) or the BFI's superb collection of Lotte Reiniger fairy tales.

Finally, this week, Irish film-maker Paul Duane profiles controversial novelist John Healy in Barbaric Genius, a compelling and well-intentioned documentary that sometimes struggles to fill the gaps left by its subject's unreliable memory and reticence to discuss the hardships that have shaped both his life and his literary career. There's no question that intellectual and social snobbery played their part in Healy being cast into the publishing wilderness for some 15 years after Faber decided to remainder his 1988 autobiography, The Grass Arena, after he threatened to attack chairman Matthew Evans and editor-in-chief Robert McCrum with an axe. But it's too easy to blame the problems endured by someone as psychologically scarred as Healy on the British class system and the insistence on demonising the bourgeoisie detracts from the power of the tragically human narrative that Duane manages to piece together.

Born in wartime London to Irish émigré parents, John Healy remembers feeling imprisoned at school and has vivid recollections of the winter's day when he was beaten by his father as they sheltered from the snow under an archway for jokingly asking if he had shied away from a passing policeman because he didn't have a licence for their dog. No wonder he used to enjoy the summer retreats to his Uncle Dominic's cottage in Brougher in County Sligo and his return visit after 45 years with cousin Tony Mulhern is one of the film's most poignant moments.

But Healy found adolescence difficult to handle and he began drinking in his mid-teens. Deserting from the Army, where he proved himself to be a useful boxer, he was forced to sleep in skippers around the capital to avoid being arrested under the strict vagrancy laws. He also frequently resorted to mugging to fund his habit and he revisits St Martin's Gardens in Camden Town where he used to hang out with winos like Dick `Fitzy' Fitzgerald and `Dungannon Frank' Boyle and witnessed the bottle death of Davie `Jock' Stone (which he recalls with phrases plucked seemingly unintentionally from the account in The Grass Arena).

Although he never discloses the precise nature of the charges brought against him, Healy spent considerable time behind bars. However, his incarceration led to him being taught chess by burglar Harry `The Brighton Fox' Collins, who snagged his interest by comparing the game to breaking and entering. On his release, the 30 year-old Healy began entering tournaments and writers William Hartson and Leonard Barden concur that he was a remarkable player, who won a string of international tournaments before jacking it all in after about five years.

Prone to temperamental outbursts, Healy sought a release from the pressures of chess in yoga and close friend Christine Levy reveals how it became a way of life for him. She also explains how he moved back in with his mother to nurse her through Alzheimer's and it was only after her death that he started to write. Encouraged by photographer Jo Spence, who had met him while he was gardening for some of her friends, he sent the manuscript to Colin McCabe at the British Film Institute and he suggested that he found a publisher.

It's fascinating to compare the attitude towards Healy demonstrated by McCabe and writer Erwin James (who read The Grass Arena while serving a life sentence for murder) and the prissy priggishness of Faber editors Will Sulkin and Robert McCrum, who have often been accused of feting Healy when he was selling well and charming Jonathan Ross and Kirsy Wark on the telly and then dropping him when he became more problematic and belligerent.. Duane is more than willing to take this line and allows both Sulkin and McCrum to make themselves look foolish in recollecting events that had occurred some two decades earlier.

However, foreign rights executive Megan Larkin was both more sympathetic and sensible in her dealings with Healy and one wonder what might have happened if he hadn't insisted that she convey his axe threat to her superiors, as within days, he had become an outcast and he remained an untouchable until Adam Freudenheim at Penguin Modern Classics acted upon Erwin James's recommendation to put his masterpiece back in print. It's instructive to note, however, that even after his rehabilitation Healy has only managed to publish one further title (a tome on chess with a Dutch company), while the manuscripts for The Metal Mountain and The Glass Cage keep being rejected. Indeed, the Browser column in The Observer (where McCrum served as literary editor for over a decade) continued to carry the odd warning to festival-goers that Healy was an ex-con who could well turn nasty.

Despite his best efforts, Duane fails to get to the bottom of an incident that McCrum dismisses as an urban myth (even though he boasted about it in an article about his spell at Faber). What is undisputed, however, is that it destroyed Healy's reputation and he can still only drum up publicity for his writing by guesting at multi-player chess simuls and by agreeing to participate in projects like this film, which clearly cause him acute emotional distress.

Duane keeps asserting that Healy is a different man off camera. Yet he also laments that he could never quite earn his trust and that aspects crucial to a fuller understanding of his personality and his talent remained off limits. Given such restrictions, it's remarkable that Duane ascertained as much as he did. Whether it will help Healy achieve the transcendence of the rational mind that he so actively seeks or will persuade a publisher to take a chance with the rest of his oeuvre is uncertain. But this will certainly provoke debate and keen the anticipation for Bronson scribe Norman Brock's take on The Grass Arena, which won the Michael Powell Award when Gillies MacKinnon filmed it with Mark Rylance for Screen Two back in 1991.