Parky at the Pictures (DVD 24/11/2016)

As explosions rip through a mining region and sound of throat singing can be heard on the soundtrack, a caption quotes Dante describing how God creating the Behemoth on the fifth day and how the largest monster on Earth was so ravenous that a thousand mountains were sacrificed to feed it. In voiceover, a latterday Dante explains how the detonations woke him from a dream and he found himself on the edge of a precipice in a desolate wilderness. He laments that nothing flourishes any longer in a landscape whose streams have long dried up and been replaced by silence. A naked man is seen cowering against the horizon, while a miner with a large mirror on his back clambers over the rocks. The Voice asks the stranger to be his guide and they set off together to explore a country that has changed beyond all recognition in a dismayingly short space of time.

A swift cut shifts the scene to the Mongolian steppe, as a horseman gallops across the verdant plain. Having been watered, his flock of sheep spread across the fields to graze and a small boy trips in the lush grass as he follows the animals. A yurt stands proudly under a lowering sky. But another abrupt cut returns the focus to the Mirrorman, as the Voice informs us that the monster sends in machinery to do its dirty work. The trucks and diggers excavating the scenery seem dwarfed, but, as a man in a protective mask sits impassively in the cab of a mobile drilling rig, it is clear that they are inexorably cutting the mountain down to size.

Other machines belch out dust and pollution throughout the night and, as morning comes, one of the drivers logs off and returns to the rickety hut that serves as a dormitory and he clambers into his bunk to grab some sleep after a simple supper. By contrast, a colleague washes in a small bowl by the door before heading out on the day shift. A lift descends into the bowels of the earth with a single flashlight trained on the wall, as it plunges down three levels to where a train trundles along a track to take the crew even further underground. As one miner walks along, his boots slosh in water and the hiss of distant equipment can be heard before a sudden explosion causes him to turn and cower. Shrugging nonchalantly, he walks on and the camera fixes on a man operating a water drill on the seam.

Far away from the heat and perils of the coalface, sheep run on a scrappy piece of greenery. An industrial chimney stack can be seen in the distance and the camera pans left to follow the dust trail of lorries driving across what is now a decimated wilderness of blacks and greys. Descending to a larger patch of pasture, the camera looks on as the sheep scurry down the sides of a vast slagheap under the watchful gaze of a shepherd on a white horse. Above the grazing animals bleating happily, a row of dumper trucks empty their loads to increase the size of a heap that it will eventually submerge the vital grassland.

Over a shot from the base of the slagheap, with some livestock visible in the distance, the Voice opines that life's greatest sorrow is to live with desire but without hope and that there is nothing worse than recalling times of joy in the midst of misery. As a gang arrives on a tractor to mine the slagheap for coal in the dead of night, the Voice declares that none of the gold glinting in the moonlight has brought solace to those who toiled to uncover it. As dawn breaks, several gangs can be seen loading their little flatbeds and, by first light, women appear to help out the men working in tandem, so that one loosens the slag for the other to shovel it on to a trailer. They work quickly and silently, and seem oblivious to the fact that their illegal activity is being filmed.

Several faces look into the lens in defiant close-up and the Voice reveals that the degree to which the workers become caked with dust depends not upon their efforts, but on the speed of the wind. The camera watches from the side of the road as several tractors bounce along empty at the end of the night. One is filmed with a huge lorry up its bumper, as if to emphasise the difference in the scale of their operation. A woman washes her face with a cloth in front of a mirror to remove the coal dust. Another helps her wiry, but muscular husband clean his back. He goes outside to water down his precious potted palm with a hose pipe. Another man sits as his wife chops the vegetables for their supper and they slurp in silence from their soup bowls.

Elsewhere, young parents feed their son at a low table on what looks like a strip of garden. But a change of angle reveals that they live in a yurt and that their flock is grazing in the distance, with another slagheap in the background and the sound of trucks rattling infernally in the distance. The boy plays naked in the dust, as a child would play in the sand at the beach, while his mother tends to the flock.

A curious use of digital fault lines breaks up the vista to reinforce the notion that the landscape is being dislocated and an ancient way of life is being destroyed in the process. The trucks are shown moving in the distance, while the naked man adopts a foetal position in the mid-range, as the Voice complains that while his ancestors once sang in sweet air and sunshine, he now grieves for the shattered earth.

The camera looks up from the base of a slagheap as yet another truck unloads and sends up a plume of dust. Mirrorman watches, as if trying to gauge the height of this man-made monstrosity. A tree clings to the side of the rock with grim determination, as the dust billows in its bid to obliterate Nature. The camera pulls back to a long shot showing a mound resembling a beast with dust and smoke clearing around it, as though something was erupting out of the soil to lay the Earth to waste.

Mirrorman leads the Voice through the rocks, where a Buddha head sits in inglorious isolation in the middle of nowhere. The Voice relates the legend that the mine owner had a dream in which the mountain god blamed him for destroying his habitat and he built the Buddha in panic to atone. A man walks past carrying a potted palm and he stops to look at the blasted horizon. An explosion in the distance triggers a droning accompaniment to the sound of a Chinese fiddle, as the camera surveys a gouged landscape that looks post-apocalyptic in its utter desolation. The trucks and the odd building seen from afar look tiny against this vast expanse of industrial vandalism.

As a snake slides across the blackened soil, the Voice proclaims that wherever men are uprooted and wealth accumulates, the monster will appear like this serpentine tempter from Eden. Before the import of his words can be digested, a sudden cut alights upon a shepherd riding with his staff and holding a lamb. The camera reframes to a swathe of wilderness, as a woman leads a child, a man carrying a TV, two fellows lugging a trunk and a chap wheeling a motorbike. Who they are, where they are going and what they symbolise is not made clear. The ridges of the excavated mountain lie behind them and when the camera repositions again, there is another loud explosion as another parcel of land is blown apart.

A dissolve shifts the scene to an industrial plant whose chimney stacks and cooling towers are almost obliterated by smog. The ground is waterlogged and the site feels godforsaken as the camera pans as though it has stumbled into the outer reaches of Hell. A thrumming guitar riff accompanies a travelling shot with past a long line of coal trucks parked bumper to bumper on the road. Another shot passes under the enormous iron pipes that link the various parts of the sprawling structure. A cut to a patch of blue sky reveals a streak of orange flame flashing across it, like a dragon's breath.

The light seems bright against the dark heavens before the screen reds out and the solid block of livid colour dissolves to show the scorching heat of the furnaces. Rivulets of molten metal glow through the thick smoke and, as the music has becomes thrummingly more percussive and insistent, the irresistible impression is that the Voice has arrived in Hell. Men in hard hats and welding masks prod and scrape the surface of the molten river with long poles (some with rakes, dampers or scoops on the end), as the cacophonous sound of screeching machinery grinds unendingly in the background. They sweat profusely and take every chance to swig water or open their jackets. No explanation is given as to what they are doing, but it looks arduous and monotonous and resembles medieval paintings of the damned stoking the fires of the Inferno.

Over close-ups of the eyes and faces of labourers dripping with sweat and old before their time, the Voice declares that their features look as if they had been baked by molten iron and he concedes that he has no idea how they might have looked before. Filmed through a doorway so he resembles a figure in a Vermeer painting, one man washes in a bare room and picks at his calloused hands to remove ingrained dirt and bits of hard skin.

Having been through this hellhole of scalding flame, the Voice feels drawn back to the coal sorters and sees a man return from his shift to be greeted by his limping wife. He works on his tractor, while she bathes a swollen leg with hot water. Neither say much. There's no point.

The screen greys out and dissolves slowly back to show a tiny white hut on a road beside a vast complex. The image clears as two lorries lumber along the pocked road and the dust they throw up makes the scene disappear again. Along the paved highway, a man in an orange hi-vis jacket valiantly sweeps the pavement.

Another cut deposits the Voice in a hospital, where a man is having his lungs pumped. The camera locates jars full of black liquid before pausing in front of a man breathing asthmatically, who looks apologetic as he coughs. Others lie in bed and try to summon the energy to engage with their visitor. Some don't look very old, but all appear exhausted after what can only pass for a life of hardship and back-breaking toil. The Voice avers that the Mirrorman has brought him to his mountain and he weeps for the land. A man dozes off in his home, while another breathes through a tube in his nose attached to the machine that is keeping him alive. One woman looks at a photograph of her dead husband, while others join a laudable, but futile protest behind a large banner outside an imposing government building behind a well-guarded perimeter fence.

The scene cuts to a graveyard with the ubiquitous trucks in the background and the Voice hopes that there is no room in Hell for the people buried here, as they have suffered enough. Chimney stacks belch in the distance behind a statue of a woman (perhaps a mother), while concrete sheep occupy a rare patch of greenery. Inside a nearby foundry, coils of steel wire are produced and loaded on to lorries by overhead cranes. Over a point-of-view travelling shot, the Voice testifies that he has witnessed the sacrifices that produced this metal. He dispassionately states that the coils are carried away to build the paradise of our desires.

As the throat singing resumes on the soundtrack, the Voice arrives in the outskirts of a metropolis. Everything looks ordered on an estate of pristine orange brick. Yet it's clear that no one lives in these high-rise tenements, as they were built to house workers who are no longer required because the bubble burst and there were no jobs for them. The screen blues out. Then turns grey. It dissolves back on to a dropping crane shot that shows the naked man lying in the desert. The Voice wonders if he is still dreaming or if he is already in Paradise. He stands naked in the long grass, with the deserted city in front of him. He explains that this is the destination of all his dreams - like a mirage after an ocean storm. The camera performs a wide panning arc showing the grey concrete and red bricked buildings huddled together - like high-rise Terra Cotta Warriors mocking the free market's great leap forward and, yet, still standing proud and tall as far as the eye can see.

On a windswept street, a man in an orange hi-vis chases a ball of tumbleweed, while another shuffles along with a bag to pick up litter. In paradise, the Voice says, everything is clean and work is relaxing (even a little boring). But no residents can be seen because this is a ghost city. Another litter-picker meanders along a long road whose markings are so white it seems unlikely it has ever seen a car. Mirrorman appears with the potted palm carrier reflected in the glass, as they walk through the gleaming orange buildings. The Voice intones that while this feels like a dream, it isn't. He insists that we have become the monster and its minions.

A caption confirms that there are hundreds of newly constructed ghost cities lying idle across China. Another admits that millions of migrant workers suffer from pneumoconiosis and that hundreds of thousands have already died from the disease. Finally, a closing caption acknowledges that coal extraction over the last 30 years has reduced the lake areas of Inner Mongolia by some 20% and done incalculable damage to the soil.

Such stark facts and statistics drive home the evidence that Zhao Liang amasses in this harrowing documentary. No one is identified on screen, but Shang Dengxiang, Ba Te'er, Ta Na, Zhang Xianquan, Xiao Suo, Yang Chaoke, Sa Ren and Xiao Zhang and their families are thanked for the courage with which they face their hardships. Audiences should join that chorus, while lamenting the consumerist clamour that subjects so many fellow occupants of our fragile planet to such misery, poverty and the almost inevitable onset of a fatal disease. In directing his camera towards this nameless individuals, Zhang is pointing a finger at everyone who contributes to their exploitation. Fuelled by is fury, some of his images have a terrifying poetry. But, then, the point of this unrelenting odyssey is to burn indelible impressions into the mind in the hope of changing habits and ameliorating lives.

Returning to features for the first time since he won the Palme d'or at Cannes with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul revisits the country hospital setting of Syndromes and a Century (2006) in Cemetery of Splendour, a measured state-of-the-nation allegory that dwells on the recurring theme that the past plays as active a part in the present as spirits and deities. But those unfamiliar with the unrest that has beset the kingdom since the 2014 coup need not despair. Such is the visual majesty and wry humanity of this mesmerising enigma that viewers can simply sit back and luxuriate in the pleasure of experiencing a master at work.

While paying a visit to nurse Petcharat Chaiburi in her hometown of Khon Kaen in north-eastern Thailand, Jenjira Pongpas Widner is so moved by the plight of the soldiers suffering a mysterious sleeping sickness that she volunteers to help out around the makeshift hospital that has been converted from her old elementary school. Librarian Pongsadhorn Lertsukon remains in situ (and brings Widner longkong fruit), but Dr Boonyarak Bodlakorn has no idea what is ailing troops who started flitting in and out of narcoleptic trances while digging up the ground for a new government building.

Widner isn't in the best of health herself, as she has to get around on crutches having lost 10cm of her right leg after an accident. She confides in Chaiburi that the balm she gave her hasn't done any good, as it fails to get down to the bone. But her own worries are soon forgotten when Widner becomes devoted to handsome patient Banlop Lomnoi, with whom she feels a certain affinity, even though husband Richard Abramson recently left American to settle down with her. She becomes increasingly intrigued by Lomnoi, who receives no visitors to explain the scribbles and diagrams contained in a notebook beside his bed.

Despite the age gap, Widner befriends fellow volunteer Jarinpattra Rueangram, who is rumoured to help the police with murder cases. She also offers her services to the loved ones of other soldiers, who invariably ask her about lottery numbers or whether their beaux has other lovers, and Widner is impressed when the psychic reveals that she was a young boy in a former life who fell to his death while climbing a tree.

Shortly after Bodlakorn introduces some glowing fluorescent lights to see if they have any therapeutic value (apparently, they worked with troops in Afghanistan), Lomnoi suddenly wakes during a bed bath and Widner helps him get out of bed. She watches him exercise outside and takes him to the canteen, where another recently woken trooper is enjoying his meal when he slumps face first into his plate.

Eager to pray for her new son, Widner visits a lakeside Laotian temple and has Abramson place miniature votive animals before the statues of two princess-goddeses. She isn't in the slightest bit fazed, therefore, when they appear to her in the form of Sjittraporn Wongsrikeaw and Bhattaratorn Skenraigul, who confide that the school was built on the site of a royal graveyard and that the restless Khmer monarchs are trying to siphon the energy of the slumbering soldiers to help them re-fight old battles and restore the fortunes of the embattled country. Widner confides the news to Chaiburi and Rueangram, who tease her when she says it's good that the soldiers are doing something useful in their sleep. However, Rueangram becomes distracted when one of the slumbering soldiers gets an erection beneath his blanket.

Lomnoi has also zoned out again and Widner thumbs his notebook as she sits beside his bed. When he wakes, she suggests that he ventures into the town to become re-acclimatised to daily life. They grab some food at a night market and he informs her that his sense have become more sensitive. He also asks her questions about Abramson when he discovers that he is a retired American soldier she met online. He teases her about him not looking like his photograph and she ticks him off fondly for being cheeky.

They go to the cinema in the shopping mall, where they watch the trailer for Phyungvet Phyakul's lurid horror flick, The Iron Coffin Killer. However, when the audience stands for the pre-feature playing of the national anthem, the usual film depicting the benevolence of King Bhumibol Adulyadej fails to materialise and they stand in the darkness with the ceiling fan whirring overhead. Following a series of pillow shots showing the lights changing colour on the ward and the quiet streets around the hospital and the mall, Widner appears at the top of an escalator with two male ushers carrying the sleeping Lomnoi,

One afternoon, they eat in a picnic pagoda by the lake. Lomnoi reveals that he dislikes being in uniform, as he seems perpetually to be cleaning the general's car, and has ambitions to open a food stall. However, he dozes off again and Widner wanders off to get help, while a bizarre interlude ensues, in which others enjoying the scenery swap seats at random. As she walks towards the hospital, Widner passes TV celebrity Sasipim Piwansenee doing a promotion for a beauty product and she is surprised to see Rueangram handing out free samples. She teases her that she must be there as a police spy, but Rueangram comes to the pagoda to sit with the somnolent Lomnoi. As she touches his hand, she says he wants to show Widner where his mind is taking him and she agrees to go on a tour of the grounds.

As they walk, Rueangram-Lomnoi tells Widner to mind her head on low beams and guides her through the rooms of an ancient palace. She is impressed by the hall of mirrors, the jade bath and the pink stone sink (even though all she can see are fallen woodland leaves). Widner also shows Rueangram-Lomnoi the friendship statues she remembers as a child and they sit beside them, as Widner recalls that her first husband was a brutal military man and Rueangram-Lomnoi jokes that she has a thing for men in uniform.

They return to the temple, where Apinya Unphanlam sings a plaintiff song to her lover. As they gaze across the lake, Rueangram-Lomnoi describes the rice paddies and the fish-filled lakes and says that the nation is hollow for all its outward signs of prosperity. They find a secluded glade and sit on a bench. Widner rolls up her trouser leg and shows Rueangram-Lomnoi the scars left by the surgery. She tests Rueangram by repeating some of Lomnoi's comments from their night out and is convinced when she cracks the same gag about Superman.

Widner mixes some of her husband's homeopathic medicine into a water bottle and urges Rueangram-Lomnoi to drink it so that he will stay awake. Instead, Rueangram-Lomnoi pours the liquid over Widner's leg and starts licking it off. The gesture makes Widner cry and she wakes beside Lomnoi's bed and feels very close to him. He also stirs and is pleased that she can see his dream, as he can see hers. She jokes about the government preparing to move them on to complete its secret project and Lomnoi wishes he could stay here, as this is the best place to sleep - and Widner agrees.

She sits on a bench and stares wide-eyed into space, as some children attempt to play football on their churned up pitch. Nearby, Lomnoi appears to join in an outdoor adult exercise class with rhythmic gusto. But, despite the joyously choreographed normalcy, Widner realises that Lomnoi is never going to recover and that she will remain powerless to help him.

Despite its supernatural rumblings and stark culmination, this is a curiously consolatory picture that blurs the lines between the ethereal and the everyday in a bid to reassure us that we are not alone in what is, for many, a veil of tears. Working in tandem with production designer Akekarat Homlaor and cinematographer Diego Garcia, Weerasethakul creates a realm of the senses that reveals how little we understand ourselves, let alone each other and the forces dictating the past, present and future. Some have accused him of dragging out a short by inserting stylised light and colour displays that would be better suited to one of his art gallery installations. But echoes of previous outings like Blissfully Yours (2004) and Tropical Malady (2004) can be heard over Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr's enveloping sound design at various intervals during a film whose lengthy, detached takes encourage contemplation, while also hypnotising with their meticulously composed beauty.

Weerasethakul has always been mischievously witty, but he dispenses with the trademark elisions and structural gambits to present a poetic paean to his hometown that is also a melancholic reverie on a country approaching a crossroads. But, such is the low-key naturalism of Widner, Rueangram and Lomnoi's performances that this immersive slice of Slow Cinema exudes a humanist compassion that suggests all is not quite lost amidst the disconcerting tranquility.

The inspirational teacher is a recurring screen character the world over and an Estonian educator gets to mould some receptive young minds in the Stalinist era in Klaus Härö's The Fencer. Chronicling a fugitive swordsman's bid to prove to his apparatchik principal that fencing is not a feudal and insufficiently proletarian pursuit, this might have been called Dead Sports Society. But, while it may seems a little conventional at times, this affecting biopic of fabled fencing master Endel Nelis capably captures the mood of suspicion and paranoia that pervaded the most northerly Baltic state in the immediate postwar period.

Following the Nazi invasion of Estonia in 1941, thousands of young men were drafted into the Wehrmacht (although many also volunteered to fight against the detested Red Army). They were declared traitors after the war and the Communist secret police continued to hunt down the conscripts into the early 1950s. Among them was Endel Keller, a decorated fencer who adopted his mothers maiden name, Nelis, after fleeing from the KGB in Leningrad.

In 1952, Nelis (Märt Avandi) applies to become a PE teacher at a small school in the remote Estonian town of Haapsalu. Noting the reference to fencing on his resumé, the principal (Hendrik Toompere) urges him to stick to modern sports more in keeping with Party ideology. But, as the local military base has first dibs on the school skiing equipment, Nelis struggles to connect with his classes and turns to fencing after the inquisitive Marta (Liisa Koppel) asks about the gold medal attached to the foil he keeps hidden in his locker.

Despite confessing to sympathetic colleague Kadri (Ursula Ratasepp) that he is not good with children, Nelis forms a Saturday fencing club and is surprised by the turnout at the first session. He demonstrates the basics of posture and balance and Marta and younger sister Tiiu (Elbe Reiter) prove just as enthusiastic as older boys Jaan (Joonas Koff) and Toomas (Egert Kadastu). Kadri reminds Nelis that many of the students lost their fathers during the war or saw them being taken away by the secret police and, consequently, he defies the principal's veiled threats to make swords from some sturdy reeds gathered from the coastal marshes.

As romance tentatively blossoms with Kadri, Nelis is warned over the phone by his former coach, Alexei (Kirill Käro), to keep his head down, as the KGB are still making inquiries. Nelis is also befriended by Jaan's grandfather (Lembit Ulfsak), who had fenced in his youth at the University of Leipzig. He gives Jaan his rapier and mask and speaks out at a school meeting when the principal and his subservient assistant (Jaak Prints) recommend scrapping the fencing club. The old man points out that Karl Marx had enjoyed the sport and the principal is so piqued when the parents vote to save the club that has restored a little purpose and pleasure to the fraught lives of their children that he instructs his underling to delve into Nelis's background.

Shortly afterwards, Nelis thinks he is being followed home. But Alexei has tracked him down with an offer to spar with a discreet patron who will protect him. Yet, despite packing his bags, Nelis remains on the station platform because he can't let his students down and Alexei rewards his dedication by sending two large crates of secondhand fencing equipment. The students are delighted and implore Nelis to allow them to enter a school competition in Leningrad. Aware of the danger he faces in returning to the city, he tells them they are too inexperienced for such a prestigious event and Marta hands back the gold medal he had given her in disgust.

A couple of days later, Jaan's grandfather is arrested and Kadri becomes afraid when Alexei calls to warn Nelis that the KGB are closing in on him. He explains that he was 18 when the Germans came and deserted as soon as he could. But he knows he is forever tainted and Kadri pleads with him to stay away from Leningrad.

Wandering into the gymnasium after hours, Nelis finds Jaan practicing alone and he is so moved by his courage that he agrees to enter the contest. He picks Jaan, Toomas and Lea (Ann-Lisett Rebane) for the team and makes Marta first reserve. Kadri prepares sandwiches for the long train journey and the children gaze at the Leningrad skyline through the grubby window. On arriving at the venue, however, Nelis is informed that the school will be disqualified unless he can borrow some electric épées. Fortunately, Armenian coach Shirin (Alina Karmazina) comes to his rescue and the team lines up against squads from some of the biggest cities in the Soviet Union. But, as Jaan and Toomas win their bouts, Nelis spots soldiers in the balcony and decides to escape.

As he descends a staircase, however, he bumps into the principal. Protesting that he is merely doing his duty, he assures Nelis that he has nothing against him and advises him to flee. But Nelis realises he is trapped and returns to the main hall as the Haapsalu underdogs win through to face Moscow in the final. All seems to be going well. But Jaan sprains his ankle while leading in the decisive bout and Marta has to step against an opponent who is almost twice her size. It goes into overtime, but Marta prevails with a last-second thrust and Nelis looks back with pride as he is led away by the police.

Following a caption proclaiming the amnesty that followed the death of Joseph Stalin on 5 March 1953, Nelis alights from his train to be greeted by Kadri. Before they can embrace, however, Marta and Tiiu rush out from their hiding place on the platform and Nelis is soon surrounded by his adoring students. A closing note reveals that he lived to see Estonian independence and that the fencing club he founded is still going strong.

Klaus Härö is no stranger to period pieces and this latest venture into the past followed Elina: As If I Wasn't There (2003), Mother of Mine (2005) and Letters to Father Jacobs (2009) in being selected as Finland's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. In collaboration with production designer Jaagup Roomet and cinematographer Tuomo Hutri, he ably contrasts the spartan backwater gym with the Hammer and Sickle-swathed grandeur of the big city arena. Moreover, he sustains a palpable sense of unease, as Nelis treats each encounter with a stranger as a potential ambush.

But, despite the best efforts of comic actor Märt Avandi, Nelis remains something of an enigma, whose wartime exploits are never satisfactorily explained. Similarly, the love affair with the winsome Ursula Ratasepp is sweet, but schematic, while the bonds forged with Liisa Koppel and Joonas Koff seem too cursory to inspire a climactic act of reckless self-sacrifice. Yet, notwithstanding the sketchy nature of some of screenwriter Anna Heinamaa's storytelling, Härö's sense of pace and place is assured and deftly counterpointed by a Gert Wilden, Jr's liltingly sombre score.

Piero Messina served as an assistant to Paolo Sorrentino on The Great Beauty (2013) and the master's influence is readily apparent in The Wait, a dolorous debut drama set in a remote Sicilian villa that melds a true story with two works by the prolific Nobel laureate, Luigi Pirandello: the 1916 short story, `The Waiting Room' and the 1924 play, The Life I Gave You. The premise requires a certain suspension of disbelief, while much of the paschal symbolism feels overly contrived. But such is the envelopingly pervasive mood generated by Messina, production designer Marci Dentici and cinematographer Francesco Di Giacomo that this study in the comfort of strangers manages to move and intrigue right up to its imperfect denouement.

Beneath a large figure of the crucified Christ, mourners pass before stoic mother Juliette Binoche at the funeral of her son, Giovanni Anzaldo. A pink inflatable mattress blows across the courtyard of the family villa, as old retainer Giorgio Colangeli closes all the shutters and drapes black cloth over the mirrors. Sitting in the darkness, Binoche is surprised to receive a phone call and sends Colangeli to the airport to collect Lou de Laâge, Anzaldo's estranged Parisian girlfriend, who has been invited to spend the Easter weekend and has no idea that a tragedy has occurred. Following a car journey along winding country roads (to the strains of the xx track, `Missing'), De Laâge is left to eat alone in the kitchen. But Binoche peers through the door as she dries herself after a shower and returns to her room to listen to the messages that De Laâge has left on Anzaldo's phone.

The next morning, De Laâge mistakes sister-in-law Corinna Locastro for Binoche, as she serves coffee for a small gathering of friends. Colangeli urges Binoche to break the news as quickly and kindly as possible. But she insists that she needs to find the right time and allows De Laâge to make assumptions about Anzaldo's absence, as they sit on a bench in the sunshine, by lying that her brother has passed away. Having left angry messages the night before, De Laâge adopts a more conciliatory tone, as she confides that she longs to sleep with Anzaldo and describes a recurring dream in which she is menaced by a rising tide of water.

Mooching around her room, De Laâge finds a rap cassette and plays it loudly, as she sits on her bed, while Binoche does the same in contemplative silence. When they meet later in the kitchen, Binoche makes eggs. Having expressed her surprise that De Laâge doesn't drink, she asks how she met her son and smiles in fond recognition, as she shyly explains that she acquired him from her roommate. Avoiding the timing of Anzaldo's expected arrival, Binoche invites De Laâge to wait for him and, later that evening, she asks Colangeli whether she should buy her hostess some flowers, as they watch an ailing Pope John Paul II on the news and a clip of beloved comedy star Totò conducting a band in a green tunic. Colangeli advises De Laâge to do nothing and covers her with a blanket when she dozes off in her chair.

The following morning, De Laâge asks Colengeli about a bus into town. But Binoche assures her there is nothing to see and takes her for a walk to the nearby lake. De Laâge strips to her underwear for a swim, but Binoche hurries home to sob and hug the lie low, as she sits on her bed inhaling the air leaking through the nozzle. She also hears a new phone message, in which De Laâge complains that she is struggling to sleep and wonders whether Binoche knows about their break-up the previous summer because she is behaving so oddly.

Warming to her guest and keen to keep her occupied to forestall any awkward questions, Binoche shows De Laâge her sauna and, after supper, she reveals how she met her husband while backpacking and being charmed by his efforts to speak French. She smiles, as she recalls her uncertainty over seeming demure or self-assured on first meeting his mother and teases De Laâge about how well she is doing charming her. The next day, they drive to a museum and Binoche jokes about the figures in an ancient mural wearing bikinis. On the way home, she reveals that she was the first woman in this part of the island to be granted a divorce and her mother-in-law immediately followed suit, as she wanted to sample freedom before she died. De Laâge is surprised that Binoche was so calm about her husband's adultery and not only admits that she is the jealous type, but also that she did everything to save her romance when she realised it was dissolving.

Waking in a good mood, Binoche decides to prepare a special meal and sends Colangeli into town for the ingredients. He asks De Laâge if she wants to accompany him, but she goes back to the lake and makes the acquaintance of Domenico Diele and Antonio Folletto, who are lounging around in a boat. She explains that she used to swim the butterfly before she grew bored with the constant rule changes. While she sunbathes and smokes, Binoche makes carob flour pasta and takes down the mirror shrouds. Moreover, she is so pleased by the prospect of entertaining guests that she dresses for dinner. De Laâge also wears the red frock she had brought specially for Anzaldo and laughs when Binoche ribs her about becoming a woman after she accepts some wine after earlier making such a point of being teetotal.

Colangeli is dismayed by the revelry and asks for a quiet word with Binoche. He asks why she refuses to tell De Laâge the truth and is hurt when Binoche snaps back that it is none of his business. She dismisses him for the night and returns to find De Laâge dancing with Folletto and Diele to Leonard Cohen's `Waiting for the Miracle to Come'. It's clear that both men find De Laâge attractive and she responds to their flirting. But she catches sight of Binoche watching her across the room and stops dancing when she senses her disapproval. She walks her guests to the door, but turns her cheek when Diele closes in for a goodnight kiss. Feeling uneasy, she returns to her room and watches Colangeli packing up his car to leave. But she fails to notice that he has left Anzaldo's phone on the bedside table.

Remarking on his departure the next morning, De Laâge is reassured that Colangeli has only gone home for the holidays. But Binoche avoids the subject of Anzaldo's arrival and feels sorry for De Laâge when she becomes tearful while protesting that she had only been dancing with Diele and Folletto. Realising she can no longer stall, Binoche sits De Laâge at the kitchen table and informs her that Anzaldo is not coming home because he can't forgive her indiscretion. Distraught, De Laâge claims she loves him so much that she won't be able to live without him. But Binoche reminds her she is young and will get over the pain and move on with her life (which is something she knows she, as a mother, simply won't be able to do).

Sitting beneath some whitewashed trees, De Laâge smokes furiously and calls Anzaldo to let him know how much she hates him. Binoche comes out to join her and tries to console her by averring she is glad they met. As she goes back indoors, Binoche encounters Anzaldo and sits on the edge of the bath to let him know how much she misses him. She continues to feel his presence as she attends an Easter Vigil procession in the town, with the hooded figures, drum beats and coloured votive candle holders contrasting unsettlingly with the murkily sombre silence as De Laâge packs her bag.

Checking she has everything, she finds Anzaldo's mobile and listens to the message that Binoche left on the night he failed to come home and she realises he is missing. At that moment, Binoche feels alone and pushes her way through the crowd, as though searching for Anzaldo while trying to regain her composure. She gets back to the villa as dawn breaks and finds De Laâge in her room. Aware that she no longer has to pretend, Binoche laments that the place will be empty without her and they embrace before De Laâge leaves in silence.

From the opening close-up of Christ's suspended torso, this is a picture that exploits the events of Holy Week in order to test the faith of both Binoche and De Laâge. But, while Messina ably stages events like the betrayal by a trusted friend after a last supper, much will depend on whether the audience can accept De Laâge's readiness to trust her lover's mother and her peculiar lack of curiosity or concern about his whereabouts. Equally problematic is the bathtub Pietà, which feels as self-conscious as some of the underwater photography, the forbidding religious ritual and the dreamily stylised dance reverie to a particularly portentous Leonard Cohen track.

But Messina neatly contrasts Binoche's stoic opportunism with De Laâge's coquettish confusion and makes effective use of the sun-scorched scenery and the saturnine interiors to explore the character psychology, as Binoche tries to keep her child alive through the timid optimism of the girl who broke his heart. So, while this often feels like a neophyte outing, there is enough here to suggest that Messina has the imagination, intelligence and control to be more than just a purveyor of atmospheric pictures.

Opinion is divided as to whether Greek cinema is in the latter stages of a new wave. But the triumvirate of Athina Rachel Tsangari, Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou keeps devising absurdist studies of alienation that ruminate upon the state and psyche of a nation in crisis. Since Tsangari produced Lanthimos's cult hit, Dogtooth (2009), he and Filippou have co-scripted Tsangari's award-winning Attenberg (2010) and Alps (2011), while Filippou has also co-written Lanthimos's dystopian dramedy, The Lobster (2015), and Tsangari's latest offering, Chevalier. Set during a maritime vacation, this represents a considerable departure for Tsangari, as its focus falls exclusively on a group of middle-aged men. Yet, this comedy of macho manners is one of the sharpest feminist satires on the opposite sex in a long while and it would not be a surprise to see a Hollywood remake hove into sight.

Coming towards the end of an octopus-fishing trip off the Aegean coast, a group of male friends pose with their catch on the prow of a luxury yacht. The party has been assembled by sixtysomething doctor Yorgos Kendros and includes two men who have been involved with his adored daughter. Medic Panos Koronis regards Kendros as his mentor and is keen to outdo insurance salesman Yorgos Pirpassopoulos, who has brought along his milquetoast younger brother, Makis Papadimitriou, who is socially awkward and a wizard with a Rubik cube. Koronis also sees himself in competition with Sakis Rouvas, who appears to be good at everything, to the frustrated amusement of his older colleague in a real estate firm, Vangelis Mourikis.

As he has recently had a chest x-ray, Papadimitriou is not allowed to go in the water. But he is keen for Rouvas to know how long he can hold his breath and makes sure everyone knows about the pebbles he has collected in his search for a perfectly spherical stone. While Mourikis zips around on a jet ski, Kendros makes a phone call to his daughter and informs her about the oneupmanship between Koronis and Pirpassopoulos. She seems disinterested in the posturing, but Kendros is fascinated by the way in which his shipmates are forever asserting their masculinity, either by boasting about their career achievements or by showing off their prowess on and under the water.

On the last night of the cruise, Captain

Nikos Orfanos announces that there will be no electricity after supper, as he needs to perform some routine maintenance work. As they sit around the candlelit table, the friends play a guessing game and Mourikis takes exception to being compared with a panda and a pineapple. Rouvas complains that the task makes no sense and suggests that they fashion a contest to discover which of them is `the best in general'. He explains that each person should set a specific challenge, while also judging how the each other acquits himself at everything from speaking and sitting to laughing and eating. Cabin boy Yannis Orakopoulos is sent to find notebooks and pens so that everyone can keep an accurate tally of their ratings before the winner is awarded a chevalier signet ring at the end of the task.

After much humming and hawing, the others agree to participate and begin by creeping into Pirpassopoulos's cabin to give their verdict on how he sleeps. The following morning, they hold a cleaning competition and while Pirpassopoulos finishes first, not everyone is convinced he has made a good enough job of cleaning the silver. He is miffed that Papadimitriou joins in the criticism, but he comes last when Koronis cries for help to see who would be the first to come to his aid.

Suddenly, everybody starts taking more care over their appearance and Pirpassopoulos starts reading to seem more serious. However, Kendros chastises him for wearing shoes inside and chats with Koronis, while exercising on some rowing machines, about whether Pirpassopoulos might be impotent and unable to give him grandchildren. Eager to keep his rivals close, Koronis has an earnest discussion with Rouvas about sea urchin salad, career prospects and marital fidelity before Rouvas goes out on a windsurfing board and gets knocked off by the swell created by Mourikis's jet ski.

Later that afternoon, they have a stone skimming contest and Papadimitriou sulks because they use his pebbles. Back on the boat, Pirpassopoulos is made to read aloud by Rouvas and he gets his revenge by accusing Mourikis of having the smallest penis among the group. Stung by the charge, he seeks reassurance from Rouvas, but he refuses to testify to his manliness. Down in the galley that evening, Orfanos, Orakopoulos and cook Kostas Filippoglu speculate about the standings and they disagree fundamentally about who is out in front.

The following day, they sit out on the deck wrapped up against the chill and trying not to let it show if they are feeling a little queasy on the choppy water. As they dock at Athens, Kendros dismisses Orfanos and asks Filippoglu and the Orakopoulos to stay for another couple of days while they complete the game. Everyone gathers in the salon to make phone calls home to explain their continued absence and Mourikis is severely judged as he makes his excuses to his wife. Papadimitriou also comes under scrutiny, as he still lives with his mother. But the conversation soon switches to who has the lamest ringtone.

Still feeling emasculated, Mourikis resorts to arousing himself in his cabin and knocks on everybody's door to show them his proud erection. Kendros puts him to bed and worries that the challenge is proving too much for him. However, everyone wakes in better spirits after Papadimitriou sings into the tannoy - although Kendros sleeps in and everyone gathers in his cabin to pass judgement on his sleeping technique. A couple of hours later, Koronis assists Kendros as he takes blood samples so he can run tests on everybody's physical health. Papadimitriou is scared of needles and resents it when Kendros tries to draw blood by subterfuge.

Feeling a fool, Papadimitriou lies low on the deck. But Rouvas comes to console him and tells him that he has given him excellent marks for the other tests. However, Papadimitriou wins a contest to assemble a set of flatpack shelves and everyone is surprised when Kendros admits that he was confused by the instructions. Tensions are also rising in the galley, as Filippoglu chides Orakopoulos for buying the wrong kind of aubergines for stuffing and more eyebrows are raised when Kendros belches at the end of the meal.

They dine on deck to see who feels a chill and Kendros gives out the results of the tests. Koronis is mortified to discover he has a high cholesterol level, but Papadimitriou tries to lighten the mood by miming along to Minnie Riperton's `Lovin' You'. Pirpassopoulos accompanies his breakdancing by waving some Roman candles in the air, but Kendos admonishes him for messing round with potentially dangerous fireworks that added nothing to the spectacle. Koronis supports his boss and Pirpassopoulos responds by telling him how Kendros's daughter mocks him for his poor taste in presents and he has to be led away by the others, leaving Koronis to mumble his apologies to Kendros and Rouvas as they finish their drinks.

That night, Filippoglu and Orakopoulos discuss the state of play and agree that the winner will be either Koronis or Rouvas. But the latter is so convinced he has won that he makes a speech to the assembly thanking them for all they have taught him during the course of the challenge. He says it has rekindled his sense of being Greek and suggests they follow the lead of the ancients by becoming blood brothers. Orakopoulos puts towels on the floor before Rouvas slices into his palm with a blade. However, no one wants to partake and Rouvas is left looking foolish before Papadimitriou drops his trousers and makes a small incision on his buttock to spare his blushes.

Shortly after Rouvas is presented with the ring in a consciously abstract sequence, the guests make their farewells and drive off into the night. Down in the galley, however, Filippoglu and Orakopoulos have embarked upon their own game of Chevalier and clearly intend to be stern judges.

Reinventing the Labours of Hercules as a party game for some bored bourgeois with excess testosterone coursing through their systems, this is a deliciously deadpan put-down that spears patriarchy with harpoon accuracy. Noting Greece's precarious position, it passes barbed comment on the extent to which manly posturing prompted the political and economic crises currently blighting the country and suggests that the lower orders are just as culpable as their supposed betters. Moreover, Tsangari teasingly implies that things might be different if women were given a greater say in making epochal decisions. But, given that Kendros's daughter has thrown in her lot with two such resistible characters as Koronis and Pirpassopoulos, one is left wondering whether anyone is capable of making a wise and/or rationale decision.

Under the relentless gaze of Christos Karamanis's camera, the actors respond admirably to being tasked with juxtaposing sociopathic insecurity with the kind of bitchy aspirational competitiveness that popular culture chauvinistically ascribes to women. Preening before mirrors, taking an eternity to choose their outfits and giving themselves whispered pep talks, the rivals reverse stereotypes with a laudable lack of vanity that serves to make their physical and psychological flaws all the more risibly pathetic.

Exposing the weakness, immaturity and narcissism of a sextet whose bond is never made entirely clear, Tsangari stops short of contempt. But such is her despair at the sneaky ways they seek alliances to disguise their shortcomings and alleviate their gnawing sense of self-doubt that there is little room for the affection that might have humanised proceedings and made this seem more like a comic drama than the summation of a laboratory experiment.