Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 27/7/2017)

The latter is reissued this week, with a newly restored print marking the 25th anniversary of a period classic that converted three of its nine Oscar nominations into wins for Jhabvala, production designers Luciana Arrighi and Ian Whittaker and leading actress Emma Thompson, who would reunite the following year with co-star Anthony Hopkins for the equally masterly Kazuo Ishiguro adaptation, The Remains of the Day. Director Alan Parker dismissed the Merchant Ivory style as 'the Laura Ashley school of film-making'. But, to paraphrase Henry Wilcox: 'Poor judges are poor judges. One is sorry for them. But there it is.'

Following a heady kiss in the moonlight, Helen Schlegel (Helena Bonham Carter) writes to inform her sister, Margaret (Emma Thompson), that she is engaged to Paul Wilcox (Joseph Bennett). But, while Margaret discusses the implications of the news over breakfast with her Aunt Juley (Prunella Scales) and brother Tibby (Adrian Ross Magenty), Paul has apologised to Helen for letting his emotions get the better of him and has cycled to the post office to send a telegram to ask Margaret not to come to Howards End to discuss the forthcoming nuptials.

Unfortunately, Aunt Juley has already taken a train to the country and she accepts a lift to the house from Paul's older brother, Charles (James Wilby). He takes the tidings very badly while motoring along a winding road and Aunt Juley is so appalled by his ungallant remarks that she threatens to jump from the moving vehicle in disgust. They pass a bicycling Paul en route and Helen is surprised to see her aunt scramble out of the car and wrap her in a protective embrace.

Several months later, Helen attends a lecture in London by a Beethoven expert (Simon Callow) and his pianist mother (Mary Nash). Absent-mindedly, Helen leaves with an umbrella belonging to Leonard Bast (Samuel West), who pursues her in a downpour across the capital to their house in Wycombe Place, which just happen to be across from the apartment the Wilcox clan has leased for the summer to prepare for Charles's marriage, Keen to avoid a scene, Helen agrees to stay with an aunt in Hamburg, but Tibby finds the coincidence amusing and jokes about having to punch Paul on the nose for embarrassing his sister. But he sits silently on the sofa when Helen invites Leonard inside to reclaim his brolly and Margaret fusses over him so gushingly as she offers him tea that he flees in the agonised realisation that he does not belong.

Hurrying to the poorer part of town, he is welcomed back to his cramped bedsit by his wife, Jacky (Nicola Duffett), who is quite content to remain on the lower rungs of the social ladder. She doesn't share Leonard's desire to improve himself at music and meaning talks and tries to coax him into putting his book down so they can go to bed. The room shakes as trains thunder past, but the text allows Leonard to escape from his dimly lit reality and he fingers the calling card that Margaret had given him with a curiosity that is every bit as overpowering as the shame he had felt when Helen had unintentionally commented on the shabbiness of his umbrella.

With Helen safely in Germany, Margaret pays a visit to Ruth Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave). whom she had met a couple of summers earlier in the German town of Speyer. She discovers that Paul has gone to work in Nigeria and that Ruth is alone because Charles and his new bride, Dolly (Susie Lindeman), are honeymooning in Naples, while her husband, Henry (Anthony Hopkins), and daughter Evie (Jemma Redgrave) are motoring around Yorkshire. Ruth is dismayed to learn that Wycombe Place is to be demolished when the lease expires and confides that Howards End was similarly endangered shortly after she had inherited it from a brother who had died in India. Despite feeling unwell, she takes pity on Margaret, as she had been born in the house, and reminisces fondly about the pony that had lived in the paddock during her idyllic childhood. Margaret repays the compliment by inviting Ruth to lunch, where she compliments Annie the maid (Jo Kendall) on putting up with the progressive conversation of the younger guests. Ruth suggests that mothers should unite to bring an end to war and Margaret is charmed by her faith in the better side of human nature. Consequently, when the table falls silent after Ruth suggests that she would rather women didn't get the vote, Margaret shuffles the party into the drawing room and apologises to Ruth for being such a poor hostess. But Ruth finds her such agreeable company that she asks her to help with the Christmas shopping and is embarrassed when Ruth insists on adding her own name to the present list. She is even more taken aback when Ruth asks in one shop whether Margaret can save Wycombe Place from the wrecking ball and shudders when she replies that the landlord intends building an apartment block, as she has no idea how people can willingly live in such confined spaces.

On returning from the shopping expedition, Ruth reveals that she is soon to have an operation and suddenly expresses a desire to see Howards End again. She urges Margaret to come with her on the five o'clock train and is crestfallen when her friend declines. But Margaret dashes to meet Ruth at the station and she is excitedly chattering about showing her the meadow in the sunshine when they bump into Henry and Evie, who convince Ruth that it would be better if she returned to the flat and a disappointed Margaret bids them farewell on the platform.

When she next sees Ruth, she is in hospital, reaching up from her bed to accept a bunch of wild flowers. Henry thanks Margaret for coming. But, when Ruth dies and he finds a note written in pencil leaving Howards End to this outsider (in a tragically doomed effort to prevent it falling into the unworthy hands of her husband and son), he conspires with Charles and Evie to tear up the paper and toss it on the fire, as he questions whether his late wife was in a sound state of mind when she made the bequest.

Time passes and Helen and Margaret (who has no idea she has been swindled) are puzzled when Jacky appears on their doorstep demanding to know the whereabouts of her husband. The Schlegels have completely forgotten about Leonard and are amused when he arrives during dinner to apologise for Jacky's behaviour. He is nettled by their teasing after he explains that the delay in calling on them was caused by an all-night walk into the countryside. But he stays for coffee and is pleased when Helen recognises the similarity between his desire to get out of the city and a chapter in George Meredith's The Ordeal of Richard Feverel.

This jolly evening persuades the Schlegels to consult their women's discussion group about how they could help the Basts. As they stroll home, they bump into Henry, who informs them that he has leased out Howards End and taken a house in Mayfair. Margaret is dismayed to hear the family has abandoned Ruth's childhood home, but Helen is keen to pick Henry's brains, as he is a successful businessman with the Imperial and West African Rubber Company. She asks about the Porphyrion insurance firm where Leonard works and Henry avers that it is in difficulties and could easily go under. But Leonard is aghast when the sisters break the news over tea and he is about to storm out in high dudgeon when Henry and Evie arrive to show them their new puppy. Margaret sends Helen after the humiliated clerk and she chides him for mistaking their affection for him for interference. Moreover, as he grabs his hat and coat from the hall pegs, she convinces him to seek a new position before Portphyrion crumbles and he is suitably mollified and grateful.

Upstairs, Evie can barely disguise her contempt when Henry presents Margaret with a perfume bottle as a keepsake of his late wife. She invites Margaret to lunch with her fiancé, Percy Cahill (Mark Payton) and seems intent on warning her off the family, only to find her father has joined them and has already secured a table. Evie makes a hand gesture to Percy to mock Margaret's garrulousness, as she laments the fact that she is struggling to find new accommodation. However, Evie is jolted when Margaret bemoans being unable to rent Howards End, but she quickly reverts to flirting with Percy, as Henry causes Margaret to blush with his flattery.

Aware that he will no longer need a large house after Evie's imminent wedding, Henry invites Margaret for a tour. Aunt Juley resents Margaret leaving their holiday home in Devon to return to the capital, while Helen makes it clear that she has no time for the Wilcoxes and exhorts her sister to be circumspect. But Margaret is hugely impressed by the house, especially with the size of the echoey ballroom. Yet she retains her composure when Henry makes a gauche proposal of marriage on the staircase and kisses him firmly on the lips before gathering her gloves and bag and beating a hasty retreat. During tea in the garden, Charles blames Evie for allowing a gold-digger to get her foot in the Wilcox door and shouts down Dolly when she tries to offer a suggestion while dandling her baby. But Helen is no more enamoured of developments, especially when Henry lets slip that the Porphyrion has turned around its fortunes after Leonard had left to take up a lesser post. She seethes in the stiff seaside breeze, as Henry advises her not to sentimentalise the poor, and can barely suppress her rage when Margaret declares that her duty is now to support her husband in all things. Consequently, she is going to leave Devon to help Henry sort out a tenant problem at Howards End and she further infuriates her sister when she laughs at her claim to be an old maid.

Charles puts on a brave face when Margaret pops into the office and his rictus grin becomes more clenched when his father suddenly starts waltzing with his fiancée. Dolly joins them on the jaunt and is ticked off when she forgets the key to the house. Margaret stays alone and wanders round the garden. She peers in through a window and is pleasantly surprised to find the front door is open.

Venturing inside, she explores the empty rooms that will soon contain her furniture, while she works out where to store it. Hearing footsteps upstairs, Margaret runs into Miss Avery (Barbara Hicks), who has long lived in the grounds and who charms Margaret by noting a resemblance to Ruth. She finds the tree with pigs teeth studding the bark that Ruth had told her about and seems surprised that Henry knows nothing about its healing properties. As they drive home, Dolly explains how Margaret's brother had unsuccessfully proposed to Miss Avery and she chuckles at the notion that she would have become Charley's Aunt. But it's clear from the reverential manner in which Miss Avery and Tom, the farmer's boy (Luke Parry) unpack Margaret's belongings that she recognises someone who shares Ruth's tastes and love of the house.

While Margaret accompanies Henry to his Shropshire estate for Evie's marriage to Percy, Helen spies Leonard asking after vacancies at a London bank. He is stung by the brusque manner of the bank supervisor (Antony Gilding) and admits that he has been on his uppers since being made redundant. Blaming Henry for his poor advice, Helen vows to make amends. Meanwhile, Margaret is gazing in awe at the family portraits and joshes Henry about the fact that he bought the place lock, stock and barrel from an impoverished blueblood who decamped to Italy. The history of the estate means nothing to Henry, while Charles is more concerned about how the Wilcox properties will be divided up between himself, Evie and Paul. Hiding in the turret of the ruined castle, he kisses the expectant Dolly and wonders what will happen if Margaret and his father have children.

Returning from a walk in time to see the bridal party depart, Margaret is horrified to see that Helen has dragged Leonard and Jacky to the reception. She tries to shush her sister, as she complains bitterly that the Basts have been left to starve because of Henry's ill-considered counsel. Desperate to avoid a scene, Margaret takes Helen away from the marquee and orders her to calm down. Aware that they have a responsibility to the couple, she promises to speak to Henry about finding Leonard a position. But she wants them off the premises before they embarrass the family and Helen agrees to find rooms at the local inn.

While Helen and Leonard wander into the village, Margaret persuades Henry to give her protégé a job. Left to her own devices, however, Jacky helps herself to cake and champagne. She is drunk, therefore, when she recognises Henry from past assignations and calls out to him from across the tent. Deeply affronted, he hurries away and accuses Margaret of entrapment, as he stumbles between the trees in the garden. Despite her protests, he releases her from their engagement and she is left to face the astonished guests alone. Rushing into the house, she collapses in front of her bedroom mirror and sobs because the man she thought so perfect has feet of clay and because her seemingly settled future is suddenly in jeopardy.

Having waved of Colonel Fussell (Peter Cellier), Margaret goes in search of Henry. He is smoking alone and (in a series of dissolve scenes) keen to hide his shame. Margaret assures him that he is already forgiven, but he explains that he met Jacky in Cyprus a decade ago and that he had succumbed to temptation. He laments the fact that Helen has taken up with such low sorts and Margaret agrees to send a message urging her sister to get rid of the Basts and come and stay at the house. However, Leonard has already told Helen that Henry had seduced Jacky when she was a 16 year-old orphan trying to earn her passage home and Helen is outraged. As Jacky watches from her bedroom window, however, she sees Helen and Leonard go rowing on the river together. She apologises for landing him in such a mess and contrasts his decency towards Jacky with Henry's callousness. Leonard is embarrassed by her kind words and invites her to help him row. But, as they drift under a shady tree, they start to kiss.

Visiting Tibby in Oxford, Helen decides to travel in Germany rather than attend her sister's wedding. She makes arrangements for a cheque for £5000 to be sent to the Basts. But Leonard returns it uncashed to Tibby and keeps searching for a job. Although excited at the prospect of building a new home with her husband, Margaret becomes increasingly worried by the uninformative postcards that keep arriving from the continent. She goes to see Tibby at Magdalen, but he claims to be none the wiser. When Aunt Juley falls ill, they send a telegram from Devon and Margaret confides in her brother that she thinks Helen's hatred of Henry has left her teetering on the verge of madness. He suggests she is simply being her highly strung self, but he still agrees to meet with Henry and Charles when Helen arrives in London and asks to collect some of her belongings from Howards End.

Charles is appalled by the idea, but Henry orders him to remain silent. He also asks a doctor to accompany them to the country so he can assess Helen's mental state. On arrival, however, Margaret sees that her sister is four months pregnant and she ushers her inside and persuades Henry to give them some time alone. She is taken aback when Helen reveals that Leonard is the father and that she intends raising the child alone in Germany. But she is also surprised when Helen asks if she can sleep among her things for a final time. However, Henry refuses to give his permission and quarrels with Margaret when she questions why he can accept her forgiveness for his adultery when he refuses to recognise that Helen has merely committed the same sin.

Having been to Oxford to bully Tibby into revealing Leonard's name, Charles goes to Howards End to supervise Helen's departure. However, Leonard has been told the family's whereabouts by Annie and he arrives at Hilton Junction to see them. The mere mention of his name sends Charles into a macho rage and he grabs an antique sword and thrashes Leonard with the flat of the blade. He pulls a bookcase on top of himself in suffering a fatal coronary and Charles is charged with manslaughter, even though the deceased was suffering from an advanced form of heart disease.

Henry breaks down as Margaret announces that she is leaving him to care for Helen, but it's only the summer after his son is taken away to prison that he finally does the decent thing. He invites Dolly, Evie and Paul to Howards End and informs them that he is leaving the house to Margaret so that she can bequeath it to her nephew. Everyone agrees to the terms, but Dolly lets slip the irony that Ruth's last wish has finally been granted. As Helen plays with her child in the garden, Margaret asks Henry what Dolly meant and he comes clean about the note. He insists that he thought Ruth had scribbled it without clear thought and he asks Margaret if he had done the right thing in disregarding it. She seems to forgive him once more, as the deceptively idyllic scene fades to black.

Although it was published on 18 October 1910, much of the action of Howards End strictly falls inside the Edwardian period and few novels expose its myriad contradictions more perceptively. Forster was a shrewd observer of the social scene and his insights into the class system and the tangle of restrictions and conventions that governed it are deceptively disarming. He may not have been as radical as Robert Tressel or DH Lawrence, but this dissection of the `condition of England' remains acute a century on and, indeed, many of its criticisms of the self-serving plutocracy and the alienated lower classes still feel dismayingly relevant. Similarly, Merchant Ivory's adaptation defies those condescendingly crass `chocolate box' accusations to present a country at a crossroads. The Great War would prove the catalyst, but this feels much more like a fin de siècle than a Belle Époque saga. Much of the fascination lies in the tension between Helen and Henry and her bafflement at Margaret's devotion in the light of his many misdemeanours. As played by Anthony Hopkins, Henry has standards rather than emotions and his failure to appreciate Ruth's love of Howards End and Margaret's attachment to the possessions that end up filling it epitomises his philistinic pomposity and explains the boorish worldview that Charles has adopted in an effort to please a distant and forbidding father.

In many ways, the Schlegels feel like grown-up versions of the Waterbury siblings from Edith Nesbit's The Railway Children, as they take up the cause of the Basts in much the same way that Bobbie, Phyllis and Peter had befriended Perks the station porter. Moreover, Leonard Bast has much in common with Arthur Kipps in HG Wells's Kipps (and its musicalisation, Half a Sixpence), while they manner in which he regales the sisters of his nocturnal peregrinations recalls Alfred Polly's bashful bid to impress his cackling spinster cousins in The History of Mr Polly. Despite the best efforts of Helena Bonham Carter and Samuel West, the scene of desperately impulsive passion rings slightly hollow, as does Vanessa Redgrave's Oscar-nominated air of fading unworldliness at the luncheon with the bright young things and Hopkins's highly contrived wedding encounter with Nicola Duffett. But the performance are universally impeccable, with Emma Thompson's award-winning display (in a role that was declined by Phoebe Nicholls, Joely and Natasha Richardson, Miranda Richardson and Tilda Swinton) constantly challenging the audience to look beneath its surface serenity to locate the more complex feelings and moral strength moiling beneath.

On the craft side, this deeply involving human drama is unimpeachable and quite remarkable, given that it was made for just $8 million. Jenny Beavan and John Bright's exquisite costumes and Richard Robbins's fleet score were as unlucky in their Oscar snubs as Tony Pierce-Roberts's cinematography, which achieves wondrous contrasts between the natural lighting of the bluebell field through which Leonard strides and the warm glow inside Fortnum & Mason during the Christmas shopping expedition. The sharp-eyed will recognise Oxford Town Hall as the scene of the Music and Meaning meeting, while Peppard Cottage, the former home of Lady Ottoline Morrell in Rotherfield Peppard near Henley, does service as the eponymous abode. James Ivory also makes evocative use of the magnificent staircase at 2 Audley Street for the proposal sequence. But every setting seems exactly right, as Ivory, Merchant and Jhabvala capture the spirit of Forster, the look and feel of his times and the enduring socio-political dichotomies that make this a film as much worth seeing today as it was a quarter of a century ago.

British social realism has a pretty poor record when it comes to tackling racism. Despite early examples like Basil Dearden's Pool of London (1950) and Sapphire (1959), the angry young men of the Royal Court and their screen counterparts tended to focus on working-class northern males. When the subject of prejudice was considered, it was usually from the perspective of white characters seeing the error of their ways, as in the case of Roy Ward Baker's Flame in the Streets (1961). But socially conscious directors like Ken Loach and Alan Clarke have largely steered clear of the themes explored in Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies (1996) and such Shane Meadows pictures as A Room for Romeo Brass (1999) and Somers Town (2008).

Largely appearing as patronising stereotypes, British Chinese and Asian characters have been even more marginalised. In the latter case, the situation has primarily been redressed by second-generation film-makers, who have mostly concentrated on issues of assimilation, radicalisation and honour killings. Yet, two of the most successful insights into the British-Asian experience were Damien O'Donnell's East Is East (1999) and Sarah Gavron's Brick Lane (2007), while comedies like Josh Appignanesi's The Infidel and Chris Morris's Four Lions (2010) were also directed by non-Asians. The theme of racially motivated violence against Asians was tellingly explored by Pratibha Parmar in the 1988 short, Sari Red, and was taken up again in Kenny Glenaan's Yasmin (2004). But, while the likes of Udayan Prasad's My Son the Fanatic (1997) and Sally El-Hosaini's My Brother the Devil (2012) have explored the growing problem of Islamic fundamentalism, nobody has addressed the issue of Islamaphobia in any depth prior to Conor Ibrahiem's debut feature, Freesia.

Taking its title from a flower recommended by florists for those who exhibit grace under pressure, this noble bid to expose a tinderbox topic was made in just 13 days for £27,000. It succumbs to some inevitable first-timer lapses in the pacing of scenes and the direction of the actors, while the script doesn't always manage to express its more provocative socio-political ideas in a convincingly everyday argot. But this is a picture with its head and its heart in the right place. Moreover, it provides a vital insight into a subject that is as crucial to an understanding of modern Britain as austerity, Brexit, populism and the growing polarisation of politics.

Teenager Zac (Matthew Thomas) is tired of hearing parents Mark (Chris Madej) and Sally (Samantha Mesagno) bickering. After Mark sells the car, Sally treats him to a tirade about bankers, politicians and foreigners sitting pretty while they struggle because he cant get a job. She makes a throwaway remark about joining the English Defence League, but Zac is already reading right-wing propaganda and he disconcerts local vicar, the Reverend Rushton (Ken Taylor) by asking how Britain can still consider itself a Christian country when most of its churches are empty. Mumbling something about the pen being unable to solve the nation's problems. Zac produces a penknife from his pocket and menacingly follows a young Asian boy home from school.

At the nearby mosque, committee leader Rehman (Mohammed Rafique) is dealing with the fallout from a grooming scandal and the growing ambitions of Ghalib (Irfan Nazir), who is keen to appoint his nephew, Nazir (Amir Rahimzadeh), as the new Imam. He is also struggling to convince his secular son, Yusuf (Aqib Khan), to continue with his studies in Egypt. Yet, when Yusuf attends a committee meeting with his father, he loses patience with an elderly man complaining about debased English morality corrupting good Muslim boys and blurts out that he returns to Pakistan if he finds Bradford so distasteful. Yusuf tries to keep the peace, but Ghalib is eager to side with the majority in order to court votes in an upcoming election for the local council and Yusuf despairs that Rehman's gift for seeing good in everyone will prove his undoing.

Meanwhile, recent politics graduate Khadija (Afsaneh Dehrouyeh) reminds her friends about their responsibilities as Muslim women. As she speaks, her mother, Reema (Mouna Albakry), is attacked by a hooded assailant as she returns from the shops and she hides her distress from Iraqi husband, Idris (Abas Eljanabi), and her son, Nyal (Mino Fourket), who has taken it upon himself to keep his sister on the straight and narrow, even though he is often up to no good with his pal, Tez (Andrew McCrimmon). Having met up with best friend Jilly (Becky Graham) to hand over the keys to their shared car, Khadija goes for an internship interview with the local MP and heads home. As she passes an empty church, however, she sees Zac leap out and stab Rehman. He shouts that he has a duty to drive the infidel from his land and cuts Khadija on the wrist, as she tries to protect the wounded man.

As he backs away, Zac insists that she is also a victim of Islamic oppression. But she is too shocked by what she has witnessed to give a statement to the police. Yusuf is also stunned when the doctor informs him that Rehman is in a critical condition, but Ghalib is more worried about a swastika that has been daubed on a mosque door and homeless man Wayne (John Weaver) teases Nazir about getting all Sharia on the perpetrator. As a friend of Rehman's from the food bank, however, he also opines that racists will soon discover who their friends are if they ever find themselves hungry or on the streets.

Frustrated with the lack of progress being made by the cops, Yusuf prays at the mosque and sneers at Ghalib for being more worried about the keys than Rehman's condition. But Zac drifts home as though nothing untoward has happened and plays job-seeker charades with Mark to pass the time. He mentions his visit to the church and Mark reveals that his parents were quite religious before reassuring his son that Christianity is not going to fade away.

Mark goes to the job centre and is handed a flyer by one of Ghalib's campaign team, who promises him that employment will be a key priority if he is re-elected. Mark is far from convinced, but he is distracted by the sight of Sally wandering towards the canal towpath. He joins her on the bench and she wonders how her life might have turned out if she hadn't got pregnant and given up her university dream to get married. Mark tries to console her that things will work out, but she snaps back that he needs to start living in the real world, where the north will never be in the south, the rich will never live on their street and whites will regain their lost rights.

Reema tells Khadija about being attacked, but pleads with her to say nothing to her father or brother, as they will overreact. When Khadija asks Jilly for advice, she suggests getting a baseball bat because evil only responds to violence. But Idris has already cautioned his daughter about the misuse of might in hoping that she will be able to use his intelligence and conviction to change a broken system. Yusuf also wants to change things and seeks Wayne for some ideas. He is eating chili at a soup kitchen and suggests trying something nobody expects to throw the naysayers off-guard. Suitably impressed by his refusal to knuckle under, Yusuf asks why the mosque does much for its upkeep than it does for the community and Wayne is surprised to learn that Rehman pays for its food donations out of his own pocket. They agree that Jesus and Mohammad sound like good men.

Heading to the mosque, Yusuf is appalled to learn from DC Fairbairn (Chris Brailsford) that Ghalib is passing himself off as Rehman's cousin to get information on the inquiry. He dismisses the cop's suggestion this is a hate crime by branding it Islamaphobia and his mood is scarcely improved by the discovery that Ghalib has had the mosque locks changed. When he challenges him about it and accuses him of being a fraud, Ghalib throws him out, as a bemused Nazir looks on. Feeling sorry for himself, he harangues a female passer-by by snarling that not all Muslims are groomers, as some are just terrorists.

As Yusuf sits beside Rehman's bed wondering what to do for the best, Zac visits the crime scene and mocks the female officer (Iona Thonger) on duty for protecting those trying to take over his country. He writes in a notebook before seeking out Craig (Richard Crehan), the brother of the girl who had been abused. Urging him to do something more constructive than sitting around and sighing, Zac recommends the example of Anders Breivik before launching into a tirade about radicalisation, drug-dealing, grooming and forced marriages. But Craig has already resorted to affirmative action and is feeling guilty for his unprovoked attack on Reema.

Khadija is still pondering the motive for the assault when she gets chatting at the bus stop to a pensioner named Mary (Maureen Willis). The old lady greets her with `As-salaam alaikum' and Khadija wonders why other whites can't just take Muslims as they find them. Mary avers that people have lost the ability to talk to each other and jokes that all wars would end if folks just nattered at bus stops. However, Khadija returns home to a browbeating from Nyal, who has found out about his mother's ordeal and scoffs at his sister's request to take self-defence classes. She accuses him of being a Muslim for half an hour each Friday before storming off, leaving Idris to ask Reema why she didn't trust him.

Nazir also tries to coax Yusuf into confiding in him when he offers him a lift to the hospital. He encourages him to use his voice and Rev Rushton says much the same thing when Yusuf finds him sitting with his comatose father. Rushton explains how they became friends doing inter-faith work and came to realise that co-existence is the only way to live. Touched by his words, Yusuf goes to the mosque, where Nazir is reading about the rape trial. He implies that the media don't need much encouragement to damn Muslims and notes how they discriminate between extremist terrorists and white blokes with a psychological disorder.

Yusuf asks Nazir why he refrains from confronting his congregation about their misdeeds, but he insists that things only change through dialogue not denunciation. He reads from the Quran (citing the same verse that Zac used when stabbing Rehman) and declares that common sense should always be applied to following its teaching, otherwise holy words can be twisted to suit an ignoble cause. Yusuf is unimpressed, as he would rather kill the culprit than forgive him. When Nazir says the Quran strongly disapproves of violence, Yusuf says most people think the mosque is a terrorist training camp already. Ashamed, Yusuf asks Nazir to read him another passage and a montage follows of them discussing their faith.

Across town, Zac finds mother Sally drinking in the afternoon. He asks why she has wasted her life, but she protests that being a mother is a fine vocation and she urges him to use his brains to change the system. Mark comes home and is angry with Sally for going through his pockets and they launch into a slanging match. Cringing at the ferocity of their fury, Zac confesses to stabbing Rehman in a bid to shut them up. Aghast that his son is a racist murderer, Mark grabs and shakes him, but Sally protects him and declares that he was trying to help them. Exasperated, Mark asks why he doesn't kill the gay couple next door on his cleansing crusade, but Sally is adamant that they sit tight and hope that nothing bad happens.

Meanwhile, Fairbairn pays a call on Khadija and Reema mistakenly thinks he has come about her assault. She is cross with her daughter for not telling her that she witnessed a race crime and exhorts Fairbairn to make an arrest before the thug targets Khadija. Idris is livid with her for getting involved with the police and forbids her from taking self-defence classes because it insults his manhood. He orders Nayal to come home, but he resents the amount of freedom that Khadija was given and hisses that her independence is haram. But Idris reminds him that he also got to make his own choices, but made bad ones.

Yusuf arrives at the hospital as Rehman comes round and promises that he will learn patience in all things. But these prove to be his father's last words and he dies as Mark hopes that God has a miracle up his sleeve to save him. He tends to the freesia on the mantelpiece and wishes they had a few more to help them perform gracefully under pressure. On an impulse, Mark goes to the church and chats with Rev Rushton about why God would let his son turn out so badly.

Returning from giving her statement, Khadija weighs up her options now that Nyal is watching her every move. Much to Reema's disappointment, she announces that she is going to cover up whenever she goes outside, as she feels equally intimidated by strangers and her own sibling. Her mother tells her not to throw away all she has striven for and Idris despairs when he sees her ready to go out. Blaming Reema for not discouraging her, Idris sends Nyal to keep an eye on Khadija. But she opts against meeting up with Jilly when she sees her chatting to Tez in a bar. Seeing her lift the veil, as she leans against a pillar feeling stifled, Nyal leaves her alone and she hooks up with her former tutor, Junaid (Maroof Shaffi). He begs her not to give up and to remain proud of who she is and not let the bigots win. When a man passing stares at them, Junaid asks if he has never seen Clark Kent having a day off before.

At the mosque, Ghalib admonishes Yusuf for abandoning the funeral guests to talk to Wayne. But he refuses to be cowed and says he knows the kind of man Ghalib is an hopes to avoid making similar mistakes while studying in Egypt. As he checks in at the airport, Mark gathers Zac's books in a box and asks him to hand over his notebook and knife. Unrepentant, Zac claims that he will have won if Rehman dies. But he isn't able to enjoy his triumph for long, as the police knock on the door and Mark leaves his wedding ring on the hall table as he leaves the sobbing Sally to reflect on the fact that the Muslim who bought their car had given them £50 extra because it was in his faith to help those less fortunate than himself.

Across the city, Khadija stands in her hallway and reads the letter offering her the internship. She goes for a walk and drops the paper off a path looking out over the city. A stranger (Mark Morrell) stops to tick her off and he asks if she is going to throw herself off because Muslims are so proficient at committing suicide. She asks why he can't treat her as an ordinary woman, but he responds that he would ship her kind out if he had a chance. Khadija insists she is not being oppressed by her faith and leaves him to wallow in his bile, while she reports for work in the hope of making a difference.

Despite its echoes of the exchange between Billy Fisher (Tom Courtenay) and Councillor Duxbury (Finlay Currie) in John Schlesinger's 1963 Bradford-set adaptation of Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar, this final scene rather sums up the film's struggle to feel more like a slice of life than a polemical tract. Yet much of what Ibrahiem has to say about clashing cultures based on connected creeds ring true (right down to the fact that the killer and the Imam can find different meaning in the same Quranic passage) in what is a thoughtful and sincere examination of our seeming inability to live in harmony with people who don't think and act in exactly the same way that we do.

Discreetly photographed by Daniele Cruccolini, the storylines interweave convincingly, if not always fluently, as the pacing of certain scenes is hampered by the stiffness of some of the performances. Young Matthew Thomas just about holds his own alongside the more experienced Aqib Khan and Afsaneh Dehrouyeh, but it's often easier to see him as a confused kid with a rabbit in a cage than a rabid white supremacist. Khan and Dehrouyeh's thinking also seems a little muddled at times, but the honesty of their mistakes contrasts tellingly with the two-faced cynicism of Irfan Nazir's corrupt politician and the hypocritical macho posturing of the drug-dealing Mino Fourket.

Perhaps the most intriguing characters are the mothers played by Samantha Mesagno and Mouna Albakry, as they seem to have had more of influence on the personalities of Thomas and Dehrouyeh than their fathers. But the contrasting attitudes of Chris Madej and Abas Eljanabi also impinge upon the discussion of patriarchal traditions, as Ibrahiem examines the wider socio-economic issues that fuel both intolerance and insularity. Consequently, this often feels as much like a plea for social justice as an exposé of Islamaphobia. But it should spark debate wherever it screens and someone in the corridors of power should ensure that it's seen by those who both purport to and aspire to govern us.

Despite the title, there isn't a hint of Kate Bush in Australian Ben Young's debut feature, Hounds of Love. That said, you won't be able to listen to the 1967 Moody Blues classic `Nights in White Satin', the 1970 Cat Stevens single, `Lady D'Arbanville' or Joy Division's 1980 release, `Atmosphere', in quite the same way after viewing an abduction thriller that draws on the crimes of Perth serial killers Eric Edgar Cooke (who was known as `The Night Caller') and David and Catherine Birnie, the Moorhouse Murderers, who dispatched four young girls before a fifth managed to escape and raise the alarm. Bound to invite comparisons with Justin Kurzel's Snowtown (2011), this represents an impressive step-up for Young after making his mark with music videos and the shorts The Planet Lonely (2008), Something Fishy (2010) and Bush Basher (2011).

Opening with a slow-motion tracking shot past a school netball court in Perth in December 1987, the action follows married couple Emma Booth and Stephen Curry, as they offer Lisa Bennet a lift home and proceed to chain her up in a room in their seemingly unremarkable suburban house. Nearby, 17 year-old classmate Ashleigh Cummings drops in on slacker boyfriend Harrison Gilbertson to get one of his old essays to save time doing her homework. She is coming to terms with the fact that parents Susie Porter and Damian de Montemas are about to get divorced and sits with little interest in a lesson about the mysterious 1967 disappearance of Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt.

Ignoring the consoling words of the teacher, Cummings goes to see her wealthy surgeon father, who has a puppy for her. Booth and Curry also have a dog, who gnaws on a bone in a garden below the airport flight path. A Christmas carol plays on the radio, as Booth cleans up the bloody mess in Bennet's room before curling up on the bed while Curry kills their guest and bundles her body into the boot of his car. He buries her in a remote spot in dense woodland, while Booth hangs the bed linen on the line beneath a clear blue sky.

Despising Porter for leaving De Montemas, Cummings resents having to spend two nights a week at her daggy bungalow. Thus, when Porter ticks her off for cribbing from Gilbertson's essay, she sneaks out of her bedroom window to go to a party. Spooked by some yobs cruising in their car, she accepts a lift from Curry and Booth, who have stopped to offer her some dope and suggest that she calls a cab from their place. However, Booth spikes her beer and Cummings has barely noticed the kinky videos beside the television when she begins to feel woozy. Unnerved by her hosts gyrating suggestively to The Moody Blues, Cummings gets up to leave. But she is bundled screaming into a side room and chained to the bed, as Booth pleasures her moustachioed spouse.

Following another stylised ultra-slow track along Malcolm Street, Booth realises that Curry has taken a shine to Cummings, as he rejects his neatly laid-out breakfast. However, he is furious with her for allowing the dog to mess in the corridor and Cummings watches as she kneels to clean it up. Booth unlocks one of the handcuffs to change a soiled sheet and warns Cummings that they will get along fine if she behaves herself. Remembering Booth mentioning two children from a previous relationship the night before, Cummings asks if Curry is the reason they no longer live with her. But she snaps back that he takes good care of her and leaves Cummings to brood on her plight while she takes a bath at knifepoint.

Meanwhile, Porter has discovered that her daughter is missing and calls around her friends. But Curry has run into a problem of his own, as he owes money to the menacing Fletcher Humphrys, who warns him that there will be trouble if he fails to pay. Back at the house, Cummings realises she isn't being held for ransom when Booth sits her down at the kitchen table and coerces her write a letter informing Porter that she has met a man who has swept her away to Adelaide to make a fresh start. She also encourages Cummings to mention that she admires the way that Porter has stood on her own two feet and intends following her example.

As Booth is taking Cummings to the bathroom, Curry gets home and insists on accompanying her himself. He locks the door and Booth lights a bong to try and remain calm. But she is terrified of being replaced and bangs on the door. When Curry opens it, she kisses him fiercely and he is distracted enough for Cummings to force the window. She is prevented from climbing out by the barking dog in the garden, but hides in the bathtub and panics Booth and Curry to search for her outside. Cummings grabs a kitchen knife and looks for another way out, but Curry pins her down and they just get her back in the bed when an angry neighbour comes to complain about the noise and vows that he will do everything in his power to prevent Booth regaining custody of her kids.

Fearful that Curry will blame her for the intrusion, Booth whispers that she loves him. However, he callously asks how she would cope without seeing him again, as he orders her to walk the dog. She posts the note in Porter's mailbox and calls social services to request permission to visit her children. But, while she is out, Curry attempts to rape Cummings and is only stopped when she soils herself and he pulls away in disgust. Dismayed to find underwear on the floor, Booth thinks the worst when a naked Curry walks past her to take a nap. As he sleeps, Cummings attempts to convince Booth that he is using her and has bought her the dog as a surrogate child. When Curry wakes, Booth puts a knife to her throat and only calms down when he persuades her that he had been preparing Cummings for a sex game and orders Booth to check the washing-machine for the sullied sheet. Mollified, she succumbs to his sweet talk and promises that he will kill Cummings after the weekend. They close the bedroom door as Cummings screams in dread.

The following day, Curry drives to the forest to dig a grave (to the accompaniment of Cat Stevens), while Booth admires herself in the mirror before taunting Cummings about having read the diary she had found in her bag. She sneers that nothing would have happened to her if she had just obeyed her mother and suggests that Porter isn't even looking for her. But she is frantic with worry, despite the police reassuring her that Cummings has merely run away and will soon be back with her tail between her legs. However, she gets the idea to call Gilbertson and show him the message and he spots that Cummings has used their secret code to provide them with an address.

Booth bathes a badly bruised Cummings and chains her back to the bed as Curry gets home. He is livid to find the dog has dirtied the carpet again and Booth gets beaten as she tries to prevent him from kicking the animal to death. She sobs on the kitches floor and takes to her bed, as Curry puts the cadaver in the boot of his car. Sitting beside her, he apologises for letting Cummings come between them and promises to get rid of her and focus on recovering Booth's kids.

As Porter drives to Malcolm Street, Booth forces Cummings to write another letter saying she is in Adelaide and happy. She then makes her swallow some aspirin. But they are interrupted by a knock at the door, as Humphrys comes for his money. While Curry rips open the Christmas cards that Booth has stolen from an apartment block in the hope of finding cash, Humphrys watches Porter, De Montemas and Gilbertson asking a woman across the road if she has seen Cummings. Booth keeps a knife at the teenager's throat, as her mother calls her name. But Cummings derides her for lacking the courage to kill her and Booth snaps when Curry starts to throttle their captive and she stabs him in the back. He struggles to his feet to confront her, but she stabs him repeatedly in the stomach before he slumps to the floor. Seeing her opportunity, Cummings climbs out of the bathroom window and walks past the bloodied Booth on the driveway before running after Porter's retreating car, which stops for a slow-motion reunion.

Echoes of Jennifer Lynch's Chained (2012) can be heard throughout this effectively unpleasant character study. Yet, as we learn so little about the resourceful victim's mindset during her ordeal, the fascination lies less with the fate of Ashleigh Cummings than with the tensions between the wickedly calculating and humanisingly vulnerable Booth and Curry, whose swaggering cruelty is exposed as snivelling cowardice in the throwaway scene outside the corner shop when Humphrys demands his money and tosses a snatched packet of cigarettes on the pavement. Once or twice, Young veers towards torture porn. But he keeps the worse excesses off screen and leaves the audience to surmise what the terrorised teen might be enduring.

However, the final reel has been somewhat botched, as Gilbertson's codebreaking over-conveniently brings Porter to the scene of the crime just as Curry and Booth are falling apart. Booth's decision to punish Curry rather than Cummings also seems contrived, even though he quite clearly has it coming for tormenting her for so long. But Young's script will leave many puzzled why the neighbours ignored what must have been pretty voluble screams and why they weren't reported to the cops for their recurring breaches of the peace. Nevertheless, the performances are strong throughout, with Booth particularly touching as a woman who has nothing left to lose. The squalid authenticity of Clayton Jauncey's production design and the sinister stealthy of Michael McDermott's prowling camerawork also merit mention, along with Merlin Eden's adept editing and Dan Lascombe's unsettling electronica score.

Although many were unhappy about a white boy putting himself forward as the saviour of jazz, Damien Chazelle's La La Land piqued the curiosity of viewers who wouldn't have known their swing from their bebop. Swedish documentarist Kasper Collin has already proved himself a keen student of the jazz scene with My Name Is Albert Ayler (2006) and he examines the life of another talented musician who perished in his 30s in I Called Him Morgan, which is this among week's Dochouse presentations.

Opening with a wonderfully evocative shot of snow falling on a New York night as a track by trumpeter Lee Morgan plays on the radio, a couple of his old pals remember the shock of hearing that he had been gunned down at the age of 33 by his common-law wife, Helen Moore (aka Morgan), on 19 February 1972. A cut takes us to Wilmington, North Carolina, where retired radio announcer-cum-adult studies tutor Larry Reni Thomas explains how he got to interview Helen (who was one of his ex-students) in February 1996, just a month before her death. These recordings, together with some made by Val Wilmer with Lee in 1971, give this account of their turbulent relationship an immediacy that recalls Stevan Riley's intimate Marlon Brando profile, Listen to Me Marlon (2015).

On the crackly tape, Helen reveals how she hated growing up in the countryside and couldn't wait to escape after she had children at the age of 13 and 14. Leaving them with her parents, she moved to Wilmington at 17, where she married a stranger 22 years her senior after a week's acquaintance. When he drowned two years later, Helen went to New York to visit his relatives on a fortnight trip that never seemed to end. Meanwhile, Lee had left Philadelphia and had joined the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band at the age of 18 in 1956. Saxophonist Wayne Shorter remembers seeing him play and bassist Paul West concurs that the teenager liked to pit himself against his mentor. Drummer Charli Persip remembers him having talent and confidence beyond his years, while fellow drummer Albert `Tootie' Heath recalls his love of speeding in his new car around Central Park.

Having recorded the first of his 25 albums for Blue Note Records, Lee and Shorter joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in 1958. We see footage of them performing on TV and Shorter reveals that Lee had an inquisitive mind and was always up for a deep discussion. He also knew how to tell connect with an audience and Blakey was forever shouting at him from behind his drum kit to tell his story. Having established herself in 53rd Street, Helen began hanging out in the jazz clubs and friend Ron St Clair remembers her being able to take care of herself and her eye for fashion meant that she soon picked out Lee, who had a taste for chic suits.

Bass players Larry Ridley and Jymie Merritt reflect on their happy experiences recording for Blue Note owners Alfred Lion and Max Margulis, who supplied plenty of food to give sessions a party feel, which photographer Fran Wolff captured in atmospheric monochrome snaps. But Helen was also acquiring a reputation as a den mother for jazz musicians and son Al Harrison recalls her cooking all the time. However, there was also a drug culture and Shorter and West admit to being dismayed when they learned that Lee was experimenting so much that Blakey asked him to leave the band (even though some believe he had introduced him to heroin).

Onetime girlfriend Lena Sherrod notes how he had been so wasted on one occasion that he had cracked his skull on a radiator and used to comb his hair forward to hide the scar on his forehead. Saxophonist Bennie Maupin remembers seeing him looking like a hobo on the subway and he has no doubt that Helen saved him. On tape, she describes the first time he came to her house and she redeemed his coat from the pawnshop because it was freezing outside and he only had a jacket. She persuaded him to do a methadone programme in the Bronx and they got an apartment together. Moreover, she forced him into rehearsing and convinced his peers that he was becoming reliable again. Merritt was among the first to join his new band and Jerry Schultz hired them to play at his Slugs' club.

Harrison remarks on the fact he was around the same age as Lee, but recognised that they needed each other and Helen proudly explains how Lee wrote `Helen's Ritual' about the time she took putting on skin cream. But the story lurches forward to 1970, as Lee introduces the band during a live recording at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California. Maupin remembers Helen being a key part of keeping the show on the road and she jokes on tape about being unimpressed with Miles Davis when she first met him and all agree that the Morgans seemed to be a happy couple.

Back in New York, West got Lee involved with the Jazzmobile Workshop and we see footage and stills of him working with kids who helped keep his outlook fresh. However, he also came into contact with Judith Johnson and confided in Maupin that they had a strong vibe. Helen immediately became suspicious when he stayed out all night, but Johnson insists that there was nothing sexual between them because rehab had essentially robbed him of his potency. She merely gave him a space to unwind and he used to like watching the fish tank she had bought for her kids. But he soon became convinced that something awful was going to happen to him.

Saxophonist Billy Harper remembers Lee getting the band a slot on the Soul TV show and we see them playing `Angela' in honour of political radical Angela Davis. In interview, he claims this was less jazz than `black classical music'. But Helen was upset when he left her at the studio to be with Johnson and she told him that she was going to stay with friends in Chicago because she was unhappy with not being the main woman in his life. She recalls him begging her not to go and she felt at the time she was making a mistake, but she stayed and Lee's fate was sealed.

On 18 February, the quintet was booked to play at Slugs' and Harper and Merritt recall the snow laying thick over the city, while Johnson describes having to ditch her car after it skidded on some icy cobbles. She wanted to get home and was hoping to pick up a cab, while Helen had decided on a whim to go to the club against the better judgement of a gay tenant named Ed. She was angry to find Johnson sitting by the door and there was a scene that resulted in Lee turfing Helen outside. West went to give Helen her coat. But, before he could reach her, she strode up to Lee and shot him with the gun he had given her for protection.

The blizzard delayed the ambulance by an hour and Harper is certain that Lee would have survived on any other night. Feeling as though she had lashed out in a dream, Helen was arrested by the police, while Johnson went to the hospital, where Lee died. Merritt recalls the funeral in Philadelphia and how a potentially great beginning had ended there and then. But the nightmare for Helen had only just begun. She was persuaded to plead guilty to second-degree manslaughter. After being paroled, she vowed to come to terms with what she had done and dedicate herself to the service of others. She returned to Wilmington and became a key member of the community at St Luke's Church until she succumbed to a heart condition.

No one refers to the unrepentant Johnson. But Ridley and West admit to being furious with Helen. Yet, when she was released, Ridley felt pity for her when she collapsed sobbing into his arms with remorse, while West could empathise with her pain, as she had hauled Lee out of the gutter and enabled him to function again as an artist. As we see him performing on TV with the Messengers, it seems clear that blame lies on both sides and that a tragedy could well have been averted if they had taken the time to sit down and talk.

Dying just two years after Albert Ayler was recovered from the East River after apparently committing suicide, the death of Lee Morgan even more harrowingly needless. Abetted by cinematographer Bradford Young (whose 16mm vistas are both ingeniously evocative and effortlessly artistic) and editors Hanna Lejonqvist, Eva Hillström and Dino Jonsäter, Kasper Collin achieve a mournful elegance in showing how Lee and Helen drifted together and fell apart. But, while he is right to place equal weight on their individual histories, one is left wanting to know a lot more about Lee, his music, his battle with addiction and his Black Power politics. As jazz went through some major stylistic and socio-cultural transformations in the 1960s, it might have been worthwhile devoting five minutes to putting the Morgans' turbulent relationship into a wider context. A couple of objective critical voices might also have usefully assessed his contribution to the evolution of hard bop (there's no mention, for example of his role on John Coltrane's seminal 1958 Blue Train album). Yet, while Collin seems more interested in the human side of the story than the musical, he also leaves large gaps in Helen's post-prison life, as well as in Lee's musical odyssey. Consequently, this is never as consistently compelling as Lily Keber's excellent portrait of troubled New Orleans pianist James Booker, Bayou Maharajah (2013).

It can never be said that director-cinematographer Brett Whitcomb and writer-editor Bradford Thomason plump for predictable topics. Having commemorated the eponymous animatronic band that played in Showbiz Pizza Place between 1980-92 in The Rock-aFire Explosion (2008), they ventured into the ring for GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (2012). Now, they turn their attention to electronic music pioneer Suzanne Ciani in A Life in Waves. Full of movie sound cues and commercial jingles that will mean more to the cast of The Big Bang Theory than most of its audience, this is a timely reminder, as the BBC has its pay gap exposed, of what women are capable of achieving in a male-dominated milieu.

The film opens with five-time Grammy nominee Suzanne Ciani demonstrating weird sounds for David Lettermen. In voiceover, she claims to have always wanted to produce unique sounds and musical artist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (aka Lichens), electronic musicians Rob Zantay and Sarah Davachi, New Age composer Masanori Takahashi (aka Kitaro), sound designer Leslie Mona-Mathus, producer Linda Gottlieb and EMI Creative Director Hunter Murtaugh all sing her praises in a fussily over-busy introductory segment that concludes with Ciani playing the piano and working with a wired-up computer.

Mercifully, the pace drops as Whitcomb and Thomason accompany Ciani to Wellesley College, where she trained as a classical musician under the influence of Chopin. She wonders why she has been invited to collect an award when she has had little to do with the place in years, but praises its diversity and encourages a class of female students to persevere and not pursue false goals like wealth and fame. As she is photographed to join a gallery of previous recipients, Ciani admits that she dislikes the notion of awards, as they tend to come towards the end of a career.

Born to an orthopaedic surgeon and a homemaker, Ciani was encouraged to excel at music after her mother bought her a piano and a collection of classical music albums. Sisters Ruth, Mary, Judith and Cynthia remember her being a bright tomboy who blossomed into a beauty and Ciani is embarrassed by their mention of so many teenage suitors. She turned down a marriage proposal from her boyfriend in 1968 and relished the freedom from expectation that would have diverted a son away from music and into law or medicine (as had been the case with her father).

Introduced to electronic music in her last year at Wellesley, Ciani went to Berkeley, where she was not only politicised during the student demonstrations, but she also fell in love with architect Joseph Robinson and moved into a house he had designed to show it was possible to dwell in a limited space. But, while she became increasingly excited by the potential of electronic sound while experimenting at a studio in San Francisoo, her composition professor was less than impressed by a public performance.

As we see a clip from a collaboration with Ronald Malory entitled `Lixiviation', Ciani reveals that she decided to finish her degree and throw in her lot with synthesiser pioneer Don Buchla. However, her enthusiasm meant that she got off to a bad start and she was fired on her first day when Buchla presumed that she was responsible for some sloppy soldering. But she refused to leave and used the chauvinism she had to endure as an incentive to improve and become indispensable. In time, he became her mentor and she helped him develop the kind of music that a modular synthesiser could produce. In clips from TV shows like 3-2-1 Contact and PM Magazine, we see Ciani demonstrating her machine and Lowe suggests that she quickly came to appreciate that modular synths were like living entities that could communicate through patching cables.

Davachi and thereminist Dorit Chrysler insist that it's possible to develop an emotional attachment to the machines that help one produce music and Ciani concedes that her Buchla synth was almost part of her. Initially, she had worked on X-rated movies and had produced the electronic parts of the score for Bryan Forbes's The Stepford Wives (1975). She had also tried to convince record labels to take her seriously as a recording artist. But they were baffled because she didn't sing or play a conventional instrument. So, she tried her luck with advertising and her bolshiness when McCann-Erickson musical director Billy Davis failed to keep an appointment led to her bursting into a room where he was working on a Coca-Cola ad. He asked if she could produce something to fill a gap in the soundtrack and she devised the famous cap pop and pouring noise that became synonymous with the brand.

As Alfred Merrin from the BBDO agency avers, uniqueness is everything in advertising and no one could touch Ciani in the 1970s. She also branched into musical sound effects and her CianiMusica company became the leading exponent of musical sound design in the United States. A montage of her ads follows, as electronic musicians Chris Ianuzzi and Rob Zantay explain how they joined the team and worked on items like `Bull in a China Shop' for Merrill Lynch and `Nobody's Hotter Than Atari This Summer' for the rising computer game company. In showing how the sound of someone biting a crisp needs a little boost to make it memorable, Ciani explains that traditional instruments have a limited palette, while electronics can add thousands of new colours to the range. Moreover, she also had a creative intelligence that could give the GE Beep dishwasher a distinctive personality Around this period, Ciani worked on the Peter Ustinov TV series, Omni: The New Frontier, and Joel Schumacher's sci-fi comedy, The Incredible Shrinking Woman (both 1981). She was also approached by Bally to produce the sound effects for the Xenon pinball machine. Ultimately, she also did the voiceover work and her ambition to make electronic technology sensual caught the ear of Tangerine Dream's Peter Baumann, who was particularly impressed with the 1982 Seven Waves album, which Ciani recorded by herself without label support. After a Japanese company took it on, she found it easier to release The Velocity of Love (1986), whose title track features acoustic piano. She found herself alongside Kitaro in the New Age music genre, but was glad to belong and goes into a forest to explain how her ethos is rooted in the peace that Nature provides.

The piano became more important from Neverland (1988) onwards and we see Ciani performing live with a full orchestra and with a band (while wearing a flashing cape over her dress). She now has 20 albums to her credit and admits that the pressures of deadlines left her personal life in tatters. But she was forced to slow down in 1992 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and she decided that New York was part of the problem and decamped to Bolinas, California. With more time to devote to others, she married entertainment lawyer Joe Anderson (who isn't mentioned by name) in 1994. Over 18 years her junior, he inspired love songs that she now admits she could no longer write and there is a resigned sadness in her voice as she reveals that they divorced in 2001.

However, being single coincided with renewed interest in her electronic music and she is now feted as a major composer and is very trendy with aficionados. Delighted to have connected with a younger fan base, she enjoys being part of analogue history. Yet she also remains open to new directions and is glad that music keeps providing her with curiosity and energy. It's fitting, therefore, that she lives on the edge of an eroding cliff, as this sense of jeopardy motivates her (although she takes comfort in her astrologer's reassurance that the house will survive during her lifetime). Moreover, she is at peace with her mortality and will continue to devote herself to celebrating the romance of life and beauty.

While it's evident that Whitcomb and Thomason are fascinated by the 71 year-old Ciani, they never quite strike the right balance between her celebrity as a jingle-writing geek icon and her achievements as a composer and performer of serious works of musical art. They also seem to expect viewers to be familiar with the electronic music scene and the status of titans like Don Buchla and the significance of Meco's Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk album (1977). Consequently, despite Ciani's numerous industry breakthroughs, beguiling compositions and her vibrant personality, those coming fresh to the subject will feel more than a little cut adrift.

They will also be blissfully unaware of the gaps in the narrative, such as the fact that `Summer's Day' from the bestselling Pianissimo album (1990) can be heard in the Tomorrowland section of various Disney theme parks. Although they make sound use of the copious archive footage and Ciani's back catalogue, Whitcomb and Thomason hardly help themselves by asking their talking heads (many of whom are key witnesses to Ciani's career) to spout platitudes and superlatives rather than providing any in-depth insight or analysis. Given their access to Ciani, they also demonstrate a frustrating lack of curiosity about her musical influences, her involvement with cinema and her sense of being an avant-gardist. Still, if it prompts a few converts to invest in a few CDs, this affectionate, if wayward homage will have done its job.