Every now and then, the release schedule throws up a fascinating contrast. In the same week that Albert Serra mourns the passing of traditional cinema in The Death of Louis XIV, Phyllida Lloyd attempts to reinvent filmed theatre with Julius Caesar. With Serra chronicling the last days of the Sun King with studied minimalism and Lloyd opting for revisionist bells and whistles in setting Shakespeare's treatise on tyrannicide in a women's prison, the approaches could not be more diametrically opposed. One suspects that audience reaction is likely to be equally polarised. But each picture demonstrates the artistic vitality of a medium that has so much more to offer than infantalist mainstream escapism.

Originally conceived as an installation for the Pompidou Centre, The Death of Louis XIV is closer in tone to Roberto Rossellini's The Rise to Power of Louis XIV (1966) than the BBC costume romp, Versailles. Moreover, despite sharing the theme of mortality with Story of My Death (2013), which saw Casanova encounter Dracula during a journey through Transylvania, the action errs more towards the droll detachment of Serra's first two features, Honour of the Knights (2006) and Birdsong (2008), which respectively revisited the stories of Don Quixote and the Three Wise Men. But, by working with a star for the first time - and one who became the face of the nouvelle vague after his teenage innocence was captured in the climactic freeze frame of François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959) - Serra adds a layer of self-reflexivity that makes this feel more like a commentary on the history and future of French cinema than an authentic recreation of a 300 year-old moment in time.

Following a gentle wheelchair trip around the gardens at Versailles in the summer of 1715, Louis XIV (Jean-Pierre Léaud) returns to the palace to view the evening's revels from his couch. The camera keeps his profile in a tight close-up, with the shallow depth of field suggesting that the king no longer cares too much about the blurred figures milling around the salon. Indeed, he is much more interested in the dogs he has not seen for 20 days because Dr Fagon (Patrick d'Assumçao) disapproves. But, when three young ladies come to request his company, Louis remembers the duties of the métier he undertook to neutralise his feuding nobility and summons Blouin (Marc Susini) the valet to fetch his hat. He sits up to perch it on his voluminous wig and doffs it to the curtseying beauties, who applaud his civility.

Fagon uses a box of china eyeballs and a magnifying glass to examine Louis's pupils and declares that donkey's milk would help him regain his strength. He also indulges in a little gossip about two of the female courtiers after Louis inquires about their naked bodies. But, while he recommends them both, he suggests one is a little more discreet if Louis was thinking about amusing himself with them. However, his public role always takes priority and he manages a couple of spoonfuls of boiled egg and a small biscotti to reassure the assembled aristocrats that his appetite has returned.

In spite of his indisposition, affairs of state still revolve around the Sun King and he is shown plans for some coastal fortifications by the Duc d'Orleans (Francis Montaulard) and promises to give the choice of stone his careful consideration. But the sheer effort involved in walking a few steps while leaning on the arms of his servants leaves Louis exhausted and he wakes in the night with an excruciating pain in his leg that causes him to throw back the sheets and call for water. When an inexperienced footman ventures into his bedroom, Louis chides him for not bringing a crystal glass and bellows for Blouin before wearing himself out.

Nevertheless, the next morning, Louis insists on hearing mass in his chapel and he is helped into his wheelchair. Left alone with Fagon, Blouin asks if the king's sugary diet is hindering his recovery and joins with Mareschal (Bernard Belin) in suggesting that they invite doctors from the Sorbonne to examine him. But Fagon quotes Molière in dismissing them as charlatans who are better looking after books than patients. But he is concerned by Louis growing incapacity and the agony he endures while having ointment and bandages applied to his game leg. He cancels a meeting with Le Pelletier (Alain Lajoinie) so that the king can rest, but he senses a growing disquiet within the king's inner circle after Louis gets ready to meet his ministers and then decides he needs to rest.

Fagon allows him to keep a caged bird beside the bed. But, as he and Blouin try to nap in an antechamber, he is annoyed when the valet asserts that birds carry germs after he had disobeyed his orders by letting the king see his hounds. He dismisses the theories of Blouin's mother and warns him against challenging his authority by trying to smuggle in Dr Lebrun (Vicenç Altaió), who has a reputation among Fagon's friends in Marseilles for being a quack. In a bid to keep him away and aware that the black marks on Louiss leg signify the onset of gangrene, Fagon consents to letting five physicians from the Sorbonne (Olivier Cadiot, Philippe Crespeau, Alain Reynaud, Richard Plano and José Wallenstein) examine him. They mutter among themselves that things appear grave, but promise their sovereign that they will do everything they can for him.

Louis rallies on hearing drums and oboes from Saint-Louis and Madame de Maintenon (Irène Silvagni) suggests that some Italian musicians come to play for her lover after he struggles to swallow his broth. Père Le Tellier (Jacques Henric) concurs, but the king feels nauseated by the stench in the room and wishes he could vomit. Yet he recovers his poise in time for a visit from his five year-old great-grandson (Aksil Meznad). He urges him to be his own king and not to succumb to his own fondness for war. As he hugs the boy, he reminds him to keep the people faithful to God and sinks back on his pillow, telling his rosary, as he closes his eyes.

During the night, however, the pain in his leg is so extreme that Blouin is woken by Louis's moans. He insists on confessing to Le Tellier and Fagon is so distressed by the black marks on the skin that he allows Lebrun to administer his elixir, even though he is certain its mix of bull's sperm and blood, frog fat and distilled brain fluid will prove useless. Indeed, he orders Lebrun to drink a draft to prove it has no ill-effects and asks about his qualifications, as he shows the empty glass to the Sorbonne masters. Yet, even though Louis blenches on tasting the liquid and refuses more than a sip, Lebrun insists that his health and youth are returning, as the put-upon monarch drifts off to sleep.

The following morning, Louis seems calmer and Fagon wonders whether they potion might have worked after all. However, the Sorbonne scholars scoff at Lebrun when he explains that the patients respond better to natural remedies than human intervention because of the connection between the body and the earth. They remind him that they have cured the king of past problems, including syphilis, and shakes their heads in disbelief when he compares the disease to roses in wintertime and cites Arnau de Vilanova's On the Physiology of Love as his bible.

While they expose Lebrun, the Duc d'Orleans returns to Louis's bedside to persuade him to finance the defence plans. However, he is interrupted by Cardinal de Rohan (Philippe Dion), who has been summoned to administer the last rites. However, Louis reassures him that he merely felt dizzy and is not yet at death's door. Nevertheless, Madame de Maintenon and the chancellor (François Bosselut) help the king burn some documents that he does not wish to leave to posterity. Blouin burns his fingers, but he is still present when Rohan comes to celebrate mass and receives communion along with Le Tellier. Louis, however, has a biscotti and some wine from Alicante, as the Kyrie is sung.

Having asked that his heart is mummified like his father's was before him, Louis asks for a pot of hot-cold poultry. Fagon and the other doctors are puzzled by the request, but take it as a good sign. But they have no idea what he is trying to say when he starts to babble in a language they don't understand and the close up of the king's blackened foot suggests that his time is drawing nigh. Eager to ensure that they cannot be blamed for failing to save him (as they wonder whether they should have amputated the leg), they agree to declare Lebrun a scoundrel and recommend that the king has him thrown into the Bastille. They retire to allow Rohan to give him Extreme Unction and he forgives Louis's sins in hoping that he can depart in peace.

After repeated attempts to tempt the king with food and wine, Fagon presses a small bottle to his lips. Orleans, who will act as regent, stands beside the bed, as Fagon announces that Louis has died. The assembled courtiers shed tears from a combination of distress and decorum, as the doctors conduct an instant autopsy. They marvel as the size of the deceased's intestine and detect further evidence of gangrene in the stomach. Fagon apologises for not being advanced enough to have saved Louis. But, as he looks into the lens, he promises that they will do better next time.

Working with three digital cameras and a restricted budget, Serra and Jonathan Ricquebourg match the efforts of Stanley Kubrick and John Alcott in Barry Lyndon (1975) in creating visual magic from a limited light source. In particular, they capture the rich textures and the sumptuous reds and golds in Sebastian Vogler's sets and Nina Avramovic's costumes. Hair stylist Antoine Mancini also merits mention for the astonishing wig sported by the sublime Jean-Pierre Léaud, who delivers in relentless close-up a display of subtle wit and faded glory that is all the more remarkable for its selfless lack of vanity. Whether drawing on his last reserves of divine right regality or acquiescing in the inevitability of his human fallibility, Léaud evokes memories of his seminal 60s performances as Truffaut's alter ego, Antoine Doinel, and his later reinvention as Jean-Luc Godard's subversive everyman. And, in the process, he allows the Catalan Serra to pay homage to a form of personal film-making that is in grave danger of being eclipsed in an industry ever more concerned with the bottom line.

Patrick d'Assumçao and Marc Susini provide wonderfully natural support as Fagon and Blouin, while Vicenç Altaió limns Fabrice Luchini at his most feckless as the despicable Lebrun. But, while Serra and co-scenarist Thierry Lounas (who have based their script on contemporary medical records and the memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon) manage to say a lot in a few words about the Bourbon court, they leave plenty of space for Jordi Ribas and Anne Dupouy to pick up every telling sound, from the panting and chirruping of Louis's pets to the sonorous ticking of clocks and the increasing shallowness of the expiring ruler's breathing, as his 72-year reign draws inexorably to its close.

Sixty-four years ago, all hell was let loose because Joseph L. Mankiewicz had chosen Method actor Marlon Brando to play Mark Antony in his Hollywood adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The protests were more muted when Phyllida Lloyd presented an all-female version of the play in 2012 and completed her `Shakespeare Trilogy' with productions of Henry VI (2014) and The Tempest (2016) that were also set inside a women's prison. The idea was hardly original, as Paolo and Vittorio Taviani had ventured into Rome notorious Rebibbia Prison to make Caesar Must Die (2012). But Lloyd slipped in bits of behind bars backstory to give the audience some context for each play's politico-cultural subtexts.

Clearly, the intention was to highlight the shortage of worthwhile parts for actresses no longer in the first flush of youth and the subsequent casting of Maxine Peake as Hamlet, Glenda Jackson as King Lear and Tamsin Greig as Malvolio. But Lloyd - whose film credits include Mamma Mia! (2008) and The Iron Lady (2011) - is now taking her fight to the big screen, as she launches the Donmar Warehouse production of the second of the Bard's four Roman plays.

Before the advent of `event cinema', filmed records of notable stage shows had a feeble reputation, with only James Whitmore's Harry S. Truman in Give `Em Hell, Harry! (1975) earning Oscar recognition. But rather than simply pointing a camera from the middle of the auditorium, Lloyd has taken a more experimental approach to capture the immediacy of the live performance on two separate nights at the King's Cross Theatre. Some of her innovations are inspired, while others seem self-consciously gimmicky. Yet because her players are declaiming lines in a voluminous space so that every member of the paying public can hear them, the resulting picture often lacks the intimacy that the Tavianis achieved. Thus, for all its energy, attitude and ambition, this Julius Caesar still feels like filmed theatre.

As the film opens, the inmates of a women's prison are led through the complex by their guards and emerge in the gymnasium to enact the play they have been working on. Dressed in grey hoodies and sweatpants, they line-up while a young black woman with short pink-dyed hair introduces herself as Sade (Jade Anouka) and reads from a sheet of paper explaining why they have chosen the plays in the trilogy. She states that only 15% of women in prison have committed violent crimes, while over half have been subjected to violent abuse. Her mistake was to retaliate and she is now serving a long sentence for manslaughter. As Brutus says, `good words are better than bad strokes' and she has learnt this lesson, while finding her voice, in working on the text.

Having seemingly been in solitary, the prisoner playing Julius Caesar (Jackie Clune) is greeted with a burst of the old Searchers hit, `When You Walk in the Room', which is sung from a pool of light by at the top of the fenced-in seating by Mark Antony (aka Sade). The rest of the troupe (who are wearing masks of her face) give Caesar a whooping welcome and he reads his Lupercal horoscope from a woman's magazine after the Soothsayer (Leah Harvey) urges him to beware the Ides of March.

It's a messy opening that ends with loud guitar music and a mocking parody of testosterone-fuelled fist-pumping, as the throng follows Caesar to the games that are being held to mark his triumph over Pompey at the Battle of Munda. Cassius (Martina Laird) and Brutus (Harriet Walter) hang back. Disturbed by the cheers of the crowd, Brutus worries that new honours are being showered upon Caesar and Cassius seizes the opportunity to sound him about his views on the dictator's growing grip on the government. He tells two tales revealing Caesar to be very much a flawed mortal, but they are interrupted by their old friend's return, with a box of doughnuts to keep everyone sweet.

Shocked by Caesar humiliating Cassius in front of his henchmen, Brutus asks Casca (played with a strident Scottish accent by Karen Dunbar) what all the cheering had been about and learns that Antony had offered Caesar a crown three times and been turned down on each occasion. Each rebuff had made the mob love Caesar more and this convinces Brutus that he is playing the long game and plans to win the people to his cause so that they will not object when he makes a grab for power. Consequently, he agrees to join Cassius in an assassination conspiracy that also includes Casca, Metellus Cimber (Zainab Hasan), Trebonius (Jennifer Joseph) and Cinna (Carolina Valdés).

Arriving home in a long trenchcoat, Cassius sends his servant Lucius (Sheila Atim) to find out when the Ides of March is due to fall. He mulls over Cassius's arguments and fears that power will corrupt Caesar and cause him to threaten the stability of Rome. Thus, when a paper dart is thrown in through his window (which he reads in a top shot looking down on the basketball court markings), he responds to its message not to sleepwalk into a tyranny. Brandishing glow sticks, Cassius and his cohorts come to test Brutus's mettle. But he cautions them against killing Antony as well as Caesar.

While Brutus argues with his pregnant wife Portia (Clare Dunne) about her right to know what dark deed he is planning, Caesar is so spooked by a wild night that he sends a dog (Carolina Valdés) to be slaughtered so that its entrails can be read. They don't look good and he decides against going to the Capitol after his wife Calpurnia (Zainab Hasan) pleads with him to heed the warning of the Soothsayer. However, Casca arrives to flatter him with rumours that the Senate intends to make him king and he buttons on his coat with a new-found resolve, as Antony goes to prepare his grand entrance. Joshing around with old pals Cassius, Brutus, Cinna, Trebonius and Metellus Cimber, Caesar is in good spirits until the Soothsayer (clutching a doll with a bandaged head) enters and warns him against each in turn (using close-ups filmed with a Go-Pro camera).

Ignoring him, Caesar leaves for the Capitol, while the Soothsayer rides past a fretting Portia on a squeaky tricycle while she is lecturing Lucius on the need to keep an eye on Brutus, as she fears his enterprise will fail. Cutting from a top shot to a Go-Pro close-up taken from the trike's basket that picks out the twinkling ceiling lights, Lloyd strives to convey the rising tumult, but the effect feels forced. So does the burst of loud electric guitar music that accompanies Caesar as he marches through the audience flanked by masked and trenchcoated escorts and ignores the cycling Soothsayer for a fatal final time.

The house lights come up and Caesar takes a seat on the front row between two very uncomfortable looking punters. The bespectacled Cimber brings a petition about his banished brother that Caesar deals with in a heavy-handed manner that cooks his goose. He is stabbed while boasting of his constancy and screens dotted around the auditorium show close-ups of the crime from a camcorder being held by one of the killers. Rapid cutting adds a filmic frisson to the assault, but the eye is drawn to the middle-aged woman in a white coat who looks positively aghast as she tries to lean away from the brutality happening in the seat immediately to her right. It could be argued that the proximity of the audience this reinforces the production's feted magnetism. But it whisks the movie viewer out of an already precarious Brechtian set-up at a crucial point and proves an unnecessary distraction.

Donning red rubber gloves as they hold their daggers above their heads, the assassins prepare to proclaim peace, freedom and liberty to the people. But Antony comes across them and, thinking quickly, shakes the hand of each of the conspirators and agrees to hold judgement until he has heard the motives for their deed. Brutus agrees to let him address the crowd at the funeral on the proviso that he doesn't accuse them of treachery. But, while he promises to speak with integrity, Antony sends word to the slain warrior's adopted son, Octavius (Clare Dunne).

In the square, Brutus addresses the mourners and wins them over with his reasoning. But, having been pinned to the ground at gunpoint by his erstwhile companions, Antony turns the table on the `honourable' Brutus with the famous `Friends, Romans, countrymen' speech. The barked cheers of the crowd turn to a choral accompaniment, as Antony shows them the cuts in Caesar's robe and then reads the will that suggests he had the good of the communality at heart after all.

As largesse is wheeled on in shopping trolleys, one half expects the assembly to start chanting `Oh, Julius Caesar' to the tune of `Seven Nation Army'. But, instead, the monitors dotted around the theatre fizz and blackout and we are plunged back into the prison milieu as the jailbird cast as Cinna the Poet (Karen Dunbar) is taken away to be medicated and another (Shiloh Coke) is ordered to read the part from a book. He is mixed up with Cinna the conspirator by a hooded gang and his vicious happy slapping is filmed on a handheld iPhone. But the situation gets out of control and has to be broken up by the guards (Sarah-Jane Dent, Rhiannon Harper-Rafferty and Liv Spencer) after the prisoner is left with a bloody nose.

A raucous guitar riff rips through the air as Antony meets Octavius (who just also happens to be Irish) to execute enemies and plan their campaign. Their gunfire segues into a drum roll that gets louder as the kit is assembled on a mobile platform to clue us that we are now in the camp of Brutus and Cassius, as they organise their rearguard. But all is not well between them and they argue over who is to take command and Brutus accuses Cassius of having ulterior motives. In the heat of the moment, they remember their kinship and embrace. But two younger prisoners sitting on the steps get the giggles at watching them hug and the inmate playing Brutus comes out of character to swear at them and send them packing.

Returning to the scene, Brutus breaks the news that Portia has killed herself by swallowing fire. But he brushes aside Cassius's condolences and, having shared a bowl of wine (cue a corny tupperware gag), they welcome Trebonius and Casca to discuss strategy. They part on good terms and Brutus asks Lucius to sing him a song. As he strums along on his acoustic guitar, Brutus has visions of Portia and Caesar and dances with them both (in the most effective scene in the entire production, even with a cheesy glitterball hovering above the actors).

A volley of drumbeats transports us to the enemy camp, where the beret-wearing Antony and Cassius are flexing their muscles over who is the best suited to lead their balaclava-wearing guerillas to victory. But they are quickly confronted by Brutus clad in a camouflage jacket and Cassius in a buttoned uniform. They pull out blue plastic pistols for a half-hearted Mexican stand-off, as Brutus and Octavius trade insults and taunt each other about what to expect on the battlefield.

Left alone, Cassius declares it's his birthday and they all sing to him and he blows out the candle on a small cake. But he is unsettled by the birds circling the camp at Philippi and he knows he will never see Brutus again. As the drums crash and the electric guitar thrashes, Cassius bellows defiantly against his foes. But, as Caesar's ghost walks round him, he knows he is beaten and asks his servant Pindarus (Zainab Hasan) to kill him with the blade that slew Caesar. However, he had misconstrued the state of the battle and Brutus, Casca and Trebonius are distraught to find him dead. Nevertheless, they fight on (stomping in a macho formation to the driving rhythms of the band) before Brutus recognises that the tide has turned against him and, being unable to commit suicide, asks his old school friend Strato (a Spanish-speaking Carolina Valdés) to hold his sword so that he may fall upon it.

When his nerve fails, Lucius does the deed (actually shooting Brutus with Caesar banging the snare with some relish) and is welcomed as a decent man by the victorious Octavius. Taking the opportunity to address the populace, Antony has Brutus's corpse held up while he delivers a speech to camera about the need to rally round and heal old wounds. But Octavius barges in to complete the speech with a winning wink before executing the last of the prisoners. As Caesar bangs the drum, the others start to bang on the security fence with whatever comes to hand and this provokes the guards into calling a halt to proceedings and Hannah (the prisoner playing Brutus) curses them for ruining the moment. She is marched away, but not before she shouts that the world is going to hell and she urges the audience to do something about it.

Cutting to black and running the crawl without any applause or curtain calls, the film ends with a caption expressing gratitude for the involvement of the Clean Break theatre company (which was formed to help female ex-offenders) and the York St John University Prison Partnership Project. Credit should be given to Bunny Christie for the audaciously spartan set design. But this was clearly a collaborative effort with Lloyd providing the guiding hand. The prison setting raises many intriguing issues and one suspects viewers will need to see all three films to get a fuller understanding of the spectral storylines. Yet, while this is undoubtedly bold and bullish, it's also often brash and some of the staging exposes the limitations of even the most innovative filming of a live production. Moreover, a number of the artistic choices feel a bit iffy, with the squeaky tricycle seeming as random as the use of the overhead angles and the Go-Pro and iPhone point-of-view shots.

However, it's hard to find fault with the acting and few will find the gender switching to be in any way problematic. The contrasting styles deftly tie in with the amdram conceit, with the various accents and approaches to line reading giving the action an edge that seems to inspire the more familiar faces. The short-haired Harriet Walter particularly seems to relish the chance to stress her classical training as the middle-class Hannah almost recasts Brutus as a Received Pronunciation toff in a 1950s British war movie. Casualty regular Martina Laird also excels as the passionate, but impetuous Cassius, while Jade Anouka makes the most of Antony's grandstanding oration and Jackie Clune slips neatly from doing a passable impression of Porridge's Harry Grout to capturing Caesar's vainglorious swagger. Karen Dunbar and Clare Dunne also make a fine impression and (the odd reservation aside), one awaits the remainder of the triptych with keen anticipation.

Having written extensively elsewhere about Ermanno Olmi's The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978), this appreciation will focus on the character content of the Palme d'or-winning masterpiece that forms a docudramatic link between Georges Rouquier's vibrantly intimate study of the French peasantry, Farrebique (1946), and Michelangelo Frammartino's observational masterclass, Le Quattro Volte (2010).

Casting farm workers from his own region of Lombardy, Olmi tapped into their myths and memories to shape a scenario that evoked the atmosphere of life in a communal cascina in 1898. Originally commissioned to make a three-part series on RAI TV, Olmi filmed the action in a boxy aspect ratio that would suit the small screen. But he still manages to capture the verdant expanses of the Italian countryside and the decency, dignity and dynamism of the rustics speaking in their native Bergamesque dialect.

In all, four families share the sprawling farmhouse on the estate of a haughty aristocrat (Mario Brignoli), who is entitled to a two-thirds share of all the produced from the estate he runs with his trusty bailiff (Emilio Pedroni). Yet the tenants are glad to have a roof over their heads and food in their bellies and they give thanks each Sunday in the church where Don Carlo (Carmelo Silva) preaches a reminder about their duties to both God and the landowner's family.

After mass, Don Carlo invites Batisti (Luigi Ornaghi) and his wife Batistina (Francesca Moriggi) to the sacristy to suggest that they send their six year-old son, Minek (Omar Brignoli), to school. Grateful to the priest for taking an interest in the boy, Batisti is concerned about the distances that Minek will have to cover on foot each day when he could be making himself useful doing chores and keeping an eye on his younger brother, Tuni (Antonio Ferrari).But Don Carlo persuades the couple that an education will give Minek a great advantage in life and, so, he is packed off the following morning with a bag across his shoulder to trudge the 6km to his classroom.

Life is just as tough for the Widow Runk (Teresa Brescianini), who has to care for six children, as well as their grandfather, Anselmo (Giuseppe Brignoli). Still coming to terms with the loss of her husband so soon after giving birth, she takes in washing in order to make ends meet and relies on her daughter Teresina (Pasqualina Brolis) to collect and deliver the bundles in a wooden handcart. Fifteen year-old Peppino (Carlo Rota) is desperate to help his mother and persuades the owner to give him a job in the mill where his father used to work. Meagre though it is, the extra income allows the widow to turn down Don Carlo's offer to place Annetta (Francesca Villa) and Bettina (Marie Grazia Caroli) in an orphanage. It also enables 10 year-old Pierino (Massimo Fratus) to start helping his grandfather tend to the family cow. But the old man has the softest spot for Bettina and he teaches her the secret of rearing early tomatoes that will allow them to steal the march on their neighbours at the market in the nearby town. By contrast, the hot-tempered Finard (Battista Treviani) is forever arguing with his no-nonsense wife, Finarda (Giuseppina Sangaletti), and their work-shy eldest son, Usti (Felice Cervi). But 15 year-old Secondo (Pierangelo Bertoli) also catches it whenever he wets the bed and his younger sister Olga (Brunella Migliaccio) is glad to sneak away and play in the chicken-filled courtyard with her friends. Finard is a terror in his cups. But old man Brena (Giacomo Cavalleri) can no longer take his alcohol and daughter Maddalena (Lucia Pezzoli) watches with amusement as her mother ((Lorenza Frigeni) has to put him to bed after he staggers home after the Church Fair. The dimwitted Finard also has a fine time during the festivities, as he finds a golden coin on the ground and hurries home to hide it in the mud compacted in his horse's hoof As the seasons change, Minek sets off for school in increasingly inclement weather. But Stefano (Franco Pilenga) barely notices the mists and rains, as he is completely besotted with Maddalena. He often watches her through the trees as she walks along the rutted footpath before he finally summons the courage to ask if she would be offended if he greeted her on her way to and from the woollen mill where she works. Maintaining her modesty, Maddalena consents and acknowledges her new beau when he joins the others for a storytelling session led by the ebullient Batisti.

While he keeps his neighbours amused, Anselmo starts sneaking around at night to prepare the soil for his tomato crop. He shows Bettina how to stop the ground from freezing when the snow falls and how to use chicken droppings as fertiliser when he plants his seeds and keeps them warm in a hidden corner of the barn. But this is also the scene of a crisis, as the cow falls ill and the Widow Runk sends for the vet. He informs her that the animal is old and tired and suggests it would make sense to make a little money by having it slaughtered. But the creature is the family's only asset and the widow goes to the chapel to pray for a miracle. She asks God to bless the water she has collected from the stream in a wine bottle and hurries home to make the cow drink. Much to her delight, the animal staggers back to its feet and there is much rejoicing around the cascina.

The news that Maddalena and Stefano are to marry also cheers the residents and there is much excitement when Friki (Vittorio Capelli) the cloth merchant arrives with his barrow. Maddalena's mother helps her pick out material for her wedding dress and she looks beautiful as she takes her place beside her groom at the altar. They have arranged to honeymoon in Milan and they are escorted to the jetty by the excited villagers, who wave them off enthusiastically on a river barge. Such is the current that the vessel darts along and Stefano and his bride barely have time to eat their packed lunch before they arrive in the big city.

They are disconcerted by the plumes of smoke rising over the rooftops during a demonstration and have to pause to allow some soldiers to frogmarch their manacled prisoners to jail. Relieved to arrive at the convent where they are due to stay, Maddalena greets her aunt, Sister Maria (Francesca Bassurini), who shows the newlyweds to their room. The following morning, she wakes them with the news that she has found a baby for them to adopt in return for a stipend that will be paid by the church until it is fully grown. Happy to give the infant a home and to supplement their income, the pair head back to the country.

All is not well at the cascina, however, Minek splits one of his wooden clogs on the way home from school and Batisti is so stressed after his wife gives birth to another child that he panics and cuts down a tree from a protected grove to fashion a new shoe for his son. Meanwhile, Finard has discovered that the coin he had hidden in the hoof has gone missing and he flies into such a rage that he loses his reason and accuses the beast of robbing him. The horse rears up and chases Finard, who has to be rescued by Usti and his grandfather (Lorenzo Pedroni) and Finarda calls in the Woman of the Signs (Lina Ricci) to recommend a herbal cure to calm him down.

Life seems to return to normal for a while, as Batisti prays fervently that his moment of madness will go undetected. But the landowner notices the fallen tree while out riding and he conducts an inquiry to discover the culprit. Much as they like Batisti, his friends are powerless to argue his case or even show traces of sympathy when the bailiff comes to evict him. His calf is taken in compensation and silence falls on the cascina as Batisti loads his remaining possessions on to a cart and passes through the gate for the final time before heading towards an uncertain future.

There are so many telling details to pick out from this magnificent film. Olmi makes playful contrast between the Johann Sebastian Bach that accompanies the peasants at their labours, while the neighbouring blue-bloods have to make do with the landlord's son giving a hesitant rendition of Mozart's `Rondo alla Turca'. He also sets Batisti's ghost story against Don Carlo's sermon about a 350 year-old miracle and compares the cure of the Runk cow with Minek's discovery of the micro-organisms contained in a drop of water. But there's no flinching from the grimmer side of existence, as a pig and a goose are butchered during the three-hour saga, while there is no escaping the perils of poverty. Yet even those on the lowest rung recognise their duty to those less fortunate than themselves and there is genuine poignancy about the scene in which Anselmo welcomes the intellectually challenged beggar who offers blessings in return for a bowl of milk and polenta. Yet such moments prompted some to denounce Olmi for betraying his Marxist principles by sentimentalising hardship and presenting a patronisingly nostalgic view of the Catholic Church's status in 19th-century Italy. But this is no pious apologia. Indeed, by showing how powerless the peasants are against their so-called betters, Olmi paints an authentic picture of political oppression and the consolation of faith.

Along with production designer Enrico Tovaglieri and set decorator Franco Gambarana, he also achieved a degree of domestic authenticity that was reinforced by the fact that several cast members brought period tools and utensils from home. This sense of communality is also evident in the scenes of the neighbours singing while they work together to husk corn and load sacks on to carts to give the landowner his due. But Olmi deserves great credit for creating the on-set conditions that allowed the non-professional performers to relax during the long takes and ad-lib in their everyday tongue into Amadeo Casati's live microphone. Acting as his own cinematographer, he also produced a series of views of honest toil that could be animated Brueghel panels. Such artistry in the service of a naturalism that had not been seen in European cinema since Luchino Visconti's La terra trema (1948) makes this tour de force all the more exceptional.

Theorist-cum-screenwriter Cesare Zavattini once opined that the perfect neo-realist film would depict 90 minutes in the life of a man to whom nothing happened. Twenty-nine year-old Argentine debutant Eduardo Williams takes this conceit to a new level in The Human Surge. This has been mistakenly labelled a documentary, but it's clearly a staged experiment in content and form that will fascinate some and test the patience of others.

In many ways, this is a continuation of the shorts, Could See a Puma (2011), The Sound of Stars Dazes Me (2012) and That I'm Falling? (2013), which were respectively photographed in Argentina, Sierra Leone and Vietnam. Shooting each of the three narrative segments in a different format - Super 16, re-filmed Blackmagic footage and RED digital - Williams gives the impression of catching life in the raw. He also suggests the interconnectedness of a shrunken planet and mocks the indolence of humanity with a prolonged digression filmed inside an anthill. Yet, for all its audacity, this distinctive treatise on alienation too frequently runs the risk of falling into its own traps.

Opening in near darkness, the first section follows 25 year-old Exe (Sergio Morosini) as he stumbles around a confined space getting ready to go out. Having lost his job stacking shelves in a supermarket, he wades through the flooded Buenos Aires streets to what appears to be a family gathering. Nonchalantly greeting some of the guests, he slips away to a bedroom and switches on a laptop. Unable to get a connection or a signal for his phone, he sprawls on the floor and chats with a girl who could be his sister. She tells him about a dream in which she wore the same sweatshirt for days on end.

Mooching through the streets and into the park behind the housing estate, Exe hooks up with his pals. They are hanging out by the swings and taunt Exe for losing his job. He asks if he can borrow a phone, but his mate's mobile isn't working properly since he dropped it in the river. Some time later, unable to get online in his own room, Exe goes round to Nacho's house. He's not in, but Exe is allowed to wait for him and he wanders into a bunker room in the garden, where some of his friends are playing Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who will perform sex acts to earn some money on a voyeuristic website.

Woken from a nap, Exe goes paddling in the sea with three friends. They complain about an absent member of their group and discuss the idea of being able to smell with one's fingers. Exe jokes about working at Chinese Underpants, but their conversation ends when one of the gang jumps when something in the shallow sea brushes against his foot. They wander into the park and huddle together inside a hollow tree. Someone complains about the insects and the heat and they agree they need a drink.

The scene cuts to a corner shop and we follow a female customer as she chats on the phone while walking along. She meets up with a male friend and they go to another large house to kill some time. As she wanders off to the bedroom, her companion drifts into a room where a computer is showing some boys in Mozambique fellating a banana for money. They laugh when the banana snaps in half. But the screen freezes and Williams uses this as a means of transition to the second part of the film.

Like Exe, Alf (Shine Marx) spends far too much time chilling with friends who seem to have no purpose or direction. They need money to pay off a debt, but they refuse to do anything explicit online and soon get bored of flashing to the chatroom. Pulling up their trousers, they dress and file out of the room, with the camera following at close quarters through the busy night-time street. One of the group describes a dream in which they sky was filled with advertising.

After a day at work, Alf is too tired to see what a friend wants to show him. But he stays up most of the night flicking around on his phone and he decides to take a day off and calls in sick. After chatting with some female friends about wanting to quit, Alf struts along a winding path and is joined by his cousin. He has had his phone stolen and claims the thief used black magic. Muttering on, he wonders if white people can use black magic and then declares that only whites use weapons. They chuckle at the ideas they throw up, as they contemplate being able to take over someone will and make them do their bidding.

As they cross a busy road, the camera pulls away from them and picks up the orange-shirted, beanie-wearing Archie. He is carrying a plasitc bag and he runs through the sidestreets with the camera always seeming to be speeding away from him. Eventually, he bumps into Alf and they tally up how much money they have. They seem to be considering sneaking into an event, but they end up walking into the bush, where they sleep the night after wondering how it would feel if the moon was their cousin. On waking the next morning, Archie urinates on an anthill and the camera closes in on a hole in the soil and plunges down to survey the furious activity going on inside the colony.

The camera roves around for a while, keeping the scurrying insects in close-up before an ant runs into the fingers of Cahn (Domingos Marengula), a Filipino boy who brushes it aside with annoyance before returning to sending texts. Walking through the jungle, he runs into Chai (Chai Fonacier) who asks if he would like to kiss her. He would, but would rather do so when there aren't so many people around and she laughs at him.

Cahn chats to a friend on the phone and seems to be helping them with their maths homework, as he goes in search of his younger sibling, Rixel (Rixel Manimtim), who is playing with some friends. He gives the boy a piggyback through the trees, while Chai makes for the swimming hole, where she natters away to some pals about lobsters, spiders and old grandmothers superstitions. Xel wanders off to the Internet café and Rixel is keen to tag along, but he stays and becomes increasingly tetchy as Chai tells him how lovely the water is, as she bobs around a floating log.

As night falls, Chai follows the path out of the forest and asks a woman serving at a drinks kiosk for directions to the Internet café. She points vaguely along the road and suggests it might already have closed for the night. A neighbour offers to let Chai use his computer, but his connection is down. So, she wanders off into the dark distance, as the film comes to a close inside a factory producing electronic devices. The staff wear white coats and masks to protect them from the components. A voice keeps repeating the word `okay', as Williams cuts in to a close-up of gloved hands soldering a motherboard. Whispered voices engage in a brief conversation before electronic music (sounding like an out-take from OMD's Dazzle Ships album) begins to play over the end credits.

Unsurprisingly, a film as determinedly different as this one has divided the critics. It's certainly not the abomination that some mainstream stalwarts have insisted. But neither is it a work of staggering genius, as some of the trendier arthouse scribes have insisted. Williams is certainly to be commended for attempting something different, particularly where visual textures, quotidian rhythms and editorial transitions are concerned. But what is most intriguing is that Williams has given the impression of eavesdropping on lives being lived by characters who are too absorbed in their everyday routines to be bothered doing anything that could be construed as being part of a cogent linear narrative.

While the performances are laudably natural, however, some of the more contrived passages of dialogue that the young performers have to deliver ring resoundingly hollow. There is banal banter and there is pretentious prattle. Where Williams does succeed, however, is in showing how technology has hijacked childhood the world over and replaced innocence with a self-assurance that threatens to lead the unsuspecting into perilous situations.

The exhibitionism in the first two episodes is a case in point. But Williams has no intention of judging the behaviour of his characters and seems more interested in pondering both the extent to which communities in countries like Argentina, Mozambique and the Philippines have been duped into depending upon electronic communication and the impact that addiction to gadgets is having on the younger generation's attitudes towards work and relationships.

Director Nick Love has established a solid reputation among lad flick aficionados for such hooligan outings as The Football Factory (2004) and The Firm (2009) and a BritCrime quartet comprised of Goodbye Charlie Bright (2001), The Business (2005), Outlaw (2007) and The Sweeney (2012). However, his first venture Stateside is far less sure-footed and, consequently, its a racing certainty that more will see American Hero on disc or download than on the big screen.

Despite being confined to a wheelchair since being wounded during the Gulf War, Lucille (Eddie Griffin) spends much of his time taking care of best buddy Melvin Hesper (Stephen Dorff). Indeed, he has convinced a documentary crew to make a film about Melvin and his remarkable powers. But things get off to an unfortunate start because Melvin got so wasted at a party that Lucille has go scout around their New Orleans neighbourhood looking for him so that he gets to court in time to plead against a custodial sentence that will enable ex-wife Doreen (Keena Ferguson) to deny him access to their son, Rex (Jonathan Billions).

Using a tow rope to pull Lucille's chair behind his bike, Melvin spruces himself up before rehearsing his testimony with his mother Eileen (Andrea Cohen). She and younger sister Clarice (Raeden Greer) wish him luck and he heads to the courthouse in a truck belonging to his pal Lyle (Luis Da Silva, Jr.). Angry at being given a community service order that disbars him from seeing Rex, Melvin pleads with Doreen to see reason. But she says she wants to keep her child out of Melvin's mess of a life and her judgement seems sound as we see him partying wildly with a group of slackers and potheads half his age.

But Lucille isn't the only New Orleaner with faith in Melvin, as science teacher Lucas (Yohance Myles) believes that he has telekinetic powers and conducts regular tests on his brain to see if he can unlock the secret to his abilities. The documentary crew meet with a black woman whose roof Melvin restored in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But he tends to use his gift to busk in the street by levitating Lucille's chair. He performs a few tricks at a junkyard for the camera before messing around with the dining-room furniture and banging out a tune on the piano at home. However, keen to show a more serious side, he also discusses the work of Joseph Conrad, as a floating copy of `The Heart of Darkness' tries to distract him from reading some Maupassant.

Lucille, Kyle and Melvin resent the fact that they have to buy their drugs from sneering dealer Nathan (Countrified Wedman), but they makes the drudgery of daily life a bit more bearable and Melvin scoffs when cop Jimmy (King Orba) suggests that he uses his talents to help his community instead of goofing off. In fact, as he shows the film unit, Melvin has been known to chase crooks and he pockets the cash a couple of kids have stolen when they crash their car while fleeing from a shop heist. Commending their self-help attitude at a time when most Americans are content to accept handouts to spend on burgers, Melvin clearly revels in his maverick status.

But Lucas urges him to take better care of his health and his warning comes back to haunt Melvin as he lies in a speeding ambulance after collapsing at a party. Coming round from a coma after a cardiac arrest that left him clinically dead for several seconds, Melvin vows to turn his life around and Lucille helps him train to regain his fitness and find a purpose. He hopes his reformation will enable him to see Rex again, as he is disturbed by the friendship that the boy has struck up with Doreen's new boyfriend (Bill Billions). Newly released jailbird buddy Danny (Christopher Berry) is proud of him and Lucille gets rewarded for his help when Melvin lets pretty neighbour Yolanda (Dominique Perry) think Lucille is the one hovering a rucksack. But Jimmy is the most impressed when Melvin asks what he can do to clean up the neighbourhood after he sees Rex and his classmate chatting to Nathan's gang on their way home from school.

However, his first attempt to confront Nathan on his own turf leads to Lucille being shot in reprisal and Kyle and Danny tell him to stay away from them because he has started a war they are in no position to fight. He skulks away and uses his powers to dislodge some roof tiles and tip over some rubbish bins (under the gaze of a tubby kid in an Adam West Batman suit). But he reaches the conclusion he is wasting his time trying to be a hero and gets wasted while partying with Danny and Kyle.

The next morning, however, the trio are subjected to a machine-gun attack by Nathan's goons and Lucas warns Melvin that his heart is getting weaker each time he uses his powers. He pleads with him to see a specialist, but Melvin heads to the junkyard to switch the bodywork of a Porsche with a Nissan to amuse Lucille. But he also informs Jimmy that he plans to eliminate Nathan while he still has the wherewithal and he strides into their dilapidated, graffiti-strewn housing project and hurls rusting chassis and tyres at them, while deflecting bullets and causing the masonry to crumble.

Feeling good about himself, Melvin buys Lucille a white leather wheelchair and shows Doreen a bank book belonging to an account he has opened for Rex. Against her better judgement, she lets him pick the boy up from school and they cycle home together in a sentimental squelch that ends this already tiresome picture on a note of risible implausibility.

But there is much to scratch the head about in this muddled melodrama. Despite being bereft of cogent backstories and padded with tediously humdrum party sequences, the storyline has to be taken on its own terms. But Love's dialogue strains to sound sufficiently street, while the characterisation could not be thinner if Love had printed out the screenplay on rice paper. Moreover, even for a modestly budgeted project, the special effects are decidedly mediocre and, given how crucial Dorff's powers are to the entire conceit, it's surprising that Love and his producers settled for such obviously digitised illusions.

In fairness, Love and cinematographer Simon Dennis capture the look and feel of the rundown milieu, while Stephen Dorff commits to the role with a tenacity he often displays in movies that are beneath his considerable talents. He tries to work with the crass documentary concept and keeps his tongue firmly in his cheek while discussing literature and classical music and when frightening off his sister's new boyfriend by levitating the teatime china. But there's only so much a wholehearted performer can do, especially when so many of the supporting cast are merely going through the motions.

The reissue of Mulholland Drive (2001) and the revival of Twin Peaks has put David Lynch back in the media spotlight. Indeed, such has been the level of interest that two documentaries have been made about the engagingly quirky film-maker. That said, neither Peter Braatz's Blue Velvet Revisited nor Jon Nguyen's David Lynch: The Art Life can be said to be breaking new ground, as they follow in the wake of Toby Keeler's Pretty As a Picture: The Art of David Lynch (1997) and Jeffrey Schwarz's Mysteries of Love: The Making of Blue Velvet (2002). Moreover, Nguyen has been down this route before, as he had teamed in 2007 with producer Jason S on Lynch, a record of the production of Inland Empire that listed `blackANDwhite' as its director.

Given that Lynch has also shared many of his best anecdotes with Chris Rodley for the seminal tome, Lynch on Lynch (1997), there doesn't appear to be much that fans don't already know about one of the icons of American independent cinema. But Nguyen is clearly an insider with sufficient clout to persuade the 70 year-old to tell the familiar tales one more time, while pootling around his art studio in the Hollywood Hills. The absence of any outside, let alone any dissenting voices, means that this is very much a work of unquestioning admiration. Yet Lynch is such an offbeat raconteur that this highly selective trip down memory lane - which has been compiled from over 20 recordings made over three years - is rarely anything less than a diverting pleasure.

Born in Missoula, Montana on 20 January 1946, David Lynch and his brother John and sister Martha were raised with a decent degree of freedom by parents Donald and Martha, who never had a cross word for each other. Painting with his young daughter Lula mooching around behind him, Lynch recalls mud holes in Sandpoint, Idaho and playing war with his friends. He also remembers seeing a naked woman with a possibly bloodied mouth sitting down on the kerb while he was waiting for his father to call him in to bed. Nguyen accompanies the recollection with ethereal images created by Lynch that seem to have been influenced by the experience. But, when Lynch goes to tell a story about taking leave of neighbours called the Smiths, he breaks off abruptly.

If Boise was sunshine, Alexandria, Virginia felt like constant darkness, as Lynch fell in with a bad crowd at school and Nguyen uses a montage of menacing monochrome drawings to suggest his subject's mindset. Hating school and feeling guilty at letting his mother down, Lynch found solace in partying and fantastical dreams. But a visit to the studio of Bushnell Keeler convinced Lynch that he wanted to become an artist and Nguyen uses a grainy monochrome look to suggest the art laboratory vibe that Lynch experienced in Keeler's cluttered space. Robert Henri's book, The Art Spirit, also proved a major influence, as Lynch decided that coffee, cigarettes and maybe girls were the perfect accoutrements to `the art life'.

Picking up a sense of experimentation and problem solving from his scientist father, Lynch was encouraged to try his hand at art and began sharing a studio with Jack Fisk, who was a soda jerk at the pharmacy where Lynch worked as a delivery boy to pay the rent on his corner of Keeler's studio. Donald needed convincing that this was the best direction for his son, but Lynch recalls him being a fair-minded man who always met him halfway. He also admits to keeping his friends away from the house and living three different lives in the 10th grade, as he juggled family stuff with painting and wilder nights in Washington, DC with his pals and girlfriend. But, on moving to Boston for art school, Lynch found himself stricken with a homesick form of agoraphobia that kept him huddled in his new digs with only a radio for company for a fortnight before term started. Needing a roommate, he shared with Peter Wolf, who would find fame with The J. Geils Band. Lynch smoked his first joint on a road trip to New York with him. But they fell out after Lynch stormed out of a Bob Dylan concert because he was so disappointed at how small he seemed from the rear of the auditorium. Feeling he was wasting his time at Boston Museum, Lynch quit and planned to spend three years with Fisk studying under Oskar Kokoschka in Saltzburg. However, they returned after 15 days when he proved not to be available and he eventually enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts after Keeler wrote a secret letter of recommendation. Not that he liked Philadephia, however, and he reminisces about neighbourhood women who variously smelt of urine, clucked like chickens and warned their children against growing up like him. Distorted images of the female form accompany these unflattering remarks, as he describes the mood of fear and racial hatred that permeated the city. Yet, the combination of social unease and student camaraderie helped spark the vein of creativity that would set Lynch on the path to film-making and fame.

Following a sequence of brooding black-and-white images of rundown industrial sites, Lynch reveals how a painting of some green leaves coming out of a black background made him wonder about producing moving paintings with sound. A scratchy clip follows from an untitled early effort at film-making before Lynch recalls a midnight trip to the morgue and being struck by the fact that everyone in cold storage had a story to tell. A rapid montage of collage paintings follows. The subject matter would appear to be left-field, but Nguyen opts not to dwell on the images and Lynch offers no insight into their origins, making or meaning. All of which rather sums up the more frustrating aspect of this profile, as so much is being tantalisingly offered for scrutiny, only for it to be whisked away from view before its import can be gauged.

Wordlessly busy, Lynch continues to work on another project involving sticky substances while his voiceover regales us with the story of his father urging him in 1967 never to have children after he was given a guided tour of a basement full of decaying experiments. Ironically, his girlfriend Peggy Reavey was already pregnant with their daughter, Jennifer. We see bathtime home movies, as Lynch remembers messing up a reel containing 100ft of painstakingly produced animation for a live-action split-screen short. Bouncing back from his disappointment, he made The Alphabet (1968), which is shown in part as Lynch asserts that it's often necessary to make mistakes in order to evolve.

However, needing money to feed his family, Lynch landed a job with printer Rodger LaPele, who allowed him to paint at weekends. His film-making hopes took a knock, however, when he thought he had failed to secure an American Film Institute grant. But secured the funding to make The Grandmother (1970) and Tony Vellani invited him to study at the AFI Conservatory in Los Angeles. Looking back, Lynch insists he was happy enough with the way things had been going, but he knew this was a life-changing moment and he has never looked back.

Moving into the stables at the mansion in Beverly Hills, Lynch felt energised by the California sunshine. Divorced from Peggy, he endured a lecture from his father and brother to quit mucking around and get a proper job and started work on Eraserhead (1977). He still considers this his most satisfying cinematic experience, as he was able to create his own world on a modest budget and retain complete control over every aspect of the picture. As the film ends, Lynch sits behind a microphone and takes a deep draw on his cigarette, as he thinks back on that crossroads moment with quiet satisfaction.

In keeping with so many recent profiles of artists, photographers and war correspondents, the emphasis is firmly on self-eulogy. But, while Nguyen and collaborators Olivia Neergaard-Holm and Rick Barnes afford Lynch ample opportunity to wax lyrical on whatever topic comes to mind from his pre-features career, he proves too canny to give much away. Jason S keeps the camera fixed on Lynch's expressions of rapt concentration and on the rubber gloved-hands that tame a range of materials in order to produce his diverse and often oblique artworks. But fresh insights into his personality, philosophy or processes are few and far between. Thus, while it has been boldly edited by Neergaard-Holm to a twangy Badalamenti-esque score by Jonatan Bengta, this is essentially a flattery project that is only likely to appeal to those already firmly under Lynch's darkly mischievous spell.