Parky at the Pictures (DVD 11/4/2013)

As the Red Army pushes deeper into eastern Germany in the spring of 1945, tank commander Alexei Vertkov is left with 90% burns and total amnesia after a skirmish with an unmanned panzer that he claims has the power to materialise and vanish at will. Major Vitali Kishchenko is sceptical about Vertkov's claims about the `white tiger' and is even more bemused when he insists that he not only prays to a tank god, but also has the power to understand what tanks are saying to him. However, Kishchenko admires Vertkov's conviction and, being at a loss to provide a rational explanation for the things he has witnessed (including Vertkov's miraculous recovery from his wounds within three weeks), he entrusts him with a specially reinforced T-34-85 tank and orders crew members Alexander Vakhov and Vitali Dordzhiyev to do whatever they are told.

A game of cat and mouse ensues, with Vertkov's obsession with tracking down his nemesis luring him into increasingly dangerous situations that are brilliantly filmed by Aleksandr Kuznetsov and edited by Irina Kozhemyakina in much the same manner as the tense and claustrophobic sequences in Samuel Maoz's Lebanon (2009). Equally crucial to their efficacy is the sound design of Aleksandr Volodin and Pavel Doreuli, which not only captures the cranking cacophony of the tanks and the boom of the big guns, but also the woodland silences that add to the eerie ethereality of the jousts.

Filmed with up to eight cameras, the battle sequences are imposingly mounted, with the use of Richard Wagner's `The Ride of the Valkyries' on the soundtrack reinforcing the impression that the elusive panzer is the `blonde beast' that Friedrich Nietzsche claimed would periodically emerge from the wilderness in its pursuit of lust and loot. Indeed, Shakhnazarov and co-scenarist Aleksandr Borodyanski further play on this idea in the speech given at a dinner party hosted by Adolf Hitler (Karl Kranzkowski) for such trusted intimates as Wilhelm Keitel (Christian Redl), Hans-Jürgen Stumpff (Klaus Grünberg) and Hans-Georg von Friedeburg (Vilmar Bieri), in which he claims that European culture is fundamentally barbarian and that he merely started a conflict that the rest of the continent wanted but lacked the courage to declare.

Ending with Vertkov stating that he will remain at his post because Fascist and anti-Semitic tendencies have not been entirely eradicated and could resurface at any time, this is a fascinating film. The leads expertly recreate the grave square-jawed posturing of their Soviet predecessors, while Shakhnazarov smuggles some provocative ideas into what is essentially a supernatural adventure.

By contrast, Alberto Negrin adopts a much more conventional approach to his subject in Perlasca: The Courage of a Just Man, an Italian teleplay that was first broadcast in 2002 and arrives here now largely because star Luca Zingaretti has developed a fan base through his BBC4 investigations as Sicilian sleuth Inspector Montalbano. Chronicling the exploits of Giorgio Perlasca, who was dubbed `the Italian Schindler' for saving over 5000 Jews during the Holocaust, this is an earnest adaptation of Enrico Deaglio's biography, The Banality of Good. However, this is very much on a par with some of Negrin's earlier small-screen outings, including Mussolini and I (1985) and Voyage of Terror: The Achille Lauro Affair (1990), which had respectively teamed Susan Sarandon and Anthony Hopkins and Burt Lancaster and Eva Marie Saint.

In his youth, Giorgio Perlasca (Luca Zingaretti) had been an enthusiastic supporter of Benito Mussolini and had fought in both the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and the Spanish Civil War. At the end of the latter, he was presented with a document from Generalissimo Francesco Franco granting him safe passage in any Spanish embassy and this comes in useful when he finds himself trapped in Budapest in 1944. He had been sent to Hungary to procure meat for the Italian army, but the defeat of Il Duce in October 1943 had made him an enemy in the eyes of the country's notorious Arrow Cross militia. Aided by Contessa Eleanora (Mathilda May), Perlasca had been able to avoid the clutches of SS captain Bleiber (György Cserhalmi) and Hungarians Major Glückmer (Ferenc Borbiczky) and Lieutenant Nagy (András Stohl) and found sanctuary with Professor Balázs (Jean-François Garreaud), who risks his life to keep his Jewish neighbours out of the death camps.

Having helped Magda (Amanda Sandrelli) and her daughter Lili (Titanilla Varga) escape a brutal round-up conducted by Nagy, Perlasca uses his letter to secure a meeting with Spanish ambassador Ángel Sanz Briz (Géza Tordy), who instals him in a safe house, along with Eva (Christiane Filangieri) and Sándor (Marco Bonini), who help him gain the trust of his fellow refugees. Thus, when Sanz Briz is transferred to Switzerland, Perlasca is able to pass himself off as new consul Jorge Perlasca and he convinces Arrow Cross Interior Minister Gábor Vajna (Zoltán Bezerédy) that the Jews under his protection are diasporic Sephardis who are entitled to citizenship under Spanish law.

However, Perlasca is not content with forging over 5000 Schutzbriefs and pleads with Vajna to spare the Budapest ghetto that Bleiber is so keen to cleanse. Knowing that the Red Army is rapidly approaching, Perlasca plays for time and, while he fails to save Sándor and others from execution on the banks of the Danube, he is helped to smuggle many more to safety by the reformed Glückmer, who disregards an order to arrest Perlasca because of his Fascist past and allows him to slip out of the city.

Scored by Ennio Morricone and closer in look and feel to Lamont Johnson's Wallenberg: A Hero's Story (1985) than Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), this is a well-meaning, but melodramatic tribute to a genuine hero. Zingaretti conveys Perlasca's charm and courage, but lacks the presence that made Richard Chamberlain and Liam Neeson's performances so compelling. Similarly, Negrin deserves credit for the unflinching depiction of Nazi cruelty and censure for allowing a regrettable soap operaticism to seep into some of the human interest storylines, which robs them of both poignancy and inspiration.

The verdict is equally likely to be split over Eran Riklis's Zaytoun, which takes its title from the Arab word for `olive'. As in Cup Final (1991), The Syrian Bride (2004) and Lemon Tree (2008), Riklis suggests that the stand-off between Israel and its Palestinian enclaves is not as implacable as the headlines would have the wider world believe, as, entrenched positions can always be undermined by individual relationships that demonstrate how these warring peoples have more in common than they are willing to acknowledge. Such sentiments could easily be dismissed as romanticised and wildly optimistic. But, even in this often specious buddy-road movie hybrid, Riklis laces the action set in 1982 with enough dark irony and understated realism to ensure that the divisive issues that threaten the peace of the entire Middle East are never glossed or trivialised.

Exiled in Lebanon, 12 year-old Abdallah El Akal lives in the Shatila refugee camp with his father, Jony Arbid, and grandfather, Tarik Kopty. When not being punished for smoking in school, El Akal ventures into Beirut to make a few extra lira selling cigarettes and chewing gum. However, he makes an easy target in his yellow Brazilian football shirt sporting Zico's No10 and he frequently gets chased by Lebanese street vendors or captured by the representatives of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, who force him and pals Adham Abu Aqel, Eitan Londner and Osamah Khoury into attending terrorist training sessions so they can be ready to fight for their homeland.

One night, shortly after Arbid has explained for the umpteenth time his determination to plant his treasured olive sapling in the soil of his village, he is killed in an Israeli air strike and El Akal adds his name to the list of martyrs he keeps in the back of his exercise book. Soon afterwards, an Israeli F16 crashes outside the city and PLO agents Morad Hasan and Ashraf Farah rush to capture the pilot. They construct a special cell for him in a backstreet shack and listen on the radio as news is broadcast about his plight. Shackled at the ankles and wrists, Stephen Dorff promises that his comrades will find him, but El Akal and his pals laugh when their dog Churchill barks at him in defiance.

El Akal enjoys seeing Dorff behind bars and gloatingly drinks in front of him when he asks for water. But Abu Aqel is softer hearted and he leaves a cup within easy reach and smiles nervously at his enemy. This small act of charity causes Dorff to release his younger brother Londner after he grabs him through the bars as the boys sing a mocking song about Ariel Sharon. However, this assault on his friend provokes El Akal into shooting Dorff in the back of the leg and he has to be rushed to a clinic where he is treated by Abu Agel and Londner's widowed mother, Mira Awad.

Refusing to stay inside the camp, El Akal and Abu Aqel go back into Beirut and, on their way home, risk taking a shortcut through a no man's land guarded by Phalangist snipers. Abu Aqel is shot and Dorff shares Awad's pain when he dies in the night and this show of empathy prompts El Akal into offering to help Dorff escape on the proviso he takes him to his ancestral village so he can plant his father's olive tree. Dorff agrees and is surprised by the ease with which they slip away from his cell. However, he is angry with El Akal for refusing to unlock his wrist manacles and overpowers the boy when he swallows the key and leaves him tied up in an abandoned building. On hailing Loai Nofi's taxi, however, Dorff sees how some PLO gunmen deal with a girl who has become pregnant out of wedlock and rushes back to free El Akal.

He insists on clambering into the back seat, however, and they drive out of the city to the cacophonous accompaniment of Nofi singing along to the Bee Gees disco classic, `Staying Alive'. Willing to take the odd risk because Dorff has promised him a $4000 fare, Nofi drops his passengers off at a checkpoint and agrees to meet them on the other side. As he waits, Dorff and El Akal scramble over rocks and along the beach to avoid both Lebanese patrols and a PLO posse. But they survive the ordeal and even manage to steal a Syrian army jeep when Nofi stops at a remote garage to have his paintwork camouflaged.

They aren't on the road for long, however, as Dorff loses control when the bumpy road jars his injured leg and El Akal has to walk into the nearest town (and run the gamut of another PLO search party) to get the herbs he knows from his terrorist training will salve the wound. Dorff's gratitude is short-lived, however, as El Akal forgets to put the handbrake on the jeep after they push it back on the road and it runs downhill and overturns. But they realise their survival depends on co-operation and they even manage a smile when they find a donkey to carry them for a few miles and Dorff finally gets the key to unlock his chains.

Trudging through spectacularly beautiful scenery, the pair get close to the border to have a celebratory kickabout with the ball that El Akal had packed along with his father's tree. Naturally, El Akal strays into a minefield and he sends Dorff back for the sapling after they have picked a path to relative safety. But they reach the UN base without further mishap and Dorff is reunited with his compatriots. However, his superiors refuse to allow him to escort El Akal to his village and hand him over to French UNRAA doctor Alice Taglioni. She finds him some clean clothing and tries to reassure him that he will be better off with his grandfather. But Dorff cannot bear to let the boy down after all they have been through and steals a vehicle so they can go in search of a village that has long been wiped off Israeli maps.

More by luck than judgement, they find the place and El Akal gets to open the front door of the family home with the key he has been wearing around his neck. He stands on the roof and breathes in the air of history and freedom and, as night falls, he even gets to confirm Kopty and Arbid's contention that the stars there are brighter than anywhere else on Earth. Next morning, El Akal plants the tree before being allowed to drive part of the way back to the UN base. Following a farewell hug, El Akal gets into Taglioni's car and a smile gradually replaces the scowl as he realise what he has achieved.

Those familiar with the 1982 Lebanese campaign will know that soon after this story closes, between 760 and 3500 people were massacred in the Sabra and Shatila camps and, the appalling likelihood is that El Akal and Kopty will be among them. This grim supposition makes the ending a little edgier, but Riklis allows the final sequences to come perilously close to being mawkish and simplistic. Indeed, several incidents en route rely on similar contrivance and it is very much to the credit of Dorff and El Akal that the impossible remains so largely plausible.

Riklis is also indebted to cinematographer Dan Laustsen and production designer Yoel Herzberg for achieving the affecting contrasts between Beirut, Shatila and the settlements visited during the journey. Despite its occasional tendency to gush, Cyril Morin's score is also effective. But, for all the polish and good intentions, it's hard to ignore the schematic fabulism of a tale whose hopes are always much higher than its credibility.

Negrin has since made TV-movie about Anne Frank and elements of her story recur in Antti J. Jokinen's adaptation of Sofi Oksanen's international bestseller Purge. Submitted by Finland for the Oscars, this ambitious, flashbacking picture seeks to compare the thuggery of the Russian mafia with the ruthless imperialism of the Soviet Union. However, Jokinen (who also handled the 2011 Hilary Swank thriller, The Resident) allows the action to veer between sensationalism and sentimentality, with the consequence that this never quite compels or convinces.

The action opens in 1992 with pink-haired Amanda Pilke fleeing across the Estonian countryside and seeking sanctuary with the gnarled and suspicious Liisi Tandefelt. Despite learning that Pilke has escaped from Tallinn, where she had been forced into prostitution by vicious people trafficker Kristjan Sarv, Tandefelt is so shocked on hearing the name of the waif's mother that she locks her in the spare room while she decides what to do.

She thinks back to 1940 when the Red Army overran her independent homeland and made it part of the new Soviet empire. Her younger self (played by Laura Birn) had been forced to watch her parents being arrested as decadent landowners and she had been left to run their farm with her sister, Krista Kosonen, and itinerant labourer Peter Franzén. Birn had been passionately in love with Franzén, but he only had eyes for Kosonen, who became his wife and the mother of his daughter. Thus, Birn had been compelled to pretend to share their happiness, even though she had prayed for her sister to die in childbirth.

However, when Franzén decides to volunteer for the Finnish forces fighting the Soviets, Birn is left with little option but to get along with Kosonen and, when Franzén returns having become a member of the Brotherhood of the Forest resistance movement, she helps hide him under the floorboards from the prying NKVD police. Birn holds firm under interrogation, even after she is accused of supplying provisions to the enemy and is mercilessly gang raped in the basement of the town hall. But something in her changes and she asks Party organiser Tommi Korpela to teach her about Communism. She also starts attending meetings and marries Korpela in the hope that he can protect her.

However, she remains reviled by her neighbours and is frequently abused when she attempts to collect their political subscriptions. As a result, she becomes increasingly bitter and when Kosonen and her daughter, Sonja Nüganen, are captured, she obeys Soviet officer Tomi Salmela's order to torture her niece. In return, she is given the family home and has few qualms when she learns that Kosonen and Nüganen have been sent to a gulag in Siberia. But guilt starts to gnaw away at her and the hermitic Tandefelt realises that she has been presented with an opportunity to make amends by helping her grandniece.

Thus, when Sarv arrives on her doorstep claiming to be a policeman searching for a fugitive who has slaughtered her boyfriend and stolen his car, Tandefelt stonewalls before sending him packing. However, she knows that he will be back and promises to help Pilke, as she realises that her victim was more of an owner than a lover. When Sarv and his goons return, Tandefelt guns them down and give Pilke her passport and a wad of cash so she can flee to Finland. She also sets light to the house and is finally free of the burden of history.

Despite solid performances by Birn, Tandefelt and Pilke, there is always something novelettish about this self-consciously hard-hitting picture. Cinematographer Rauno Ronkainen makes evocative use of a handheld camera to convey the misery of the entombment that Rilke endures after she is duped into believing she is travelling to Berlin to work in a hotel. But his soft-focus views of the Estonian locales are more problematic, as is Jokinen's insistence on depicting so luridly the violence meted out to Birn and Nüganen. Tuomas Kantelinen's score also has a tendency to overstate, which is ironic given that Jokinen and co-writer Marko Leino leave so many of the characters underdeveloped. They also struggle to interweave the plotlines and many viewers will have grown weary of the gratuitous brutality long before the slo-mo histrionics of the Peckinpahian denouement.

Envy also drives the action in Gilles Legrand's You Will Be My Son, which combines the simmering incident of a dynastic soap opera with the authentic detail of one of Laurent Cantet's workplace dramas. Co-scripted by Legrand, Sandrine Cayron and Delphine de Vigan and evocatively photographed by Yves Angelo to contrast the sunlit expanses and dingy cellars, this feels as though it could have been made in the 1960s, with Jean Gabin as the flint-hearted patriarch, Maurice Ronet as the hapless son, Michel Simon as the once loyal lieutenant and Alain Delon as the returning prodigal. That said, this ensemble excels from the opening sequence, as Lorànt Deutsch leaves a funeral parlour with no great sense of desolation at the loss of his father. Instead, he has a look of determination that is explained in the remaining action, which is, essentially, an extended flashback 

Finishing an interview with journalist Hélène de Saint-Père, vintner Niels Arestrup returns to the house dominating the sprawling Saint-Emilion estate that has been his life since he inherited it from his father in 1963. Despite being widowed for many years, he occupies the main part of the building, while son Lorànt Deutsch lives in a side wing with wife Anne Marivin. They have long been hoping for a child, but their ill luck seems to confirm Arestrup's verdict that Deutsch is a trier who lacks the spark, let alone the nose and expertise, to be his successor.

Moreover, when he learns from doctor Jean-Marc Roulot that trusted right-hand man Patrick Chesnais is suffering from inoperable pancreatic cancer, Arestrup realises that he will be hard-pressed to find a suitable replacement. So, he summons Chesnais's son Nicolas Bridet from his high-flying job with the Coppola vineyard in California and delights in allying with him in mocking Deutsch's inability to judge the bouquet of the bottles that Arestrup brings to  supper.

Arestrup is also aware, however, that Deutsch still has a part to play if the business is to retain its reputation and tries to convince him that a steady administrator is just as important as a gifted wine-maker. He illustrates his point about doing what is best for the brand by recalling how he convinced everyone his father had drowned in the nearby river rather than in a butt of his own wine. But, while he continues to put a pinch of his ashes into each new vintage, Arestrup insists it is hard work and determination not heredity that goes into producing a quality wine. However, the conservative Chesnais disagrees and, in the humble cottage where he lives with wife Valérie Mairesse, he warns Bridet about getting ideas above his station and reminds him that, no matter how big a part he plays in maintaining standards, it will never be his family name on the label.

As Deutsch and Bridet had been friends since childhood, the latter is keen not to step on his toes and suggests they celebrate the gathering of the harvest by going clubbing. However, Deutsch gets jealous when Bridet flirts with waitress Shirley Bousquet and, when Arestrup hears about their quarrel, he accuses Deutsch of being a snob who puts personal ambition above the good of the firm. In order to teach him a lesson, he invites Bridet to be his guest when he travels to Paris to collect the Legion of Honour. They stay in the Grand Hotel and Arestrup treats Bridet to a pair of expensive handmade shoes before offering him Chesnais's job and a full partnership in the company

Furious at seeing Bridet being labelled Arestrup's son in a newspaper report, Chesnais lectures him on tradition and flatly dismisses his old friend's request to let him adopt Bridet so the estate can pass into safe hands. Undaunted, Arestrup attempts to bribe Marivin into relocating far away and, when this gambit fails, he takes Deutsch to his mother's graveside and informs him that he will not allow him to destroy the business in the same way that his fecklessness killed her.

Distraught at his ostracisation, Deutsch gets drunk and is hospitalised following a car crash. While Marivin visits with the news she is finally pregnant, Arestrup seeks to reassure the suddenly scruple-stricken Bridet by telling him that he was also adopted and that the land has now chosen him to be his heir. But the dying Chesnais is determined to prevent the natural order from being disrupted and he locks Arestrup in the cellar with the ventilation off so that the fermentation fumes can do their worst.

On returning from the crematorium, Deutsch scatters Arestrup's ashes and treads them into the soil. In so doing, he seems to curse his own tenure, as he clearly knows nothing about his grandfather being a secret ingredient in Arestrup's recipe. However, the ending is somewhat ambiguous, as there is still a possibility that Deutsch will make a success of the venture and pass it on to his own son. One wonders how an American film-maker will conclude the seemingly inevitable remake.

Although this may not be the most artistically ambitious picture, Gilles Legrand wisely allows the focus to fall on the family feud and, thus, ensures this makes for satisfyingly potent viewing. Arestrup delivers another imperious performance as the ruthless pragmatist prepared to exploit legal loopholes to secure his succession, while Chesnais captures the proud integrity of the faithful retainer stung into opposing his master. Bridet also convinces as the prodigal needing to be reminded of his place. But it's Deutsch who most impresses, as he battles the doubts arising from his personal and professional shortcomings and, in the process, merely confirms his father's suspicions.

The script is a tad over-deliberate in places and Legrand might have added more detail about the wine-making process and explored how the trade is holding up in the recession. But, as his primary inspiration came from the relationship between Hal Holbrook and Emile Hirsch in Sean Penn's Into the Wild (2007), this is evidently intended to be a father-son rather than a workplace study. Moreover, Legrand's sense of place is exemplary. Thus, even though the denouement descends into whodunit-style melodrama, this is a solid piece of film-making in the best `tradition of quality' manner.

The same could also be said of Alain Corneau's final feature, Love Crime, which is less of a whodunit than a howdunit, as it follows killer Ludivine Sagnier as she weaves a web of intrigue designed simultaneously to entrap herself and prove her innocence. Bearing a passing resemblance to Corneau's underrated office politics drama Fear and Trembling (2003), this demonstrates the storytelling certainty that made such diverse titles as Série noire (1979), Fort Saganne (1984) and Tout les matins du monde (1991) so compelling.

Indeed, such is its teasing allure of this murder masterclass that Brian De Palma was tempted to remake it earlier this year as Passion, with Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace. But, while the Swedish actress who essayed Lisbeth Salander in the screen adaptations of the Millennium trilogy stands a better than average chance of playing a passive underling provoked into revealing her vicious streak, the delightful Sagnier has already shown in François Ozon's Swimming Pool (2001) that she lacks the ruthless streak to be a wholly convincing femme fatale.

With her hair scraped back and some thick-framed glasses topping off her sensibly smart outfits, Sagnier certainly looks the part as high-flier Kristin Scott Thomas's trusted lieutenant. She also captures the aura of intimidated respect that prevents her from protesting when Scott Thomas takes the credit for her latest show of initiative. Co-worker Guillaume Marquet encourages her to be more assertive, but Sagnier is convinced that she can reach the top in her own way when Scott Thomas entrusts her with a major mission in Cairo.

In fact, Scott Thomas simply wants to distract financier lover Patrick Mille while she spends the weekend cavorting with handsome executive Jean-Marie Juan. So she send him to Egypt with Sagnier knowing that his charm will prove irresistible to a workaholic who doesn't have time for a social life. The ruse works perfectly and Scott Thomas enjoys being particularly sororal, as she gives Sagnier an expensive scarf, suggests a new shade of lipstick and pretends to open up emotionally to her en route to a posh soirée.

Unfortunately, just as Scott Thomas is teaching her protégée how to work a room, Juan sidles up and lets slip the truth about the Cairo assignment and a stunned Sagnier makes her excuses to leave. She is still feeling betrayed when Marquet gives her advanced warning of a potentially lucrative deal with a Washington-based company. But, rather than seizing the day, Sagnier opts to accept Scott Thomas's reassurance that she has complete faith in her and hopes that she can get over her disappointment.

However, when Scott Thomas receives notification from the financial regulator that a contract she tweaked to give Mille a much-needed windfall is under investigation, she orders him to pay back the money and break off his romance with Sagnier or she will ruin him. She then embarrasses the crestfallen Sagnier in a meeting and forges a threatening e-mail from her computer. But she really loses her composure when Sagnier trumps her over the Washington pitch and senior executives Mike Powers and Matthew Gonder inform her that the hoped for transfer to the New York branch has been put on hold. Determined to exact her revenge, Scott Thomas orders Mille to arrange a make-up date and answers his mobile when Sagnier calls to find out why he is so late. Distraught at being manipulated, Sagnier crashes into a pillar in the underground car park and has to endure the humiliation of her colleagues being shown CCTV footage of the incident by Scott Thomas at an office party.

But this proves to be the point at which the worm starts to turn and Sagnier begins planting the evidence that will enable cops Gérald Laroche and Jean-Pierre Leclerc to arrest her for stabbing Scott Thomas and convince judge Olivier Rabourdin of her guilt. However, after a short spell behind bars, she recovers from the effects of the medication she has been taking for her nerves and asks lawyer Julien Rochefort to change her plea and the once-damning facts relating to a torn scarf, a kitchen knife and a trip to the movies are gradually turned in her favour.

A final twist involving a doctored dossier mailed by sister Marie Guillard sees Sagnier shift the blame conclusively on to a scapegoat. But she has not been as clever as she thought and her bluff is called during the trip to the States that was supposed to seal her victory over the odds and the picture fades on a close-up of her face as she lies in the darkness of her hotel room searching for a solution to her latest predicament.

In promotional interviews, Sagnier has admitted to finding the shoot traumatic, as Corneau worked at such a relentless pace that both she and Scott Thomas felt a little bewildered by the experience. However, she has since realised that the 66 year-old director knew he was dying of lung cancer and had no time to waste. Sadly, this sense of hasty efficiency is often evident in the finished film, particularly during the sequences detailing the fiendishness of Sagnier's ingenuity.

Yet the briskness facilitated by Pharoah Sanders's jazz-inflected score and Thierry Derocles's clipped editing also maintains the momentum and prevents viewers from examining too closely the often contrived events concocted by Corneau and co-scenarist Natalie Carter. Yves Angelo's glossy visuals and Katia Wyszkop's knowingly modernist production design prove equally distracting. But nothing can quite hide the fact that Sagnier lacks the icy edginess that a young Catherine Deneuve or Isabelle Huppert might have brought to the role. It doesn't help that she is forced to compete with Scott Thomas in such imperiously bitchy form. But her transformation from vulnerable minion to Machiavellian vixen misses a persuasive epiphany. Thus, while this always feels a touch too dramatically and stylistically controlled, it always entertains, especially as its barbed depiction of capitalism recalls such late Claude Chabrol outings as The Flower of Evil (2002) and Comedy of Power (2006).

Even before Ingmar Bergman's Summer With Monika (1955), Swedish cinema had a reputation for dealing with young love in a refreshingly honest manner. Lukas Moodysson continued the trend with Show Me Love (1998). However, first-timer Lisa Aschan's She Monkeys inclines more towards such French studies of burgeoning sexuality as Catherine Breillat's A ma soeur (2001), Katell Quillévéré's Love Like Poison (2010) and the Céline Sciamma pair of Water Lilies (2007) and Tomboy (2011). Consequently, this rigorously controlled rite of passage succeeds in being both psychologically intense and teasingly subversive, especially in tackling the decidedly tricky topic of pre-pubescent passion.

Fifteen year-old Mathilda Paradeiser and her seven year-old sister Isabella Lindqvist live with their father (Sergej Merkusjev), who is invariably out at work or on a date. Paradeiser has a trial with the local voltige team and coach Maria Hedborg welcomes her to the team after an audition to test her gymnastic skills and her affinity with horses. She is watched closely by Linda Molin, the star of the troupe, who is slightly older and prettier than Paradeiser and who seems torn between treating her as a rival or an acolyte.

When the pair meet at the swimming baths, Molin pushes Paradeiser off the high diving board and she sustains a nose bleed. As she recovers in the junior pool, policemen Adam Lundgren and Sigmund Hovind come over to flirt with them and Paradeiser promises to give the former a call.

Meanwhile, Lindqvist is feeling self-conscious after watching some women in the showers and then being informed by a lifeguard that she has to wear a bathing suit that covers her chest. Bullying Merkusjev into taking her shopping, she selects a wholly unsuitable leopard print bikini and begins plotting how she can use it to entice older mixed race cousin Kevin Caicedo Vega, who occasionally acts as her babysitter.

Molin persuades Paradeiser to invite Lundgren and Hovind to a late-night beach rendezvous and they show up in a speedboat. Unimpressed by their clumsy chat-up lines, Molin goes for a swim and is peeved to find Paradeiser and Lundgren have slipped away for some privacy. She finds them and begins giving Lundgren orders. He remove his trousers and underwear in the expectation of kinky gratification, but the girls steal his clothing and run away.

Now almost inseparable, Molin and Paradeiser get tipsy and begin frolicking. However, when Molin attempts to kiss her, Paradeiser backs away and a frostiness is evident at their next meeting at the stables, where Paradeiser is struggling to make the grade, as she lacks the extrovert personality to go with her athletic ability. Consequently, she refuses to attend the party that Molin throws for the team. But she does sneak into the house after the other guests have gone and watches Molin sleep.

Clearly, inappropriate behaviour runs in the family, as while Paradeiser is snooping on Molin, Lindqvist marches into the sitting room with a boom box and proceeds to do her best impression of a sexy dance for the stunned Caicedo Vega. When she announces her love for him, he tells her that cousins shouldn't think of each other in that manner and she orders him out of her bedroom.

Paradeiser also takes rejection badly and kneecaps Molin with a rake so that she has to withdraw from the voltige team. However, she says nothing about the true cause of her injury and Paradeiser takes her moment in the spotlight with her customarily impassive expression betraying none of the emotions she must be feeling at fulfilling her dream.

So unflinching is Lisa Aschan's approach that this studied examination of juvenile sexual mores feels dangerously transgressive and viewing often becomes a deeply unsettling experience. By limiting the backstories of the principals, Aschan forces the focus onto their inexpert efforts to exploit their untested feminine wiles to exert control over each other and their menfolk (as well as Paradeiser's dog). Moreover, she explores the connection between the physical and the psychological, between pleasure and pain and between passion and power in such a provocative manner that the most innocent of situations start to take on disconcerting undertones.

Despite the odd improv longueur, the performances of the lead trio are remarkable for non-professionals making their debut. But Aschan reinforces the mood of heightened naturalism through a combination of Linda Wassberg's crisply detached photography, sound designer Andreas Franck's mix of wind, bird and sea sounds and Finnish composer Sami Sänpäkkilä's disquietingly thrumming electronica score. Yet, while Aschan's willingness to take risks is laudable, there is something cold and calculating about She Monkeys that will leave many feeling as manipulated as the film's cipher males.

Fans of Scandinavian TV series like The Killing, The Bridge and Borgen will be intrigued by actress-turned-tele-director Charlotte Sieling's feature bow, Above the Street, Below the Water (2009), as it is packed with familiar faces from these enduring BBC4 favourites. Striving to prove that Copenhagen has as many adulterous pseuds as Manhattan or Paris, this often feels like a highbrow soap. But, such is the quality of the acting and the self-assurance of Sieling and Yaba Holst's script that this slowly starts to exert a grip and goad one into wishing that it had a touch more wit to match its shrewd insights into modern sexual mores.

Actress Sidse Babett Knudsen is about to play Ophelia in a production of Hamlet at the Royal Theatre. She is, therefore, far too preoccupied to notice that husband Nicolas Bro is becoming increasingly disillusioned. They have long attended marriage guidance sessions with therapist Ellen Nyman, who is the younger and kayak-mad wife of Knudsen's director, Nils Ole Oftebro. But Knudsen had always presumed that Bro adored her and was so wrapped up in their children, Lea Høyer and Emil Poulsen, that he would never stray. But he has fallen for drama critic Ellen Hillingsø, whose bibulous ex-husband, Anders W. Berthelsen, has illegally parked his houseboat on the canal beneath Nyman's window.

Naturally, everything starts to unravel when Bro drops his bombshell, with the Knudsen becoming increasingly skittish as opening night approaches and Nyman beginning to realise that Oftebro is a serial womaniser who abuses his position to snare conquests. Amidst the fallout, Poulsen is left to walk home alone after he is forgotten by both his parents and Høyer snaps and tells her mother exactly what she thinks of her. But the show must go on and everyone assembles at the theatre to see Shakespeare's Dane.

With cinematographer Jørgen Johansson making the harbour district of Christianshavn seem impossibly beautiful, this is an unashamedly glossy picture. The performances are also as note perfect as Thomas Hass Christensen's modish jazz score, while Sieling ably paces and frames the predictable, but nonetheless compelling action. But the slickness eventually becomes a disadvantage, as the drama lacks the raw emotion that even these fotofit sophisticates should still be capable of feeling. More might also have been made of the problems of the younger generation, while a little knowing humour at the expense of the narrative convolutions might not have gone amiss. But this is less self-satisfied than many recent Mike Leigh or Woody Allen outings and there is something undeniably amusing about Knudsen, Hillingsø and Nyman all arriving for the showdown in the same red dress.

Restraint and keeping up appearances are evidently not major issues on the Hong Kong arts scene if Pang Ho-cheung's uproariously raucous comedy Vulgaria is anything to go by. Shot in 12 days without a finished script and rejoicing in its rough-and-readiness, this goes way beyond the boundaries pushed by Sam Voutas's Red Light Revolution (2010) and should establish Pang (whose other titles include Love in a Puff, 2010 and Love in the Buff, 2012, as well as more thoughtful outings like Isabella, 2006) as a cult director.

Film producer Chapman To joins academic pal Lawrence Cheng for a Q&A session with a class of film students. Unimpressed by his opening remark that producers are like public hair because they eases the friction between people, one student demands that To justifies his role in the film-making process and he responds with a toe-curlingly cautionary tale.

Some time back, To found himself caught in any number of binds. While Miriam Yeung is threatening to sue him for harassment, lawyer ex-wife Kristal Tan is promising to block access to his adored daughter Jacqueline Chan unless he comes up with his alimony arrears. Consequently, he contacts associate Simon Loui and agrees to take a meeting with Ronald Cheng, a gangster from the mainland province of Guangxi who has a proposition to make. He wants to bankroll a remake of the saucy 1976 Shaw Brothers Category III classic, Confession of a Concubine. However, Cheng will only put up the money if Susan Shaw (aka Yum Yum Shaw or Siu Yam Yam) reprises her original role and if To and Loui join him and acolyte Lam Suet for a supper of braised rabbit heads and deep-fried field mice.

Unable to eat a bite, To and Loui are informed that unless they copulate with a couple of mules, the deal will be off. Breaking off as the beasts are being brought into the restaurant (indeed, the frame melts in the gate), To avoids revealing whether he did the dirty deed and resumes his story on the set with washed-up director Matt Chow, who now only does movies as a sideline because he runs a casino with its own crèche. To has persuaded 3-D Sex and Zen star Hiro Hayama to be his leading man. But, while the sixtysomething Shaw is happy to participate, she refuses to be seen naked. Thus, To has to hire 20 year-old body double Dada Chan, who is keen to use her fellating skills to get on in the business and promote her new masturbatory video game.

Having spent so long setting the scene and introducing his characters, Pang rather runs out of things for them to do. Nevertheless, this is a picture that more than lives up to its title, with the byplay between Chapman To and Dada Chan being particularly spicy. Ironically, To pitches himself into this nightmarish scenario so that his daughter can take him to school for a show-and-tell lesson. But, in order to be a good father, he has to stoop shamefully low on a number of occasions and still come up smiling. He is splendidly supported by the wonderfully sporting Susan Shaw and off-screen wife Kristal Tan, and somewhat upstaged by the deliciously (if dementedly) dangerous Ronald Cheng and the chipper Dada Chan, whose previous credit was the equally bluntly titled MicroSex Office and who plays the airheaded bimbo with a knowing gusto that recalls Mira Sorvino's Oscar-winning turn in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite (1995).

Finally, the title also pretty much says it all in Yoshihiro Nakamura's The Foreign Duck, the Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker (2007), which was adapted from a novel by Kotaro Isaka, who would also provide the source for the same director's Fish Story (2009), Golden Slumber (2010) and Chips (2012). Taking place over six days, this is one of those movies that defies description, let alone criticism, and will need at least one repeat viewing before it starts making sense. But, while it may not have much to offer stylistically, this is an intricately constructed puzzle that is sure to fascinate and frustrate in equal measure.

Fresher Gaku Hamada has just arrived at Sendai University and is settling into his new apartment block. Annoyed at realising he has left his CD player at home, he wanders off to meet his neighbours and is put out at being given the cold shoulder by Kei Tamura. However, he receives a warmer welcome when Eita hears him singing Bob Dylan's `Blowin' in the Wind' and the squat newcomer is soon under the lanky Eita's spell. He explains that Tamura is an exchange student from Bhutan and thinks it would be a good idea if they broke into a bookshop and stole him a dictionary.

Eager to make a good impression, Hamada agrees and finds himself standing at the rear of the store with a replica pistol. However, in his eagerness to please, he fails to notice the significance of the fact that Tamura is now dating Eita's former girlfriend, Megumi Seki, who used to work at the pet shop owned by Nene Ohtsuka. Eita had urged Hamada to stay away from Ohtsuka. But, of course, he couldn't and what he learns from her not only transforms his opinion of Eita, but also sets up the action for its shattering revelation.

As he demonstrated in early directorial efforts like The Booth (2005) and Route 225 (2006), as well as in his screenplay for Hideo Nakata's Deep Water (2005), Nakamura has a penchant for confounding expectations. Here, he attempts to confuse the audience by having one role played by two different actors, while he also seeks to put a Buddhist spin on the convoluted themes. But, even if you find yourself kicking against the illogicality of the scenario, stick with it, as its views on racial prejudice, cruelty to animals and humans, the pain of loss, the power of memory and relationship between fate and karma are as riveting as the exemplary performances and the neat way in which Nakamura ties up his loose ends.