Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 30/3/2017)

The other key element is Sirkian melodrama, as Fassbinder draws inspiration from the age-gap romance between Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in All That Heaven Allows (1955) to relate a story that originated in a fact-based anecdote about a Hamburg cleaning lady and a Turkish Gastarbeiter that was told by hotel chambermaid Margarethe von Trotta in The American Soldier (1970). But, while this is a cineastes delight, it's also a very human story that reveals a compassion that Fassbinder often did his best to hide with his scathing despair at society's failings.

Sheltering from the Munich rain, 60 year-old widowed cleaner Brigitte Mira orders a cola in the Asphalt Bar frequented by Gastarbeiter. She is watched from the bar by Moroccan mechanic El Hedi ben Salem, who is encouraged to dance with her by barmaid Barbara Valentin after he informs Katharina Herberg he is not in the mood for sleeping with her. They chat politely while dancing and he is so charmed by her accepting nature that he offers to walk her home. After lingering in the lobby, she invites him up for coffee and fails to realise that neighbour Elma Karlowa is snooping when she pops out of her flat to repay a loan.

While Karlowa knocks on Lilo Pempeit's door to gossip, Mira and ben Salem drink brandy at her kitchen table. She confides that she had been a Nazi Party member and had endured the disapproval of her xenophobic father when she had married a Polish slave labourer. He had been a drinker, but they had been happy together before his death in 1955. She doesn't see as much of her three children as she would like and is glad to have someone to talk to. Thus, when ben Salem says he has to leave to catch a tram back to the small room he shares with five other men, she offers to make up a bed so he can stay the night.

Mira is surprised when ben Salem knocks on her door when he can't sleep. He sits on her bed and wishes that German didn't dismiss Arabs as worthless and she reassures him that he is just as important as anybody else. Ben Salem strokes Mira's arm in gratitude and they sleep together. However, she is shocked to see his naked body in bed beside her the next morning and scurries out of the room in her dressing-gown. She regains her composure over breakfast and hugs him when he urges her not to be anxious about their liaison, as fear eats the soul. Touched by his concern, she shakes hands outside the tenement and they walk off in opposite directions. Yet, as they turn back to wave, neither sees Karlowa watching them from her window.

During her lunch break, Mira tells co-workers Margit Symo, Elisabeth Bertram and Helga Ballhaus that a Moroccan made a pass at her on the subway. She eats a banana on the staircase in sullen silence as the trio denounce Arab men as dirty sex maniacs and the women who sleep with them as whores. Yet she insists on telling daughter Irm Hermann and her workshy, chauvinist husband Rainer Werner Fassbinder that she has fallen in love with a much younger foreigner. Fassbinder detests his Turkish foreman, but he merely smiles at Hermann in concluding that Mira has a screw loose and is seeking attention by trying to shock them.

Hoping to bump into ben Salem, Mira returns to the bar and gets a frosty reception from Valentin, who snarkily notes that she is surprised to see Mira again, especially as it's not raining. Feeling uncomfortable, Mira leaves and is delighted to find ben Salem waiting outside her building. She rushes up to him, but resists the temptation to hug him by shaking his hand. But she insists on cooking him supper and is enjoying his company when she gets a call from landlord's son, Marquard Bohm. He reminds her of the clause in her lease forbidding her to sublet. But she blurts out that she is going to marry ben Salem and Bohm leaves tutting that Mira is old enough to know what she is doing.

Ben Salem thinks marriage is an excellent idea and they go to the bar to celebrate. The jilted Herberg looks on with disdain as Mira laughs and jokes with ben Salem's friends before leading him on to the tiny dance floor. Valentin is equally appalled by Mira's behaviour, but reassures Herberg that it will all end in tears and she will get ben Salem back if she wants him. However, they are next seen huddling under an umbrella as they leave the registry office. Mira stops at a call box to invite Hermann and brothers Karl Scheydt and Peter Gauhe to lunch, but makes no mention of her marriage. Instead, they take a taxi to one of Hitler's favourite restaurants and sit in the back room to order caviar and Chateaubriand from snooty waiter Hannes Gromball, who embarrasses Mira by asking if she wants her steak medium or rare.

Things go no better on Sunday, when Gauhe (who seemingly killed the family cat as a boy) kicks in the television screen in his fury at his mother's actions and only Fassbinder lingers before Hermann orders him to leave the `pigsty'. Shopkeeper Walter Sedlmayr proves equally obstreperous when he pretends not to understand when ben Salem comes to buy margarine and Mira winds up being barred when she comes to protest. But she manages to keep her temper when Karlowa, Pempeit and Anita Bucher and Pempeit stop her on the stairs to insists she takes an extra turn at cleaning the communal areas of the building because of the mess her husband makes.

Pleased with the amount they are saving, Mira tells ben Salem that she would like to splash out on a little bit of heaven. But they are interrupted when Kreissl calls to ask Mira if she can fill in for her while she attends a funeral. She is horrified to be introduced to Mira's new husband and urges Symo and Bertram to ignore Mira during their breaks. Feeling sorry for herself, Mira declines the invitation to go to the bar. But she suggests ben Salem brings his friends home and Valentin is upset when ben Salem takes away her customers. However, she does interest him in calling round for some couscous one evening, as she detects that he is not entirely happy with his new life.

Determined to keep persecuting Mira, Karlowa and Pempeit call the police to protest about the Arab music being too loud. They also suggest that they don't feel safe with four rapacious foreigners in the building. But the cops merely ask Mira to turn down the music and Karlowa and Pempeit are even more outraged the following morning when Bohm ticks them off for being so bileful towards Mira and ben Salem, as they seem happy and have done nothing to deserve their ire. They are not alone in their disparagement, however, as the staff at an outdoor café stand and stare at ben Salem and Mira sat alone in a sea of yellow tables and chairs. She weeps because her happiness is being tarnished by everyone being so envious and is touched when he holds out his arms to show her how much he loves her. Fighting back the tears, she shouts at the onlookers that ben Salem is her husband and she suggests that they find a place where no one will judge them.

Mira had promised Salem that things would be different after their holiday and so it proves on their return. Grocer Sedlmayr watches them get out of the taxi and heeds wife Doris Mattes's warning that they need loyal customers like Mira now that a new supermarket has opened nearby. Bucher also pounces on them as they come through the front door, as she needs cellar space to store her son's belongings while he is working in Norway. Mira readily agrees and offers to send ben Salem down to help with the heavy lifting. Moreover, when she returns from shopping, she finds Gauhe waiting with a cheque for a new television and a favour to ask about babysitting his daughter.

Naturally, Mira agrees. But she refuses to cook couscous for ben Salem and he goes to the bar in a sulk. Whether he is tiring of being cooped up with Mira or dislikes the way she welcomes back her old friends, he knocks on Valentin's door. She puts on a pan to cook for him before removing his shirt in the bedroom and holding him with a genuine affection. But Mira suspects he has been up to no good when he arrives home drunk and leaves him outside the front door when he collapses.

Neither speaks over breakfast and ben Salem leaves after failing to make eye contact with his wife. She arrives at work to discover that Bertram has been fired for stealing and Kreisel and Symo shepherd her away from Yugoslavian newcomer Helga Ballhaus to bitch about the shiftiness of their erstwhile colleague. They also discuss an overdue pay rise and Mira invites them to her flat to decide how to approach the management. Symo and Kreisel make a fuss of ben Salem, with the former remarking on his cleanliness. Mira invites them to feel his muscles and he is so affronted that he leaves to spend the night with Valentin.

Distraught at being left alone, Mira cries on the landing when she hears Bohm pass and goes to the garage where ben Salem works the next morning. She pleads with him not to abandon her and leaves in distress after ben Salem's workmates ask if she is his grandmother and he does nothing to silence them. Moreover, he doesn't come home and Mira has to come to the bar after he sends a friend to ask her for the money he needs to stay in a card game. Angry with Valentin for suggesting he is throwing his wages away, ben Salem returns to the table. But, when Mira asks Valentin to play their song on the jukebox, he asks her to dance.

As they cling together, he admits his adultery and she insists that the only thing that matters is that they are nice to each other. He tells her he loves her and promptly collapses with terrible pains in his stomach. At the hospital, doctor Hark Bohm informs Mira that ben Salem has a perforated ulcer. He says they are common among foreign workers and, because he is not entitled to convalesce under health service rules, he is bound to get another one in six months. But Mira insists she will look after him and sits at his bedside holding her husband's hand and crying.

Although it takes a while to get used to the post-synchronised dialogue, Fassbinder establishes his characters and their story with an assured efficiency that extends to every aspect of a production whose conscious theatricality is rendered unfussily cinematic. Designing his own interiors, Fassbinder fills his sets with doorways, window and pillars that divide the frame and isolate Mira and ben Salem from the world around them. For the most part, cinematographer Jürgen Jürges keeps a discreet distance (indeed, he often makes telling use of wide shots to emphasise Mira and ben Salem's isolation). But, occasionally, the camera dollies in for close-ups that intensify the emotional tone that has already been set by Fassbinders choice of angle, colours and lighting, as well as his use of reflective surfaces to expose the superficiality of German society in the 1970s and cast doubt on the future of the couple's relationship.

In a typically mischievous touch, Fassbinder chooses the landlord's son and the two policemen as the only non-judgemental characters, while the rest only agree to live and let live when they need a favour from Mira. This may be a melodramatic gambit, but Fassbinder wishes to point out the connections between fiction and life and make the audience realise that the very social, economic and moral factors that brought the couple together will ultimately drive them apart.

Costumed by Helge Kempke to appear dowdy, but respectable, Mira slips almost imperceptibly between being vulnerable and manipulative. But the switch from a dark suit to a light grey makes the bearded ben Salem's petit bourgeois taming more obvious, as he is almost turned into a carnival exhibit for Mira to show off to her cleaner pals. His stoicism also makes him harder to read than Mira, who allows her feelings to get the better of her on a number of occasions, as she struggles to understand her man as readily as the younger, prettier and less demanding Valentin. Thus, even though the Brechtian strategies are designed to prevent the audience from identifying with the characters in the usual way, it's impossible not to feel for a woman who has only found acceptance in conformity and love with non-Aryans. No wonder Fassbinder could write in a celebrated 1971 essay on Sirk: `love is the best, most insidious, most effective instrument of social repression'.

The Romanian New Wave has been one of the few meaningful cinematic movements in Europe since Das Neue Kino and one of its leading lights, Christian Mungiu, produces another scathing critique of post-Ceausescu society in Graduation. Combining stylistic grace with stark realism, the story of a deluded man's descent into despair and disrepute explores the lot of the average person without the kind of patronising sentimentality common to so many current socio-political tracts. Yet Mungiu also demonstrates the compassionate understanding of human nature that makes his films (including the Palme d'or-winning 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, 2007) so authentic and so acute.

While wife Lia Bugnar languishes in bed with a headache and 18 year-old daughter Maria Dragus prepares for school, middle-aged hospital doctor Adrian Titieni charges into the courtyard of his soulless Cluj tenement block to catch the miscreant who had just thrown a stone through his window. He curses ever having returned to Romania in 1991 and surveys his surroundings by the railway line with a shudder of disgust. As he drives Dragus to school, therefore, he reminds her of the importance of passing her exams so she can study abroad. More interested in her motorcycle lesson with Rares Andrici than revision, Dragus asks her father to drop her off near a construction site so he can beat the traffic into work.

However, Titieni takes a detour to visit Malina Manovici, a teacher at Dragus's school who has been his mistress since he treated her after she was involved in a bridge accident. They are canoodling on the bed when he receives a call that Dragus has been attacked and is at the hospital. Brushing off questions from Bugnar about why it took him so long to the to the ER, Titieni asks assistant Orsolya Moldován to contact his police inspector buddy Vlad Ivanov before learning from the duty doctor that Dragus has sprained her wrist in fending off the assailant, whose failure to achieve an erection spared her further trauma.

Accompanying his daughter to the police station, Titieni proves so fretful while she makes her statement that Ivanov takes him to one side to calm him down. They discuss her university prospects and Titieni boasts she has been taking extra English lessons with Manovici so can secure a scholarship in London. Ivanov lets slip that he will find his daughter a job on the force and nepotism rears its head again when sketch artist Adrian Vãncicã asks Titieni if he can use his influence to get Vice-Mayor Petre Ciubotaru (who just happens to be his godfather) moved up the waiting list for a liver transplant. Ivanov concurs that Ciubotaru has always been a good friend to the police and suggests that Titieni's help would impact upon the efficiency of the investigation. However, he draws the line at Vãncicã making Dragus's attacker look like a recently escaped convict so they could frame him for the crime.

Driving home, Dragus is wondering who broke their window when Titieni hits a stray dog in the road. They say nothing more about it, but Titieni is keen to prevent the rumour spreading that his daughter has been raped. He ticks off Bugnar when she uses the word and asks if she knew that Dragus was no longer a virgin. She insists that girls find it difficult to discuss this kind of subject with their fathers and wishes he would let her grow up and start making her own decisions. He is adamant, however, that she should sit her exam the next day and reminds her of the consequences of failure. Bugnar disapproves of his fixation with her future. But he is the one to get up (from the sofa where he sleeps) when Dragus starts crying in the night and he tries to console her.

Leaving the next morning to discover that someone has tampered with his windscreen wipers, Titieni has to barge his way into the school to prevent exam supervisor Gelu Colceag from disqualifying Dragus because a pupil had once smuggled a crib sheets inside his plaster cast. Taking a detour to check out the crime scene (where he spots a CCTV camera in operation), Titieni visits his elderly mother, Alexandra Davidescu, who is against Dragus studying abroad and ticks off him for mollycoddling her. Davidescu is in poor health, but Titieni refuses to fuss over her and proves equally indifferent when Manovici (who already has a young son, David Hodorog) informs him that her period is late.

Having spoken to Dragus after the exam, Titieni realises she is going to struggle to get her grades because she failed to answer the last two questions. He goes to see Ivanov and agrees to help Ciubotaru with his transplant in return for his assistance in tweaking Dragus's marks. Titieni warns Ciubotaru that he will be undergoing a major procedure and that there is no guarantee of success. But he is sufficiently grateful to contact Colceag (who owes him a favour, as Ciubotaru once saved his wife from the sack) and he agrees to see Titieni during his wife's birthday party. He regrets that it's too late to amend her Romanian test, but suggests they can ensure she gets top marks for maths if she crosses out the last three words on the first page of her exam booklet so that the marker can recognise her paper.

Feeling guilty for dismissing Manovici's news, Titieni pays her a quick call and she introduces him to Hodorog, who is wearing a wolf mask. He also searches the undergrowth near where he hit the dog and bursts into tears as he trains his torch on the ground. Arriving home, he receives a lecture from Bugnar about the immorality of cheating and wishes he would let Dragus make her own mistakes. However, he reminds his wife that she has a tedious job in a library because the system is harder to bend than they had hoped it would be on returning from exile and he uses a similar argument in urging Dragus to mark her paper so that she gets the start in life that she deserves.

Shrugging off another act of vandalism on his car, Titieni drives Dragus to the exam centre. She asks why he always beeps when they pass the housing estate and he fibs that it's merely a safety precaution. He calls on Ivanov to survey the CCTV footage and asks for a printout, as something bothers him about the shot. At the hospital, he tells Ciubotaru that he is going to need a preparatory operation and the vice-mayor cries because he is certain he is going to die. He tries to foist an envelope of cash on to Titieni, but he refuses it, as things are complicated enough as it is.

While waiting for Dragus to emerge from her exam, Titieni bumps into Andrici, who recalls how the teachers at his sports college let the top students cheat in exams because they devoted so much of their time to training. Titieni asks why he was late to meet Dragus on the morning she was attacked and he protests that his bus was delayed. But, when Titieni asks whether he had called the cops to report the assault, he insists that there was no sign of Dragus when he arrived and that he had presumed she had got tired of waiting for him and gone to school. She interrupts them with kisses for each and assures her father that the exam went well. But Titieni is dismayed by the thought that Dragus might have set her mind on going to the local university in order to stay close to her boyfriend.

Exhausted from trying to keep so many balls in the air, Titieni hopes to have a relaxing time with Manovici. But she is concerned that Hodorog's speech impediment will prevent him from going to a good school and she wonders whether she has a future with Titieni when he explains that it will be difficult to wangle him cut-price therapy. They are disturbed when Dragus knocks to tell him that Davidescu has had a fall and he rushes to her flat to tend to her. Dragus overhears him telling the paramedics that her grandmother is more fragile than she had imagined and she asks why he hid the truth. She also demands that he confesses his affair to Bugnar and threatens not to sit her final exam unless he comes clean.

He arrives home to find Bugnar packing his clothes into a suitcase. She has long known about the affair, but feels Titieni has undermined all they have taught Dragus by seeking to influence her grades. Too tired to protest that he has only had their daughter's future in mind, he agrees to move out. He is frustrated that Bugnar intends following Dragus wherever she goes and is ready to sell the apartment, even if it leaves her husband homeless. But knows this is not the time or place and shuffles out clutching a rucksack.

Concerned by not seeing Dragus at the exam centre the following morning, Titieni goes to work to find prosecutor Emanuel Parvu and his assistant Lucian Ifrim waiting for him. They wish to question Ciubotaru, who is facing criminal proceedings. But Titieni insists on protecting a sick patient, even though it is made abundantly clear that his own phone calls to the vice-mayor have been tapped and that he (and his family) might get caught up in the investigation. Parvu admires Titieni for adhering to his oath and admits he might also be tempted to step in if his own child was having difficulties. But he cautions Titieni that he could suffer if the truth came out.

Titieni seeks out Ivanov, who is on a training exercise in the hills. He apologises for getting him involved with Ciubotaru and suggests digging for dirt on Parvu and Ifrim. But Titieni has no stomach for another fight and says he will take his chances and hope to keep Dragus out of trouble. With this in mind, he also summons Andrici to the construction site and shows him the CCTV printout placing him at the scene much earlier than he has claimed. Andrici denies failing to help Dragus and throws Titieni to the floor when he tries to threaten him. He also mocks him for thinking he can control Dragus, as she will always do what she wants.

Needing to find Dragus so she can attend an identity parade at the police station, Titieni goes to the exam centre. But there is no sign of his daughter and Bugnar is in no mood to discuss matters when he drops into her library. Instead, she demands his house keys and suggests that he calls ahead whenever he plans to visit. Hurt by her attitude, he asks when they became such implacable enemies, but she refuses to answer. He is also given the brush off by Colceag when he tries to warn him about the investigation into Ciubotaru. But, most crushingly of all, he learns that Dragus had not marked her maths paper and that he his efforts on her behalf have been in vain.

At the police station, Ivanov tries to browbeat Dragus into being more supportive of her father. But she refuses to speak to him for accusing Andrici of cowardice and she gets upset when the last man in the line-up loses his temper as he reads out the words used by the attacker. She insists he is not the culprit and rushes into the street. Titieni follows and tries to apologise. He commends her for doing what she thought best about her final exam and accepts her invitation to come to her last day celebration. She nods when he swears that he has only been trying to do the right thing and rides off on her motorbike.

Taking the bus home, Titieni thinks he recognises a figure at a stop in a rough part of town. He creeps along the poorly lit street and gets nervous when dogs start barking and a bottle breaks behind him. Fearing he is out of his depth, Titieni beats a hasty retreat and seeks sanctuary with Manovici. She makes him soup and asks if he will keep an eye on Hodorog while she keeps a doctor's appointment. But she makes him sleep on the couch and he realises that she is probably going for an abortion.

The next morning, Hodorog throws a stone at a boy who pushes in on the climbing frame and Titieni tries to explain why there are ways of dealing with injustice. He takes the child to the hospital, where Modován informs him that Ciubotaru has suffered a heart attack and that the prosecutors are waiting for him in her office. The vice-mayor's widow urges Titieni to take the envelope he had previously refused and he offers it to Parvu as evidence. He regrets having to drag the doctor into the investigation and promises to try and keep Dragus out of the case. Resigned to whatever else fate has to throw at him, Titieni leads Hodorog past a mural depicting an idealised scene of medical excellence.

Returning Hodorog to his mother, Titieni wanders out to see Dragus and her classmates. He asks after Bugnar and she says she is doing fine. She also admits that she feigned a crying attack at the end of her key paper and was given extra time to finish. Turning to face her father, Dragus asks if she did the right thing and he merely says she must always follow her own instinct. She asks him to take a photo of her class for a keepsake and he urges them to look happier as the shutter clicks.

Following in the footsteps of the misguided protagonist in Cristi Puiu's Aurora (2010), Adrian Titieni's Transylvanian medic finds himself woefully ill-equipped to deal with the grim realities of life in democratic Romania. The more he tries to work the system to his advantage, the further he strays from his comfort zone. Yet no one is grateful for any of the sacrifices he makes and Titieni winds up being judged for his failings while others suffer for their perceived benefits. Interestingly, the three women in his life manage to claw some independence from the wreckage of his flailing chauvinism, although Dragus has clearly thrown in her lot with a shifty slacker unworthy of her affection, while Manovici will have to deal with an alienated lad who sees violence as a solution to his problems.

Lacing this lament for his homeland's failure to resolve its issues with the past with the unflinching acerbity that characterised Beyond the Hills (2013), Mungiu shared the Best Director prize at Cannes with Olivier Assayas (for Personal Shopper). As always, his evocation of place is exceptional, with Simona Paduretu's considered interiors cannily complementing Tudor Vladimir Panduru's views of the less salubrious parts of Romania's second-biggest city. The use of Handel's aria `Ombra mai fu' on the soundtrack to emphasise Titieni and Bugnar's aspirations is also inspired, as Mungiu invites comparisons with Daniel Auteuil's slow slide into self-realisation in Michael Haneke's Hidden (2006).

Yet, despite Titieni's reprehensible failure to rise above the societal dysfunction he proclaims to despise, it's still possible to sympathise with his good intentions. His sole saving grace may be the fact that Dragus still loves him, regardless of his mistakes. But, while Mungiu refuses to pat Titieni on the back for refusing backhanders, he does keep in mind that is he a victim of the hypocrisy and corruption of the Communist era, when backs were forever being scratched in the name of sheer survival. Moreover, he implies that it's better that he followed the example of over-protective mother Luminita Gheorghiu in Calin Peter Netzer's Child's Pose (2013) than Charles Bronson's vengeful vigilante father in Michael Winner's Death Wish (1974). Consequently, such emotional restraint suggests that Mungiu's storytelling is now as measured and mature as his visual style.

Best known to many for playing Lieutenant Kara `Starbuck' Thrace in the reboot of Battlestar Galactica (2003-09), Katee Sackhoff follows her role as a murdered mother in Mike Flanagan's Oculus (2013) by seeking to reconnect with the child she placed into care in Caradog James's Don't Knock Twice. But, having made such a solid start with his atmospheric study of the misuse of artificial intelligence in The Machine (2013), James overreaches in attempting to subvert generic convention in conjunction with screenwriters Nick Ostler and Mark Huckerby, whose lurchingly contrived scenario is blatantly indebted to Bernard Rose's Candyman (1992) and Jennifer Kent's The Babadook (2014).

Having struggled to find herself, American sculptor Katee Sackhoff now lives in a luxurious house in rural Wales with lawyer husband, Richard Mylan. She hopes to be reunited with daughter Lucy Boynton, whom she had placed in care when she felt too psychologically frail to raise her alone. But the teenager would rather stay with boyfriend Jordan Bolger and lets Sackhoff know in no uncertain terms that she considers her a bad mother. Still feeling emotional after the encounter, Boynton persuades Bolger to join her at an abandoned house that is supposedly haunted by a demonic witch who supposedly kidnapped young Callum Griffiths. Ignoring the local legend that anyone who knocks twice on the door will be spirited away, Bolger and Boynton give two hefty raps before running away.

During a webcam conversation, Bolger confides that he has been beset by strange occurrences since getting home and Boynton is puzzled to find he has disappeared after she returns from answering an unexpected knock at her bedroom door. She is even more spooked when the light becomes a shadowy red and blood starts to gurgle up from her sink. Terrified, Boynton seeks sanctuary with Sackhoff, who is glad to have her company when Mylan is suddenly called away on business. But Boynton remains cold towards her mother and insists she will be leaving as soon as she feels ready.

Unfortunately, the malevolent spirits seem to have followed Boynton across country, as she finds a tooth in her soup. Moreover, Sackhoff begins having nightmares about a sobbing woman who slashes her throat with a knife when she approaches her. Boynton tells Sackhoff about the legend of the witch and is frustrated when she dismisses it as a scare story. But Sackhoff is unsettled when model Pooneh Hajimohammadi (who has just given her a charm necklace) cancels a sitting because she senses a dark aura around Boynton and wishes to keep her small baby away from someone bearing a mark of doom.

While Sackhoff struggles to come to terms with the peculiar happenings, Boynton is visited by cop Nick Moran, who is investigating Bolger's disappearance and thinks it may have something to do with Ania Marson's old dark house. When confronted by Sackhoff, Moran explains that Boynton and her friends hounded Marson after a child vanished and started the rumour that she was a witch. Driven to despair, Marson had killed herself and Boynton feels betrayed because Moran had always assured her that he believed her story. He explains to Sackhoff that 99% of cases involving the abuse and abduction of children involve someone they know and trust. But Boynton insists she is telling the truth and storms out of the room.

Shortly afterwards, Boynton learns about Baba Yaga online and covers the snooker table with printouts of sinister Eastern European ghouls. She explains to Sackhoff (who fails to recognise the emblem she is wearing around her neck) that this supernatural entity has the power to open the portal to Hell and needs a willing slave to open the door so she can devour the innocent. But, even though Boynton tells her about the mark that the cursed soul bears and the fact that they can pass on their onerous duty by killing themselves, Sackhoff is sceptical that the knocking at Marson's house served as an invitation for Baby Yaga to enter the human realm. Even when Boynton runs away on seeing an eerie silhouetted shape in the mirror, Sackhoff refuses to believe in superstitious nonsense.

The next day, they work happily together in Sackhoff's studio and recall happier times before she succumbed to her addiction problems. However, when her statues get smashed during a visit by social worker Sarah Buckland, Sackhoff blames Boynton and she is so hurt that she packs her bags to leave. But Sackhoff persuades her to stay by telling her how much she has always loved her and how devastating letting her down has been. She lets Boynton sleep on the couch, but is distracted by the sight of her red scarf on a statue in the garden. Even though it is dark, Sackhoff ventures outside brandishing a knife and realises she has been lured away from her daughter by the malevolent spirit. She rushes back as the door is about to slam and makes it upstairs just as Boynton manages to scramble away from a Baba Yaga-like creature crawling across the floor to claim her.

Sackhoff promises that she will protect Boynton and they remove all the doors and have a bonfire in the back garden so they cannot be separated again. But, the next morning, Boynton is swept into the air in the hallway and thrown into a glass cabinet. Sackhoff has to cling on to her to prevent her from being sucked through the portal and they seek out Hajimohammadi for advice. She tells them that Marson was not a witch, but warns that her spirit wants revenge for Boynton harassing her to death. But she also suggests that they find out who really pushed Marson over the edge and Sackhoff returns to her studio to find a box file containing a memory stick. She plugs it into her laptop and sees Moran interrogating Marson with some ferocity and, during a visit to the foster home after Boynton runs away, she finds a photograph that convinces her that he is responsible for Griffiths's disappearance.

Frantic at not being able to find Boynton after she falls through a cellar trap door in the street, Sackhoff goes to Marson's house and climbs in through a broken window. She treads on a rusty nail and is tending to her bleeding foot when she is arrested. However, she manages to knock twice on the door before being interrogated by Moran and accuses him of hounding Marson to her death. He puts her in a cell, but she summons the spirit of Baba Yaga (which appears menacingly behind her) and the door (or is the portal?) opens as if by magic.

Moran finds the words `You Know Where to Find Me' written in blood on the wall and heads to the old Marson place. As Sackhoff limps through the woods in pursuit of the spectral figure, Boynton finds herself in a cage where she witnesses Griffiths being devoured by a fearsome creature that menaces Sackhoff when she tries to break the lock on the cage door. They scurry along a subterranean tunnel, only to come face to face with Baba Yaga. She is about to unleash her fury upon them when Moran knocks twice on Marson's door and is dragged to his doom as Sackhoff and Boynton make their escape.

Meanwhile, Mylan has returned home to find his home looking like a bomb site. He bumps into Hajimohammadi, who has come to collect the incriminating box file, and she kills him. As she loads his body into the boot of her car, the mark of the amulet she had given to Sachkoff disappears from her skin. Naturally, Sackhoff and Boynton know nothing about this development as they arrive back at the house. While she cleans up her foot, Sackhoff explains to her daughter that Moran had kidnapped Griffiths. But Boynton assures her that it was Marson and, when they run into the games room to check the drawings on the snooker table, Sackhoff realises that Hajimohammadi has duped her into accepting her burden. She feels the charm burn into her throat and, at that moment, the door bursts open and a ferocious monster emerges from a pool of glowing red light. Ending with a blackout and a final burst of the pulsating throb that has punctuated James Edward Barker and Steve Moore's score, this tangled, but fitfully creepy chiller comes to a satisfyingly grim conclusion. But, no matter how hard Sackhoff and Boynton work to counter the typical depiction of female horror characters, Caradog James hamfists each allusion to madonnas, virgins, spinsters and witches without exploring either the Baba Yaga myth or the concept of the female serial killer in any meaningful depth. Moreover, he fails to fill in sufficient backstory for the audience to make any great emotional investment in Sackhoff and Boynton's fate.

Nick Moran brings some shouty energy to the role of the hapless cop, while Javier Botet - of [REC] (2007) and Mama (2013) fame - achieves some trademark Caligariesque angularity as the prowler. But the bulk of the supporting characters are little more than ciphers, although none are as contrived as Pooneh Hajimohammadi's model mother, who just happens to be in the right place in the right time to pass on her curse. Adam Frisch's photography, Richard Campling's design and Jon Joyce's sound effects add some polish. But James is too preoccupied with delivering set-piece jolts to fend off the clichés and provide his committed leads with the well-told story their performances deserve.

Canadians Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski are busy boys. In addition to providing visual and make-up effects for Hollywood features like Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim (2013) David Ayer's Suicide Squad (2016), they are also part of the Astron Six collective, alongside Adam Brooks, Conor Sweeney and Matt Kennedy. Since debuting with the 2008 short, Lazer Ghosts 2: The Return to Laser Cove, the Winnipeg cabal has gone on to create cult hits like Father's Day, The Manborg and Bio-Cop (all 2011) and The Editor (2014), as well as the self-promoting documentary, No Sleep, No Surrender, and the `W Is for Wish' segment of The ABCs of Death 2 (2014). However, the drop the geeky gags and knowing references for their latest co-directed outing, The Void, which takes a more serious approach to switching the action of John Carpenter's cult classic, Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) - and, for that matter, Jean-François Richet's 2005 remake - to a hospital due to close for repairs after a blaze.

Indeed, fire plays a crucial role in the opening sequence, as father-and-son vigilantes Daniel Fathers and My Byskov set fire to the female companion of the fleeing Evan Stern after they break into their secluded home. Collapsing in the road in front of cop Aaron Poole, Stern is rushed to the nearest hospital, where doctor Kenneth Welsh is maintaining a skeleton staff after the basement was badly damaged in a conflagration. Duty staffer Stephanie Belding rushes the badly wounded patient away on a gurney, while Poole chats to James Millington and his teenage granddaughter, Grace Munro, who has started having contractions. He is also given a coffee by administrator Kathleen Munroe, who still finds it difficult to talk to Poole after their marriage collapsed following the death of their child.

Welsh tries to console Poole, as his own daughter had also died young. But he wonders what on earth has possessed him when he hears the sound of gunshots and comes running to see that Poole has killed Belding after she had rushed at him with a pair of scissors after gouging out Stern's eyes while protesting that she is no longer inhabiting her own body. By the time he comes round, Poole has been joined by state trooper Art Hindle (who knew Poole's cop father), who informs him that Stern is a known drug felon who appears to have run amok in a nearby house.

Confiscating Poole's weapon, Hindle allows him report the incident to station dispatch Amy Groening. However, he is forced to go out to his car when he finds the landlines are down. Curiously, there is no answer and, as he gets out of his vehicle, Poole sees a figure in white hooded robes (with a black triangle over the face) coming towards him. Despite being stabbed in the shoulder during a struggle, Poole manages to escape his attacker and intern Ellen Wong helps Welsh staunch the bleeding. Meanwhile Belding's corpse seems to shudder and sprout tentacles and it has evolved into a fully fledged monster with designs on Stern by the time Poole and Mitchell rush to investigate.

They rescue Stern, only for him to grab Munro as a hostage when Fathers and Byskov burst through the phalanx of robed figures surrounding the hospital to threaten to kill him. Amidst much shouting, Welsh attempts to reason with Stern and is stabbed in the neck for his trouble. As he falls bleeding, Munro has a spasm and Munroe and Wong don't quite know where to turn as the Belding creature grabs Mitchell and disappears along the corridor. Byskov grabs a fire axe and, after Fathers blows part of the monster's head off, he proceeds to hack wildly at its torso as all manner of fluids gush from the wounds before it collapses.

With Stern unconscious and cuffed to a wall fixture, Poole demands to know what Fathers and Byskov know about the ghouls outside. The latter shows the scar on his throat where they damaged his vocal chords and Fathers insists that they are staying put until he has finished with Stern. However, he accedes to Poole's demand to get rid of Berling's carcass and they push it outside on a flaming gurney before agreeing to creep out to the cop car and retrieve Poole's rifle. They manage to make it back through the static hoodies, but Munroe encounter a re-animated Walsh when she goes to get supplies to deal with the problems arising from Munro's difficult pregnancy.

Poole and Fathers realise his body is missing and they go in search of Munroe, while Wong tends the Byskov's hand injuries. There is no sign of her in the dispensary, but they gather enough medicine to help Wong care for Munro. Fathers also finds a box full of Polaroids and he is looking through them when the phone rings. The light flashing indicates that Welsh is in the morgue and he tells Poole that he is trying to help them and needs Munroe for his scheme.

Fathers and Poole return to the others and urge them to stay calm while they try to find Munroe. They wake Stern and Byskov breaks his index finger with a hammer to scare him into revealing that Welsh is the leader of the hooded clan and that he was forced to have sex and kill people at their bidding before he managed to escape. He begs them not to confront Welsh, but they haul him down to the basement in the hope he can help them identify his weakness. Getting directions from Wong by walkie-talkie, they creep along by torchlight and find a staircase that Wong knows nothing about. Forcing Stern to lead the way, they light up the space with a red flare and Stern recognises the detritus from the farmhouse where he was help capture.

Meanwhile, Munroe wakes to find herself strapped down to an operating table and Welsh explains that the loss of his teenage daughter prompted him to find ways to conquer death. At the same time, Munro experiences a contraction and Wong gives her an injection to alleviate the pain. But nothing seems likely to help Munroe, as Welsh explains that he made a few mistakes in trying to perfect his life-saving techniques and he kept them chained in the basement until they started the fire. These grotesques are kept behind a door with a black triangle painted on it and Poole, Fathers, Byskov and Stern venture inside, despite the latter's vehement protests.

His fears prove well founded, as, while Poole blasts some of the pitiful creatures, one succeeds in dragging the squirming Stern into a corner. His screams are matched by Munro, who has now gone into labour and Wong (who has only the basic nursing training) is too scared to make the Caesarian incision that alone can save her and the baby. But Munro is quite capable of taking care of herself and she stabs Millington through the throat before explaining to Wong that she is privileged to be able to carry Welsh's baby and she drifts away in the company of a hooded escort.

As Wong tries to find the others, Byskov is set upon by Fathers who blames him for failing to protect his family. But he fends Fathers off by burning him with a flare and he cowers apologetically in a corner. Going on alone, Poole finds Munroe and she shows him her baby bump. As he holds her hand, Welsh's voice taunts him that he had been relieved when she lost her child and he has given her a second chance at motherhood. When he looks down, Poole sees a huge tentacled creature emerging from her and, to put an end to Munroe's suffering, he bludgeons her with the fire axe.

But Welsh is only getting started. He beckons Munro towards him as she drives a knife into Poole's back and Welsh (now in the form of a demon) commends her for all she has done. He kneels before a large black triangle and declares that he is going to conquer death by bringing his daughter back to laugh and calls upon the abyss to open up for him. As light pours through the triangular hole in the wall, Munro asks Welsh to bless her baby. But the monstrous child simply bursts through its mother's stomach and drags her behind it, as she confronts Fathers and Byskov, who have finally stumbled into the morgue.

Screeching like a banshee, the entity pins Fathers down as he tries to shoot it. But Byskov stands firm and (with the spirit of a woman and her baby behind him), he tosses a flare into a pool of chemicals that sets the creature alight. As she flails in agony, Poole buries the axe in Welsh's shoulder. But he merely urges him to end his resistance and promises to reunite him with Munroe if he embrace his power. However, Poole summons the strength and courage to charge at Welsh and push him into the void, which closes up the moment the both plunge through it.

Taking his chance, Byskov scarpers through the corridors. However, he is followed by the monstrous daughter until he leaps through a narrow gap and finds himself back in the main hospital, with his pursuer seemingly unable to follow him. He reunites with Wong and they cling to each other in relief, as dawn brings a red sky. But Poole and Munroe find themselves in a more menacing environment, as thunder cracks in the sky behind a vast black pyramid and they hold hands in trepidation.

If HP Lovecraft had written Rosemary's Baby and Stuart Gordon and Clive Barker had fought over the rights, it might look something like this squirmingly effective chiller. Gillespie and Kostanski might have taken a little longer to provide the principals with some backstory in order to establish the connections between them and lure the audience into rooting for the good guys. But they commit to the scenario and draw us into the depths of the kind of decrepit hospital that is becoming something of a sci-horror cliché. Moreover, they create some genuinely unsettling creature effects and resist the temptation to over-obfuscate them with shadows, shakicam and diced editing.

They also time the jolts well and coax some decent performances out of a cast of largely jobbing actors who enter into the spirit with grim aplomb. That said, the closing sequence in the beyond feels like a miscalculation (even if it has been tossed in as sequel bait), if only because the monolithic edifice looks as puny as the Stonehenge that is almost kicked over by the dwarfs in Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap (1984).

Fans of Yeon Sang-ho's corking horror picture, Train to Busan (which is reviewed in this week's DVD column) will have been waiting with keen anticipation for its animated prequel, Seoul Station, to reach UK cinemas. Closer in style to Yeon's K-anime outings, The King of Pigs (2011) and The Fake (2013), than his live-action breakthrough, the story of how a homeless man brings a zombie plague to the South Korean capital's main railway terminus takes its time to get going. It then suffers from the fact that too many characters are disposable nobodies who serve a plot function before disappearing or being devoured. Yet, once it focuses on the survival battle of the main three protagonists, the action becomes increasingly frantic and involving.

Hye-sun (Shim Eun-kyung) lives with boyfriend Ki-woong (Lee Joon) in a cheap hotel in downtown Seoul. Times are tough and she is appalled to discover that he has advertised her services as an escort on a sex website. The posting catches the attention of Suk-gyu (Ryu Seung-ryong), who is searching for his missing daughter and fears that she may already be beyond redemption.

While he calls Ki-woong to arrange a meeting, a kindly hobo tries to help an older man who is bleeding from a neck wound. He collapses on the floor and the hobo persuades the station pharmacist to re-open to sell him some painkillers and an energy drink. But the derelict has died by the time he returns and the hobo goes to the station security office to denounce the duty guard for refusing to help him. When they return to the body, however, they are perplexed to find it has disappeared. But the hobo soon finds his friend gnawing on the limbs of another rough sleeper and he is powerless to defend himself when he makes a ravenous leap towards him.

Meanwhile, Suk-gyu has threatened to pulp Ki-woong for pimping his daughter. But he accepts his word that he was only contemplating such a drastic action and they return to the hotel to see if Hye-sun has come home. They are shocked to find the landlady attacking one of her guests in the corridor and Suk-gyu is forced to beat her to death with the lid of the toilet cistern when she makes a lunge at Ki-woong. He also polishes off another passer-by before they barricade themselves in the bathroom.

Back at the station, Hye-sun is walking through the concourse when she is told to run by a group of men fleeing a voracious mob. She manages to dodge a zombie leaping down a staircase at her and joins some other survivors in the cell of a local police station. But, as the zombies paw at her companions through the bars, she notices that the rookie cop hiding with them has a wound on his shoulder. He calls for back-up on his walkie-talkie and offends one of his companions by blaming the rampage on the homeless.

Having clambered on to the hotel roof, Suk-gyu and Ki-woong hatch a plan to reach the former's car. Ki-woong is unhappy about being forced to create a diversion, but he manages to lure the zombies away from the vehicle by causing a commotion when bumping into a pompous fellow who is immediately mauled by Ki-woong's pursuers. In his panic, he forgets the way through the alleys to the main road and is grateful when Suk-gyu ploughs into the zombie standing in his path so they can make their getaway.

At the police station, the young cop pulls his gun on Hye-sun and the other two men in the cell. But he is distracted when his buddy reanimates and pulls at him through the bars. In the scuffle, Mr Kim (Jang Hyuk-jin) grabs the gun after knocking the cop unconscious. He only has two bullets left and uses one to kill the rookie and the unfortunate cellmate he bites. The other is used to protect the barefoot Hye-sun when the riot squad arrives and one of the crazies makes a grab at her. They rush into the street and are ushered into an ambulance by a paramedic. As they speed towards the hospital, Hye-sun calls Ki-woong and pleads with him to come and fetch her. But Mr Kim is so determined to stop the driver from going to the ER full of bite victims that he manages to overturn the ambulance, which slides to a halt on its side.

They trudge into the nearest station and wander along a corridor. Their path is blocked by a grille, but Kim tries to raise it. Hye-sun lends a hand and they create a gap wide enough for her to roll under. But, as Kim tries to slide to safety, he gets stuck and Hye-sun is powerless to help him as a women shuffles slowly towards them. Rather than being a zombie, however, she turns out to be intellectually limited and she bellows random questions and assertions at them until she turns to go in search of her mother.

Meanwhile, Suk-gyu and Ki-woong reach the hospital. It's eerily quiet and Suk-gyu orders Ki-woong to wait in the car while he looks for his daughter. Taking a metal pole from the back of a wheelchair, he ventures into the consulting area and sees zombified doctors and patients alike staggering in an excruciating daze. While he fights his way to safety, Ki-woong rejoices that the demented paramedic who has reached in through the broken side window has no idea how to untangle himself from the seatbelt that is holding him back. He is even more pleased to see Suk-gyu bludgeon the creature with his pole and they zoom off to find Hye-sun.

She is wandering along the subway track with Kim and wishing she had never run away. When she sobs that she just wants to go home, he also breaks down because he has nowhere to go. But they plod on through the next station, where a gaggle of ghouls are held back by some reinforced glass panels. She tries to get a signal, but can't make contact with Ki-woong, who has just found the overturned ambulance. Suk-gyu suggests they find a vantage point to get a better idea of what is happening.

They look out across the silent city and see troops being bussed into position for an assault. Ki-woong tries Hye-sun again and she answers as she emerges from Exit 4 at Hoehyeon Station. She begs them to collect her, but her cries are so loud that they attract the attention of a couple of moseying zombies who come charging after them. Fortunately, they are helped over a barricade that is manned by strapping fellows with baseball bats. But it soon becomes clear that they have been penned in along with hundreds of other survivors by the police, who are using water cannon to prevent them from breaking free. Suk-gyu and Ki-woong plead with the duty officer to spare Hye-sun, but he refuses to let anyone out. However, he calls off his trigger-happy escorts after Suk-gyu tries to use force to make him change his mind and encourages the pair to go home and watch the showdown on television.

As they wonder what to do next, one of the barricade batters gets bitten and he takes out one of his erstwhile comrades in tumbling back into the street. The leader swears as he see a phalanx of zombies barrelling towards them, but mutiny is about to break out within the ranks, as a portly rich man wonders why he has to die alongside the dregs of society. Kim shouts him down and says he has also worked hard for his country, but the ruling class doesn't care about the lower orders and he is sure that they will be sacrificed because they simply don't matter. He climbs on top of the bus blocking the entrance and is promptly shot in the chest by a marksman. Hye-sun rushes to console him, but he dies regretting that he had nowhere better to go.

Realising they are sitting ducks, the barricade leader grabs a grille and props it against a lamppost. He grabs a cable stretching between two buildings and begins to edge his way to safety. With the rest falling prey to the marauding zombies, Hye-sun is the only one to follow suit. However, she loses her grip a few yards from safety and almost has her ankle grabbed by a leaping revenant, as she hangs by one hand from the cable. Unwilling to let her fall, the hunk comes to her rescue. But he is pulled to the ground and gorged upon, as Hye-sun tries to keep her composure and reach the ledge.

She smashes a window to gain admittance to an office block. But she disturbs a feeding zombie and soon finds herself fleeing for her life along a corridor. Seeing a wooden framework beneath her, Hye-sun jumps down and balances her way across as zombies fall between the gaps and plummet into the courtyard below. One taps her ankle and she wobbles for a moment before reaching a new residential complex and she sinks to her haunches in the show apartment and tells Ki-woong to come and rescue her before falling asleep with her head on a desk.

Hye-sun struggles to recognise Ki-woong when he wakes her. But she is relieved to hear that the emergency is over and that her father is okay. They wander into the foyer and she is horrified to see that Ki-woong's fellow traveller is the pimp she stole money from when she ran away. He is furious with her and tells her she will have to work off her debt. Aghast at having delivered his girlfriend into another nightmare, Ki-woong tries to protect her. But Suk-gyu gives him a kicking before slashing his throat with the knife Ki-woong grabs from the kitchen display. Seizing her chance, Hye-sun slips away and hides in a wardrobe full of religious statues.

Sug-gyu comes looking for her and curses that he doesn't have the money to live in such a fabulous place. He spots some dirty footprints on the pristine tiles and taunts Hye-sun that he went to see her father to reclaim the money she had stolen. Claiming he was too sick to work, he had asked for a week's grace. But he took the opportunity to do a midnight flit and Suk-gyu roars with laughter that her own father would rather save his own skin than help her. His mockery pushes Hye-sun too far, however, and she bursts out of the closet to strike him with a statue of the Virgin Mary. But he overpowers her and drags her to the nearby bed. He drops his trousers and is about to rape her when he notices the scratch mark on her ankle. When he looks up, Hye-sun has changed and she pounces on his and rips him to shreds, with her shadow rearing up on the luxurious wallpaper behind her.

Closing on a slow-motion shot of the military gunning down the innocent civilians trying to flee their confinement as smoke rises above the skyscrapers of Seoul, this packs as much of a socio-political punch as its live-action companion. In the opening moments, a trendy young man discussing the benefits of universal healthcare declines to help the old man with the neck wound because he smells. Similarly, Suk-gyu wanders through the palatial apartment block grumbling that he could never afford such luxury because Hye-sun and her fellow sex workers steal from him. But, along with the grace notes to George A. Romero. Stanley Kubrick and Bong Joon-ho, Yeon Sang-ho studs the story with throwaway critiques of South Korea and the growing chasm between its classes. To a large extent, this realist subtext is more potent than the generic horror, as the graphics have a distancing effect that dilutes the impact of the gore, which is never as visceral as it is in Train to Busan. Moreover, the voiceover work feels less nuanced than one would expect any enacted dialogue to be. But, most damagingly, Yeon struggles to make the audience care about anyone other than Hye-sun in her short, candy pink dress. Ki-woong is too whiny to earn much sympathy, while Suk-gyu lacks the desperate paternal urgency that, say, Liam Neeson exhibited in Pierre Morel's Taken (2008). Thus, the sense of imperilment is muted and it's only when the far from snow white Hye-sun is threatened by the brutish Suk-gyu that a palpable air of trepidation descends.

Shia LaBeouf made headlines last week when his anti-Trump exhibit, `He Will Not Divide Us' , was closed down at Liverpool's FACT complex after a single day. It's unlikely that his new movie will run much longer, as Man Down is a well-meaning, but archly convoluted tribute to American service personnel suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Reuniting LaBeouf with Dito Montiel, the writer and director of A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006), the story of a Marine struggling to come to terms with his tour of duty in Afghanistan is actually a decent showcase for the actor's considerable, if inconsistent talent. But Montiel and co-scenarist Adam G. Simon commit the cardinal sin of manipulating audience expectation in a manner that does a disservice to the cause they are striving to promote. When we first see Shia LaBeouf, he is heavily bearded and risking his life to rescue young son Charlie Shotwell from what appears to be a hostage situation in a bombed-out American city. Lance Corporal LaBeouf has had to draw on all his resources to get through Marine training at Camp Lejeune under taskmaster sergeant Tory Kittles. But he has been supported every step of the way by Jai Courtney, who has been like a brother since LaBeouf's mother took him in as a child. Also by his side has been wife Kate Mara, although she manages to upset Shotwell by saying `I love you' in front of the class bully at the school gates. However, LaBeouf finds a way round letting his son know how he feels by using the codeword `man down' for public displays of affection.

Shortly after making it through boot camp, LaBeouf and Courtney are dispatched to Afghanistan. The latter puts his arm through a window, however, and is forced to stay behind to keep an eye on Mara and Shotwell. Every chance he gets, LaBeouf speaks to his family on Skype, but he is relieved when Courtney announces he has been passed fit for duty. Such is the bond between them that Courtney accompanies LaBeouf on his mission to recover Shotwell and they employ guerilla survival tactics to pick their way through the ruins of their former hometown. All is clearly not well, though, as LaBeouf has been ordered to report to army psychologist Gary Oldman, who is attempting to discover the extent of the post-combat stress that LaBeouf has been suffering since being caught up in a fire fight while on patrol in a Pashto village.

LaBeouf believes that Oldman is investigating the incident for disciplinary reasons and relates how his unit had been stranded in a potentially hostile neighbourhood after a support vehicle had broken down. As he had surveyed the narrow street, LaBeouf had spotted movement at an upper-storey window. But he had been too late to prevent the ambush and had rushed into the building with Courtney to eliminate the sniper. They had subdued the frightened women in the house and had started searching a side room when LaBeouf had noticed twitching beneath a blanket. He had tried to alert Courtney, but he had been fatally wounded and LaBeouf had been crushed on pulling back the blanket to discover that he had riddled a terrified mother and her son with bullets.

On returning to base, LaBeouf had used a piece of paper sellotaped into Courtney's helmet to log into his Skype account and he had been appalled to learn that his buddy had been having an affair with his wife. Mara had tried to tell him their fling was a mistake, but Courtney had sought to convince her that they should be together. Oldman is aware of this situation and asks LaBeouf whether he knew about his friend's treachery before he was shot. Resenting the implication that he had lured Courtney to his doom as an act of revenge, LaBeouf snaps at Oldman, who insists he is simply doing his job.

Yet, somehow, Courtney is alive and well and able to help LaBeouf track down Mara and Shotwell in the decimated town. Indeed, he assists in capturing junkie survivor Clifton Collins, Jr., who is carrying a letter than LaBeouf had sent Shotwell from the war zone. Moreover, he shoots Collins dead when he attempts to escape. But LaBeouf is alone when he breaks into the house where Shotwell is sleeping. The boy is sleepily pleased to see his father, but Mara urges him to be sensible because the police have the building surrounded.

Pausing to collect his thoughts, LaBeouf suddenly realises that the town has not been levelled by enemy action and that everything pertaining to the kidnap has been happening in his damaged imagination. He remembers that Courtney perished in Afghanistan and that he was the one to kill Collins in cold blood. But, as he tries to apologise to Mara for letting things get out of hand, police marksmen open fire and LaBeouf just has time to pass Shotwell a note reading `man down' before he dies.

This maudlin denouement sums up a film that exploits every opportunity to obfuscate and mislead. Editors Jake Pushinsky and Mark Yoshikawa do a reasonable job in linking the disparate time frames. But Montiel and Simon set out to deceive the audience into believing that the post-apocalyptic episode is as real as basic training, the school run, the Afghan ambuscade, Mara's adultery and the psychological assessment. Consequently, it's impossible to take their story seriously and this ruinously undermines the grave message contained in the closing captions about so many combat veterans being left homeless and mentally scarred.

Mumbling in the best Method manner, LaBeouf acquits himself well as a family guy whose world collapses around him while he serves his country. But this pompous shambles is as unworthy of such a committed performance as Montiel's Boulevard (2014) was of Robin Williams's brave turn as a closeted homosexual whose obsession with a rent boy jeopardises his cosy existence. Cinematographer Shelly Johnson also does a proficient job, but the cash-strapped visual effects are decidedly sub-standard, while Clint Mansel's score is a clichéd mash-up of mawkish melodies and Middle Eastern motifs that is made to seem all the more garish by the kitschy Jimmy Haun ballads that supplement it.

Notwithstanding her lengthy experience as a producer on The Daily Show, Sara Taksler discovers how dangerous it can be to crack jokes before an unappreciative audience in Tickling Giants, a compelling study of the power of comedy whose insights are all the more pertinent given the satire boom that has erupted Stateside since the inauguration of President Trump. Decorated with animated feather-filled interludes by the Egyptian cartoonist Andeel, this makes a cautionary companion to such Arab Spring actualities as Fredrik Stanton's The Uprising (2012) and Jehane Noujaim's The Square (2013), as it reveals how quickly the optimism that followed the protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square in January 2011 dissipated, as the successors to the long-ruling Hosni Mubarak clawed back the democratic gains that the people thought they had won at a considerable cost.

Among the medics treating the wounded on Tahrir Square during Egypt's winter of discontent was Bassem Youssef, a cardiologist who had a reputation among his friends for being a bit of a joker. Emboldened by the spirit of revolt and angered by the bias of the mainstream media, Youssef teamed with Tarek Al-Qazzaz in March 2011 to produce a satirical podcast for YouTube. Filmed in a laundry room and dubbed The B+ Show, after Youssef's blood group, the five-minute lampoon drew over five million hits and persuaded the ONTV channel to hire Youssef to front, Al Bernameg (or, The Show). Combining sketches, parodies and monologues, the programme became an instant hit and afforded a number of writers, comedians and political commentators with a soapbox from which to survey the rapidly changing scene.

Such was the success of Al Bernameg that Jon Stewart invited Youssef on to The Daily Show during his trip to the United States in June 2012. It was then that he met Taksler, who was a producer on Stewart's hugely influential vehicle (which could only dream of commanding the 30 million viewers that hung on Youssef's every word). She asked if she could make a documentary about him and arrived in Cairo just as Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi was elected to the presidency and started failing to see the funny side of Youssef's barbs.

As Taksler implies, the satire didn't need to be rapier sharp to wound Morsi. But his vox pop reports from the streets were uncompromising and with Youssef now airing on the CBC network and reaching 184 million clicks online, it was clear that every utterance in front of a live audience carried a weight the regime could not countenance. He had become the voice of the people. Consequently, he was denounced for disrespecting Morsi and insulting Islam in an effort to silence him. But, when he was acquitted after turning himself into the police in March 2013, he became even more of a hero and Stewart flew to Cairo to guest on Al Bernameg.

Youssef was not alone in criticising Morsi, however, and protesters returned to Tahrir Square when he started to claim what amounted to dictatorial powers. Determined to prevent a fundamentalist clique seizing control, General Abdul Fattah El-Sisi removed Morsi in July in what he denied vehemently was a coup. Despite being uneasy at making fun while people were dying in insurgent atrocities, Youssef returned for a third season in October and continued to bait the establishment under interim president Adly Mansour. But he soon realised that it was going to be much harder to reproach the hardline Sisi because he had so much popular support. Indeed, an angry mob began to picket the studio and, while most of the production staff remained defiant, some were justifiably scared by the sight of riot police moving in before the show went out.

With his father and brother in attendance, Youssef insisted he had a duty to hold the regime to account. But amidst accusations he was mocking the armed forces and the judiciary and threatening public peace and security. CBC lost its nerve and cancelled the show. Undaunted, Youssef found a new home at the MBC satellite channel and, after three months off the air, he returned in February 2014. The women leading the protests outside the studio now wanted him executed. But Sisi was more subtle. He simply jammed the signal the moment Youssef started to broadcast. With journalists being jailed as traitors, he decided discretion was the better part of valour and took his leave following a valedictory Q&A session with his last Egyptian audience.

Despite no longer being in the spotlight, Youssef remained a target and CBC successfully sued him for £100 million for breach of contract. Faced with a lengthy prison sentence for failure to pay, he packed two bags and fled to the US with his wife Hala and daughter Nadia. Shortly after their arrival, he learned his father had been killed in a traffic accident. But his brother advised against him returning for the funeral and he has since remained in exile, speaking at colleges and forums and developing show formats that he hopes will finally enable him to realise his dream to co-star in a film with Monica Bellucci.

Considering this was something of an `impulse' project, Taksler has done Youssef proud in conveying both the complexities of the Egyptian political situation during the peak of his fame and the risks that he took in steering his audience through the attendant propaganda and chaos. She also pauses to reflect on the courage of collaborators like producer Hend Radwan and researcher Miral El Desoki, who, as women daring to prick the patriarchy, put themselves in the firing line when the counteroffensive began. But the genial Youssef is very much the star of the show, although he undercuts much of the understandable hero worship with a nice line in self-deprecating wit.

Alongside the charming peeks into Youssef's family life, more might have been made of the ordinary people who stopped whatever they were doing to watch Al Bernameg. But it's clear from the guerilla nature of some of the footage that Taksler and her crew frequently put their own heads above the parapet, as they chronicled the growing strain on the visibly tiring Youssef and his team to remain witty and relevant without always knowing how close they were getting to overstepping the mark. Some of the humour might fly over the heads of UK audiences, but this smart, affectionate portrait certainly makes extracting the Michael out of Brexit and Trump seem like a cakewalk by comparison.

There's nothing documentarists like more than a loveable rogue and Jean-Luc Léon profiles one of the most genial and ingenious in A Genuine Forger. As the opening torchlit sequence in the sealed evidence store at the courthouse in Créteil ably demonstrates, Guy Ribes is an extraordinarily talented artist. The trouble is, he specialises in fake works by the masters of the first half of the 20th century that are so convincing that unsuspecting collectors are prepared to pay thousands of dollars to possess them. By his own reasoning, Ribes isn't swindling anyone, as he allows middlemen to broker the deals that he claims expose the dishonesty of wealthy buyers who are trying to get a masterpiece on the cheap. It's an intriguing line of defence and Ribes presents it with considerable charm in this compelling blend of Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Picasso Mystery (1956) and Orson Welles's F For Fake (1973).

Before focusing on the star of his show, Léon introduces some of the key supporting players, including Commander Marten Perolin, who reveals that while the police have confiscated around 300 Ribes items there are at least 10 times that number in circulation, as he and his associates flooded the art market during a three-decade period. Prosecutor Bernard Thouvenot acknowledges that Ribes is a clever artist, but insists that he breaks the law each time he creates a work in the manner of a famous painter and appends their forged signature. Collector Christian Roessl confirms his acuity and divulges that he has lost over $600,000 through being taken in by what art expert Gilles Perrault calls credible pastiches. But, as Ribes walks slowly through a tunnel into the light of the Parisian day, Jean-Baptiste Péretié, the author of Portrait of a Forger, suggests that men like Ribes cannot hide in the shadows forever.

Between shots of him creating an original work in the style that used by Pablo Picasso between 1912-15, Ribes recalls his youth with a 6ft 8in father (who owned The Eden cinema and the Cheval Blanc brothel in Roanne) and his 4ft 6in mother, who told fortunes under the name Madame Carmilla. She helped her son find a job as a silk draughtsman with merchant Paul Spay, who had no objection to Ribes borrowing materials to produce watercolours that he sold at the local market. A talented artist from the age of 10, he had been forced into the French Navy by his father. But, when he killed three of his neighbours with a shotgun, Ribes was forcibly transferred into the Foreign Legion, where he learned to look after himself and realised that there must be easier ways of earning a crust.

Fetching up in Lyon, Ribes met fence Armand Bouillet, who taught him burglary and how to steal to order. Heeding his lessons in style, taste and value, Ribes discovered he had a talent for forgery when a friend in Provence asked if he could produce him something that could pass as a Claude Weisbuch. So successful was the attempt that the client commissioned several more and Weisbuch had to ask Ribes to stop ripping him off. Naturally, he agreed. But, as he explains while working on a Fernand Léger gouache that he would hope to sell for around $80,000, buyers are notoriously frugal and notes that the Communist Party frequently underpaid Léger for his work.

Ribes admits that many of his early efforts were mediocre and it was only when American printer Leon Amiel bought his reworking of a Picasso bullfight scene that he hit his stride. Amiel was a great admirer of Marc Chagall and it was only after he had asked Ribes to produce over 30 fakes that he revealed that he had beein paying him to refine his technique so that they could make serious money producing authentic Chagalls that he could pass off to dealers without raising the slightest suspicion. Among the things Ribes learned during this $2 million apprenticeship was how to layer paint to give the impression of aged texture and how to use the dust in old frames to dupe experts into accepting the dates on forged certificates of authentication (some of which were signed by Ida Chagall at the behest of a rabbi and a dealer nicknamed `Little Chick'). However, he soon learned that he could knock off a Chagall in 45 minutes and only needed to work one fortnight out of every month, even though Picasso pastiches sometimes proved a challenge that required two or three drafts before Ribes mastered the technique and the Spaniard's mindset. As he explains, Picasso would do 20-30 variations on the same image and the trick is to make small amendments when creating the fake to convince the experts that they are looking at a lost entry in a confirmed series. Ribes admits that he frittered a lot of the money he made and recalls gambling away some $10 million while working in Las Vegas for Amiel (whom he claims had mob connections). However, he had worked so hard during the three-month stay that he was reimbursed and packed on a plane back to France. Yet, despite such instances of reckless generosity, Ribes resents the fact that his confederates often took a bigger share of the proceeds after he did the work. But he accepts that they took the risks on his behalf, with one dealer (whose father had printed Picasso's etchings) leaving the fakes lying around his offices in the hope of reeling in collectors who were always prepared to forego awkward questions in order to snag a bargain. Ribes rails at such hypocrisy and refuses to feel guilty for gulling those who sought to bilk the system. Seeking to show the extent to which he influenced the French art market, Ribes flips through a catalogue (which is pixellated, along with some illustrations, to avoid controversy) to show Léon which pictures in the Léger São Paulo series that was exhibited at the Galerie Félix Vercel are his handiwork. He claims that he was responsible for half the show and confides that several canvases were confiscated and used as evidence in his trial. However, he also reveals that their inclusion in the catalogue amounted to them receiving a certificate and, as a result, the collectors who bought them dispute his confession and refuse to admit they have been fooled.

Puffing on his pipe as he works under a fedora, Ribes comes across as an affable rascal. But Thouvenot is having none of it and declares that Ribes conned people into paying huge sums for worthless artworks, infringed upon the rights and reputation of those whose signature he forged and also created a disturbance of the public order by flooding the market and lowering the price of genuine pictures. Yet Ribes delights in the fact that he convinced collector Fanny Guillon-Laffaille to include several of his fakes in one of her books on Raoul Dufy (whose style Ribes particularly enjoys pastiching).

Perrault reckons there are around 2000 works by Ribes in private collections and laments that many will never be subjected to scientific scrutiny because they have appeared in the catalogues raisonnés that are so venerated within the art world. But, in the next sequence, Ribes shows again what a brilliant painter he is (and how much knowledge and insight goes into each piece) by producing a majestic Henri Matisse pastiche that he reckons could fetch up to $40 million. As he works, he discusses how Matisse played with light and reveals that he will sometimes leave a canvas in the rain to give it a patina of wear and tear.

Hearing Ribes muse on his craft, it's easy to forget that he hasn't always put it to the best use. Perrault, for instance, discloses that he used a vinylic paint that was not available until the 1960s on what was purported to be a 1940 Léger. Yet, Ribes insists that the police were reasonably relaxed about forgery until the dealers started to get greedy and demand large sums for his work. He remembers how close friend Pascal Robaglia was once held at gunpoint by a merry-go-round owner who was determined to get a refund for the fake Chagalls he had purchased, while Fernand Legros began producing fake certificates.

Despite Perolin asserting otherwise, Ribes claims to have churned out bogus certificates and had knowledge of a scam to place them on the back of genuine pictures in order to put the legitimate seals on the reverse of his fakes. But he was eventually caught and gives a colourful account of the police raid on his studio. He jokes that he had time to poke a hole in the lining of his pocket to hide $30,000 of cheques before he was searched and was allowed to keep a gun that was found in his desk. But Perolin dismisses 95% of his story and sighs that one of the problems with investigating Ribes is that he is such an unregenerate fantasist. Moreover, he is so freakishly prolific and seems able to turn out a Joan Miró at the drop of a hat and baffle the experts in the process.

But he rarely acted alone and, thus, often failed to recoup the gains commensurate with his talent and intelligence. Perolin highlights the role played by Robaglia and Gilles Ribert in duping Roessl. Ribes has little time for a poet who had inherited a fortune from his clockmaker father and he rather feels he deserved to be ensnared over a genuine Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting that he had acquired for a song from a cash-strapped widow. Ribert offered to get Roessl a certificate from the respected dealer Daniel Wildenstein, but reported back that his picture had been declared a forgery. Robaglia exploited the situation to gain Roessl's trust and set him up to buy Ribes items without a second thought.

Dismissing Ribes as a drunken spendthrift with an alcoholic wife, Roessl shrugs off his losses and takes satisfaction in the fact that Ribes received a three-year sentence for his part in the crime, while Robaglia got five. Yet, as Léon describes, this was just one tactic the pair used to pass off their wares. Robaglia would often visit collectors and offer to exchange a Ribes `modern master' for a couple of genuine works by lesser artists Thus, they were able to shift pastiches of Édouard Vuillard, Edgar Degas, Bram Van Velde, Kees Van Dongen and Georges Braque, as well as the odd copy of pictures by the likes of Jan Van Eyck that had supposedly gone missing during the Second World War.

Relieved to be tagged rather than imprisoned, Ribes relaxes beside a river and mocks those collectors who want to possess something so much that they accept the word of strangers before parting with vast sums of cash. He boasts that the bulk of his fakes are so good that nobody has ever doubted them and it amuses him that they become accepted as authentic. But he is even more pleased by the realisation that, any time a new fake comes to light, he can plead that he painted it decades earlier and that he has already served his time. Yet Ribes ends on a wistful note, as he concedes that he would probably have struggled to survive if he had relied solely on his own name and ideas. People want to own a little bit of art history and he sees no harm in providing it for them - for a price.

Léon closes his portrait with a counterfeit Chinese proverb, which states that `tales of art forgers may be as truthfull [sic] as their works'. But half the fun of this lively study lies in working out how large a pinch of salt to apply to the latest anecdote. Indeed, it wouldn't come as a complete surprise to learn that Léon and Ribes had concocted the entire saga between them. Yet, while one is left to wonder how skewed Ribes's moral compass has become, there's no doubt that he is a gifted painter and it's easy to be lulled into sympathising with him because nobody bats an eye if a musician does a cover version or a film director fills a remake with self-reflexive allusion. But, as was the case with Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving in F For Fake and wine savant Rudy Kurniawan in Jerry Rothwell and Reuben Atlas's Sour Grapes (2016), Ribes also has something of the devil in him.

Finally, this week, photographer Jenny Gage and her cinematographer partner Tom Betterton join forces on All This Panic, a documentary study of six teenage girls from New York that seeks to present their attitudes and opinions as a kind of impressionist mosaic. Too scattershot to offer many cogent insights into the mindset of millennial youth and far too artsy to reel in fans of reality TV shows like Jersey Shore, this is likely to fall between two viewing stools. But, even though Gage and Betterton treat their subjects with the respect and discretion they deserve, the nagging sense that several scenes have been staged or replayed for the benefit of the camera does much to undermine the three-year project's supposed sense of freewheeling spontaneity The primary focus falls on 16 year-old Lena M, whose final years in high school are blighted by the fact that her parents are about to get divorced and that her brother Nathan has severe psychological issues. Torn between a controlling father and an eccentric mother, Lena admits to following Nathan's example of cutting herself. She also gets the blues when a long-term crush informs her that he only likes her as a friend. But Lena is a bright student and her young shoulders support a wise head that is forever changing hairstyles.

Her best friend is Ginger Leigh Ryan, who lives in Brooklyn with her parents, Kevin and Tanya, and her younger sister, Dusty Rose. Dreading the day when someone tells her that she is too old for her cute outfits, the quicksilver Ginger is no stranger to hair dye. She also likes to party and puts a lot of thought into a soirée hosted with Lena (whom she ticks off for having called her mom after she got wasted at a recent bash). But she lacks her friend's worth ethic and desire to make the most of herself. Consequently, she debates whether to become an actress because she once had a part in a school play and enjoyed the attention that accrued from being on stage.

Ginger enjoys lording her new-found and hard-earned freedoms over Dusty, who seems to accept that taunting is all part of being a junior sibling. She quite likes the idea of finding a special someone from among her many platonic boy friends, but she is utterly devoted to her best pal Delia Cunningham. They ride bikes and hang out and joke about the `panic' involved in finding the right thing to wear for school. But they are also happy to let things happen in their own good time rather than pretending to be older than they are.

Olivia Cucinotta and Sage Adams are also pretty clued in, although Gage and Betterton spend much less time with them than they do the with the other four. Bashful about her sexuality, Olivia concedes that she has a thing about surfer girls that she could never share with her parents. By contrast, Sage has endless discussions with her widowed mother Nichole, in which she delights in pushing her buttons and testing her boundaries. She speaks movingly about the day her father dropped down dead and, while addressing her experience of attending a private school in Manhattan, she seems fully aware of the additional pressures and problems that come with being an African-American female. It's a shame, therefore, that the film-makers fail to explore Sage's milieu and emotions in more detail.

Instead, they return to Lena, who has managed to secure a scholarship to Sarah Lawrence College. At the end of her first year, however, she discovers that neither parent can accommodate her for the summer and she has to make plans to travel across the country to stay with friends willing to extend a few weeks of hospitality. She is pleased to see Ginger again, but she seems to have become stuck in an argumentative rut and keeps being nagged by her folks to get off to sofa and make some decisions. Her cause is hardly helped by the fact that Dusty and Delia have matured considerably, as they demonstrate while riding the ferry past the Statue of Liberty. But a new friendship with the savvy Ivy Blackshire might be what Ginger needs to jolt her out of her teenage funk. Olivia has also blossomed at college and she coyly introduces Gage and Betterton to Tess Neau, who first caught her eye in the library and soon became much more than a good friend. But, despite coming into her own at Howard University, Sage is in no hurry to limit her options, in spite of the frequent lectures from Nichole that Sage knows so well that she parrots them back with a mixture of frustration and affection. However, the real pearl of wisdom comes from Lena, as she sets off on her cross-country summer. She casually remarks that she had dropped acid before a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and she had realised that so many of the exhibits had once been owned by ordinary people living everyday lives. Gazing out of the train window, she smiles at the thought that her knick-knacks and commonplaces might one day be considered art.

With their natural light lyricism, Gage and Betterton certainly seem to be aiming for the gallery rather than the galleria crowd with this arch and occasionally banal snapshot. Doubtlessly sixth-formers and sociologists will recognise many of the concerns shared by the members of this middle-class sextet who often seem to have everything and nothing in common. It's never entirely clear how (if at all) Sage and Olivia fit in with the Lena-Ginger axis and, as the footage becomes increasingly (and a bit infuriatingly) fragmented, one ends up wishing that Gage, Betterton and editor Conor Kalista would stop showing off how trendily alternative they are and stay still long enough to listen to what their relaxed and mostly articulate subjects are trying to say about the excruciating passage from adolescence to adulthood and the awful truth that, having spent so long wishing to be that little bit older, there can be no going back. Or did they not hear Sage say, `People want to look at us but they don't want to hear what we have to say'?