Parky at the Pictures (DVD 18/8/2016)

The documentary opens with a brief summary of how the media reported the different versions of what took place in Tottenham Hale on 4 August 2011 and how riots broke out across the country after the police admitted that they had misled the public into thinking that 29 year-old father of six Mark Duggan had been armed with a handgun when the minicab in which he was travelling was surrounded by Operation Trident vehicles as part of a hard stop exercise. Interspersed with the archive footage are clips of Duggan's childhood friends, Marcus Knox-Hooke and Kurtis Henville, driving round the estate where they were raised and complaining that `the feds' are forever trying to harass and frame black kids.

As they boast that they refuse to be intimidated by anyone in uniform, a caption reveals that five people died during the riots that followed Duggan's shooting and that £200 million of property damage was caused across the UK. Viewing blurry CCTV images, Marcus declares that he has been charged with being one of the instigators of the unrest and the scene shifts to a bail house in Dagenham, where he is awaiting his sentence. He visits his friend's grave on the first anniversary of his the shooting and meets up with Duggan's partner, Semone Wilson, as well as his son Kamani and his mother Pam in order to release black balloons in his memory.

Having viewed a rap video on a laptop, Marcus and Kurtis concur that Duggan was a decent man and a real party animal. Yet, while watching a news report on events on Ferry Lane, they see a policeman in a white vest sneak behind a wall beside the cab and bob down to plant what turned out to be a gun in a sock that didn't bear Duggan's fingerprints. The friends agree that no black man would pull a weapon on a cop, as they know they would be fired upon. They concede that Duggan might have been killed by accident, but they reserve the right to believe that the officer fired because he felt he had the power to do so.

Marcus admits his loss brought him back to Tottenham, as he had moved away two years earlier after converting to Islam. He claims Duggan was interested, but had yet to testify and he takes Kurtis to the local mosque to show him around. On meeting the Imam, Kurtis confesses that his faith in prophets isn't quite matched by his love for his dogs and his fondness for his music and a smoke. When they try to convince him that he will find religion more pleasurable when he surrenders himself to it, Kurtis merely shrugs sceptically.

Life has been tough for Kurtis since he vowed to go straight. He drives along Tottenham High Road and says he has to earn honest money now he had children to think about. As they pass the police station, Amponsah cuts to footage of Marcus on a peaceful protest and then uses white arrows to show him actively participating in the street chaos and even attacking a police car. Marcus regrets that justifiable anger was hijacked by those who simply wanted to loot and destroy and his distaste is reinforced by CCTV images of a motorcyclist being ambushed and a youth having things stolen out of his haversack.

Told to expect an eight-year sentence by his solicitor, Marcus admits to being at the scene, but insists his fury was fuelled by the way in which Duggan's memory was being besmirched by the crooks and opportunists who didn't care about him or the community. Kurtis chips in that nothing would have happened if the feds hadn't killed an unarmed man and lies about it. But a news bulletin avers that Duggan was suspected of being a drug dealer and having links to the Tottenham Mandem (TMD) gang and Marcus takes Amponsah on a tour of the Broadwater Farm estate where they all grew up. They wander the corridors where he learned to ride a BMX bike and visit the underground car park where Mark nearly sent him flying while zooming around in a car.

As they continue their tour, a newsreader explains that the flats were built in the 1960s as a model replacement for the slum dwellings that had bred poverty and disease. However, Marcus remembers that the walkways were little more than rat runs for muggers and rapists and he feels a reluctant pride in having survived such an uncompromising upbringing. He casually points out the spot where PC Keith Blakelock was hacked to death on 6 October 1985 and Amponsah flashes back to the brutal crime that was prompted by the fatal heart attack that Cynthia Jarrett suffered while the police were searching her flat in a bid to find evidence against her son Floyd, who was later arrested for driving a stolen car that had not been illegally obtained. A caption states that the ensuing riots were a reaction to years of heavy handed policing and an inquiry admonished the Metropolitan force for not suspending the search for Floyd after his mother passed away.

Community activist Stafford Scott shows Marcus a garden of remembrance and vows that Broadwater Farm is not a haven for thugs. He claims that the events of 1985 were an act of self-defence against a hostile invasion and laments that they have since given the police an excuse to inflict misery upon the residents of the estate. In his opinion, nothing has changed between Jarrett and Duggan and Marcus concedes that he had no respect for the feds growing up. He felt he was untouchable and could steal and extort by playing on people's weakness and fear.

Over a video by Smegz, Marcus acknowledges that he was driven by arrogance, while a caption states that Kelvin `Smegz' Easton was Duggan's cousin and was stabbed to death in a nightclub in March 2011. A second note reveals that Duggan was placed under surveillance because it was believed that he had obtained a gun in order to avenge his Smegz's murder. Amponsah shows footage of Duggan at the funeral acting with dignified reverence at the graveside and Marcus insists that he and Smegz were the enforcer types always looking for trouble not Duggan and suggests that the police intelligence was either flawed or fake.

Meanwhile, Kurtis is trying to find work. He takes his CV into shops hoping for a break and has the cheek to ask a Carphone Warehouse clerk why he can no longer exploit the shop's wi-fi to operate his phone. Moreover, he even checks if there are any jobs going before confiding in Amponsah that he was making £500 a day as a dealer and is tempted to go back, as he used to be able to afford all sorts of cool stuff. But he is a father now and doesn't see why he should jeopardise his family's future supplying clients he couldn't stand. As he chatters away while racing cars on the motorway, Kurtis comes across as a loveable rascal. However, he gets a hard time from white girlfriend Eve Hanlan, who has little faith in him landing a job at Tesco, despite getting an interview.

A week before he receives his sentence, Marcus joins Kurtis and Duggan's brother Marlon on a trip to the Farm. They visit Semone and she jokes about the fact that Duggan bought her flowers when he was trying to impress her. She misses him and worries about the effect that his death will have on their kids. Kamani has started listening to his father's music and Marcus is amused by how alike they are. Amponsah amplifies the similarity by showing footage of Duggan dancing in the kitchen at a party and everyone agrees he was a man of fun not fury.

Marcus bumps into his mother, Sheilah Ramdin, and plays with his toddler nephew through the bars of the stairs. She insists that her son was trying to control people during the riots rather than rabble-rouse, but her white partner offers practical advice about wearing flip-flops in the shower to avoid picking up diseases. That night, Marcus drives around the neighbourhood with Kurtis and regrets that he has wasted so much of his life on a cause that didn't deserve his loyalty. He sits more quietly in the backseat, as he is driven to court in September 2012 and a caption informs us that he pleaded guilty to four of the eight charges and was sent down for 32 months.

Kurtis is delighted by the leniency of the tariff, but his view of the law is quickly clouded when he has to go to Harrow police station to collect one of his pets, which has been confiscated under the Dangerous Dogs Act. He loses his temper when the muzzle snaps and the duty officer refuses to allow him to take Princess home. But he is sweetness and light when he returns with another muzzle and wonders why all coppers can't be as helpful. Back home, he shows Amponsah the 18th birthday cards he received in prison and swears he will never return. He jokes about coke smugglers being entrepreneurs rather than crooks and writes to Marcus urging him to keep his chin up. But, even the breezy Kurtis is stung by some of the comments Amponsah finds under online news stories about Duggan and he accuses the person who called his friend gun-running scum of being a bigot.

Following a delightful scene of Kurtis and Eve watching their two sons opening their Christmas presents, he accepts a tele-sales job in Norwich and has to commute 115 miles at weekends. Eve is resentful that he failed to find something closer to home, as she is having to cope with the boys on her own. But he feels very cut off and recognises the irony of his situation when he visits Marcus in Pentonville.

The Duggan family gathers at the cemetery to mark the second anniversary. One man tells Amponsah that the cops make no secret of their hatred for black men and Duggan's Aunt Carol reveals how Marlon is forever being harassed. They all agree that this will continue until they can find the Blakelock killer and feel it is unfair that successive generations of children have been victimised because of a 30 year-old crime. But the Farm remains an uncompromising place, as Kurtis discovers when he goes to a block party and decides to beat a hasty retreat when the enjoyment is shattered by gunshots and screams.

On 16 September 2013, a 12-week investigation into the Duggan shooting begins. An off-screen newsreader describes how the hard stop tactic of cornering a vehicle was employed because the suspect had a gun in a shoebox. Once again, the police claim to have fired in self-defence, but a witness who had recorded the stand-off on his phone insists that Duggan had made gestures that suggested he was trying to surrender. The hearing also learns that Duggan knew he was being tailed, as he texted a friend to warn him about a pursuing green van, while the gun in the sock is found to be a starting pistol devoid of DNA traces that could link it to Duggan.

Amponsah asks Kurtis what it would take for him to accept the police story and he gets cross because he knows they are covering for each other and would have made more of the gun being on Duggan's person if he had actually been threatening them with a real weapon. He attends a memorial protest in Ferry Lane and listens to Scott and Carol Duggan speaking about getting justice and answers.

A combination of captions and voiceovers reveals that Officer V53 testified on 13 October about why he fired and why he maintains that he saw a gun in Duggan's right hand, even though he has no idea as to why it suddenly disappeared. Kurtis is not impressed by the evidence. But he is having a tough time because Eve has moved out with the kids because she can no longer raise them alone. He wants to keep the job, however, and is pleased to learn that Marcus has passed an exam while inside and is being released on Christmas Eve. Kurtis and Sheilah go to collect Marcus and he asks for a kebab. He sits quietly on the journey home and braves a downpour to rush inside and play with his nephew.

During a probation session in January 2014, Marcus declares that TMD is not a gang in the police definition of the term and swears never to trust the force again unless they admit they made a mistake in killing Duggan. But the verdict delivered on 8 January finds 8-1 in favour of lawful killing, even though the jury concedes that Duggan might have had a phone rather than a weapon in his hand. In news footage, the family is shown shouting down a senior policeman outside the Royal Courts of Justice. Marcus is furious and decries the justice system. But Carol organises a peaceful march from the town hall to the police station to show her dignity and tears. Kurtis gives an interview to the press, in which he bemoans the fact that the finding means that anyone can reach into their pocket and produce any innocent item and be deemed a legitimate target for a police marksman.

Over the next few weeks, Marcus lingers on the periphery of the various meetings and protests, as he is no longer sure who they are supposed to be addressing, as those who returned the inquest verdict are never going to change their minds. Semone gets upset when her daughter mournfully pipes up that she wants to sleep with her daddy in Heaven. Moreover, Kamani has been suspended from school and Marcus explains that he has taken to boasting about his dad and refuses to listen to any advice because he now considers himself to be a rude boy.

Marcus starts mentoring at the Eastside Academy and shows Kamani videos of American kids who have wasted their lives, in the hope he will heed their warnings. Kurtis, meanwhile, has become as a park ranger and is back with Eve and the boys, who are now doing better at school. He isn't wild about having to clean toilets, but he enjoys being outdoors and the fact that he can work at his own pace.

Also keen to make a difference, Marcus meets with Mick Lees, an ex-copper who runs a youth initiative with the Metropolitan Police. He clearly feels uncomfortable and has to conquer his demons in order to shakes hands. But he realises that Lees talks sense and can help him devise a programme for keeping black lads out of trouble. Suitably impressed by his courage, Amponsah cites Leo Tolstoy: `Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody wants to change themselves.'

As the documentary ends, Marcus and Kurtis walks the streets at night and turn with a haunted look when they hear a siren nearby. A closing caption reveals that there have been over 1500 death in police custody since 1990, yet there hasn't been a single conviction for unlawful killing. It's a sobering statistic and one that shames the parties that have held power during that time. Amponsah knows there are no easy solutions and leaves his audience with the grim realisation that things may well get a lot worse before they start to improve, as the chasm defies any well-intentioned efforts at bridge building.

Opening with a Martin Luther King quotation about rioting being the language of the unheard, Amponsah can be forgiven for allowing his sympathies to show at various points during a potent, but never polemical study that was filmed over 28 months. Given the Hillsborough mindset exhibited by the Metropolitan Police in relation to the Duggan case, it's perhaps wise that its participation was not sought. But, even though he sets great store by the honesty of Marcus and Kurtis, Amponsah avoids propagandising in presenting some of the worst excesses of the aftermath alongside a challenge to the stereotypical depiction of urban black males in the media. Consequently, his humanist snapshot of a demonised community skirts accusations of institutionalised racism to focus on the efforts of ordinary people to make a life in often intolerable circumstances. He might have cast the net wider and spoken to some older black males and several more women (of all ages). But this plea for understanding and acceptance deserves to be widely seen.

Next up is a prodigal son's paean to the hometown he left long ago to pursue his career as a critic. Mark Cousins is now one of this country's most prolific film-makers and I Am Belfast is his most personal outing to date. Ironically, it's also his most self-effacing, as he cedes the spotlight to Helena Bereen, who plays the 10,000 year-old spirit of the Northern Irish capital visiting the sites that have shaped its split personality and tempestuous destiny. As ever, the narration sometimes becomes a tad purple and some of the more fanciful notions fall a little flat. But this thoughtful and affectionate snapshot proves that Cousins is capable of much more than the Selfie Cinema in which he frequently indulges.

People have lived in the Belfast area since the Bronze Age. Yet, since the Reformation, division has been the watchword of a community that Cousins reckons has always leaned towards the sweet or the salty sides of the local character. This explains the ease with which the populace branched off into Catholic and Protestant cabals and fought each other in a bitter sectarian civil war that was almost phlegmatically known as `The Troubles'. Evidence of the strife can still be seen, despite efforts to cover the cracks and scars with colourful partisan murals. The one commemorating the bombing of McGurk's Bar is particularly poignant and Cousins exposes the macho idiocy of the entrenched stances by introducing Rosie McKee and Maud Bell, who have been lifelong friends, despite coming from opposite sides of the struggle. Swearing like troopers, they pay homage to Elvis Presley while denigrating The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and joking that nobody could feud while listening to rock`n'roll.

Cousins tries to expand upon this theme by staging the funeral of the Last Bigot (Sean Perry), who rants from his coffin about how there is no guarantee that things will improve with his passing. It's a canny conceit, but it winds up becoming a cornball piece of agit-prop street theatre instead of taking a hard-hitting satirical swipe at those who persist in trying to smash the Peace Process. But pugnacity is in Belfast's psyche and Bereen is forced to shed a tear when bus driver Shane McCafferty asks his passengers if they mind him going back because Patricia Brook has left her shopping at the stop.

Transport also looms large in the city's legend and Cousins repeats the old joke about RMS Titanic being in one piece when it left the Harland & Wolff shipyard on 2 April 1912. He lingers with Bereen and cinematographer Christopher Doyle to capture the majesty of the giant cranes towering over the docks and uses the changing light and puddle reflections and David Holmes's evocative soundscape to celebrate the desolate beauty of a post-industrial sprawl that Nature is creepingly trying to claim back for itself.

As always, it's challenging to keep up with Cousins's restless stream of consciousness, as he speculates upon whether Charles Dickens ever followed the route that led three Scottish soldiers to their deaths on Squire's Hill and enthuses about his love of movies, which he demonstrates with eclectic extracts from Abel Gance's J'accuse (1919) and Jack Arnold's Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954). Yet, with its mix of the profound, the poignant and the platitudinous, the banter between Bereen and Cousins lacks the wry confidence and raconteurish naturalism of Guy Maddin's voiceover in My Winnipeg (2007) or the dyspeptic poetic affection of Terence Davies's Of Time and the City (2008).

Moreover, it lacks the stylistic sweep and political punch of Dziga-Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera (1929). But this exile's song compares favourably with the quirkily intelligent odysseys of Patrick Keiller, Grant Gee and Andrew Kötting and Iain Sinclair and reveals the extent to which Belfast remains imprinted on Cousins's heart and mind three decades after he flew its nest.

Sometimes a documentary does such a good job that it all-but renders subsequent inquiries into the same field obsolete. A case in point is David Sington's In the Shadow of the Moon (2007), which presented such a thorough and engaging account of the American space programme in the 1960s and 70s that it made the perfect companion to the 12-part HBO docudrama, From the Earth to the Moon (1998). Two-time Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan was played in the series by Daniel Hugh Kelly and Mark Craig marks the 50th anniversary of his first space flight in The Last Man on the Moon, an epic tale told in an intimate manner that captures the 82 year-old's tireless energy, as he tries to ensure the younger generation get to appreciate what it takes to have the right stuff.

Born in Chicago in 1934 to a Czech mother and a Slovak father, Gene Cernan became a naval aviator after graduating in electrical engineering and learned to trust himself and his colleagues while landing planes on aircraft carriers on the high seas. He was recruited by NASA in October 1963 and was selected as Thomas Stafford's back-up pilot on Gemini 9A in February 1966 when the original crew was killed in a plane crash. During the mission, Cernan performed a space walk, although problems with his umbilical cord meant that the task proved exceedingly gruelling.

However, Stoppard and Cernan proved such a good team that they were teamed with John Young on the Apollo 10 flight in May 1969 that was essential a dress rehearsal for the Moon landing that would be attempted two months later. Cernan and ex-wife Barbara reflect on the sense of camaraderie there was between the Apollo families, as they recall the loss felt by everyone when Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee perished inside Apollo 1 during a launch pad fire in February 1967. But Cernan admits that work had to come first and he regrets seeing so little of his daughter, Teresa, whom he visits on her ranch to talk about old times.

Taking huge pride in the fact that his good friend Neil Armstrong became the first man on the lunar surface, Cernan was convinced his own opportunity had passed him by when he rejected a spot on Apollo 16 because he wanted to command his own mission. He was as surprised as anyone, therefore, when a potentially fatal helicopter crash seemed to have cost him his chance. An argument about the addition of geologist Harrison Schmitt to the crew further seemed to have undermined Cernan's case. But, much to the annoyance of Dick Gordon (who still clearly resents missing out), Cernan was teamed with Schmitt and Ronald Evans to fly Apollo 17.

As the footage shows, Cernan and Schmitt got to explore the Taurus-Littrow valley in the Lunar Rover before Cernan left the final footprint on 14 December 1972. Four years later, he retired from both NASA and the US Navy and started up his own business. Married to his second wife, Jan, he remains an enthusiastic ambassador for manned space flight and delights in meeting the public to fire the imagination of young and old alike. He delivered the eulogy at Armstrong's funeral in August 2012 and continues to hope that he has done his bit towards forging `man's destiny of tomorrow'.

Coming across as an intense and serious man, Cernan is grateful for his good fortune. Having tamed his sizeable ego, he retains an unassumingly masculine modesty and knows how to handle an anecdote, whether he is discussing Apollo 10's 24,791mph return to the Earth's atmosphere or his 73 hours on the lunar surface. He is ably abetted by Craig's choice of archive material (although scenes set in rodeo arenas and beside nocturnal barbecues feel a bit corny), which has been deftly spruced up by visual effects supervisor Penny Holton and sound designer Nick Adams. Lorne Balfe's score is another plus point, although those of a certain age can never hear mention of NASA without thinking of Richard Strauss's `Also Sprach Zarathustra'.

The scene switches to the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota for Jack Pettibone Riccobono's first documentary feature, The Seventh Fire, which explores how deeply rooted the gang mentality has become among Native American males who feel marginalised by a society too wrapped up in the present to remember the debts it owes to the past. `Presented' by Terrence Malick and executive produced by Natalie Portman and Chris Eyre (whose 1998 drama, Smoke Signals, was the first US feature to use an entirely indigenous cast and crew), this is a gruelling study of lives that have been shaped by prejudice, poverty, machismo, drink, drugs and violence. However, Riccobono struggles to remain focused on the Seven Fires Prophecy that avers that the youth of the Ojibwe nation will rally to the cause of their declining culture by restoring its traditional values.

As it becomes clear when he reads an extract from his rap sheet, thirtysomething Native American Rob Brown has had a tough time. Many of his problems are of his own making and he is about to pay for them with his fifth prison sentence (amounting to 12 years behind bars). But life in the Pine Point community is far from easy and the lack of opportunity and respect drives many young men into the gangs they have witnessed in movies like Brian De Palma's Scarface (1983). A poster of Al Pacino in the title role is visible on the wall as Brown reflects on the mistakes from which he hopes that 17 year-old protégé Kevin Fineday will learn.

Fineday idolises Brown and, as a consequence, has little time for his own father, Kevin Fineday, Sr., who is trying to make an honest living. Instead, he makes some pocket money flogging weed, pills and crystal meth to the white middle-class friends of his girlfriend, Jonni R. Camilli, who lives in the nearby town of Park Rapids. He joins her to watch the annual 4th July parade and gets chatting with patriots who are oblivious to Fineday's from the values they cherish. Brown tries to warn him against seeing prison as an occupational hazard. But, with Brown about to start a 57-month stretch, Fineday is in no mood to listen, as he fancies himself as an increasingly important playa.

Back in P-Town, Riccobono and co-cinematographer Shane Omar Slattery-Quintanilla mooch around the rubbish-filled streets. Bonfires burn here and there and there is a sense of a shanty settlement inexorably turning into a ghost town. Yet, there are reasons to be optimistic. Brown dotes on his young daughter, Persephone, and even starts to write poetry to organise his hopes for her future. He also appears to have found a good woman in Kristine Warren, who becomes pregnant within weeks of meeting him. She has few illusions about his drinking and womanising and there is a discomfiting sequence involving a slanging match after he succumbs to temptation at a drunken party. But the joy with which she gives birth contrasts starkly with Camilli's no-nonsense pragmatism when she dumps Fineday (for messing up some drug deals) soon after she has an abortion because he has become too controlling and unpredictable.

It comes as little surprise, therefore, when Fineday is busted and sent to rehab before being detained. Brown despairs of him and the breakdown in their relationship seems to condemn Fineday, even though his father refuses to abandon him. But Riccobono relates this part of the story rather clumsily and it isn't entirely clear what fate awaits Fineday and whether he will be allowed to return to P-Town to try again.

Indeed, the opening third of this sincere, but often meandering survey suffers from a similar lack of clarity and purpose. This is perhaps because Riccobono stumbled across the Ojibwe in 2004 while researching a film on wild rice entitled, The Sacred Food. Yet, while filming over three years, he and Slattery-Quintanilla do capture the atmosphere of their environs deftly enough (indeed, some of their footage was filmed on cameras loaned to the residents). But, by opting for a Direct Cinema approach, they often find themselves recording insights and incidents bereft of an acuity to match their authenticity. Moreover, neither Brown not Fineday are particularly forthcoming in front of the camera, as though some sort of deal had been struck to keep certain background details about the older man's life off screen (even though they appear in the press pack).

Nicholas Britell contributes a mournful score that has the same poignancy as Brown's verses. But, for all the Malickian lyricism, it's the eruptions of temper and aggression that leave the deepest impression and come much closer to revealing the bitter reality of being trapped in a backwater on which the rest of the country long turned its back.

Much has been made of Michael Moore's Where to Invade Next concluding with a covert endorsement of Hillary Clinton's presidential bid. But those in charge of the Remain campaign should also have taken note of Moore's first documentary since Capitalism: A Love Story (2009), as it spends much of its two-hour running time extolling the social, political and economic virtues of Europe and warning of the perils of becoming the 51st State. Even the most committed Brexiteer might be tempted to give pause for thought, as Moore crosses the continent seeking ideas to help the United States off its knees. But, as the portly provocateur freely admits, he is only interested in gathering roses rather than weeds and, consequently, this fails to provide any cogent context for the various homemade concepts that generations of Americans have chosen to discard over the last few decades.

Following an unfunny photo montage of the US Chiefs of Staff appealing to Michael Moore for help because they have lost every war since WWII, the documentary begins with the ironic juxtaposition of presidential sound bites with images of the grim reality of living in modern America. In a bid to find ways of healing the nation's self-inflicted wounds, Moore (whose resemblance to Family Guy's Peter Griffin is more pronounced than ever) decides to invade an array of friendly countries in the hope of drawing some ideological inspiration.

His first destination is Italy, where he claims everyone looks as though they have just had sex. He meets cop Johnny Fanchelli and his clothes buyer wife Christina and feigns astonishment as they tell him how many weeks paid holiday they receive each year. His jaw extends further across the floor when they reveal the secret of the 13th salary and garment factory owners Lorena, Luigi and Annarita Lardini concur with Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali in confirming that it makes sound economic sense to reward workers with two-hour lunch breaks, generous maternity leave and other perks, as they continue to make profits while keeping their employees motivated and loyal. Union official Salvatore Bernaducci muddies the water by stating that the bosses fought tooth and claw before making concessions, but Moore has heard enough and joins the Fanchellis in being appalled that the only two countries without paid maternity leave are Papua New Guinea and the USA.

Gushing about how the Italians have linked sex and relaxation to productivity, Moore flies to France and uses a clip of Sacha Baron Cohen, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in Adam McKay's Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) to show how several good ideas have already come from France (although two of the three cited actually have their origins in Greece and Egypt). Unable to resist a cheap jibe about encountering little opposition as he invades a provincial village, Moore marvels at the gourmet food being served in the school canteen and contrasts it with snaps of the slop on offer at the Boston school of a crewmate's daughter. Deputy mayor Valérie Rano explains that mealtimes offer life lessons on nutrition and the benefits of using the best ingredients and Moore is surprised by the amount of pre-planning that goes into menus. He joins some children at a table and fails to tempt them into drinking Coke instead of water. They recoil at the images he shows them of American school cuisine and this sets him thinking about the amount of tax dollars that Washington spends on the military when it could be funding better food, health provision and day care facilities. Reasoning that the French are better lovers than fighters, Moore compares their record on teenage pregnancy and STDs and denounces the mulish American belief in abstinence when the statistics demonstrate that it clearly doesn't work.

Somewhat dubiously claiming to have taken a train to his next destination, Moore fetches up in Finland to declare that there is more to this crazy country than air guitar, mobile phone tossing and wife carrying championships. Indeed, the Finns have the best education system in the world and education minister Krista Kiuru and school principal Pasi Majasaari put this down to jettisoning homework to allow students the time to enjoy being young. First grade teacher Anna Hart and principal Leena Liusvaara also set great store by limiting primary classes to 20 hours a week, as fresh minds retain more than those fighting off the boredom of a more extensive timetable. Former exchange student Arttu Taipale mocks the US use of multiple choice examinations, while those attending a PTA meeting call for the abolition of standard testing, as kids develop in different ways and should be valued for what they can achieve not by how well they conform.

Moore explains that there are no private schools in Finland and that affluent parents take it upon themselves to ensure high standards in neighbourhood schools to benefit pupils from all backgrounds. Meaghan Smith reveals that she quit the US system because she could no longer lie to inner-city kids that they had the potential to be whatever they wanted to be and Moore laments that profit has come to dominate American education. However, he is intrigued to learn from expert Pasi Sahlberg that many of the ideas used to reform Finnish schooling emanated from the United States and he urges Moore to take them back and do all he can to implement them.

Heading south, Moore lands in the fairytale realm of Slovenia. He notes that a sizeable proportion of its mail is sent to Slovakia by mistake before disclosing that it is one of only 22 nations to provide free tertiary education. At Ljubljana University, graduate Matej Zebovec insists he has no idea what student debt is and American transfers Sean Nolimal, Leeana Whirl and Jenny Tumas rejoice that they have been able to complete their studies in a country where a small group of students brought down the government that tried to introduce tuition fees. Chancellor Ivan Svetlik boasts that the university has 100 courses in English, while Slovenian president Borut Pahor urges Moore to return home and campaign for free college education. However, he suspects that American students wouldn't have the stomach for the fight.

Touching down in Germany, Moore announces that he is going in search of a thriving middle class and finds it at the Faber-Castell pencil factory in Nuremberg. He meets CEO Rolf Schifferens and cheerful staff who only have to work 36 hours a week in their clean, light factory. Amazingly, anyone who feels stressed can apply to their doctor for a three-week stay in a spa and Moore learns from some women taking advantage of the amenities that prevention is often cheaper than a cure. Businessman Thomas Sattelberger confirms that the workforce has it good in Germany, as employees make up half of every company board. Faber-Castell personnel manager Ralf Heyen affirms that worker suggestions are often taken onboard, while Sattelberger reveals that it is illegal to contact staff out of hours so that they can recharge their batteries without external pressure.

Over a clip of a Nazi rally in the city from Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1935), Moore reminds the audience that Nuremberg wasn't always such an accommodating place and he carries this thought to a local school, where children are being shown a suitcase belonging to a man condemned to the camps. They are asked to consider what items they would put in their own `fleeing case' and students Ole Niethammer, Annika Schmidt and Sami Ahmed confide that it's their duty to learn from the past to repeat making the same mistakes and Moore uses shots of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin and some stolperstein pavement stones to applaud Germany for taking responsibility for its darker days. He wonders how Americans might appropriate an art initiative restoring 1930s anti-Semitic street signs to atone for the First Nation genocide. But the fact that the United States didn't have a slavery museum until 2015 means he won't be holding his breath.

Portugal played a major part in bringing slavery to the New World, but Moore arrives in Lisbon to discuss the decriminalisation of drugs. Cops Nelson Ribeiro and Rui Marta approve of legislation that made it legal to possess and use drugs and Dr Nuno Capaz from the Ministry of Health confirms that there hasn't been a drug-related arrest for 15 years. He concedes that drugs can still ruin lives, but no more than other factors like Facebook. Moore, however, has a theory on why such a policy would never gain support Stateside, as he believes the so-called War on Drugs was launched by Richard Nixon to counter the growing influence of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in the 1960s. He draws attention to the fact 35 states withhold voting rights from convicted felons in a bid to neutralise them as a political force. But, even more damningly, Moore lists the companies who use cheap prison labour and brands them 21st-century slavers.

Ribeiro and Marta ask if they can appeal to their American counterparts to ditch the death penalty and Moore is deeply moved by their insistence that law enforcement officers have a duty to respect the dignity of people in their custody. But, as the intercut cell phone and CCTV footage of uniformed brutality suggests, this is not always the case in the United States.

Bearing this in mind, Moore makes for Bastoy Prison in Norway, where offenders are taught to be good neighbours. He is shown around the plush cabin living quarters with a sea view and jokes with a killer about the knives at his disposal in the kitchen. When warden Tom Eberhardt says the only restriction imposed on the prisoners is the loss of their liberty, Moore looks askance, especially as only four men are required to guard 115 inmates. But Eberhardt assures him that the US Constitution similarly rails against `unusual punishment' and Moore is left to wonder why recidivism rates in Norway are 20% and 80% back home.

He suddenly realises that he has been visiting an open prison and journeys to the maximum security facility at Halden expecting to find a much tougher regime. But he is quickly disabused by the fact the staff sing `We Are the World' in the orientation video and the hardened criminals wheeled out to meet him insist there is no block violence because everyone is kept busy with sports, the library and their chores. Some even cut tracks for the Criminal Records label run by Jens Christian Syverstad, who insists that negative energy gets channelled into creativity.

Once again, Moore flashes up the brutal reality of life inside American prisons, where revenge matters more than rehabilitation. Plumber Trond Blattmann doesn't believe in such methods, even though his 17 year-old son Torjus was killed by Anders Breivik in 2011. He is pleased Norway has maximum 21-year sentence and believes the correctional approach to incarceration contributes to the low murder rate.

At this juncture, Moore realises he has been focusing exclusively on Europe (although there is not a single mention of Britain) and ponders extolling Iran's commitment to stem cell research, Brazil's decision to enfranchise 16 year olds and Rwanda's achievement in having a majority of women in parliament. But he opts for Tunisia, where Dr Rim Ben Aissa reveals that this Muslim country has free, government-funded clinics devoted to women's health. It also offers free abortions and Moore avers that once woman gained control over their bodies, it was only natural that they would want to control their lives, too. Consequently, they played a significant role in deposing dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in despair at being unable to find a better job.

Radio journalist Amel Smaoui is proud of the fact that her baby was born in freedom. She was on duty when a colleague witnessed the death of his brother during a street demonstration and lifted the ban on covering the uprising. Moore applauds Tunisian women for standing up to the Islamists who tried to steal their revolution and even tips his baseball cap at Rached Ghannouchi, the Ennahda leader who pushed through laws enshrining women's rights in the constitution and offered to stand down to ensure fair elections under the new terms. He admits to making his wife wear a veil and would rather than homosexuality remained a private matter. But he insists that a government's duty is to avoid conflict and bloodshed and not lecture people on morality. Smaoui says more Americans would know this if they weren't so insular and complacent and she urges viewers to use the Internet to learn about other cultures and reach informed judgements not those fed to them by vested media interests.

Moore recalls the fact that three states failed to ratify a bid to incorporate women's rights in the US Constitution in the mid-1970s. But, on 24 October 1975, Icelandic single mother Vigdís Finnbogadottír became the world's first democratically elected female president and she looks back with pride on her achievement. So do three unnamed CEOs, who join Moore on a golf course before agreeing to a more formal drawing-room interview. They explain how no board in Iceland can have a gender bias greater than 60% and Vilma Tómasdottír, the former Head of the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce, wonders whether this might have saved the banks when they collapsed in 2008.

Her Audur Capital company was the only bank not to fail and, following a CBS news report about 40 men bringing the economy to its knees, Moore meets comedian Jón Gnarr, who founded The Best Party and won a landslide when he stood for election as mayor of Reykjavik. His victory provided the impetus to charge the men who had nearly bankrupted the country and Moore takes great delight in revealing that they were sent to a remote island jail. He notes that only Kareem Serageldin has been prosecuted in the United States and wonders if it is a coincidence that he has a Muslim-sounding name.

Moore is granted an audience with Ólafur Thor Hauksson, the special prosecutor who nailed the bankers, and takes the opportunity to hand him files on the guilty men of Wall Street. He is surprised to hear that Hauksson sought the advice of Bill Black (who made his name during the 1980s savings and loan crisis), but the CEO trio caution against giving men the reins, as they think in more individualist terms than women. Following a series of close-ups of female faces, Finnbogadottír declares that women will save the world with words not war, while one of the CEOs shocks Moore by saying she wouldn't live in America for all the money in the world because it has no idea how to treat its own people.

Coming to the end of his odyssey, Moore meets Michigan buddy Rod Birleson to reminisce about being in Berlin in November 1989 when activists started chiselling away at the Wall. They recall how this structure had a terrifying Cold War permanence. But it was breached in a matter of days and Moore can't see any reason why other seismic reforms can't be enacted with similar speed. As they stroll, Moore realises that the majority of the good ideas that have made him feel more optimistic about the fate of the planet were first hatched in the United States and it dismays him that he has had to invade other countries with his Stars and Stripes to reclaim notions that slipped through the cracks. Over a clip from Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (1939) of the Good Witch of the North telling Dorothy that she could have returned home at any time, Moore invites the audience to come back to Kansas with him - although he signs off more bullishly after the credits with a closing rallying cry of `Hammer. Chisel. Down.', over a shot of the Confederate flag being hauled down.

It's far too easy to pick holes in this trademark tirade against the failings of the United States. Moore has spent his career highlighting injustice and mocking the pompous. He has pricked the country's conscience on a number of occasions, most notably with Bowling for Columbine (2002) and Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), which respectively examined gun control and the links between the Bush clan and Osama Bin Laden. But he can also miss relatively easy targets and Sicko (2007) and Capitalism: A Love Story dented his reputation. As a result, he is markedly less snarky and pranksterish in this highly selective survey of how things are done (better) elsewhere. But, by reining himself in, Moore blunts his edge and his obsequious acceptance of the facts and figures presented by his foreign hosts will disappoint those expecting a degree of satirical irreverence.

Indeed, there are times when this feels like one of those earnest, but lightweight exposés that tame celebrities present on BBC3 to appeal to the yoof demographic. Moore's sincerity is never in doubt, but this is all too easy for him and the lack of incisive comment will frustrate those hoping for something more perceptive and trenchant and less blinkered and naive.

It's fascinating to compare Louise Osmond's documentary, Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach, with the director's appearance on Desert Island Discs in 1999. Having followed a similar route from television to features, Osmond (who was born in the Radcliffe Infirmary and was educated next door at Somerville College) is clearly a fan and allows the softly spoken, but remorseless and unforgiving Loach to justify his choices without inquisition. Sue Lawley, on the other hand, seemed less in awe and pushed Loach on a number of topics that he deemed unsuitable for public discussion. Intriguingly, several of these issues are raised in an overview that provides a useful introduction to the man, his work and his causes. However, there are glaring omissions here (particularly in relation to the political causes that Loach espouses), while the involvement of his own Sixteen Films company and the absence of dissenting voices makes this feel like an authorised version of events. Moreover, the failure to provide any critical analysis of Loach's artistic achievement and relative lack of commercial success in his homeland reinforces the impression that this is an 80th birthday present from the BBC and the BFI rather than a rigorous treatise on this country's most divisive film-maker.

Avoiding a chronological approach, Osmond flits between scenes of Loach preparing his latest feature, I, Daniel Blake, and his intimate reminiscences of a career that would probably surprise the Nuneaton grammar school boy whose father was a Daily Express-reading factory foreman. Loach himself seems a little unsure how he became a socialist firebrand and is content to allow longtime collaborator Tony Garnett to take the credit for changing his worldview during their time at the BBC. He is certain, however, that his ambition to become an actor was woefully misguided and wife Lesley pointedly suggests that he was precisely the kind of performer he would never employ because his intellect always kicked on stage in a split second before his instinct.

Loach and Lesley met while he was playing Brer Fox after he had given up all thought of following in the footsteps of `Great Defender' Edward Marshall Hall after reading law at St Peter's Hall, Oxford. But he realised while understudying Kenneth Williams in the 1961 revue, One Over the Eight, that he was not cut out to be an actor and found his way into television after a stint as an assistant director at the Northampton Repertory Theatre. Following a brief training course at the BBC, Loach found himself directing live episodes of Z Cars before finding his niche with socially conscious dramas for The Wednesday Play.

Actor-turned-producer Tony Garnett carries much of the story in this segment, which skirts over the stylistic experimentation that characterised their earliest outings and dives straight into the two dramas that forged Loach's reputation for uncompromising social realism. Scripted by Nell Dunn from her own novel, `Up the Junction' (1965) explored the extent to which attitudes to women were actually changing in the Swinging Sixties and Loach followed this sombre snapshot of South London life with `Cathy Come Home', an exposé of homelessness and the care system that was watched by an audience of 12 million when it aired in 1966.

Such was the impact of these powerful plays that Loach was able to make his feature bow with Poor Cow (1967), another Dunn adaptation that reunited Loach with Carol White, who had touched the nation as the mother whose children were taken from her by social services on a railway station platform. The film did respectably, but Loach returned to the BBC for such exceptional offerings as `The Golden Vision' (1968), which scarcely merits a mention. Understandably, more time is devoted to Kes (1969), a reworking of Barry Hines's novel, A Kestrel for a Knave, that many believe remains Loach's crowning achievement. Looking back on his experiences as a child actor in the story of a neglected teen who takes solace in training a kestrel, David Bradley has nothing but praise for Loach and his working methods. But Osmond fails to delve deeper and explore the influence of Bertolt Brech, Italian neo-realism and the Czech New Wave on Loach's preference for casting non-professional performers and shooting in sequence with a degree of improvisation.

Instead, she touches on the tragedy that he refused to discuss on Desert Island Discs. In May 1971, Loach was driving on the M1 when a car lost a wheel and shunted his vehicle into a bridge support. Lesley's grandmother and their five year-old son died in the crash and he poignantly reveals that still feels like he has a stone in his stomach. Loach didn't work for a year after the trauma and had to survive on television commissions as the state of the British film industry meant that he couldn't raise funding for features between Family Life (1971) and Black Jack (1979).

Teaming with writers like Jim Allen, Loach did some of his best work during this period, including Days of Hope (1975), a four-part people's history of the decade leading up to the 1926 General Strike. He also takes pride in defying the Establishment in making `The Big Flame' (1969), about a strike on the Liverpool docks, and `The Rank and File' (1971), about a dispute at a glass factory. Indeed, Loach was becoming a professional subversive and Osmond recalls his refusal to soft soap in making a documentary for the Save the Children Fund in 1969 that so offended the charity with its depiction of its work in Essex and Kenya that the film was shelved and only received its premiere in 2011. But Osmond is content to reel off the titles without subjecting them to any scrutiny and, whenever she does explore a controversy in any detail, she is always scrupulous in giving Loach the last word.

Loach has admitted elsewhere that he lost his way during the 1970s and it took him a while to respond to storm that was brewing between Margaret Thatcher's government and the trade unions. However, he began rattling cages with television documentaries like A Question of Leadership (1981) and Questions of Leadership (1982) that so outraged the union leaders under attack that strings were pulled behind the scenes to have them sabotaged. Very much a staunch believer in his own rectitude, Loach has nothing but contempt for those who cravenly buckled under pressure. But Melvyn Bragg is accorded a right of reply in regard to Which Side Are You On?, the 1984 survey of songs and poems composed by striking miners that he rejected for The South Bank Show on the grounds that it was too political for an arts programme.

Amusingly, Loach's daughters Hannah and Emma reveal how they wrote letters of protest to Bragg after he sold the film to Channel 4 and Osmond rather misses a trick in not giving them and brothers Stephen and Jim more time to reflect on a father whose love of musicals suggests a certain campness. He might have said more about his passion for Warwickshire Cricket Club and Bath City FC. But Osmond opts to reveal the steel that has enabled Loach to remain true to his uncompromising vision by enlisting the help of Gabriel Byrne to damn Royal Court artistic director Max Stafford-Clark for his cowardice in cancelling Jim Allen's play, Perdition, just 36 hours before it was due to open in January 1987. Turning on a fictional libel trial, the action explored claims that the Nazis had conspired with Zionist leaders to allow some Hungarian Jews to relocate to Palestine and Loach has nothing but contempt for Stafford-Clark, who decided to abandon the production in the face of accusations of anti-Semitism.

Even on such an emotive issue, Osmond elects not to pry and she lets Loach off the hook when he confesses that he made commercials for Nestlé and McDonald's when times were tough in the early 1990s. He shrugs sheepishly at the camera in admitting that he has a bit of a cheek accusing others of betrayal when he harbours this dark secret. But Osmond sweeps us back on to the set of I, Daniel Blake to show that Loach's heart has always been in the right place in depicting the travails of the working class, the dispossessed and the marginalised, and critic Derek Malcolm and fellow director Alan Parker are among those wheeled out to concur.

Loach himself concedes that it has been a struggle being a small voice trying to make itself heard over the din and he isn't entirely sure it has all been worthwhile. But the assessment of his feature career is frustratingly superficial. Ricky Tomlinson recalls the fun everyone had making Riff-Raff (1991) and Raining Stones (1992), which combined hard-hitting social critique with robust humour and did much to restore Loach's flagging reputation. But, while Chrissy Rock thanks him for giving a stand-up comic a chance to play a mother buffeted by the system in Ladybird Ladybird (1994) and Loach recalls making the Spanish Civil War come alive for a new audience in Land and Freedom (1995), Osmond overlooks several less critically acclaimed titles. She also neglects to mention how Loach works with such regulars as screenwriter Paul Laverty and producer Rebecca O'Brien (who feature here) and stalwarts like cinematographer Barry Ackroyd and composer George Fenton (who don't). Given that Loach is not a believer in auteur theory, it seems invidious not to pay more attention to the team aspects of his pictures.

Nothing is made, either, of the fact that while Loach is regularly showered with awards by juries at Europe's major film festivals, he hasn't received a BAFTA nomination for Best Director since 1970 and has never once been cited for an Academy Award in his 52-year career. Indeed, before The Wind That Shakes the Barley took the Palme d'or in 2006, Loach had not won any of the major festival prizes. This account of the Irish Civil War caused considerable controversy, with Loach being accused by Daily Telegraph columnist Simon Heffer of being a rabid Marxist who hated his country. But, while Loach is permitted to laugh off such jaundiced invective, the discussion goes no deeper than actor Cillian Murphy's reminiscences of working with an icon.

Hayley Squires says much the same thing when asked about I, Daniel Blake, which recently earned Loach a second Palme d'or. But the critical consensus is that Loach has succumbed to schematicism and didacticism in recent years, with Stephen Dalton shrewdly comparing him to Woody Allen in his review of Versus in The Hollywood Reporter. More time should have been devoted to his feature career, even though Osmond is right to linger on the small-screen triumphs and altercations. It might also have been nice had Garnett and Loach's family been given more time to muse about his love of 18th-century architecture and his dislike of the telephone and emails. Notwithstanding the shortage of aesthetic evaluation, one should be realistic in commending Osmond for coaxing so much out of such an intensely private man and for reminding domestic audiences that they have rather taken Loach for granted as the conscience of British cinema. But he is much more complex, ruthless and furious than this understandably admiring salute is prepared to concede.

Documentarists Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato are no strangers to controversy, having made the Linda Lovelace study, Inside Deep Throat, in 2005. A decade on, they tackle an even more provocative topic in Mapplethorpe: Look At the Pictures, which examines the life and legacy of Robert Mapplethorpe, the photographer who took on the American establishment during his brief career and continued to taunt it from beyond the grave. However, in celebrating Mapplethorpe's pugnacity in advocating the causes of gay rights and freedom of expression, Bailey and Barbato avoid an in-depth analysis of his artistic talent. Consequently, while this works well enough as a biography, it is too loaded to provide much useful critical insight.

Born in Floral Park, New York in November 1946, Robert Mapplethorpe was raised a Catholic and studied graphic art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn before dropping out. Between 1967-72, he dated singer Patti Smith and worked on several joint projects while exploring his options as a painter or collage maker. Smith's absence here is telling, although her side of the story has already been covered in James Crump's Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe (2007) and Steven Sebring's Patti Smith: Dream of Life (2008).

In the late 1960s, Mapplethorpe turned to photography. At the time, it was very much the poor relation among the visual arts, but he took inspiration from the likes of George Dureau and was soon producing delicately observed floral still lifes and nude studies that emphasised the statuesque nature of the human body. By now, Mapplethorpe had embraced his homosexuality and his hedonism brought him into contact with art curator Sam Wagstaff, who not only became his lover, but also his patron. Installing him in a studio on West 23rd Street, Wagstaff gave Mapplethorpe the freedom to start experimenting with subject matter and the graphic gay erotica he produced led to accusations of obscenity.

This willingness to shock attracted some of the biggest names in show business, who posed for monochrome portraits that brought Mapplethorpe a new audience. He also took a risk in fetishising the physique of the African-American male. But it was his bolder pictures for which he is best remembered and Bailey and Barbato recall the furore that erupted when the posthumous self-curated exhibition, 'The Perfect Moment', went on display in Washington. Indeed, their film takes its subtitle from the rage-filled denunciation spluttered by Jesse Helms on the floor of the US Senate in 1989, as he sought to have the BDSM imagery banned.

The self-portrait with a bullwhip up Mapplethorpe's anus is the most infamous of these snaps, but the co-directors are less interested in the debate on censorship that it sparked than on lauding his achievement to get photography taken seriously as a gay man (and, eventually, as an AIDS sufferer). They are enthusiastically supported by Paul Martineau and Britt Salvesen, the respective curators of Mapplethorpe exhibitions at the J. Paul Getty Museum and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, who examine the Portfolio X work in forensic, but gushingly admiring detail. Portrait sitters Deborah Harry and Brooke Shields are every bit as effusive, as are models David Croland and Robert Sherman, porn actor Peter Berlin, artist Sandy Daley, ex-lover Marcus Leatherdale and writers Bob Colacello, Jack Fritscher and Fran Lebowitz.

The last confesses that she threw away some prints that the aspiring Mapplethorpe had given her and her more guarded appreciation is echoed in the reminiscences of Edward Maxey, the younger brother who was forced to adopt a pseudonym to emerge from Robert's photographic shadow. However, Mapplethorpe tends towards the self-depracatory in the audio interview clips that Bailey and Barbato have unearthed - although these are never as revealing as, say, the ones at the core of Stevan Riley's Listen to Me Marlon or Lisa Immordino Vreeland's Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict.

Mapplethorpe died at the age of 42 and his work continues to divide critics. But there's no room for negativity in this fulsome homage, which entertains and informs, albeit from a limited perspective. The makers acknowledge that Mapplethorpe used photography as a means of achieving fame and steer a careful course through his chequered sex life. He once conceded that tended to select his subjects from those he was sleeping with, but this is more an attempt to fathom the man from the images rather than a kiss-and-tell exposé. Not everyone will appreciate the content of the 13 X pictures, but this should still spark the debate about the merits of his `genius' that Bailey and Barbato simply refused to have.