Parky at the Pictures (DVD 19/10/2017)

Feng also proved he could handle melodrama with A Sigh (2000). But he forged an international reputation with Cell Phone (2002), a media satire that helped make a star of Fan Bingbing (more of whom anon). Having reworked William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts for the period epic, The Banquet (2006), Feng returned to lampooning nouveau riche mores in If You Are the One (2008) and If You Are the One 2 (2010). In Aftershock (2010), however, he also started to explore darker topics like the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, although this approach led to clashes with the censors (he considers submitting films for approval a torment) and a group of online critics, whom he branded `cultural Nazis' after they attacked his war sagas Assembly (2007) and Back to 1942 (2012).

More recently, Feng reunited with favourite leading man Ge You for the wish fulfilment comedy, Personal Tailor (2013), and he remains in a satirical mood in I Am Not Madame Bovary. Adapted by Lin Zhenyun from his own novel, this has been rather clumsily retitled for Western audiences, as the original Chinese refers to the murderous adulteress Pan Jinlian, whose name has become synonymous with female wantonness. Moreover, while this bureaucratic dramedy has nothing to do with Gustave Flaubert's unhappy heroine, it does bear a marked resemblance to Zhang Yimou's The Story of Qiu Ju (1992).

Following a brief prologue montage of paintings recapping the myth of Pan Jinlian, the story harks back 10 years (in a circular mask that persists for much of the picture) to show Lian Xuelian (Fan Bingbing) arriving by boat in a downpour to meet with Guangming County Justice Wang Gongdau (Da Peng). She explains in a roundabout manner that they are tenuously related and presents him with some unwanted gifts before revealing that she wants a divorce from her truck-driving husband, Qin Yuhe (Li Zonghan). The only problem is, she has already secured a legal separation as part of a plot to force Qin's tea company bosses to give him a better apartment. But, having moved into the new property, Qin promptly married another woman and left Lian without a husband or a home. She wants Wang, therefore, to sue Qin so that the divorce can be annulled in order for her to ditch him again with interest.

When the case comes to court, Qin fails to appear. But Gu Daxing (Yin Yuanzhang), the Civil Affairs assistant for Guaiwan Town testifies that the divorce was genuine and he admonishes Lian for lying to him and the government. This persuades the judge to declare the divorce valid. But, as narrator Feng Xiaogang confirms, Lian refuses to accept the verdict and badgers a retired chief justice (Feng Enhe), as he leaves a party to celebrate his golden wedding to a wife whose mantra for a happy marriage is `tolerate until it hurts'. Standing in the rain, Lian summarises her situation and is dissatisfied when the venerable judge advises her to go to appeal. When he drives off, Lian turns her attention to Justice Xun (Liu Xin), despite the police chief (Zhao Yi) testily urging her to leave them alone and take her case to the municipal intermediate court and report her suspicion that Wang took bribes from Qin to the procuratorate.

Pushed into a puddle, Lian bounces straight back up and, the following morning, throws herself in front of the car of county chief, Shi Weimin (Zhao Lixin). She holds up a cardboard sign and draws a crowd, as she requests Shi's help in bringing law suits against Qin, Wang and Xun. However, he pretends to be his own secretary and gives her the slip by switching coats with an underling and disappearing through the back door of his office. Undeterred, Lian goes to Ping'an City to stage a sit-down protest outside the headquarters Mayor Cai (of Jiang Yongbo). He wants her gone before Governor Chu Jinglian (Huang Jianxin) arrives to open a civilisation exhibit and his sidekick calls some heavies to abduct Lian and force her to take a refresher course in civic duties at the National Stability Office.

However, as is often the case when Chinese whispers echo down the corridors of power, someone gets hold of the wrong end of the stick and Lian is detained by the Public Security Bureau in order to appease the mayor. She pours out her woes to the cow she keeps in the backyard and decides to drop the case. But she insists on making Qin face up to the distress he has caused her and confronts him while he is drinking with his mates. She asks him to admit that he reneged on their deal, but he refuses to incriminate himself and, when she accuses him of divorcing her to have sex with another woman, he drags up the fact that she was not a virgin when they met and shocks his pals by comparing her to Pan Jinlian.

Outraged by Qin's slur, Lian asks her brother Yingying if he would be willing to kill Qin. But he refuses to risk jail, while pork butcher Lao Hu (Liu Hua) declines a one-sided deal involving a night's passion in return for five murders. Concluding that all locals are fools, Lian decides to go to Beijing to seek redress. As she travels by motor tricycle and bus, the aspect ratio switches from an iris mask to an Academy frame. But her options remain limited, as the National People's Congress is taking place in the capital and her coach is stopped and searched before it is allowed to continue.

Lian does have a trump card, however, as classmate Zhao Datou (Guo Tao) is now a chef at the NPC building. He lets her sleep in his storeroom and takes her round the miniature landmarks exhibit at World Park (where the Twin Towers still adorn the Manhattan skyline). She feels guilty at taking up so much of his time, but her ears prick up when he tells her that Governor Chu will soon be attending a meeting with the Party Chairman (Gao Ming). As the delegates file into the debating chamber, the governor and the chairman take their places at the top table. Much to the former's dismay, the latter reveals that he has met a woman from his county and has been appalled by the buck-passing negligence of officials at every level.

Keen to watch his own back, Chu fires Xun, Cai and Shi. But, as she prays at a Buddhist shrine, Lian insists that she will not rest until Qin pays for duping and insulting. The screen returns to its circular shape as Lian returns home and the narrator informs us that she has spent the last decade pursuing Qin and making an annual pilgrimage to Beijing to petition the NPC. Wang comes to visit her at the small restaurant she runs in the town and begs her to drop the suit or he will lose his job. He calls her cousin and outlines how closely they are actually related. But she swears that she has lost interest in the case and is not going to the NPC this year.

Wang is unconvinced and goes to see new county chief Zheng Zhong (Yu Hewei), who is inspecting the fire extinguishers at the wax museum. He believes that Lian has a right to pursue her claim, but Wang explains how she has come to represent four symbolic women in Little Cabbage, Pan Jinlian, Dou E and Lady White Snake and that she represents a palpable threat to their futures in all in each guise. They agree to persuade Lian to sign a guarantee that she will drop the case. But their solicitousness makes her suspicious and she not only refuses to sign, but she also declares that she may well go to Beijing after all.

New mayor Ma Wenbin (Zhang Jiayi) chides Zheng for his clumsy tactics and pays Lian a visit at her restaurant. He praises her home cooking and sends Wang to fetch oil for the lanterns when there's a power cut. But he is surprised when she explains that the cow convinced her to drop the case. However, there is a difference between the cow fearing she will lose and the mayor hoping she won't win and, therefore, she will delay her decision until the NPC is about to start.

Realising Lian will go her own way, Mayor Ma decides to put pressure on Qin to remarry and agree to a divorce on Lian's terms. But he is no position to back down, as his current wife has been subjected to a decade of finger-pointing because of Lian and she has threatened to sue him if he ever shows his ex any mercy. Datou is also keen to move on and marry Lian. But, while she keeps stalling him, she does allow him to announce their engagement so that she can get the four police bodyguards imposed on her by the community drunk enough to slip away by raft during the night.

Zheng is livid with the police chief for letting Lian escape. But he is also aware that Ma will be after his hide and he conspires with his secretary (Tian Xiaojie) to speak to the mayor alone. Stopping Zheng in his tracks as he tries to save face through self-criticism, Ma warns him of the consequences of letting Lian reach Beijing. But she has had a change of plan after Datou rapes her in a hotel near Huangshan Mountain and she feels so like a new woman that they agree to stay for a few days and let her enemies chase their tails.

As the county chief leans on the police chief and he complains to Wang, Zheng is sought out by court justice Jia Congming (Zhang Yi). He has been helping Datou with an issue with his late wife's will and has managed to coax him into marrying Lian in return for a good job for his son and the money that will enable him to open up the small hotel above her restaurant. Jia shows Zheng the photographs that Datou has been snapping of Lian and he is cock-a-hoop at the prospect of boosting his own profile as the man who kept her away from the NPC.

However, Lian overhears Datou arguing with Jia on the phone and throws a vase at him. He pleads with her through the locked door that he cares more for her than his son and that it's still possible for them to outwit the authorities. But Lian wants nothing more to do with him and stalks out of the hotel with renewed determination. As she walks through the snow-covered streets, however, she realises that her aim now is to remove the Pan Jinlian stain from her reputation, especially now that Datou has sullied it for real.

Travelling without papers (as the screen rectangles again) and convincing a cop searching the coach that she is seriously ill, Lian finds herself in hospital outside the capital. Needing money to pay her healthcare bill, she is escorted to the Beijing street market to find the cousin who runs a nut stall. But she is pounced upon by Wang, who detains her long enough for her to learn that Qin has died. Bawling with frustration that he has ruined her life and left her with an indelible stigma, Lian is led away and the good news is relayed to Ma on the last day of the NPC. Instead of being delighted, however, he is annoyed that it took a random occurrence rather than meticulous planning to solve their problem and he deduces that this is a poor way to govern. He wonders what drove her to persevere for 10 years when the court's initial decision had been fair. But he also concedes that the establishment's timidity had contributed to the saga dragging on and, while it was good that the law had been upheld, it didn't reflect well on anyone.

Trudging through the countryside in despair that she has become a laughing stock, Lian tries to hang herself in an orchard. But owner Guo Nong (Fan Wei) stops her, less out of concern for her well-being than the fear that no one will want to work in the scene of a suicide. He suggests she uses a tree belonging to his rival and Lian smiles and looks up into the sun. As the frame expands to widescreen, we learn that a year has passed and that she now runs a restaurant in Beijing. One of her customers reveals himself to be Chief Shi and he explains that he went home to Hunan to become a carpenter are he was fired.

He asks whether the second apartment was worth all the fuss and Lian reveals that they were trying to bypass the law on second children and thought they could register a second baby to her as a single woman before they remarried. But Qin deceived her and she miscarried and vowed to fight for her unborn child. Smiling sadly and urging her to treat the past like smoke. But as the narrator concludes, Lian never quite came to terms with what she had been through, although she was relieved that people stopped telling her story as a nudgeworthy joke.

Much has been made of the distractingly gimmicky nature of the periodic shifts in frame size. But these transitions are handled with an unimpeachable diegetic logic and with such stylistic finesse that they greatly enhance a film whose gentle satirical wit is slyly driven home by the restrained performances that almost give the action a docudramatic feel. Following in the dogged footsteps of Gong Li's Qiu Ju, Fan Bingbing's Lian is a pugnaciously tenacious character, although many will raise eyebrows at her acquiescence in Datou's rapacious assult in the country hotel room. But the wry smile in the orchard is exquisitely judged, as is the simple confession of her true motive for pursuing her treacherous spouse. Drawing on classical Chinese art for the look of the circular and oblong images, production designer Han Zhong and cinematographer Luo Pan succeed in creating some of the most striking visuals of recent times. The spherical compositions are particularly mesmerising, as they recall the painted glass slides used in magic lantern shows. But Wu Jiang's sound design and Du Wei's score are equally affecting, as they provide an audio equivalent to the majestic mise-en-scène. Yet, even though they capably reinforce the extent to which Lian is becoming increasingly boxed in by her ruinous obsession, the aesthetic choices often feel inelegantly arch and a touch gratuitous for a realist exposé of the hypocrisy, corruption, incompetence, indifference and the face-saving and self-preservatory instincts of Chinese officialdom.

In a celebrated sequence in Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour (1967), the heroine is whisked away from a café in the Bois de Boulogne to impersonate the dead daughter of a nobleman. When asked about the scene, Buñuel claimed it formed part of the core narrative, while co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière insisted that it was a dream. Therein lies the fascination with this teasing adaptation of a 1928 Joseph Kessel novel, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and became its controversial director's biggest commercial success. Five decades on, the story of a middle-class housewife who spends her afternoons working in a Parisian brothel seems rather tame. But, in cinematic terms, it's as artistically and politically provocative as ever and remains a Surrealist delight.

As Dr Pierre Serizy (Jean Sorel) and his glamorous wife Séverine (Catherine Deneuve) ride in a horse-drawn carriage along an autumnal road in the Bois de Boulogne, they exchange words of love and gaze into each others eyes. Suddenly, Pierre bemoans the fact that Séverine is so frigid in bed and, when she asks him to be more understanding, he orders the liveried coachmen to drag her from the carriage. She struggles as they pull her through the undergrowth and suspend her arms from a tree branch so that they can rip her red dress and whip her naked back. Her pleas for mercy go unheard, as Pierre orders the younger driver to rape his wife.

But this shocking opening has taken place entirely in Séverine's imagination while she waits in a twin bed for Pierre to finish in the bathroom. She asks him to kiss her goodnight, but refuses to let him get under the covers beside her and hopes that she will relax a little more when they leave for a skiing holiday the next morning. However, Séverine dislikes Pierre's friend Henri Husson (Michel Piccoli), who happens to be dating her friend, Renée (Macha Méril), and she tries to avoid contact with him during their stay. She finds herself trapped at his table, however, and finds it vulgar that he ogles the pretty girls passing by when he is supposed to be in love with Renée. Yet Pierre insists he finds him amusing.

Back in Paris, Séverine and Renée go shopping and gossip in the taxi home about their mutual friend starting work in a brothel. As they discuss the distasteful prospect of having sex with a lover, let alone a stranger, the cabby interjects that he knows of several bordellos in the city, but reassures his passengers that they are not as seedy as they were in the red light district before the war. She gets home to find Husson has sent her red roses and she deliberately drops the vase and leaves maid Adélaïde Blasquez to clear up the mess. However, when she reaches for a perfume bottle in the bathroom, she manages to smash that, too.

That night - having fought off a memory of an overalled workman (perhaps her father?) slobbering a kiss on her cheek - Séverine asks Pierre if he has ever been to a `maison' and listens intently as he describes the process and the sense of desolation that follows. He is trying to work, but Séverine asks him to sit with her while she falls asleep and he wonders when she will ever grow up. She is certainly spoilt and spends the next day at her tennis club, where she bumps into her prostitute friend and Husson, who teases her about his own fondness for brothels, particularly the one run at 11 Cité Jean de Saumur by Madame Anaïs (Geneviève Page). As Séverine perches on the arm of a chair in her pristine white tennis outfit, Husson tries to steal a kiss and hints that he would like to find her alone one day without her husband. But Séverine is appalled and pushes him away before stalking off.

However, the address lingers in her memory and she wanders past the door before walking through the leaves in the park and sitting on a bench to compose herself. Wearing dark glasses, she passes the shop next door and presses the buzzer for `Madame Anaïs Fashions' to gain admittance to the building. She hovers in the hallway and recalls how she had refused the host while making her first communion before plucking up the courage to ring Anaïs's bell and enter her simply, but elegantly decorated apartment. A few years older, Anaïs realises that Séverine is nervous, but thinks she has applied for a job because she has money worries and agrees to let her work afternoons between two and five.

Hoping that seeing Pierre will make her see sense, Séverine goes to the hospital. But he is lunching with the head surgeon and is keener on reminding her that they have dinner guests than in reassuring her. So, she returns to Anaïs, who welcomes her with a glass of cherries in brandy and awards her the name, Belle de Jour. They hear the giggles of Charlotte (Françoise Fabian) and Mathilde (Maria Latour) as they entertain jovial regular Monsieur Adolphe (Francis Blanche) and Anaïs promises Séverine that she will get used to sleeping with strangers and may even have a little fun doing so.

He is a wealthy sweet maker from Bordeaux and flirts happily with all four women and delights in giving Mathilde a present of some snakes in a can. Ordering champagne to mark Séverine's first day, he is taken aback when she spurns his advances and Anaïs has to order her to stop messing around and do her duty. Ushering Charlotte and Mathilde into the sitting-room, Anaïs escorts Séverine to the door and she walks with resignation into the bedroom. Adolphe undresses her and pushes her down on the bed, where she responds to his bluff brusqueness by running her fingers through his hair and he realises that she likes it rough.

While Anaïs plays gin rummy with Mathilde, they note that he is taking his time today. But nothing is said to Séverine before she leaves at the end of her shift and returns home to play the model wife. She showers and burns her underwear and stockings on the fire before feigning a headache to avoid having to go out to dinner. Pierre coddles her and leaves her to sleep. But she fantasises about Pierre and Husson tying her to a wooden frame in cattle country so that the latter can hurl mud and insults at her.

A week after her first visit to Anaïs, Séverine returns and is given the benefit of the doubt. Charlotte and Mathilde help her into a robe, while explaining that her first client of the day is an eminent gynaecologist (François Maistre) and he thanks Anaïs for saving him such an aristocratic treat. However, she is puzzled by his desire to be whipped as a bungling butler failing his mistress and is ordered to watch through a peephole in the adjoining room while Charlotte shows her how to role play. She treats the professor like dirt and pushes her foot in his face and kicks him on the floor when he admits to breaking a vase.

Séverine is still wondering how someone can abase themselves in such a way when Anaïs bundles her away to meet an Asian gentleman (Iska Khan), who tries to pay with a Geisha Club credit card. Putting her arm around his neck, Séverine breaks into a rare smile as she leads him into the bedroom and continues to try and please him as he babbles away in a language she doesn't understand and shows her an unseen insect in a jade box that she clearly finds repulsive.

Outside, Anaïs greets Catherine (Dominique Dandrieux), the teenage daughter of her maid, Pallas (Marguerite Muni), who sends the girl upstairs to do her homework after rescuing her from the pawing Asian. Pallas enters the bedroom to find Séverine with her face buried in the sheets and spots of blood on the linen. But, when she tries to extend sympathy to the newcomer, she is surprised to find her looking pleased with herself for handling such a brute.

She is next seen sipping a drink at an outdoor café in the Bois and watching the Duke (Georges Marchal) descend from his carriage. He asks if he can sit at her table and inquires whether she would be ready to come to his chateau to render him a special service. She agrees and is driven to a magnificent country estate, where she is handed a black negligée and veil by the major-domo (Bernard Musson). Séverine follows him through the house and takes her place inside a coffin to play the Duke's late lamented daughter. He bellows at the major-domo when he knocks and asks the Duke if he would like his cats to enter before speaking softly to the recumbent Séverine. He places lilies on her chest and pleads for forgiveness for having hurt her before he sinks to his knees and starts masturbating beneath the catafalque. Opening her eyes in bemusement, Séverine looks over the side of the coffin. But, despite doing everything asked of her, she is thrown out into the rain and left to make her own way home.

That night, Séverine climbs into bed with Pierre and promises that they will sleep together more often, as she has a better understanding of him and is no longer afraid. She swears she loves him more each day and they kiss. Thus, when Husson pays a call the next day, Séverine informs the maid in an audible whisper that she is not at home to him. Yet, she still fantasises about canoodling under the table at the ski lodge with him with an envelope full of lily seeds, while Pierre and Renée chat amiably as though nothing untoward was going on. As Husson leaves the Serizy apartment, we cut to a playful homage to Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle (1960), as Hippolyte (Francisco Rabal) purchases a copy of the New York Herald Tribune from a vendor on the Champs Elysées before helping gangster Marcel (Pierre Clémenti) steal a payroll in the lift of some offices above a cinema. The lay low at the brothel and Séverine (who has started smoking and drinking) is taken by the taciturn Marcel, who asks Hippolyte if he can have the new girl for himself. While the others sip lukewarm champagne and Anaïs makes a rude gesture to explain why Belle de Jour is so popular with her punters, Séverine and Marcel make passionate love and she asks when he will return. She runs her fingers along the knife scar on his shoulder and kisses him with intensity because she is turned on by the fact that he has had golden teeth since being punched in the mouth.

Pierre takes Séverine to the coast because he is convinced she is seeing someone in Paris. When he asks if she needs to return to the city, she insists she is having a nice time and (in her head) wishes that she could explain that she is being so furtive in order to improve their relationship. Back in the capital, however, Marcel is growing frustrated at not seeing his woman and almost allows his temper to get the better of him during a drug pick-up with Hippolyte. He calls Anaïs from a cheap bar and rushes over when he hears that Séverine has returned.

She is pleased to see him and wears her most stylish red outfit. He pins her to the bed and they kiss hungrily. But she refuses to tell him anything about her real life and admits she has no idea why she sleeps with strangers when she adores her husband. Marcel rolls on top of her and kicks off a boot to reveal a hole in the heel of his sock, as he strokes his foot against her calf. However, Séverine is more in love with Pierre than ever and he is so thrilled by her more open attitude that he even broaches the subject of a child.

But things take a drastic turn when Husson shows up at the brothel and asks to be alone with Séverine. She refuses to stay with him and Anaïs has to remind her of her place. He is amused and disappointed to see her there, as he had always been attracted by her virtue. But he swears not to betray her to Pierre and isn't interested in her explanation that she needs the release of being humiliated and abused. Her mind sweeps to a field at dawn, where Pierre and Husson fight a pistol duel. But her husband's bullet grazes her own face, as she is lashed to a tree nearby and he smears her temple with the blood seeping from the wound as he kisses her.

Séverine asks Anaïs if she can quit and allows her to think it's because things have become too intense with Marcel. She goes to kiss her on the lips, but the madam turns away because Séverine refuses to disclose her real name or her address so that they can stay in touch. On arriving home, however, she is confronted by Marcel, who threatens to tell Pierre everything unless she agrees to spend the night with him. She tries to coax him into leaving and he appears to take pity on her. But he waits in his car for Pierre to come home and guns him down. As he flees, however, he crashes his car and has to escape on foot. But a gendarme gives chase and fells him with a single bullet when he turns and raises his revolver.

Seeing Pierre on the pavement from her balcony, Séverine is distraught. But she is not allowed to see her comatose spouse at the hospital, where the senior consultant informs colleagues that no one can fathom a motive for the crime. Renée takes Séverine home and she soon finds herself nursing Pierre, who is blind, paralysed and seated in a wheelchair like the one that had given him such a start when he had asked Séverine about having a baby. She looks at the rain streaking the window before sitting with Pierre and doing needlepoint. Husson pays a call and he tells Séverine that he intends filling Pierre in on all her misadventures because he feels he has become a burden to his perfect wife and doesn't deserve to torture himself in such a way. She makes no attempt to stop him and prowls the apartment waiting for him to leave.

Hearing the door click, she goes to give Pierre his medicine and slumps on to the sofa. But, when she looks up, Pierre removes his glasses and stands up to embrace her. As the sound of cowbells and miaows fill the air, he crosses the room to make them a drink. She smiles and rushes to the balcony when she hears what sound like sleigh bells. The carriage in which they had ridden in the opening scene passes by empty along the still Bois road and the film ends.

Infinitely more sophisticated in its analysis of female desire than junk like Sam Taylor-Johnson's take on Fifty Shades of Grey (2011), this remains among the screen's most provocative treatises on gender politics. Having realised that Joseph Kessel's source was essentially sensationalist pulp, Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière decided to use it solely as the basis for Séverine's humdrum daily life and created her fantasies from actual case studies suggested to them by the psychiatrists they consulted. Thus, they were able to explore the notion that Séverine derived most erotic gratification from her own masochistic imagination rather than from her coy couplings with Pierre or her kinky trysts with her clients at Chez Anaïs. This is what makes the disagreement over the encounter with the Duke and the mischievously ambiguous denouement all the more intriguing, as they so perfectly encapsulate the Surrealist fascination with the blurred line between daydreams and reality.

As he had demonstrated in The Exterminating Angel (1962), Buñuel delighted in presenting shocking events in a matter-of-fact manner, while he had also examined fetishism and clandestine desire in El (1953) and The Diary of a Chambermaid (1964). Superbly abetted here by cinematographer Sacha Vierney, production designer Robert Clavel and editor Walter Spohr, he contrasts the confining bourgeois comfort of the Serizy apartment with the liberating chic of the brothel, but stages contentious incidents at both locales. By keeping the bulk of the action in these settings, Buñuel also cajoles the audience into speculating on what happened to Séverine between the childhood flashbacks and her marriage to Pierre, as he has as much intention of revealing any tangible truths about her past or psyche as he has of disclosing the contents of the Asian customer's box.

Given that this meld of melodrama and the avant-garde has been consciously crafted to prevent a conclusive reading, it would be tempting to see Belle de Jour as a parody of either the woman's pictures that Douglas Sirk directed for producer Ross Hunter or the latter's battle of the sexes comedies with Doris Day. Yet, wearing telltale costumes designed by Yves Saint-Lauren, Catherine Deneuve often resembles Greta Garbo when the camera lingers on the vacant coldness behind her eyes and it's sometimes hard to remember that Deneuve was only 23 when she gave this remarkable performance. She would work with Buñuel again on Tristana (1970), although this tale of a rebellious Toledo ward rather got lost between The Milky Way (1969), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), The Phantom of Liberty (1974) and That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), which completed the French phase of Buñuel's chequered career.

However, Deneuve is not alone in excelling here, as Geneviève Page also intrigues as the possibly lesbian madam, while Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli and Pierre Clémenti archly present arrestingly different aspects of Gallic masculinity. But, as with all the great directors, the real star of the film is Buñuel himself.

Since focusing on lost souls in Maborosi (1995), After Life (1998) and Distance (2001), Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda has followed in the shomin-geki footsteps of Yasujiro Ozu and Mikio Naruse in examining diverse aspects of modern family life in Nobody Knows (2004), Still Walking (2008), I Wish (2011), Like Father, Like Son (2013) and Our Little Sister (2015). But, while his stylistically conservative, but socio-politically acute dramedy After the Storm cleaves closely to the Kore-eda template, it also contains echoes of two lesser-known works: Hana (2006), an 18th-century samurai spin on Hamlet's existential dilemma, and Air Doll (2009), a disarmingly poignant parable about loneliness that revolves around a middle-aged salaryman's relationship with an inflatable sex toy.

Despite being married for over 50 years, Kirin Kiki is coping well with being a widow. Daughter Satomi Kobayashi comes to fuss over her in her tiny flat in a condominium estate on the outskirts of the Tokyo satellite city of Kiyose. Kiki insists she is too old to make new friends and wouldn't relish the prospect of all those funerals. But she has recently started listening to classical music and son Hiroshi Abe teases her about becoming cultured in her seventies. She gets her revenge, however, when she compares him to the tangerine tree he grew from a pip on the balcony, as it is good for feeding the caterpillars, while he has been struggling since winning a major literary prize 15 years ago. Indeed, he has come to visit in the hope of finding something valuable he can sell to fund his gambling addiction, as he doesn't earn enough working for Lily Franky's detective agency, even when he blackmails the people he is supposed to be tailing.

Stooping under the low ceiling, Abe insists he is researching a new novel. But Kiki knows about his issues, as he closely resembles his father, even though they didn't always get along. She asks him to help move the plants, as the 23rd typhoon of the season is due, but Kiki has to clean up when Abe accidentally breaks a window. He takes her recycling to the bin and they bump into neighbour Isao Hashizume, who runs the classical class and compliments Kiki on having such a brilliant son. As they wait at the bus stop, Kiki inquires after her 12 year-old grandson, Taiyo Yoshizawa, who lives with his careerist mother, Yoko Maki. Abe is pleased that the boy has taken up baseball and plans to buy him a glove so that they can play catch. But being a good dad is expensive.

En route for the city centre, Abe drops in on pawnbroker Mickey Curtis and learns that his father had beaten him to the decorative scroll he had been hoping to sell. But, even though cheating wife Izumi Matsuoka agrees to pay to keep her visit to a love hotel secret, Abe blows his bribe at the cycle track and young assistant Sosuke Ikematsu warns him that he needs to get his gambling under control or Franky will rumble him and give him the boot. However, Franky is quite prepared to chisel his own clients and secretary Yuri Nakamura tuts at them all, as they make fun of the crisis in Japanese masculinity. Nevertheless, Abe lingers in a doorway to watch Maki at her estate agency before returning to his cluttered apartment, where he scribbles a post-it about how he allowed his life to become such a mess before he crashes on his floor mattress.

When Ikematsu calls for Abe the next morning, they go to spy on Yoshizawa playing baseball. Abe takes exception to Maki sitting so close to boss and new boyfriend Yukiyoshi Ozawa and is dismayed to learn that he is very rich. Ozawa berates Yoshizawa for not getting a strike, but his father realises he was trying to draw a walk and this insight into his son's psyche deftly establishes their bond, as Abe follows the trio to a floating restaurant. He even sidles into the washroom to chat with his son at the urinal and urge him to find out if his mother has any plans to marry her beau. Unfazed, as he is used to his father's eccentricities, Yoshizawa returns to the table, where Maki is dismayed to hear Ozawa admit that he hadn't understood Abe's novel.

Abe is also frustrated when publisher Kanji Furutachi asks if he would like to concoct the storyline for a manga artist. So, he lies that he is close to completing his next book and goes to the restaurant where Kobayashi works to touch her for a loan. She taunts him that he is just as shifty as their father, whom she blames for keeping Kiki cooped up in a tiny flat for so long. Yet, if she had moved away, Kiki wouldn't have been able to attend Hashizume's music sessions, along with several other matrons seeking a little late-life companionship and a break from making ice treats for their grandchildren.

Back at the office, Ikematsu, Franky and Nakamura tease Abe about stalking Maki when he had barely mentioned her when they were still married. The latter dons a wig and a short dress to follow Matsuoka's treacherous spouse to a love hotel, where she takes photos as Abe tries to record the lovers through the wall of the neighbouring room. Matsuoka is delighted with the evidence that will enable her to fleece her husband and Ikematsu pleads with Abe not to blow this unexpected bonus. He insists he will use it to pay off his alimony arrears and buy Yoshizawa a pair of baseball cleats. However, Franky discovers he has been shaking down a high-school kid and orders Abe to hand over the cash. As they sit in a pachinko parlour, Ikematsu offers to tied him over. But, luckily, Abe had kept some of Matsuoka's payment separately and he buys the boots (albeit after scuffing the one on display to persuade the clerk into giving him a discount).

Maki is furious with Abe for failing to meet his payments, but allows him to take Yoshizawa out for the afternoon. Over lunch, Abe asks what they boy had found out about his mother's romance and is stung when he reveals that she has forgotten what it felt like to be in love with his father. They buy lottery tickets and Abe shows Yoshizawa some of his juvenile haunts after they catch a bus to visit Kiki. She is entertaining Kobayashi and her family and Abe accuses her of being dutiful solely in order to dupe Kiki into paying for her brattish daughter's figure skating lessons. They leave to beat the storm, just as Maki comes to collect Yoshizawa. However, Kiki talks her into staying for supper and then convinces her to spend the night rather than cross town in the downpour.

Abe is squeamish about eating a curry that Kiki had kept frozen for six months and both his mother and ex-wife deride him for being a failed nostalgic. But Yoshizawa enjoys helping out in the kitchen and talks his mother into playing Game of Life while Abe takes a bath. He just about squeezes into the tiny tub and emerges in a pair of old pyjamas to find Kiki laying three futons side by side so that they can sleep together as a family. Left alone, Abe asks Maki about her paramour and pries about their sex life. She admits to wanting more children, but takes exception to Abe touching her knee and accuses him of being in cahoots with Kiki in a reconciliation plot. Moreover, she informs him that she has lost patience with his failure to pay maintenance and that she is withdrawing his visitation privileges until the debt is cleared.

While everyone else sleeps, Abe snoops around the flat in search of something to sell. He finds an elaborately wrapped package that contains nothing but a note from Kobayashi delighting in beating him to the punch. However, he pockets an ink stone and begins searching through an incense pot for unburnt shards. Kiki wanders in to join him. She enjoys storms, but warns Abe that her time is running out and that he should make the most of her. When he asks if she is ill, she ticks him off for being so lost in the past and far-fetched dreams that he is unable to live in the present. A sentimental Teresa Teng song comes on the radio (whose lyrics include the film's Japanese title, `Even Deeper Than the Sea'), and Kiki reminds Abe that life is simple and that the secret of happiness is to spend each day seeking joy. She is pleased with her maxim and urges him to write it down and use it in his next book.

When Yoshizawa wakes up, Abe suggests they brave the rain and shelter in the pink fibre glass climbing frame where he had once hidden from the storm with his own father. They gather some snacks and sneak out, leaving Kiki and Maki to apologise affectionately to each other for the fact that Abe had not been husband material. Down in the playground, Yoshizawa asks Abe why he had fallen out with his grandfather and he shrugs before blaming the fact he had become a novelist. He smiles when Yoshizawa reveals that he wants to be a public servant when he grows up (as that had also been his childhood ambition) and promises that he will be proud of him providing he always tries to improve on his best.

Maki ventures out to join them and they watch Yoshizawa run out into the rain to buy drinks from a kiosk. Abe tries to apologise to Maki, but she insists things will be fine, even though there can be no going back. He swears he understands and they sit silently for a moment before Yoshizawa returns. However, he has dropped his lottery tickets and the three scour the sodden playground before returning for breakfast. Kiki offers Abe one of his father's shirts (despite claiming to have disposed of all of his belongings) and waves from the balcony, as they wander to the bus stop.

Abe takes a detour via Curtis's shop and discovers that the ink stone is worth 300,000 yen. He is also pleased when Curtis asks him to sign the first edition of The Empty Table that his father had given to all his friends because he was so proud that his son had been published. On the ride into the city, Abe tells Yoshizawa he can keep all of the lottery tickets and Maki smiles, even though she doesn't want him to pick up his father's bad habits. They part at the secondhand bookstall and arrange to meet again next month. Maki says it will depend on Abe paying his arrears. But he swears he will, as he watches them walk away before disappearing into the crowd.

Relying on sporting gambits, post-it pensées, cookery tips and geriatric ramblings to convey his key messages, Kore-eda manages to spin quotidian stuff into dramatic gold in this amusingly moving reflection on human inadequacy and life's infuriating refusal to go according to plan. Immature and irresponsible, the gangling Abe should be eminently resistible, as he dupes, deceives and disappoints everyone he knows. Yet, accompanied by an infectious Hanaregumi score full of acoustic strumming, brass riffs and insouciant whistling, his flailing efforts to get his life back on track appear so genuine that even those he has let down most egregiously keep giving him one last chance to make good.

Maki might be ready to move on, but she knows Ozawa is a poor consolation prize and she almost envies the indomitable streak that enabled Kiki to put up with her own spouse's flaws and foibles for half a century. But the magnificent Kiki is anything but a downtrodden victim, as she has learnt how to exploit people's remorse without them being any the wiser. The way in which she manipulates Maki into staying the night is delightfully funny, while her insights into her son's psyche are achingly poignant, as she worries that he will still not have grown up by the time she has to leave him. But, even though there are grounds for optimism in the teasingly ambiguous ending, it's unlikely that any of Abe's many epiphanies will convince him to mend his ways.

Some critics have suggested that this is a minor entry in the Kore-eda canon. But, set in the low-rent danchi where the director grew up, the Renoiresque script is as intricate and nuanced as Keiko Mitsumatsu's production design and Akiko Matsuba's exquisite set decoration, which are captured with unerring discretion by Yutaka Yamazakis mostly static camera. Abe may be at the centre of the lament for Japanese masculinity, but this is also a celebration of family forthrightness and female fortitude and this latter aspect tilts this lovely picture in the direction of the gendai-geki of another past master, Kenji Mizoguchi.

If you missed its cinematic reissue during the summer to mark the 50th anniversary of the passing of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, Stephen Frears's Prick Up Your Ears is available on disc and download. Adapted from John Lahr's acclaimed account of playwright Joe Orton's relationship with companion Kenneth Halliwell, this has acquired a certain cult cachet since its initial appearance in 1987. Markedly less politically abrasive than Hanif Kureishi's stance in My Beautiful Launderette (1985), Alan Bennett's elliptical screenplay is less concerned with the legal restrictions placed upon homosexuality than with the thrill of clandestine assignations and of sticking two fingers up to the establishment. Drawing on Orton's infamous diaries and dotting personal recollections among the flashbacking incidents, this sometimes seems to have more to say about the decade in which it was made than the life and times of Joe Orton (1933-67). Yet, even though there is no forbidding sense of Clause 28 waiting in this wings, this approach only makes the picture feel doubly nostalgic.

Giving away the ending in the opening scene, Bennett and Frears show the police breaking down the door of the flat at 25 Noel Road, Islington, where Joe Orton (Gary Oldman) lived with Kenneth Halliwell (Alfred Molina). Agent Peggy Ramsay (Vanessa Redgrave) comes to identify the bodies and squirrels away a volume of Orton's diaries, which she proceeds to hide, several years later, when John Lahr (Wallace Shawn) visits her office to interview her for his biography. As Anthea Lahr (Lindsay Duncan) starts to transcribe the tapes, Ramsay reminisces about Orton's sudden vogue after the success of his second play, Loot, which had prompted Brian Epstein (David Cardy) to inquire whether he would be interested in writing a screenplay for The Beatles.

However, Orton's rise coincided with a growing detachment from Halliwell, who wore a wig to hide his alopecia and spent his days fretting about Orton's serial infidelities and the prospect of being jettisoned. Yet, rather than trying to ingratiate himself with Orton, Halliwell complains about his lack of consideration and the boredom he has to endure while his lover is having a nude portrait sketched by Patrik Proctor (Derek Jarman). He also resents them having to pass the theatre en route to the opening of a small show of his collage work and one of the patrons urges Orton to ditch him because he is so paranoid and possessive.

Orton has no intention of leaving his friend and lucky charm, however, even though Halliwell loses his patience with a woman at the exhibition and launches into a tirade about Orton stealing his ideas for his plays and taking all the credit while he is viewed as a pitiable hanger-on. Halliwell continues to moan about the downside of being Orton's personal assistant as they take the Tube home. But Orton has spotted a potential conquest in the lift and they slope away together, leaving Halliwell to trudge home and call Ramsay to ask if she has seen Orton (who is skulking in the background) when he fails to return to the flat.

Ironically, Anthea Lahr feels equally undervalued in her collaboration with her husband and she is put out when Ramsay comes to supper to entrust them with Orton's diaries, only to treat her as little more than a home-making typist, as she devours melon and describes Orton's first sexual experience at a Leicester screening of the Bob Hope comedy, My Favorite Brunette (1947), when he was 14. She also gives them the Beatle script and we flashback to 1967, as Ramsay tries to set up a meeting with Epstein and Halliwell berates Orton for filleting ideas from the novel they wrote together several years before. They are interrupted by blowsy neighbour Mrs Sugden (Janet Dale) showing off her new frock and disclosing a little too much information about the unfortunate after-effects of a coffee spill. Her breathless chatter reduces the pair to giggling hysterics, but they are soon bickering again after Orton dismisses Halliwell's coy advances and upsets him by suggesting that he self-pleasures to alleviate his pent-up tension.

Meanwhile, Anthea has to ask her mother (Joan Sanderson) to help decipher the shorthand that Orton used to conceal the sexual references in his diaries. As they toil, Lahr travels to Leicester to meet Orton's sister, Leonie (Frances Barber), who recalls him aspiring to become an actor and taking elocution lessons with Madame Ada Lambert (Margaret Tyzack), much to the dismay of their mother, Elsie (Julie Walters), who wanted him to become a civil servant. Shouting up the stairs of their tiny house, she opines that Dirk Bogarde's mother would never have to put up with soiled bedspreads. But she is silenced by a man from the council education committee knocking to insist that Orton auditions for RADA.

He is accepted after playing both Captain Hook and Smee in a scene from Peter Pan. Following him on to the stage, Halliwell recites `To Be or Not to Be' from Hamlet and is offered a place because he looks older than his years and would come in useful when casting in-house productions. The 25 year-old Halliwell amuses the 17 year-old Orton when he strangles an imaginary cat during an improv exercise and they enjoy the fireworks together during the 1951 Festival of Britain after Orton fails to persuade his girlfriend Janet (Charlotte Wodehouse) to have sex on the South Bank. As the more cultivated of the pair, Halliwell takes it upon himself to educate Orton and they move into the Sugdens' spare rooms in time to consummate their relationship while the Coronation is on the television.

While Lahr and Anthea visit Leonie and her plumber husband, George Barnett (Stephen Hill), avers that Orton was corrupted in London and made up the diary references to cottaging, Orton and Halliwell embark upon a novel. They send Lord Cucumber and the Boy Hairdresser to Faber, where an elderly publisher (Christopher Guinee) tries to let them down gently, while Orton asks to sit in TS Eliot's boardroom chair and Halliwell urges their bemused host to pass on their admiration for The Waste Land. Walking through the park, they catch the eye of Kenneth (Stevan Rimkus) and Orton follows him to his flat, where he watches the stranger kiss Halliwell, who is anxious that they are going to be late for the Proms.

As Ramsay takes up the story again, a decade passes, during which time Orton starts writing in earnest and the balding Halliwell begins covering their bedroom wall with pictures cut out of library books. Librarian Cunliffe (Charles McKeown) and his assistant, Miss Battersby (Selina Cadell), catch them defacing books and their rewritten cover notes to Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers are read out in court before they are sentenced to six months in prison. Orton uses the opportunity to work out and wind up psychiatrist (Richard Wilson) by informing him that he shares a room with Halliwell, despite being married with a child.

Liberated by being apart from Halliwell for the first time in a decade, Orton channels his experiences into a radio play, The Ruffian on the Stair, which we see being recorded for the BBC. Ramsay suggests to Lahr that the dynamic of the relationship had permanently changed, with Halliwell having to justify his continued usefulness now that Orton found sex elsewhere and no longer needed him to bolster his literary confidence. Ramsay takes him on as a client and changes his first name from John to Joe. She also exploits his bad boy past and Entertaining Mr Sloane opens to rave reviews at the New Arts Theatre in May 1964.

Unhappy at being sidelined during rehearsals, Halliwell is mollified by the purchase of a luxuriant wig. He is delighted when he thinks it makes him attractive to cruising males (when, in fact, Orton has bribed a man to flirt with him) and enjoys the thrill of nearly being caught in a police raid. But relations between the no-longer lovers have begun to deteriorate by the time that Loot becomes a smash. Indeed, Orton refuses to let Halliwell attend an awards ceremony and he is about to let the Fabs know where they can stick his Remington typewriter when Paul McCartney drops by in a white Rolls Royce and Halliwell is left on the wet pavement as Orton waves from the backseat.

Yet, while he misses out on the Evening Standard Drama Awards and the orgy in a darkened gents that follows, Halliwell does get to accompany Orton to Morocco, where they appear to be having a wonderful time with the eager locals. Orton even revels in joshing Epstein about the scenes in Up Against It in which his charges would be required to smoke a joint and share a bed with the same girl. But, when Orton insists on working, Halliwell loses his composure and throws the typewriter off the roof and declares their relationship at an end. Sneering, Orton retires to his room with a pretty youth and he is no more charitable when they return to London. Amused to find that Ramsay has sold the screenplay to someone else, Orton learns from Leonie that his mother has died and he orders Halliwell to see a doctor while he is away because he is sick.

Despising his mother, Orton shows no emotion as the undertaker prepares the corpse. Indeed, he steals her treasured false teeth and pities his father William (James Grant) because he knows they were rarely happy. He ogles one of the undertakers assistant's and has sex with a stranger at the bus stop before sending one of the actors on to the stage that night with Elsie's dentures.

Sadly, the end came shortly afterwards and Ramsay finds it hard to discuss the matter with Lahr. We see Orton suggesting that they should split up rather than find new digs and he derides Halliwell when he claims that Orton is his creation. As he rolls over to sleep, Halliwell curses his many misfortunes before bludgeoning Orton to death with a hammer. He leaves a note stating that his motive can be found in the diaries and takes a handful of Nembutal before stripping.

In a rather rushed finale, Ramsay tells Lahr that Halliwell was the first wife who made the sacrifices without getting the glory, while she is the widow who got to enjoy the spoils. She recalls that only three people attended Halliwell's funeral, while Orton's was packed. Leonie helped her commingle the ashes, which they scattered in a churchyard to the badly re-recorded climactic chord of `A Day in the Life'. As the ashes disperse, the drearily disapproving Barnett opines that they wouldn't do this kind of thing in Leicester.

Bristling with attitude, yet suffused with melancholy, this often feels more like a eulogy for Kenneth Halliwell than a memoir of Joe Orton. Brilliantly played by Alfred Molina and Gary Oldman, the mismatched pair clearly functioned as a double act for much of their time together and Frears and Bennett are right to prioritise their time as a couple over their backstories (for the record, Halliwell was from the Wirral and did, indeed, witness his mother's death from a wasp sting and find his father after he used the oven to gas himself). But, by opting to overlook the decade between Orton's RADA and radio days, Frears and Bennett leave a good deal of psychological baggage in lost property, while offering few insights into the effects that being closeted had on gay men at a time when active homosexuality was still a criminal offence.

Led by a sparkling Vanessa Redgrave as Peggy Ramsay, the supporting cast is as strong as Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski's production design and Bob Ringwood's costumes, which refuse to fetishise quotidian 60s furnishings and fashions. Oliver Stapleton's camerawork is unshowily steady, but Stanley Myers's score occasionally feels intrusive, most notably during the fateful night of 9 August. Halliwell had suggested `Prick Up Your Ears' for the Beatle project, but Orton had responded that it was `much too good a title to waste on a film'. Three decades on, one is still forced to concede that Lahr's exemplary 1978 tome is still the superior work. But, it would be remiss to end this review of such a thoughtful study of unequal partners without noting that Lahr - the son of the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz who took his Masters at Worcester College - ended up divorcing Anthea Mander and, in 1988, began dating future wife Connie Booth (ex-husband John Cleese's co-star and key collaborator on Fawlty Towers). Funny how things work out, isn't it?