Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 21/8/2017)

Historians have long referred to the inspiration that the British Documentary Movement drew from the montage masterpieces produced in the decade following the Bolshevik Revolution and there's no better starting place to prove the point than Victor Turin's majestic 1929 featurette Turksib. Photographed by Boris Frantsisson and Yevgeni Slavinsky with the customary Constructivist fascination with machinery, this account of the building of the 1445km railroad between Turkestan and Siberia is a patriotic paean that not only promotes Stalin's Five Year Plan, but also emphasises the vital role that ordinary people will have to play in its realisation. Thus, Turin and screenwriters Yakov Aron and Viktor Shklovsky reinforce the notion of a mass hero and use typage close-ups to encourage every watching citizen to think that they could make a similar contribution to banishing the backwardness of Tsarist times and hauling their vast nation into the 20th century.

Crucial to this modernisation process was the optimal use of land and Turin explains how Turkestan could concentrate its limited water resources on producing cotton if Siberian grain could be transported by rail to feed the workers. But the laying of track is not the sole focus of this often bucolic picture, as Turin shows that even in an age of progress there is still a place for trusted farming methods - although the scenes of soil tilling and sheep shearing are contrasted with a sequence depicting a camel caravan's struggle through a sandstorm, which subtly stresses the need for the railway to carry the precious cotton cargo with greater efficiency and safety.

The digital restoration boasts a new score by Guy Bartell of the electronica unit Bronnt Industries Kapital, but John Grierson's original captions have been retained and it's amusing to learn that HG Wells considered their gushing enthusiasm to be `epileptic'. It's difficult, however, not to be exhilarated by scenes like the horseback pursuit of the locomotive steaming along the newly laid tracks, as they not only convey the great leap being taken by the Soviet peasantry, but they also have a cinematic vibrancy to match the sagebrush chases and cavalry charges that were becoming an increasingly familiar aspect of the Hollywood Western.

It's no surprise to learn, therefore, that the 34 year-old Turin had spent the period 1912-22 in the United States and had been employed as an actor and scenario writer at Vitagraph before returning home to be accused of abstraction and formalism in his study of the capitalist class system, Battle of Giants (1926). He learned his lesson well, however, as the rhythmic lyricism in Turksib was tempered by a realism, clarity and wit that brought a rare humanity to what was still essentially a propagandist exercise. Yet Turin was prevented from making another film until 1938, when he abandoned his executive desk to travel to the Baku studios in Azerbaijan make the 1905 Revolution drama, Bakintsy.

Perhaps the most famous item produced under the auspices of the British Documentary Movement is Basil Wright and Harry Watt's Night Mail (1936). Joining the postal workers on a London, Midland and Scottish Railway overnight special from Euston to Edinburgh Waverley, it fulfilled founding father John Grierson's hope that informative, but emotionally rousing films could inspire people to identify with their neighbours and narrow the class divide by recognising how the humblest to the mightiest contributed to the common good. But this is much more than a piece of political propaganda masquerading as an advertisement for the General Post Office. It's also a work of art that combines image, verse and score with a dynamism that can still set the pulse racing.

The GPO Film Units commission was to reassure the public that everything they popped into a pillar box would arrive swiftly and safely at its destination. Thus, he asked a number of writers to contribute outlines about journeys along the East Coast line and had Wright and Watt work them into a simple narrative that would showcase the efforts of the crew manning an LMS sorting wagon. Boarding Royal Scot 6115 Scots Guardsman, Watt and cameramen Chick Fowle and Jonah Jones filmed a number of silent scenes, with Fowle famously risking life and limb to snatch some of the more dramatic onboard images of the locomotive hurtling along. The conversations between the workers were then dubbed during post-production, along with a commentary spoken by Stuart Legg.

However, Grierson felt the film lacked a humanising angle and asked WH Auden to write verses around the montages assembled by RQ McNaughton, in conjunction with Wright, Watt and sound supervisor Alberto Cavalcanti, who also collaborated with Benjamin Britten on the score that was inspired by the engine shunting and the rhythmic clack of the wheels on the track. At times almost extemporising, Auden was often asked to rewrite when Grierson deemed his symbolism florid or inappropriate. But he was delighted with the finished result, which had cost just £2000. Eight decades on, its nostalgic value has been increased by the passing of steam and the seismic changes in our modes of communication. Yet, this remains a lyrical masterpiece and one of the great exemplars of cinema as a collaborative artform.

Coming up to date, JP Sniadecki offers another immersive experience in The Iron Ministry (2014), which was filmed over three years on the Chinese rail network. A member of the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab that has also been responsible for such ground-breaking works of cine-anthropology as Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel's Leviathan (2012) and Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez's Manakamana (2013), Sniadecki is more of a people-watching impressionist people than an ideological advocate. However, as he is fluent in Mandarin, Sniadecki (who worked with Paravel on Foreign Parts, 2010) is able to encourage passengers to air their views on topics ranging from the state of the economy to the treatment of migrant workers.

Opening with a blackened screen to allow the audience to become accustomed to the lilting rumble that will form the backdrop to action filmed on a variety of rolling stock, Sniadecki focuses in close-up on the concertina-style vestibules between the compartments before he turns his attention to his fellow passengers. The camera lingers on faces against a hubbub of untranslated chatter until eavesdropping gives way to interrogation. Although Sniadecki remains off-screen, he clearly prompts the discussions that are often so frank that one suspects they might have been clandestinely recorded.

Topics range from the state of the trains (which are either sleek or decrepit), the personal sacrifices that workers have made to sustain the economic miracle, the lack of affordable housing, the prejudice experienced by a Hui Muslim, the oppression and exploitation of Tibet and the Communist Party's patriarchal refusal to listen to the little folk. Humour is at a premium, as we see a buffet trolley vendor and an impromptu butcher selling their wares and train guards assiduously checking tickets and ID papers. But the sequence in which a tweenage boy launches into a mocking parody of the tannoy announcements is hilarious, especially when he begins urging his fellow travellers to indulge in a little anti-social activity.

Clearly Sniadecki finds the bustle of the jam-packed lower-class coaches more intriguing than the serenity of the under-populated upper-end cars. But his decision to cross-cut between footage taken on different journeys without geographical specificity introduces a calculated sense of abstraction that sometimes jars. Nevertheless, the camerawork is often arresting, while Ernst Karel's sound mix imparts an immediacy that is both exciting and unsettling. Those au fait with Wang Bing's West of the Tracks (2002) and Lixin Fan's Last Train Home (2009), as well as Brad Anderson's Transsiberian (2008) and Gina Telaroli's Travelling Light (2010) might find this somewhat overly familiar. But it still makes for a fascinating ride.

We stay in Asia for Sompot Chidgasornpongse's Railway Sleepers, which offers an equally microcosmic impression of daily life in Thailand. A longtime assistant to Apichatpong Weerasethakul (who takes a producer credit), Chidgasornpongse spent eight years planning and shooting a composite journey that follows a passenger service during its two-day trek from north to south. The idea originated as a thesis project at California Institute of the Arts after Chidgasornpongse (who doesn't drive) was forced to take the train into Abderrahmane Sissako's Bamako (2007). En route, he started to film the other passengers with a small camera and he decided to apply the technique to a trip across his homeland. Despite adopting the same observational style as Sniadecki, as the camera moves from third to first class, this is a more obviously analytical snapshot of the country and its people as it approaches a crucial crossroads in its recent history.

Following some opening shots of the lush Thai countryside, Chidgasornpongse comes inside the carriages to meet the passengers. There is no evident interaction and the sight of so many sleeping bodies suggests the discretion of the crew. But there's no such thing as a quiet coach in third class, as children scurry after the vendors selling everything from snacks to toys. Indeed, one elderly woman gets quite put out by their ceaseless effervescence. But, as mountains and forests can be spied through the windows, the scramble for seats dissipates and the pace begins to slacken, as Chidgasornpongse continues his progress into carriages that are so expensive they are almost deserted.

Whittling down the contents of 140 hours of footage and 4000 still photographs cannot have been an easy job, but Chidgasornpongse and sound editors Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr and Chalermrat Kaweewattana capture the sight and sounds with unforced elegance. Bookending proceedings are scenes that contextualise the Thai romance with the railway, as we learn about King Rama V introducing trains in 1890 as a symbol of Siam's emergence as a modern state. But, as the spirit of the 19th-century British engineer laments in the closing coda, the shabbiness of the rolling stock and the corruption of the operating authorities have come to redefine the way Thais regard their network and their kingdom.

Containing echoes of Weerasethakul's Mysterious Object at Noon (2000) and Cemetery of Splendour (2015), this melancholic odyssey also bears the influence of Chidgasornpongse's former CalArts tutor, James Benning, whose genius for landscape is evident in such outings as El Valley Centro (2000), Los (2001) and Sogobi (2002), which form the California Trilogy, and his own railroad surveys, RR (2007) and BNSF (2013).

The next stop is the Caucasus for Martin DiCicco's All That Passes By Through a Window That Doesn't Open. Filmed over six years. Opening with a prologue outlining the treaty between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to construct a railroad that will restore past glories and shorten the distance between Europe and Asia, this tripartite study of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars line makes few concessions for those unfamiliar with the Iron Silk Road and the socio-political tensions that are shaping and hindering its construction.

The first person we meet is Hagop, the brakeman at a halt that hasn't seen a train in 20 years, who turns away from the television to stare into the camera and complain about the new track by-passing his little corner of Armenia. We cut from him to Abdul the train driver making a call to base to request some mechanical help because his engine is misfiring. He also has misgivings about the brave new world to come when the existing line is so prone to breakdowns and delays.

There's more optimism at Worksite Khaishi, however, as the navvies from Kaçmaz on the Caspian coast banter during their downtime after another exhausting day laying track. They make do with simple repasts and try to keep themselves amused before moving along to the next section of track, where trucks and cranes await them to lower the metal to the parched ground. Or, at least, that is the case in the summer, as there is no let up once the winter comes and the snow falls so heavily that it even settles on the clothes drying on a washing-line.

The toil continues unrelentingly, as DiCicco lap dissolves views of the passing countryside through the changing seasons until he descends from a blur of overhead streetlights to the face of a young man leaning out of the window of a speeding car, who relates in voiceover, how he has vowed never to fall in love again after failing to reveal his feelings to the girl of his dreams and she married someone else. Washing on another line flutters in the breeze, as the labourers doze in a field of daisies. One of the crew admits to being bored and wonders why they have put their heart and soul into a railway they won't be able to afford to ride. He will miss his band of brothers when their stretch is over and mourns the death of one of their number. But he recognises that everything is temporary and that life must go one.

Returning to Armenia, Hagop and his colleague Karin wish time would get a move on, as the border with Turkey was only supposed to be closed for a couple of months because of the Karabakh conflict. But, two decades on, they can only reminisce about the goods that used to pass through their station, as they fill in logbooks and party on vodka and boiled sausages with friends Davit and Artur. Speaking directly to the camera, Hagop curses the fact that he turned down the chance to work in Germany after he finished his military service. Reflecting on missed opportunities, he sighs deeply and notes that the wind is getting stronger.

Closing on the view of an unspecified landscape from the window of a slow-moving train, this is a deeply poignant treatise on progress, diplomatic folly and the indefatigability of the human spirit. Deftly edited by Iva Radivojevix to the aural rhythms shaped by Leandros Ntounis, the sights DiCicco dwells upon have a rough poetry that makes this unflinching travelogue and the people it profiles feel both despondent and optimistic. We reach journey's end in the company of 88 year-old Albert Maysles, whose 47-film career concluded with In Transit (2015). Having been admitted into the Fab Four's railcar in What's Happening! The Beatles in the USA (1964), he returns to the rails for a three-day trip from Chicago to Seattle aboard Amtraks Empire Builder. As in the other documentaries in this lovely season, much can be gleaned from panning a camera around a compartment. But Maysles is too much of an ethnographer to sit and wonder. Consequently, he seeks out the backstories of his fellow passengers, who seem eager to share with a veritable vérité master and his quartet of co-directors Nelson Walker, Ben Wu, David Usui and Lynn True, who also served as editor.

Following the advice of Horace Greeley, the majority of those interviewed seem to be going west in search of a fresh start or a reconnection with the past. As True opts to follow themes and storylines rather than any geographical logic, the view through the windows doesn't always match up. But, while the silver bullet looks magnificent as it speeds through the great outdoors, Maysles and his cohorts are more interested what's going on in the cosy carriages. Thus, we watch an ageing Marine veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress consoling a heavily pregnant woman by taking photographs so that her baby can see what she looked like en route to her home in Minnesota. As a mother hugs her daughter with a mixture of approval and apprehension, a woman who gave up her children for adoption to keep them away from her abusive husband contemplates a reunion with the daughter she hasn't seen for a quarter of a century. Similarly, a mother of four interracial children by different fathers reveals that she is hoping to renew acquaintance with the father who disowned her. As kids play boisterously and grown-up card games get serious, meals are served in the dining car and a guitarist leads an impromptu rendition of Van Morrison's `Brown-Eyed Girl'. Passing into North Dakota, an earnest 21 year-old declares that he will earn enough in the oilfields over the next seven years to allow him to retire, while another who once had get-rich-quick dreams admits that he is quitting for Indiana after becoming disillusioned. Yet another explains how he simply walked out on a decent job in Mississippi because he could no longer work for an arrogant boss and his impulsive dash to Seattle finds echo in the tale of a woman who has finally summoned the courage to leave an overbearing spouse, while another discloses that she is simply following her star after surviving being the child of crack-addicted parents.

A Native American surveys the passing scene in a bid to renew his bond with the land of his forefathers, while the conductor confides that he is living his dream, as he used to watch this very train zipping through his backwater town and he always hoped that he would one day get to travel on it. His optimism is shared by the immigrant woman getting to knew her new homeland and the aged African-American who persuades a black thirtysomething to follow his old friend Martin Luther King's conviction that a change is going to come. Such reassurance would be welcome to the fellow returning to court the childhood sweetheart he hasn't seen in six years. But, while this sounds cloying, there is nothing twee about this affirmation of the old TV maxim about there being `eight million stories in the naked city'.

Capturing telltale details about American attitudes to class, race, gender, age and the shifting political poles, Maysles treats everyone as an individual and this goes for the train staff, as they gulp down food during their break and bitch about the passengers were are supposed to be finding fascinating. When Maysles and his brother David started out in the mid-1950s, folks weren't always so ready to share. But, in the social media age where there is no such thing as too much information, it's often a tougher task shutting them up. It's a risk seat-hopping with such skittishness among so many lost souls seeking to conquer their demons or banish their regrets and not all of the anecdotes raise the anticipated smile or tug on the heartstrings. But those that do genuinely resonate and ensure this is a fitting memorial for the doyen of Direct Cinema.