Parky at the Pictures (DVD 3/8/2017)

Having fled the fighting in Aleppo, Sherwan Haji stows away on a coal freighter and lands in Helsinki in the hope of finding the sister who has resettled somewhere in northern Europe. As he crosses a deserted streetlit road, he nearly runs into travelling salesman Sakari Kuosmanen, who has just walked out on seemingly unconcerned wife, Kaija Pakarinen, who pours herself another drink before stubbing out a cigarette on his discarded wedding ring. While he checks into a hostel, Haji takes a shower in a station washroom before claiming asylum at the nearest police station. He is photographed and fingerprinted and placed in a small cell with Simon Hussein Al-Bazoon, an Iraqi who gives him one of the cigarettes he has hidden in his sock.

They are transferred to a detention centre, where smoking is the only pastime. After a few weeks, he receives an ID card and travels by bus to recount his experiences for bureaucrat Milka Ahlroth. She listens impassively, as Haji describes how he had returned from work to discover that his family had been killed in a missile strike. Neighbours had helped him dig the bodies out of the rubble before his mechanic boss (who was also the father of his late fiancée) gave him the money to escape abroad with his sister. They had crossed the border into Turkey and paid traffickers to get them to Greece. Thence, they had travelled through Serbia before being separated in Hungary, where Haji had been jailed for a short time. He had searched for his sibling in Austria, Slovenia and Germany before returning to Serbia. But, while he had found no trace of her, he has never stopped believing she is alive.

Meanwhile, Kuosmanen pays his last visit to outfitter Kati Outinen, who confides over a glass in her office that she has had enough of Finland and plans to party the rest of her life away in Mexico City. He then sells the rest of his stock and wins enough at stud poker to purchase a fish restaurant called the Golden Pint. Haji also visits a bar and listens to the guitar-singer (as he had earlier tipped a rockabilly busker) before being menaced at the bus stop by a trio of neo-Nazi thugs, who throw a beer bottle at the window after Haji manages to scramble aboard. The couple sitting behind him change seats and the driver looks back nervously, but he drives off without further incident.

Having hired business agent Puntti Valtonen to help him find suitable premises, Kuosmanen meets doorman Ilkka Koivula, bartender Nuppu Koivu and chef Janne Hyytiäinen and watches as they serve tinned sardines to their only customer. They haven't been paid in ages (as the last owner was a crook who stole their tips before heading straight for the airport on striking a deal with Kuosmanen) and they take it in turns to knock on the new boss's door and ask for an advance. Across the city, Haji and Al-Bazoon find a bar with a live folk duo. They smoke outside and Al-Bazoon reveals that he used to be a nurse in Iraq, but has only managed to find menial cleaning jobs since coming to Finland. As he needs at least three salaries to pay smugglers to rescue his family, he pretends to put on a happy face, as sombre migrants are always the first to be deported.

However, Haji remains phlegmatic during his second interview with Ahlroth, who asks about his faith. He insists that he ceased believing in gods while digging in the rubble for his parents and younger brother and just wants to belong and make a life for his sister. Ahlroth asks why he chose Finland and he admits that he arrived by chance after seeking refuge on a ship after being attacked in Gdansk. A crew member had hidden Haji in the hold and kept him fed, but he had fled Syria to avoid war rather than find paradise and, consequently, he is happy to embrace any culture willing to give him a chance.

However, Ahlroth rejects his application and he is returned to the detention centre in handcuffs, where he watches the latest bad news coming out of a city the Finnish civil service consider perfectly safe. Faced with a flight to Turkey the next morning, Haji bids Al-Bazoon farewell with a melancholic tune on a borrowed saz. But orderly Elina Knihtilä helps him slip out of a back entrance when the cops arrive to escort him and he climbs a fence and disappears into the city. He hides out in a bar and listens to a lively combo of rockabilly veterans before being followed into the dark streets by three members of the Liberation Army of Finland. They douse him in petrol, but he is saved by a group of homeless guardian angels who appear from the shadows to disperse the foe.

At the Golden Pint, Kuosmanen orders Koivu to get rid of Koistinen, the cute terrier she is hiding in the kitchen. He goes out to the bins and finds Haji slumped in a corner. When he tells him to leave, Haji punches Kuosmanen on the nose and gets knocked out for his trouble. However, Kuosmanen takes pity on him and gives him some soup and a cleaning job. He also lets him sleep in his old stock cupboard and hides him away (with Koistinen) when the health and safety inspectors come calling. Eager to avoid any further trouble, Kuosmanen pays Koivula's nephew, Elias Westerberg, to hack into the immigration system and not only make Haji a legal resident, but also create him a fake ID. This works a treat when Haji is stopped on the street, but he still asks Al-Bazoon to use his contacts to smuggle him out of Finland.

Meanwhile, Kuosmanen is losing money, as Hyytiäinen is such a lousy cook. During a brainstorming session, Koivula suggests that they start serving Japanese food and the restaurant re-opens as Imperial Sushi. However, nobody expects them to get a coachload of Japanese tourists on the first night and they quickly run out of traditional ingredients and have to smother salted herring in wasabi. The ruse clearly fails, as the party traipses out joylessly at the end of the evening and Kuosmanen sits sullenly in the darkness after the jukebox fuses. But Koivulu has another idea and a live band is playing for dancing customers when Al-Bazoon turns up to inform Haji that his sister has been found in a displaced persons camp in Lithuania.

Rather than let Haji risk being arrested in transit, Kuosmanen asks trucker pal Tommi Korpela to smuggle Niroz Haji on to a container ship and they meet her at the docks with more relief than joy. She returns with them to the rebranded Gandhi Indian restaurant and informs her brother than she wants to apply for legal asylum. He complies with her wishes. But, when he returns to the lock-up, he is stabbed by the skinheaded leader of the LAF (who mistakes him for a Jew). Packing his bag, Haji vacates the room before Kuomanen pays an unexpected visit after reconciling with Pakarinen and offering her the post of head waiter. Hiding his wound, Haji wishes his sibling well at the police station and slumps under a tree to smoke. He looks out on an unprepossessing view of a Helsinki factory, but raises a smile when Koistinen scurries up to lick his face.

Ending with another feel-good jolt of Tuomari Nurmio's irresistible music, this often seems like a parting plea for a return to the values of yesteryear in solving the problems of today. This sense is reinforced by the presence of a Jimi Hendrix poster on the restaurant wall and such erstwhile titans of Finnish cinema as Jörn Donner, Hannu-Pekka Björkman, Hannu Lauri, Atte Blom, Juhani Niemelä and Jukka Virtanen among the poker players. But the fact the film recalls the theme and tone of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's recently revived Feat Eats the Soul (1973) also bolsters the notion that Kaurismäki is looking over his shoulder as he departs the scene.

Some have criticised the picture for being too passively retrospective and overly naive in its depiction of a maligned migrant being rescued from callous bureaucrats and fascistic thugs by well-meaning margin-dwellers. But admirers will relish the Capracorniness as much as the deadpan delivery of the estimable ensemble, the Bressonian stillness of the camera, the Melvillean grasp of place, the Lynchian sense of the absurd and the Jarmuschean fondness for oddballs and outsiders. But, for all the self-reflexivity, this is pure Kaurismäki, with the generous helpings of foot-tapping music recalling Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989). It would be a shame if this really is Kaurismäki's swan song, as the world needs the skewed humanist vision he seems to concoct with such disarming facility with cinematographer Timo Salminen and production designer Markku Pätilä. But, if it is goodbye, this quintessentially quirky and quixotic charmer is a fine way to bow out, if only for the solemn way in which Haji responds to being asked whether he is male or female with the line, `I don't understand humour.'

Films have long had a habit of coming along in pairs. Bearing the influence of Dane Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt (2012), the Swedish duo of Magnus von Horn's The Here After and Beata Gårdeler's Flocking explore the impact that a sickening crime has on both the teenage perpetrator trying to rebuild his shattered life and the neighbours in their close-knit village who have sided with the grieving family of the helpless female victim. In Gårdeler's simmering drama, mother Eva Melander fights back with an aggressive social media campaign to demonise the 14 year-old girl who has accused her cherubic son of rape. But the stigmatised youth at the centre of von Horn's fact-based debut is forced to fight his corner alone, as his stern father resents him for diminishing his own standing in the community.

Released from a juvenile detention centre somewhere in Sweden, teenager Ulrik Munther is driven back to the family farm by his martinet father Mats Blomgren for a reunion with his stern grandfather Wieslaw Komasa and hero-worshipping younger brother, Alexander Nordgren. Nothing is said about the reason for the baby-faced Munther's incarceration or the length of time he has been away. But, from the moment he is attacked by an irate mother in a supermarket, it is evident that his actions have not been forgiven or forgotten by neighbours who had hoped never to set eyes on him again.

Opting to return to his old school, Munther is greeted with a hostility that shocks new student Loa Ek. She sees him tripped in the canteen and pushed around by the lockers and is surprised to learn that persecutor-in-chief Oliver Heilmann used to be Munther's best friend. Undaunted by the threats of her classmates, Ek becomes close to Munther and she begins to suspect that Heilmann's relationship with the dead girl might have had something to do with Munther's reaction. However, she is left in no doubt when Munther tells her what happened and how he murdered his ex-girlfriend while in something close to a trance.

Struggling to understand why people can't let the past lie, Munther begins to kick against Blomgren's regime. However, he leaps to the defence of the family home when Heilmann and his pals brick the windows. But, when Munther gives chase, he is subjected to a savage beating that is duly reported to the headteacher. He orders Heilmanm to apologise to Munther, but he reveals that he has received a petition from several hundred students and has no option but to ask Munther to leave the school.

Again feeling maligned because he has done his time and learned his lesson, Munther confides in Malin, who admits that she is frightened of him because he keeps his emotions so closely in check. Returning to the farm, Munther collects Komasa's hunting rifle and pays a visit to his victim's mother. He begs her to shoot him and put him out of his misery. Naturally, she refuses. But, even though he has caused her indescribable pain, she can still empathise with his plight, as he will never be allowed to forget what he has done and is, therefore, serving a much longer sentence than the court had given him.

A graduate of the Lodz Film School, Von Horn has twice drawn on case histories in his award-winning shorts, Echo (2010) and Without Snow (2012). But, while he and cinematographer Lukasz Zal root their story in the desolate rural landscape, this first feature owes a good deal more to stylisation than realism. Shooting on widescreen 35mm stock, Von Horn uses confining lines inside the frame to show just how trapped Munther is wherever he goes in his living prison. The blues and greys in Jagna Dobesz and Henrik Ryhlander's production design reinforce the bleakness of his situation and Munther (who is a pop star making his acting bow) retains an equally sombre impassivity that makes it almost impossible to fathom his character and mindset.

Some may feel a little manipulated by Von Horn's decision to withhold crucial information and coerce the audience into reappraising its opinion of his anti-hero. But Vinterberg and Gårdeler employ almost the same tactics and, while he occasionally seems a touch too much in thrall to Michael Haneke's patented brand of detached formalism, Von Horn is to be commended for generating such suspense without resorting to melodramatics.

Over the past decade, Mads Mikkelsen has emerged as one of Europe's most reliable screen stars. Shortly after being named Best Actor at Cannes for his performance in Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt, he landed the role of Hannibal Lecter opposite Hugh Dancy's Will Graham in a new American TV series based on Thomas Harris's flesh-fancying serial killer. Yet, while he is best known to international audiences for his portrayal of the villainous Le Chiffre in Daniel Craig's James Bond debut, Casino Royale (2008), Mikkelsen is an established star in his native Denmark and was, therefore, the natural choice to headline Nikolaj Arcel's A Royal Affair as German physician Johann Friedrich Struensee, who exploited his position treating mentally unstable 18th-century monarch Christian VII to seduce his dispirited British spouse, Queen Caroline Mathilde.

Opening in 1775, as Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander) writes to her estranged children, Frederick and Louise Auguste, from her exile in Celle Castle in her brother George III's Hanoverian territories, the action flashes back nine years to the teenage princess's arrival from London to discover that not only is her suitor, Christian VII (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard), completely disinterested in her, but he is also psychologically fragile and utterly under the control of his manipulative stepmother, Dowager Queen Juliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (Trine Dyrholm), and his scheming tutor Ove Høegh-Guldberg.(David Dencik). Nevertheless, Caroline succeeds in producing an heir and tolerates the king's childish outbursts and the cold indifference of a court populated by self-seeking aristocrats who compete for favours while paying little heed to the plight of the serfs on their neglected estates.

In 1768, Christian embarks upon a year-long grand tour of Europe and progressive nobles Count Schack Carl Rantzau (Thomas Gabrielsson) and Enevold Brandt (Cyron Melville) dupe him into becoming reliant on Johann Friedrich Struensee (Mikkelsen), a doctor from the Danish-controlled town of Altona who has the medical skills to moderate Christian's moods and the personal charm to gain his confidence. Moreover, he also has an overweening ambition to put into practice the Rousseauian ideas that he has published in a series of anonymous tracts. Thus, he accompanies the entourage to Copenhagen, where he quickly makes an impression on the lonely Caroline, with whom he conspires to coax Christian into playing an acting game that involves him presenting reforms to his intransigent legislative council in the form of a prepared script.

Arcel and co-scenarist Rasmus Heisterberg exaggerate Caroline's role in the emancipation of the peasantry, the introduction of freedom of speech, the building of public hospitals, the abolition of censorship, torture and capital punishment for theft and the overhauling of the taxation system to ensure that both the nobility and the clergy became liable. Yet the sequences depicting this 10-month period when 1069 cabinet orders were issued (as the rate of three per day) are among the most exhilarating in the film, as Mikkelsen claims a seat on the council and becomes increasingly dictatorial in his attitude towards a monarch who, himself, may not have been quite the shill that history has suggested.

Somewhat inevitably, this unconventional triumvirate soon finds its enemies massing and Juliana and Guldberg make cynical use of the new powers of free expression to spread rumours about the nature of Struensee's relationship with the queen. Consequently, when she gives birth to a daughter, it is widely assumed that Christian is not the father and the reactionaries move quickly to secure a divorce and bypass the king to topple the now isolated Struensee, who was executed with Brandt for the usurpation of royal power on 28 April 1772.

Although it was the subject of Victor Saville's The Dictator (1935) - which starred such British stalwarts as Clive Brook as Struensee, Madeleine Carroll as Caroline, Emlyn Williams as Christian VII and Helen Haye as the Queen Mother - this seismic period had never previously been filmed in Denmark. Executive produced by Lars von Trier, it inspires an epic tale of infatuation, ideology, intrigue and vested interest that benefits from exceptional production design and costumes by Niels Sejer and Manon Rasmussen and lavish visuals by Rasmus Videnaek that are always more controlled than Gabriel Yared and Cyrille Aufort's sonorous score.

Arcel also directs steadily, without departing too far from the conventions of the heritage picture. His screenplay is occasionally declamatory and the bookending epistolary device emphasises too early for those unfamiliar with the saga the doomed nature of Caroline's Danish sojourn (she would die soon afterwards at the age of just 23). Nonetheless, the performances are admirable, with Vikander ably conveying the queen's trusting naiveté and Mikkelsen exuding a dynamic blend of Enlightenment decorum and megalomaniac zeal. However, the romantic spark isn't always evident, with the result that both Mikkel Boe Følsgaard (who won the Best Actor prize at the Berlin Film Festival) and Trine Dyrholm are frequently able to steal focus as the unpredictable king and his ferocious guardian.

Films often come in clusters and South Korean cinema is currently fixated on the Japanese domination of the peninsula between 1910-45. Following Choi Dong-hoon's Assassination (2015), Cho Jung-rae's Spirits' Homecoming and Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden (both 2016), Kim Jee-woon's The Age of Shadows is more of a spy thriller than an historical treatise. In some regards, it resembles Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (2007), which turned on an attempt to assassinate a high-ranking Japanese official in wartime Shanghai. The same city features in the latter stages of Kim's sleek 1920s saga, as traitors and patriots battle for supremacy. But, as in Kim's 2008 adventure, The Good, the Bad, the Weird, the most thrilling action takes place on board a steam train.

As resistance fighter Kim Jang-ok (Park Hee-soon) tries to raise funds for the cause by selling a stolen statue to a collector-cum-collaborator, he realises he has been betrayed and that the villa in suburban Seoul has been surrounded by Japanese troops led by Korean police captain and former classmate Lee Jeong-chool (Song Kang-ho). He informs Kim that any attempt to escape would be futile, but he makes a dash through the compound, with soldiers clambering across the rooftops to fire at him. Kim kills two soldiers before taking sanctuary in an outhouse. Despite the pain, he snaps off an injured toe and, following a defiant exchange with Lee about honour and duty, he puts a pistol to his temple.

At Lee is ticked off by Japanese commander Higashi (Shingo Tsurumi), Kim's comrades in the Righteous Brotherhood meet at the Sampantong Rickshaw Garage. They are convinced that Lee has allowed sidekick Joo Dong-sung (Seo Yeung-ju) to go free in order to spy on them. But he insists he has no idea why he was freed without charge and he is spared.

Meanwhile, Lee has been told by one of his contacts that Jo Hwe-ryeung (Shin Sung-rok) and Kim Woo-jin (Gong Yoo) are selling artefacts to buy explosives from a Hungarian source. He passes the intelligence on to Higashi, who teams Lee with ruthless detective Hashimoto (Um Tae-goo), who is on the trail of resistance leader, Jeong Chae-san (Lee Byung-hun). Lee resents the implication that he is incapable and/or untrustworthy, but had no option but to obey, especially as Hashimoto knows that Jeong's secretary, Yun Gye-soon (Han Ji-min), has just arrived in Seoul and can lead them to the enemy top brass.

The only problem is that nobody knows what Yeon looks like. So, she is able to pass freely to the Youngsarng Photography and Antique shop run by Kim Woo-jin and make a drop. She asks Kim to take her picture and is disappointed when he says he values her as a confederate. As she leaves, Lee arrives to ask Kim to evaluate the statue recovered from the scene of his old classmate's death. Recognising it, Kim declares it a fake and tells Lee that he owns a pottery in Shanghai that specialises in producing fakes. He asks Lee if he would like to help him get consignments past the Japanese authorities and they go for a drink to broker a deal. But, even though Lee once worked for the Brotherhood before being recruited by Higashi, Kim remains sceptical about his willingness to abet him and sends a radio messages to warn his colleagues that they are to meet up in Shanghai if their cell is infiltrated.

Lee reports back to Higashi, but Hashimoto intercepts the call and sends undercover cop Umae (Jong Do-won) to capture Yun at the convent where she is hiding. Much to Lee's satisfaction, she manages to follow Kim into exile and Hashimoto is so furious with Umae for bungling the operation that he comes within a whisker of beating him up. But he also suspects Lee of leaking information to his compatriots and vows to keep a close eye on Lee when Higashi dispatches them both to Shanghai to stop Kim from buying explosives and causing terrorist atrocities across Seoul.

Kim heads for his pottery in the Qingpu district, but Kim sends word to meet him when he arrives at the railway station. Despite Yun's misgivings, Jeong is prepared to trust him because even a turncoat only has one motherland. The same thought has also occurred to Hashimoto, who details Ha Il-soo (Heo Sung-tae) to keep Lee and Kim under close surveillance. But he also sends them to the local pharmacy to see if anyone has been purchasing the chemicals needed to make explosives. One of the female staff gives Ha a tip, but Yun sees him snooping and steers Hungarian anarchist Ludvic (Foster Burden) away from the shop before he can be ambushed. That night, Lee also keeps tabs on Kim and chauffeur Heo Chul-joo (Kim Dong-young) outside a cinema and notices that they are being followed by one of Hashimoto's men. However, his car is rammed when he takes up station outside the pottery.

The following morning, Kim collects Lee and takes him to a backstreet restaurant where he dines with Jung. They drink heavily and they warn Lee that Hashimoto is prepared to sacrifice him in order to crack the resistance and further his own career. He is also out for the bounty placed on Jung. When the wine runs out, they go night fishing and Jung gives Lee the opportunity to cast him into the sea. But, even though he entrusts Lee with his watch, the cop is less certain what line of action to pursue than his trusting companions. Lee protests that he is just a salaryman, while they are soldiers fighting to recover their country. But Kim is sure he will help them get safe passage back to Seoul, even if he is driven more by hatred of Hashimoto than patriotism.

Lee reports back to Hashimoto and Ha and tells them that the Brotherhood is planning a shipment of dynamite. But he sends them to the wrong pier at the docks and this gives Jung time to brief Kim, Yun and Jo about accompanying the crates on the train to Seoul. However, their hopes of fooling Hashimoto into thinking they are smuggling the cargo by ship are rumbled by Ha and he informs Hashimoto (during an argument with Lee at Kim's pottery about their chain of command and the reliability of their sources) that they are planning to rendezvous at Antung Station. Lee dresses Ha down for presenting his report in a sloppy manner, but is concerned that Hashimoto will now catch the express and round up the leaders.

On the train, Heo sits with the cases in the baggage car, while Kim poses as a worker in third class and Jo as a businessman in second. Yun takes her seat in first with Ludvik. However, when Kim finds a leak in his bag and has to go to the bathroom to investigate, Lee manages to warn him that one of his confrères is a traitor and has been leaking information to Hashimoto. Lee promises to do what he can to keep Hashimoto off the scent, but knows he is a mad man on a mission and is liable to do whatever it takes to succeed.

As he prowls through the beautiful first-class carriage with its crystal chandeliers, Hashimoto meets the disdainful gaze of Yun smoking a cigarette. But Lee tells him he is being too obvious and needs to adopt a subtle approach. However, he nearly betrays Kim when he sees him enter the compartment it takes some quick thinking (to change the nappy of a baby with a sleeping mother) to avoid detection. Rather than lay low, however, Kim knows he has to uncover the traitor to protect the mission and tells each of his travelling companions a different meeting time n Seoul so that he will be able to find out which one reaches Hashimoto. He asks Lee to keep an ear open and meet him in the buffet car in 15 minutes. But Lee is reluctant to keep taking risks that might expose him and resents Kim blackmailing him into co-operating.

Relieved at hearing that Hashimoto has called off the carriage search and now plans to snatch the partisans at the station, Lee announces he is going for a beer. He sits at the bar and tells Kim that Hashimoto had been told the meeting place was Mokin Inn at Golden Pavillion. But, just as he hears the time that condemns Jo, Hashimoto enters and sits between them. He senses their tension and asks Lee if he has noticed how closely Kim resembles one of their chief suspects. Ha and his oppo block off the entrance as Hashimoto pulls a gun on Kim and demands his papers. However, Lee knocks the pistol out of his hands and a shootout ensues, sending the other couple dining into a blind panic. Hashimoto seethes with rage at being bested by a traitor, but Lee has no qualms in gunning him down and defuses the situation by showing his badge to the onrushing cops.

Lee assembles the others in the baggage car and exposes Jo as the traitor. He says his heart is no longer in such an amateur enterprise, but hopes they can part as friends. But Lee executes him with a single shot and Kim informs him that he wants nothing more to do with the resistance. Indeed, he swears that he will kill him the next time they meet before he opens the train door and jumps into a field in the middle of nowhere. Trying to appear as though nothing untoward has happened, Lee, Yun and Ludvik resume their seats and wonder what will await them in at Gyeonseong Station.

Troops line the concourse as the train halts and Lee, Yun and Ludvik make their way to the inspection point. Lee gets through after some scrutiny, but Ludvik is recognised and Yun pulls a gun when plain clothes cops close in on her. Lee tries to help her, along with Heo. But she is arrested and comrades calm Lee down before he does something reckless.

Returning to Seoul, Lee is thanked for his efforts by Higashi, who takes him down to the dungeon to show him Yun undergoing torture. He orders him to brand her cheek with a hot iron if she refuses to betray Kim and Lee has no option but to scar her face. Outside in the car, Higashi says that others had doubted Lee's loyalty, but that he had always known he would see Japan as the superior force. However, he warns Lee that he will pay a high price if he fails to capture Kim As Louis Armstrong sings `When You're Smiling' on the soundtrack, a montage shows Ludvik and Seo Jin-deol (Kwak Ja-hyoung) being arrested and others being tortured for information. The doleful Lee tries not to betray his feelings, as he goes through the motions of doing his duty. He drifts to Kim's shop and spots Joo keeping watch. Acting on his advice, Lee heads deep into the forest and finds Kim hiding out in a log cabin. However, Joo had set them both up and Kim is arrested.

Higashi delights in informing him that they were only able to recognise Yun by the photograph he had taken of her and Kim is so distraught that he bites off his own tongue so he can't betray anyone else. However, he soon ends up in court alongside Yun and Lee, who has been arrested for supporting the Brotherhood. On the stand, however, he breaks down and insists he was only doing his best for Japan and feels it is unfair that he is being persecuted after he placed himself in so much jeopardy. Higashi and Kim look away as Lee sobs and he is barracked by the other prisoners as he is led back to his cell.

One month later, Kim learns that Yun has starved herself to death and her body is being taken away on a cart as Lee is being released. He is crushed by the sight of her suffering and wanders home in a daze. But a flashback to the cabin in the woods shows Kim agree to sacrifice himself so that Lee could take the explosives and hide them under the floorboards in his house. Now he packs them in a briefcase and takes a tram across the city to blow-up a function for high-ranking Japanese officials.

As Ravel's `Bolero' begins to play, Lee gains admission to the venue and several doors are opened for him by resistance sympathisers. While the guests mill around the reception area, Lee plans his bomb. Meanwhile, Joo is stabbed while trying on a new suit and is wrapped in a curtain and left to die. Outside, a shadowy figure nods in a nearby car.

Back at the function, Higashi takes a toast while descending the grand staircase. He opens a gold envelope on the drinks tray and finds inside Kim Jang-ok's death certificate and the blackened tip of his big toe. Realising that something dire is amiss, Higashi looks around the room and sees Lee raising a glass just before the bomb detonates. Over at the prison, a guard tells Kim about the carnage and reveals that over half of the dynamite smuggled into the country is still missing. Smiling quietly to himself, Kim lies down with his head in the small patch of sunlight that comes through his cell window.

Determined to avenge Kim Jang-ok, Lee seeks out the collector who betrayed him and shoots him like a dog. He tosses away his police medal and goes to meet with postman Sun-Gil (Kwan Soo-hyun) in the woods. Returning Jung's watch, he hopes that he will see him again in happier times. As the film ends, Sun-Gil cycles into the Japanese HQ with a parcel on the back of his bike and, from the quiet smile on Kim's face as he dozes in his cell, he is about to deliver the last of the explosives.

Despite the 140-minute running time, there's little room for character development in this rattling yarn that is filled with trademark Kim Jee-woon set-pieces. Yet, while his Japanese handlers border on caricature, Song Kang-ho manages to invest his career cop with a degree of enigmaticism that means it is never entirely sure where his loyalty lies. His relationship with Gong Yoo is key to the maintaining the suspense, but their rapport precludes any chance of a romantic subplot with Han Ji-min, who is as peripheral as the other members of the Righteous Brotherhood (or Uiyoltan), which really did blow up the Jongno police station in Seoul in 1923.

However, everyone plays their part in keeping the story twisting along between the shootouts and montages that are compiled with panache and precision by Kim and editor Yang Jin-mo. Kim Ji-yong's camerawork is also top notch, as he contrasts the claustrophobic confines of hideouts and train carriages with neon-lit city streets and misty woodland glades. The driving score composed by Lee Sung-hyun (aka Mowg) is equally evocative, even though two crucial sequences rely on the wry use of a Louis Armstrong jazz standard and Maurice Revel's rising crescendo. Yet nothing surpasses Cho Hwa-sung's production design, which succeeds in being both stylish and atmospheric, with the train interior and the nocturnal street scenes being particularly striking.

Kim and co-writers Lee Ji-min and Park Jong-dae might have made a few more concessions to those not entirely up to speed with Nippo-Korean relations between the wars. But most viewers will relish the satisfying complexity of the plotline and the Leone-like blend of telltale close-ups and impeccably choreographed stand-offs that give this intelligently convoluted picture its intrigue and ferocity. Finally, this week, Pablo Larrain plays fast and loose with the conventions of the biographical sub-genre in Neruda, which sees the Chilean auteur invent an entirely fictitious character and places him at the heart of his `anti-biopic' of Pablo Neruda, the Nobel Prize-winning poet whose vocal opposition to President Gabriel González Videla forced him into hiding and then exile. As in his Pinochet trilogy of Tony Manero (2008), Post Mortem (2010) and No (2012), Larrain examines political corruption, injustice and the scars of memory with a challenging blend of offbeat wit and lacerating acuity. But, while he explored the ease with which groups can be swayed to accept the normalisation of tyranny and violence in The Club (2015), this noirish treatise on the making of `the People's Poet' has much in common with Larrain's sole excursion outside his homeland, when he analysed the making of a myth in Jackie (2016).

Waving to the gallery as flashbulbs pop, Pablo Neruda (Luis Gnecco) enjoys his status and celebrity as the worlds most famous Communist. He struts into an antechamber at the Senate and engages in bullish banter with the right-wing supporters of Gabriel González Videla (Alfredo Castro) and ignores the snipes that he is out for himself rather than the working people he claims to champion. Narrating proceedings, Oscar Peluchonneau (Gael García Bernal) concurs that many believe this railwayman's son with an aristocratic Argentinian artist wife, Delia del Carril (Mercedes Morán), is as much a hypocrite as the Bolsheviks fawning over him at a fancy dress party, as he recites `Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines' while dressed as Lawrence of Arabia (or is it Latin lover supreme, Rudolph Valentino?).

Peluchonneau mocks Neruda for trading on his past glories and derides Communists as work-shy charlatans who would rather burn churches than bring about meaningful reform. But, with his `J'accuse' speech of 6 January 1948, Neruda places himself at the forefront of the opposition to Videla and he is warned by Senate president Arturo Alessandri (Jaime Vadell) that his next book will contain prison poems unless he ceases to slander the regime. Neruda regrets writing a verse in support of Videla during the election campaign and curses being fooled by the glib words of a populist. However, he also refuses to bow to intimidation and promises Alessandri that the only way the Party will be eradicated is if the government executes every single member.

Alessandri insists there will be no need for such extremism. Days later, however, Neruda is threatened with impeachment and decides to go into hiding rather than hand himself in to create a public outcry. He strolls in the Santiago sunshine after posing for a propaganda photograph with Del Carril, while his comrades in the impoverished neighbourhoods where he rarely ventures are being rounded up by soldiers and bundled into trucks destined for the Pisagua detention centre. But Neruda is also under surveillance by Peluchonneau (a cop who is described as `half moron, half-idiot' and is purely a figment of Neruda's imagination), who declares that he is a trained monkey acting on behalf of Videla's boss (ie Harry S. Truman, the President of the United States) in seeking out and destroying the Red Menace. He promises Videla that he will humiliate Neruda and break the spell he has over the common folk, who believe everything his honeyed voice tells them.

Stopped at the border with Argentina for having two names (Neruda is the `nom de guerre of Ricardo Reyes Basoalto), Neruda and Del Carril are smuggled into a safe house by Víctor Pey (Pablo Derqui). Yet, while he is glad to have reached sanctuary, Neruda wishes he could be closer to both the people and his adversaries, so that neither can forget him. He also misses the chase and leaves a pulp thriller entitled The Woman at the Zoo for Peluchonneau to find when he searches his home and it amuses him that (despite being the son of a famous detective) the prefect is too plodding to appreciate the clues he is scattering.

Meanwhile, Neruda has started to get cabin fever and Del Carril and Pey have to calm him down when he rants in the garden late at night about Peluchonneau raiding the homes of his friends and associates. He demands to know whether Pey is sufficiently loyal, as no one has searched his house. But Pey insists that nobody knows he lives here and Del Carril reminds her husband that people are taking enormous risks to help him and that he needs to be grateful and circumspect.

As posters go up around the city proclaiming Neruda to be a traitor, Álvaro Jara (Michael Silva) becomes his new minder so that Pey can deal with the manuscript for El Canto General and the delivery of a letter to Pablo Picasso (Emilio Gutiérrez Caba). While Pey posts the 30 envelopes containing the poems, Peluchonneau is refused an audience with Videla and Del Carril is denied sex Neruda, who poses as a priest to stride the streets and seek solace in a brothel. But Videla knows another woman who can besmirch Neruda's reputation and Peluchonneau is sent to meet Maryka Hagenaar off the train and coach her in how to win over the press with her story of how the poet abandoned her and her ailing daughter to commit bigamy.

Yet, as Captain Augusto Pinochet oversees the arrival of new inmates at Pisagua and Picasso reads his letter to a gathering of sympathisers, Maryka infuriates Peluchonneau by going on the radio to declare that, even though he owes her money, Neruda is a decent man. Indeed, he reaffirms his popularity when he slips out to a bordello near his hiding place and joins in with the reviled transvestite singer on a sentimental ballad that makes everyone toast him for the sacrifices he is making on their behalf. Consequently, they hide him when Peluchonneau (whose mother was a prostitute) raids the joint and detains the singer for questioning. However, he refuses to betray Neruda, as he had insisted that they were artist equals and he sneers that Videla will never win the affection of the masses because he has no respect for their worth.

Angry with Jara for lecturing him on his nocturnal ramblings, Neruda channels his emotions into `The Enemies' (with its repeated refrain of `I demand punishment') and this rallying cry is read aloud at gatherings of workers across the country. Among those to be inspired is a lifelong Communist named Silvia, who approaches Neruda for an autograph and a kiss while he is dining with Del Carril. Silvia is affronted when Del Carril asks her to be discreet and she accuses Neruda of being pampered and protected by a state that makes a great show of hunting him down while making no effort to capture him in order to avoid an international incident. He tries to reassure her that they will be equal come the revolution, but Silvia has her doubts that they will ever be on the same rung of the social ladder.

Del Carril realises that Silvia's words have stung and she urges Neruda to speak with the voice of a poet as he reads her `Let the Woodcutter Awaken'. But they are interrupted by Pey, who has made arrangements for Neruda to go alone to Valparaiso to leave Chile on a fishing boat. Refusing to cry, Del Carril bids him bon voyage, as Peluchonneau recites Canto XII from The Heights of Macchu Picchu while stalking Pey, as he posts the envelopes containing Neruda's latest poems so that no one person can be caught with the entire manuscript. Under interrogation, Pey tries to throw the cop off the track by insisting that Neruda is still in the capital. But Peluchonneau smugly congratulates himself for getting the better of the exiled Spaniard and sets off at once for Valparaiso.

Embarrassed by his tummy as he is measured for a white suit to wear on the voyage, Neruda struggles with the composition of `The Man From Pisagua' and goes for a walk. A young girl in rags approaches him for money, but the best he can do is embrace her and give him his new jacket. When Peluchonneau stops the child, he finds another crime novel in the pocket and wonders why Neruda is taunting him with such trivialities when their duel is so serious. His arrival prevents Neruda from boarding the boat and he returns to Santiago to celebrate being reunited with Del Carril by honking his horn outside Videla's official residence in the middle of the night.

However, Neruda is brought down to earth when Jara refuses to accompany him on an escape bid though the south, as he believes he is seeking to become a hero for his own sake rather than for the common good. He regrets that Neruda shows so little humility and urges him to use his power for the people and not to cement his reputation for posterity. Del Carril also worries about his over-inflated ego and they bicker over who is the more important artist. But, when the time comes for him to leave as bearded ornithologist Antonio Ruiz Lagorreta, they embrace warmly and he hopes that they avoid drifting apart in his absence.

Moments after Neruda departs for Aracaunia, Peluchonneau finds his hideout and shows Del Carril the arrest warrant. She smiles and reveals that he is merely a fiction that Neruda dreamt up to keep himself amused during the long hours of boredom. He bridles at the idea and swears that he will track Neruda down. But she shakes her head at his swaggering inability to realise that he is not the main protagonist of the story, even though he travels the length of the country on a motorbike to try and prevent Neruda from taking a boat across a small stretch of water to freedom. Despite running out of fuel, Peluchonneau refuses to give up and hopes to persuade the local landlord to help him find Neruda, who is hiding out with one of the peasants on his estate. But the landlord has no time for the state and, as he provides Neruda with an escort to guide him through the Andes, Peluchonneau curses that `the millionaire is always smarter than the law of the nation'.

As they trek through the snow on horseback, Neruda cannot resist howling in the wilderness. But Peluchonneau hears the cry and informs his trackers that he intends ambushing the poet. However, they are loyal to the landlord and they knock the cop out with a rifle butt and abandon him to his fate. Refusing to quit, Peluchonneau staggers on in the conviction that Neruda regards him as a worthy adversary. Yet, while he imagines Neruda seeking him out through the trees, Peluchonneau collapses and blood seeps on to the snow as he dies.

Neruda kneels to pay his respects and, as we see the landlord bury Peluchonneau in an unmarked grave in the woods, Neruda joins Picasso in Paris, where he holds court in bistros and cavorts with naked women. But he continues to think about the man who pursued him and Peluchonneau feels alive when the poet speaks his name, as he will now be remembered along with the political poems that consoled the imprisoned and inspired the oppressed and ensured that the name of Pablo Neruda will forever be synonymous with Chile, struggle and emancipation.

Deftly showing how the everyday existence of a balding little fat man matters less in the grand scheme than the verses that inspired a nation to resist, Larrain and screenwriter Guillermo Calderón revel in taking a Nerudian liberty with the invention of Oscar Peluchonneau to reflect Pablo Neruda's life, times and legacy. The physical contrast between Gael García Bernal and Luis Gnecco is mischievously droll, but their characters are very much cut from the same cloth, even though one is a champagne Stalinist and the other is a dogged jobsworth whose ego is every bit as monstrous as his creator's. In many ways, Peluchonneau exists to justify Neruda's need to flee and continue to rabble-rouse from a safe distance. But, as is hinted several times during the story, Neruda leads a charmed existence and it's less a fear of Videla's reprisals that prompts him to seek a way out than a reluctance to be confined by the status and responsbility that threaten to cramp his hedonist lifestyle. Consequently, Neruda never appears to be as heroic as his writing and those with long cinematic memories may find Gnecco's buffoonishly self-serving interpretation to be markedly less sympathetic than Philippe Noirest's in Michael Radford's delightful Il Postino (1994). But one only has to compare the effect Neruda's work has on his wife and the busted drag queen to realise his importance to those on the margins. Indeed, Larrain frequently cuts away from the privilege and bohemian comfort enjoyed by Neruda and Del Carril to show the grim realities facing those in the slum neighbourhoods and desert gulags that the upper echelon Communists support with words from a distance rather than deeds on the ground.

Echoing Paolo Sorrentino's approach in his satirical survey of the career of Giulio Andreotti in Il Divo (2008) and Alejandro Jodorowsky's evocation of wartime Chile in Endless Beauty (2016), such touches are typical of Larrain, who is currently one of the finest directors in world cinema. Such is his confidence that he even allows himself a little Wellesian bluster in the opening senatorial confrontation and some pastiched Hitchcockian back projection during the chase scenes. But, while he might overdo the voiceover and string out the denouement, he coaxes superb performances out of the excellent García Bernal and Gnecco at the head of an estimable ensemble, while Sergio Armstrong's dextrous photography is matched by Estefania Larrain's production design and the snatches of Ives, Greig and Penderecki that dot Federico Jusid's Bernard Herrmann-inflected score.