Parky at the Pictures (18/1/2018)

The son of actor Maurice Garrel, he collaborated frequently in the 1970s with German lover Nico (of Velvet Underground fame) on such pictures as The Inner Scar (1972), which comprises a mere 23 mostly static shots of Nico, Garrel and Pierre Clémenti (amongst others) walking slowly through arresting landscapes in Sinai, Death Valley and Iceland. By contrast, the six year-old Louis Garrel made his acting bow alongside his father and grandfather in Emergency Kisses (1989), which chronicles the fallout when a famous director plans a film about his own life and upsets wife Brigitte Sy by casting rival actress Anémone as his screen spouse.

Dedicated to Nico and seemingly riven with autobiographical regret, I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar (1991) provides a more elliptical look at the breakdown of a marriage, as it follows Parisian couples Benoît Régent and Johanna ter Steege and Yann Collette and Mireille Perrier on holiday to the Italian coast. Replete with wordplay, Heidegger references, poetry recitals and a score by John Cale, this teases all the more by co-starring Garrel's now ex-wife, Brigitte Sy, as the mistress in whom Régent seeks solace when Ter Steege starts blowing their money and their happiness on heroin.

Love, need and heroin are also to the fore in Night Wind (1999), another collaboration with John Cale that sees artist Xavier Beauvois cling to housewife Catherine Deneuve before her insecurities prompt him to take a road trip with 60s relic Daniel Duval. And this treatise on desire, disillusion and self-destruction finds echo in recent outings like A Burning Hot Summer (2011), Jealousy (2013) and In the Shadow of Women (2015), as well as Garrel's latest picture, Lover For a Day.

Crushed after breaking up with her boyfriend Mateo (Paul Toucang), Jeanne (Esther Garrel) seeks the comfort of her philosophy teacher father, Gilles (Éric Caravaca), only to discover that he is three months into a secret, live-in affair with one of his students, Ariane (Louise Chevillotte). Initially, the 23 year-olds are wary of one another, with Jeanne pointedly informing the befreckled Ariane that she is nowhere near as beautiful as her mother. But they get to know each other during a discussion about how relationships start and end, with Jeanne revealing that she resisted Mateo for a long time because she sensed that any romance could only end badly, while Ariane confesses that she stalked Gilles until he succumbed to her charms. She is taken aback, therefore, when he informs her that he is so scared of losing her that she is free to sleep with other people if the attraction is purely physical.

Despite getting along better, Jeanne still resents the fact that Ariane monopolises her father when she needs to confide in him, while Ariane is so dismayed when Jeanne gets the first kiss when Gilles comes home that she skulks off to bed. Father and daughter go out for the night and he admits to being concerned about what she will do with her life. But Gilles also seems to be at a crossroads, as he spends an evening with Ariane's classmate, Yentel (Marie Sergeant) after they have a row. However, he resists the temptation to sleep with her because he loves Ariane, even though he is convinced she has a screw loose.

Jeanne is the one behaving oddly, however, as she phones Mateo and hangs up without speaking, only to tell Ariane that he called her. She even fakes a breathy call to Gilles's landline, which prompts Ariane to warn Gilles that Mateo is having regrets about asking Jeanne to move out. Yet, when she stops a desperate Jeanne from jumping from an upper-storey window, Ariane agrees not to tell her father and even persuades her to go dancing. She also accompanies Gilles and Ariane when they dine with some students and discuss the Algerian War and jihadism. One of the group (Raphaël Naasz) flirts with Ariane while asking for a light and Gilles gets jealous. But, while Ariane reassures him that she isn't interested, she hooks up with her handsome classmate and makes a bad job of lying when she falls asleep after sex and gets home late. However, they quickly patch things up and Ariane tells Gilles that he makes her feel happy and free.

Meanwhile, Jeanne has spotted Ariane on the cover of a softcore porn mag and takes a photo with her phone. However, she says nothing to Gilles or Ariane, as she has been discreet about her suicide bid and went to pick up some of her belongings from Mateo's apartment. Indeed, she had also managed to find out that Mateo is still single and feels bad about breaking up with Jeanne because he knows how fragile she is. So, Jeanne deletes the magazine cover from her phone and promises Ariane that she will never tell Gilles. They chat about male insecurity and Ariane advises Jeanne never to tell a partner if she has betrayed them, as men have double standards where cheating is concerned. She is also surprised when Jeanne admits to never having had no-strings sex and is intrigued when she mentions Stéphane (Félix Kysyl), a classmate she has a crush on, but would never sleep with.

Despite having written `Never Again' in lipstick on a mirror after her last fling, Ariane has no such qualms and indulges in a quickie with Stéphane in the faculty toilets. Unfortunately, Gilles sees them together and slaps Ariane's face when she gets home. He regrets giving her permission to sleep around and accuses her of being as promiscuous as he was in his youth. Heartbroken, Ariane moves out and Jeanne soon follows when she gets back with Mateo. They break the news to Gilles during her birthday supper and he is genuinely pleased for them. Leaving the restaurant, Jeanne and Mateo kiss and he literally sweeps her off her feet.

Shot in grainy monochrome in just 21 days, this delightful vignette completes a trilogy started with Jealousy and In the Shadow of Women. The script has been co-written by Garrel, his wife, Caroline Deruas, Maurice Pialat's former collaborator (and Claude Berri's sister) Arlette Langmann, and Luis Buñuel's old sparring partner. Jean-Claude Carrière. Given the advanced age of three of the scenarists, one might expect this to have a classical feel. But, as is often the way with Garrel, this feels modern, sprightly and modishly chic, without striving hard for any effect.

Narrated with a wry nouvelle vaguean gravity by Laetitia Spigarelli, this fascinating treatise on love and the inevitability of infidelity has an elegance and erudition that has become somewhat outdated in indie circles where handheld intimacy and immediacy are the watchwords of both stylistic and psychological authenticity. Swiss cinematographer Renato Berta certainly keeps the camera close to the characters, as they debate emotions and urges, duties and desires. But he also captures the atmosphere of the bars, alleys and dimly lit rooms that Garrel favours, as well as the urgency of the sex scenes, which often take place in less than salubrious places, as arousal overtakes circumspection.

Given the age gap between himself and Deruas, it's tempting to speculate whether the pair have slipped any confessional details into the script. But, having worked with his son Louis on seven occasions, Garrel displays understandable discretion in directing daughter Esther, who is often asked to be tearful, but is spared the naked scrutiny experienced by stage star Louise Chevillotte, who excels in her debut feature as `a female Don Juan'. However, there is nothing prurient about the action, which is neatly punctuated with delicate piano music by Jean-Louis Aubert.

CinemaItaliaUK takes an unexpected detour into the world of animation on 21 January when it presents Gatta Cenerentola/Cinderella the Cat at the Genesis Cinema in London. Following on from his acclaimed 2013 debut, The Art of Happiness, director Alessandro Rak has teamed with Ivan Cappiello, Marino Guarnieri and Dario Sansone to produce a slyly satirical musical that draws on a 1976 scenario by musician-cum-dramatist Roberto de Simone to return the familiar fable to the Naples of 17th-century author Giambattista Basilere. Lively, raucous and stuffed with anti-establishment barbs, this is clearly aimed more at adults than children.

As the opening pastiche of the Giornale Luce newsreel reveals, inventor Vittorio Basile (Mariano Rigillo) lives aboard the cruise ship Megaride in the Bay of Naples with his young daughter, Mia (who has just lost a shoe on the labyrinth of gangways), and her bodyguard, Primo Gemito (Alessandro Gassmann). Basile is about to launch the Science and Memory Hub that will provide thousands of jobs and help regenerate a rundown part of the city. But Gemito has misgivings about living on a vessel full of holographic ghosts and dares to question Basile's decision to marry singer Angelica Carannante (Maria Pia Calzone), who has six children and is far too friendly with the shady Salvatore Lo Giusto (Massimiliano Gallo).

In a nearby cabin, he is plotting with Angelica to murder Basile as soon as they are pronounced husband and wife. She fails to see why the kindly boffin needs to die, but Lo Giusto wants him out of the way to he can use his influence over Angelica to get his hands on Basile's fortune. In order to give himself the best alibi, he performs a song for his old friend and his new bride before slipping away (during a blizzard of popping flashbulbs) to gun him down. Mia sees her father's body and is distraught when Angelica declares that Gemito is fired and that she will take care of her along with her own children, Anna (Federica Altamura), Barbara (Chiara Baffi), Carmen (Francesca Romana Bergamo), Luisa (also Bergamo), Sofia (Anna Trieste) and Luigi (Ciro Priello).

Fifteen years later, the fireworks lighting up the Neapolitan sky have been replaced by ash drifting in from Vesuvius. The Megaride is now a burlesque cabaret club called the Ace of Clubs, where Angelica's kids perform and service the wealthiest patrons. As they drive to the waterfront in their flashy cars, Gemito reports back to the commissioner (Renato Carpentieri) about a consignment of crates bound for the club. He is working undercover to find out how Lo Giusto (who know calls himself `The King') smuggles cocaine into the city. On arriving at the jetty with his confederates, James (Gino Fastidio) and The Chinaman (Huang Xu), Gemito is horrified to see the latter gunned down by a henchmen named Scarface (Enzo Gragnaniello).

As a treat for ratting out their treacherous colleague, Gemito and James are given passes for the club balcony and the latter warns his friend that he might get a surprise if the cross-dressing Luigi comes to play with him. Fresh from warning Mia (who lives in the hold with a grey cat) that she had better buck up her ideas before she turns 18 tomorrow, Angelica sings about wasted love to an appreciative audience, while Lo Giusto and his tame scientist Cozza (Antonio Brachi) demonstrate to potential buyers how they can make designer shoes that can be exported without any questions asked out of pure cocaine.

Eager to avoid Barbara's ministrations, Gemito tries to push past her and gets stabbed in the shoulder. He almost gets shot by Luigi when he comes to his sister's aid and Gemito has to take cover in the communications room. Here, he manages to get a message to the commissioner before he is cornered by Barbara and Luigi, who shoots him and Gemito plunges into the depths of the hold. Mia watches him fall and goes rushing to his aid, just as Lo Giusto takes to the stage to deliver a mockingly affectionate paean to Naples, which he plans to turn into the Las Vegas of Southern Italy the moment he gets his hands on Basile's wealth.

Pulling Gemito out of the shallow water at the bottom of the hull, Mia is surprised that he knows her, even though she recognises him from the holograms that keep bringing past events flickering back to life around the liner. He is troubled by the fact that Mia no longer speaks and gives her the lost shoe that he had found on the night her father was murdered and promises to deliver her from her nightmare. But she is called away by Anna, who is furious that she has not tidied her room and she grabs Mia by the scruff of the neck and drags her to Angelica's cabin. She does not wish to be disturbed, however, as Lo Giusto has been away for two years and she is keen to show him how devoted she has been in her loneliness. He teases her that he has been working to make them rich beyond avarice, but she feels a pang of regret because the caged blackbird that sits on her dressing-table has not chirped since her last wedding day.

She is distraught to hear the bird sing the moment it is left alone with Mia, who has so entranced Lo Giusto that he orders Angelica to move her to a plush cabin and find her a stylish dress. Anna is furious that her stepsister is being treated like a princess, but her mother reminds her that The King's word is final. But even she cannot suspect the depths of his treachery, as he makes plans to ditch her and marry Mia in order to get his hands on Basile's fortune. He kneels at Mia's feet and promises to find her the most beautiful shoes she has ever seen and she nods watchfully when he reveals what he expects from her in return.

While blimps hover over the city announcing the forthcoming nuptials, Gemito sets off with a back-up crew to raid the ship. Elsewhere, as Mia luxuriates in a bubble bath, Angelica discovers that the wedding slippers that Lo Giusto has had made for his bride don't fit her feet. She checks to see if an honest mistake has been made. But he brushes her aside in the corridor and ridicules her for wasting 15 years of her life. As she orders her offspring to kill Mia, however, she sees a hologram of Lo Giusto gunning down her father and she hurriedly changes out of her wedding dress and scurries out of the cabin before The King's henchmen can force her on to the stage.

Unfortunately, she runs into both the heavies and her step-siblings and watches on as they gun each other down. As Anna lies dying, she pleads with her mother to kill Mia as she has cursed them all. But she allows her to escape in order to set free the blackbird that had been a gift from her father. With menacing serenity, Angelica heads into the fuel store to blow up the liner, while Lo Giusto sings a song for his guests about being an indestructible weed. He is furious when Gemito turns on the tannoy system to urge everyone to abandon the vessel before she explodes. But the cop prevents Mia from bludgeoning the crook to death with Barbara's gun and they just manage to jump overboard before the explosion rips the hull apart.

Closing with a sinuous camera move along the seabed, as the dramatis personnae are identified, this is a combustibly brutal ending to a picture whose latent violence had previously been simmering beneath the surface. Rak and his co-directors certainly capture the imagination with the atmospheric setting and the inspired use of the luminous spectral photosweeps, which have been superimposed on to the two-dimensional anime-like artwork using a special stereoscopic software. The vocal work is also admirable, with Maria Pia Calzone and Massimiliano Gallo (riffing on ex-ship crooner Silvio Berlusconi) delivering their character-driven musical numbers with evident relish.

But their story meanders in places and sometimes strains too hard to squeeze in the Cinderella and the feline references. The Ugly Sisters are particularly unsettling, with the casual cracks about Luigi's sexuality sitting as uncomfortably as James's racist impersonation of the Chinaman's pronunciation of the letter `r'. Nevertheless, this is a boldly conceived and slickly realised noir, which would make a fine midnite movie double bill alongside Gabriele Marinetti's They Call Me Jeeg Robot (2015).

While promoting his documentary, Chancers: The Great Gangster Film Fraud (2016), director Ben Lewis declared A Landscape of Lies to be `a giant cinematic alibi'. Now, audiences have the long-overdue chance to assess Paul Knight's fabled feature for themselves, as it reaches the big screen in a director's cut. A little context is required before viewing, however.

In 2011, British Iraqi entrepreneur Bashur Al Issa and Irish actress Aoife Madden joined forces to make a movie. But, while they had a script entitled A Landscape of Lives and a supposed budget of £19.6 million, they could only offer Knight the princely sum of £100,000 to complete the project in a matter of weeks. Having produced his debut feature, Thugs, Mugs and Violence (2009), for just £10,000, Knight thought he had hit the jackpot. He should, perhaps, have been suspicious when names like Michael Caine, Omar Sharif, Liam Neeson and Brian Cox were being bandied around. But Knight ploughed on in good faith and was as surprised as anyone to discover that Issa and Madden had been arrested on the recommendation of HMRC for receiving £1.2 million in VAT and film tax relief and preparing a further claim of £1.8 million in exploiting a rule entitling producers of films budgeted under £20 million to a 25% rebate.

Able to prove his own innocence of entering into a conspiracy to defraud with the producers, Knight was left with a rough-and-ready crime thriller and reasoned that its infamy might help him recoup some of the £20,000 of his own money that he had invested in its making. Much to his delight, A Landscape of Lies was accepted by the 2012 Las Vegas Film Festival and promptly won the Silver Ace award. However, on learning of the picture's nefarious past, the festival hierarchy withdrew the accolade. Undaunted, however, Knight has continued to polish his film, seven years after the camera started to roll, it is finally ready for its UK premiere.

From the moment Danny Midwinter beats seven shades out of a man who refuses to laugh at his joke, it's clear that he has a screw loose. But he is a big noise around town and is furious that property developer Philip Brodie has beaten him to a vacant piece of land on Christ Street. Midwinter tries to intimidate Brodie, but he is not one to budge, as wife Lucinda Rhodes-Flaherty and troubled teenage daughter Rosie Ginger know all too well. The latter keeps getting into trouble at school and is convinced her parents are going to get a divorce, making her the kind of kid Andrea McLean became a psychiatrist to help. Receptionist Christina Baily admires McLean's passion for her job, but wishes she would also let off a little steam to release the strain.

Across town, Iraq veteran Andre Nightingale is still having nightmares about the mission that wiped out most of his unit. He is also finding it hard to make ends meet and readily accepts a backhander when ex-sergeant Marc Bannerman asks him to provide an alibi for his betrayal of wife Samantha Cunningham. However, when he is found dead on the Christ Street plot, DCI Mel Mills and Sergeant Anna Passey interrupt a meeting between Brodie, assistant Daniel Young and wheeler-dealer Daniel Peacock to ask what they know about the deceased, who appears to have been the victim of a bungled mugging.

Furious at being forced to delay construction, Brodie misses an appointment with McLean and Rhodes-Flaherty takes the opportunity to confess to an affair that began because she felt neglected. Nightingale hears about Bannerman's death on the news and goes to console Cunningham, only for Mills to question his integrity when Nightingale fibs to prevent the grieving widow from learning about her hero husband's infidelity. She asks him to make private inquiries and Mills warns him about playing the vigilante. But he stakes out the crime scene and bumps into Midwinter, who claims that Clancy ruined his chances to building a community project and hints that his marriage is a mess. He also offers Nightingale work at his burlesque club, The Blue Lounge, and manager Aoife Madden explains how she needs him to stop the punters pawing the dancers.

Word soon reaches Mills that Nightingale is involved with Midwinter and he comes clean about Bannerman having an affair. They wonder if he was seeing Rhodes-Flaherty, who is horrified when Brodie comes home from work after being head-butted by Midwinter's Australian heavy, Victoria Hopkins, who regards his wife, Helen Latham, as a sister. Brodie is so shocked by the threats that Hopkins and Nightingale make to his family that he vows to recommend to Peacock that they sell Christ Street. However, Young is already accepting bribes from Midwinter to stall the project and he receives his next handout at the club, as McLean (who is Midwinter's sister) arrives with the intention of seducing the naive Baily.

In fact, she leaves with Young and a tipsy McLean sleeps it off in Nightingale's bed while he kips on the couch. However, McLean does keep a dinner date with Midwinter and Latham and witnesses Mills arresting Hopkins after her tyre tracks are found at the murder scene. While Midwinter refuses to lift a finger to help her, he asks McLean to cajole Brodie into selling the plot for the good of his marriage. She seems to assent to his request. But Midwinter leaves nothing to chance by barging into her surgery the next day and stabbing Brodie before Nightingale can stop him. Mills and DC Kelly George take Midwinter into custody, while Nightingale escorts McLean home. But there are a couple more twists to come before the end credits finally roll.

As regular readers will know, this column has little time for spoilers. But, as this plucky picture needs all the help it can get, it will be allowed to keep a few of its incestuous secrets. In the circumstances, the self-taught Knight does well enough behind the camera and it's not always possible to detect that this only cost £84,000. That said, some of his framing is a bit clumsy and he seems to have no regard for the 180° rule. His dialogue writing could also do with some polishing, while he struggles to coax competent performances out of some of the minor players.

Nevertheless, onetime weather girl and Loose Women presenter Andrea McLean manages to hold her own, even in her exchanges with the scene-stealing Danny Midwinter. Consequently, this is not appreciably worse than such recent British misfires as Sean Spencer's Panic (2014), Ryan Bonder's The Brother (2016) and Ed Christmas's The Man With Four Legs (2017). But it's still not a patch on the story own its own genesis, although fans of Vittorio De Sica's neglected movie scam comedy, After the Fox (1966), will doubtlessly appreciate its merits.

Now in his late 80s, Frederick Wiseman remains the finest exponent of Direct Cinema, the purely observational style of documentary making that resists the cinéma vérité temptation to tinker with reality. In particular, he excels at the institutional profile and, in a career stretching over five decades, he has considered bodies involved in healthcare (Titicut Follies, 1967 & Hospital, 1970), education (High School, 1968 & At Berkeley, 2013), the law (Law and Order, 1969 & Juvenile Court, 1973), the military (Basic Training, 1971 & Missile, 1988), leisure (Zoo, 1983 & Boxing Gym, 2010), the arts (La Danse, 2009 & National Gallery, 2014), public policy (Public Housing, 1997 & State Legislature, 2006) and social issues (Domestic Violence, 2001 & In Jackson Heights, 2015). But Wiseman's 41st feature, Ex Libris: The New York Public Library, is not only one of his most fascinating, but it also reminds audiences of the vital role that libraries still have to play in communities that have been fragmented by socio-economic decline and government cutbacks.

In typical Wiseman fashion, he plunges straight into an ongoing situation, as geneticist Richard Dawkins plugs his Foundation for Reason and Science and calls for America's non-religious lobby to be more vocal in shaping the country's direction. He is feted by the interviewer for the lyricism of his writing and draws applause for mocking Creationism and marvelling at the complexity of the universe, single cells and the human brain. Amusingly, Wiseman follows this by cutting to the telephone help desk, where one operator is having to explain to a caller that a unicorn is an entirely mythical creature. Elsewhere, a librarian helps a woman researching her family history, while readers browse and tourists take snapshots.

In an anteroom, library president Anthony W. Marx addresses a meeting about public-private funding and the digitisation of the collection, as access to information is key to the future of the institution and the city. Computers are certainly central to the ensuing montage, as Wiseman notes the different uses to which New Yorkers put the library's machines. But he's keen to move away from the main building behind the Carrère and Hastings façade on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street to see as many of the 88 satellites located across the Five Boroughs. Thus, he pops into the Jerome Park branch, where a number of mostly black female teachers are using books and computers to encourage youngsters from various ethnic backgrounds to improve their literacy and numeracy. Once again, Wiseman makes a telling cross-cut, when he returns to the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building in Central Manhattan to sit in on an unnamed African-American historian examining the links between monarchy, Islam and slavery.

As night falls, we move to the Bruno Walter Auditorium at the Lincoln Center for a piano recital by Carolyn Enger. But we are quickly whisked off to the Bronx Library Center for a careers fair, with officers from the New York Fire Department, the US Border Patrol and the US Army giving recruitment talks. Then, it's back to Tony Marx and Chief Library Officer Mary Lee Kennedy leading a meeting about the funding and sustainability of educational programmes. Montages of people using microfiches and computers are separated by a lengthy introduction to the picture archive and its history, as a group of drama students search for images to help them bring authenticity to a scene. This is followed by a lively talk by historian Ted Merwin about the role that Jewish delicatessens played in the combating of anti-Semitism in New York in the mid-20th century (`Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army'), while Elvis Costello thoughtfully recalls his musician father, Ross McManus, singing `If I Had a Hammer' and his changing attitude to the anti-Thatcher song `Tramp the Dirt Down'.

Back in the meeting room, Marx and Kennedy discuss how the library can help the underprivileged with no computer access and how they can keep up with rapidly changing technologies. However, we return to the public spaces to see African-American poet Yusef Komunyakaa exploring politics and language before heading into Chinatown for a senior citizen computer class. We also see a Braille reading session and a talk on housing for those with a disability en route to a meeting about a building project at the Mid-Manhattan Library and plans it has for serving its constituents in the future. Following a performance by the woodwind quartet, Double Entendre, in the Bronx (in front of a small audience that conveys the broad mix of people such places have to cater for), we move to the Schomburg Center for an exhibition of black art and the New York Library for the Performing Artists, where street poet Miles Hodges has to compete with a crying baby while delivering a piece about being a modern man.

Wiseman eavesdrops on another committee meeting with Kennedy exploring future social projects before we join a book club debating the merits of Gabriel García Marquez's Love in a Time of Cholera. He also happens upon a gripping demonstration by Candace Broecker Penn of signing for deaf theatregoers at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center prior to appointments at the archive photographic studio and the book stacks, where conveyor belts shuttle books and DVDs around a large warehouse for sorting and dispatch. Then, it's on to the Parkchester branch with Kennedy for a team meeting about how to enthuse teenagers attending after-school clubs and support parents trying to help their children with their homework.

The scene shifts to Harlem and the George Bruce Branch, where Hot Spot modems are being loaned to ticket holders without online access. We also see a senior exercise class before heading to Westchester for a coding workshop for budding adolescent inventors and hear Khalil Gibran Muhammad give a speech at a candlelit celebration of the 90th anniversary of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Wittily, Wiseman cuts from this chic dinner to a mother-and-toddlers group singing `Old MacDonald Had a Farm'. But the tone becomes more serious, as he joins Marx and Kennedy at a meeting pondering the problem of homeless patrons using library premises for shelter and sleep.

He returns to hallowed halls to show academics researching in the primary sources archive and lingers during an introduction to the print collection before sitting in on a meeting on funding and community engagement. Following a peak at a recording session for the talking book service, Wiseman makes for Jefferson Market, where he people watches in the reading room. Thence, he joins a history seminar contemplating the views of George Fitzhugh, Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx before viewing a Halloween procession as it passes the Schwarzman Building. He also watches Patti Smith promoting her autobiography

Following a brief visit to a meeting tackling maintenance issues, Marx and Kennedy join Chief Operating Officer Iris Weinshall for a discussion on e-book backlogs, dealing with publishers and the future of hard copy collections. We then see tables being laid for a function and listen to Kwame Anthony Appiah appraising the achievement of slave poet Phillis Wheatley and Ta-Nihisi Coates challenging preconceptions surrounding `black-on-black' crime. Christmas coincides with the `I Am in the Public Eye' photo exhibition, as Weinshall looks back on the year and focuses minds on what things need to be done in the months ahead.

Wiseman then accompanies Khalil Muhammad to Macomb's Bridge branch in Harlem to explore ways the library can welcome African-Americans unsure of its facilities and suspicious of its motives. But he ends Downtown, as British artist and author Edmund de Waal lauds his hero, Primo Levi, in analysing the importance of paintings, objects and buildings in firing the active imagination and prompting people to wonder how things came into being.

Photographed by John Davey with a precise eye for civic architectural contrast and a sense of discretion that still enables Wiseman to get to the heart of any situation, this is an endlessly revealing and unashamedly affectionate snapshot of the NYPL during the autumn of 2015. Serving as his own sound recordist and editor, Wiseman is evidently grateful for the existence of a body that is so committed to touching the lives of every single New Yorker, whether they want to borrow a book, play with robots, listen and learn, or doze in the warm. Consequently, he spends a good deal of time with the management team and the librarians, curators and lecturers who recognise the value of their service in an age of press mistrust and social media mendacity and are forever looking for ways to improve it and tailor it to the 18 patrons who cross their thresholds each year.

In some ways, the stellar speaker meetings prove something of a distraction from the grassroots work, as staff driven by Andrew Carnegie's vow to bring knowledge to the masses strive to keep up to date with the digital equipment that many of their regulars find more enticing and useful than books. But it's the welcoming inclusivity of the programmes (some 55,000 each year and most are free) that proves most striking, as young and old across the class and racial divides find something that intrigues them. Unfortunately, it's clearly harder to raise funds for these neighbourhood initiatives than it is to sustain the likes of the Berg Collection of Manuscripts, the Rose Reading Room and the Bill Blass Catalog Room. Thus, Wiseman allows Marx, Kennedy and Weinshall to make frequent references to budgets and cutbacks, as one only has to look around our own county to see what happens to libraries when public purse strings are tightened.

Everything you need to know about The Final Year, Greg Barker's documentary account of the foreign policy initiatives pursued by the Obama administration in 2016, can be summed up by the glib use of a soulful cover of Bob Dylan's totemic anthem, "The Times They Are A-Changin'", over shots of the principal characters boxing up their belongings and leaving the White House to make way for incoming president Donald Trump. Barker's fundamental misunderstanding of the lyrics and his failure to recognise the extent to which history has changed their meaning in the 55 years since they were written typifies this complacent record a seismic year in American politics, which allows itself to be completely broadsided and knocked off course by the events of 8 November.

During a whizz-bang montage chronicling the foreign policy highlights of the first seven years of Barack Obama's presidency, Barker introduces us to his main players: Secretary of State John Kerry; National Security Advisor Susan Rice; US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power; and Ben Rhodes, the Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications, who is one of Obama's most trusted insiders and is a man with an inordinate amount of confidence in his own ability. Significantly, there are no references to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's contribution to the first four years, while Barker presumes that everyone will already know background details such as Power's Pulitzer Prize win for her 2002 book, A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. But Barker uses scenes of Kerry forgetting his phone as he leaves for the office and Power negotiating with her children over their doughnut consumption to create the impression that he has unfettered access to a powerful quartet dedicated to realising Obama's pledge to change the way America conducts its diplomacy.

In fact, he seems to spend a lot of time hovering on the fringes as Obama launches into a round of overseas trips that he hopes will secure a legacy that cannot be dismantled by any incoming Republican opponent. Much mention is made of the imminent election during the opening flurry of clips designed to suggest how hectic life in the West Wing can be. But the focus is firmly on guaranteeing the normalisation of relations with Cuba, the ratification of the Paris Accord on climate change and the Iran nuclear agreement, and the resolution of the conflict in Syria. Nobody pretends that swinging these deals is going to be easy, especially for a lame duck presidency. But, while Kerry warns that the situations in Yemen, Libya and North Korea give reason for concern, there is a self-congratulatory air to the initial remarks, especially from Rhodes.

As a former journalist, Power sets great store by seeing things for herself and she explains how fieldwork is the cornerstone to her approach to diplomacy. She lauds Rhodes for his commitment and passion, as he discloses his role in speechwriting and the presentation of foreign policy strategies. But Barker never settles on a topic and whisks us off to Vietnam, as Rhodes and Kerry pave the way for a visit by President Obama. An archive clip alludes to Kerry's role in protesting the war in which he had served, but this crucial moment in his political evolution is brushed aside to show Obama charming a young Vietnamese audience during a town hall Q&A session.

Similarly, a passing remark about 9/11 is allowed to stand as the motivating factor for Rhodes's career before he is shown agonising over the wording of the speech that Obama will deliver during his landmark visit to Hiroshima at the end of the week. But, rather than exploring the process of drafting and refining a speech, Barker asks Rhodes about the fallout from a New York Times Magazine profile, in which he accused the White House press corps of knowing nothing. Little attempt is made to put this story into context and Barker fails to follow up when Rhodes responds with a degree of embarrassed difficulty. In the grand scheme, this is a minor incident, but its coverage encapsulates the flaws of a film that consistently wastes its opportunities.

During the trip to Hiroshima, Obama met a survivor of the atomic bombing and suggests that the views of ordinary people should be taken into account when fashioning foreign policy. However, he is far from naive and knows that moral idealism and national security don't always coincide and he drives away from the memorial site with more hope for change than any sense of expectation. Yet, this speech was delivered in May 2016 and one is left wondering what Barker has been doing during the first five months of his assignment, as he has only managed to gather a few sound bites and avoided all in-depth discussion of the problems facing the United States across the globe.

Power comments on her awareness that time is slipping through her fingers and she tells her team that she wants to sign off with some tangible achievements that cannot be reversed by a hostile regime in the Oval Office. Also aware of the clock ticking, Kerry is shown leaving a phone message for his wife as he is whisked off to the airport for another round of shuttle diplomacy. He lands in Vienna to meet with Sergei Lavrov in the hope of making progress on the Syrian situation. But, while Barker coaxes Kerry into spouting a few platitudes about optimism and risk taking and snatches a word with Jon Finer, the Chief of Staff at the State Department, he succeeds only in demonstrating that Kerry has boundless energy for a man in his seventies.

He touches on the relationship between Washington and Moscow and how private co-operation continues in the face of public stand-offs. But, once again a potentially intriguing subject is left dangling and the same is true of Syria. Kerry and Power concede that the crisis is fraught with difficulties. Yet neither is prepared to reveal what they are on camera and this lack of substance set against a welter of buzz-cut shots of them boarding planes, walking along corridors and shaking hands with foreign counterparts does a distinct disservice to their concerted efforts to achieve a breakthrough like the one with Cuba, which is consigned to history with a snippet of humblebragging from Rhodes about his role in reconciling two sworn enemies.

The next chance to offer an insider insight into a laudable achievement occurs during a momentous visit to Laos in July, when Obama sought to build bridges with a nation that had been subjected to secret bombardment by President Richard Nixon in the 1970s. But Barker misses a scoop when Rhodes learns during a preparatory trip that Donald Trump has secured the Republican nomination for the presidential race. He mentions that a few diplomats have asked him about the underlying reasons for Trump's popularity, but he blithely dismisses any prospect of the campaign succeeding. Nevertheless, a knowing cut takes us from this bluntly confident prediction to the citizenry ceremony for Power's maid, Maria, which sees the Irish-born ambassador shed a poignant tear at the notion that an immigrant could rise to such high office in her adopted country.

Power's sincerity cannot be questioned, but Rhodes is once again made to look smug, as he sits at the table where Obama has just completed a summit meeting with Chinese president, Xi Jinping. Yet he has a serious point to make, as the marked improvement in relations with China on a range of issues has been marginalised by the media covering the presidential race. His frustration is justified, as he has detected the tone that the campaign will take. But the restless Barker is on the move again, as he follows Power to Nigeria, where she meets the mothers of the schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram. Once again, Power comes across as eminently empathetic and principled. Yet Barker shows no inclination to explore the situation and the US response to it in anything but superficial terms.

The same fault is repeated, as Barker joins Kerry on a fact-finding trip to Greenland and Rhodes complains that the American media is more obsessed with terrorism than climate change, even though the latter is clearly the more potentially calamitous issue. And Obama's landmark visit to Laos is ticked off with a sound bite of him admitting that the USA had fought a secret war being played over footage of Nixon denying anything was afoot. Similarly, the significance of Power's coup in persuading Cameroon to help combat Boko Haram is reduced to an after-the-event chat in the back of a car with US ambassador Michael Hoka, while her engagement with women at the Minawao Refugee Camp is overshadowed by the death of a small boy who was run over by a car in her convoy.

More damningly, Barker soft soaps when divisions begin to appear between Power and Rhodes over Syria, as he commends her idealism while reminding her that they have to live in the real world, where force often has a greater impact than good intentions. Kerry also admits that he doesn't always see eye to eye with Power and Rice tries to spin this by stating that unilateral agreement would actually limit Obama's options. Ultimately, he decides against military intervention because Afghanistan and Iraq have proved that might isn't always the answer. The hawkish Rhodes bows to the Commander-in-Chief's reluctance to commit US troops to another theatre of war, but Barker gleans nothing about the decision-making process and has to content himself with off-the-cuff quotes about its ramifications.

As unattributed voices express their doubts about Obama's foreign policy record, we roll into September 2016. While writing the president's final address to the UN, Rhodes is still in denial about Trump's prospects of defeating Clinton. He is also preeningly comfortable with the fact that he and Power now have such diverging opinions on what they have achieved since 2013. She reels off the areas where conflict continues to rage, while Rhodes feels Obama has a right to claim that this is the best time to be alive because the threat of superpower confrontation has diminished. However, Obama recognises the plight of the 65,000 refugees in camps around the world and he uses his final General Assembly to try and broker some deals. But events on the ground in derail Kerry's efforts, as 70 Syrian troops are killed in a US airstrike targeted at ISIS. Power and Kerry make accusatory speeches at the UN and Rhodes concedes that the administration failed to recognise that Vladimir Putin's agenda isn't always the same a Russia's. But, once again, a fascinating issue is parked before its implications have been fully assessed.

Instead, Barker joins Power on election night, as she welcomes feminist icons like Madeline Albright and Gloria Steinem to a house party to celebrate the still-expected Clinton victory. Yet he generates no sense of occasion, as the assembled realise the tide is turning against them. Rhodes does provide him with a seminal moment, however, as his stuttering stupefaction while trying to fathom his emotions captures the enormity of the shock felt by the Democrats at so disastrously misreading the national mood. Kerry puts on a brave face, as he declares that his duty lies in ensuring a smooth transition, while Rhodes worries that Trump will ignore the advice of career diplomats to put his personal stamp on all aspects of government.

For the outgoing Obama, however, the show has to go on and he lands in Athens for his final official visit and takes great delight in touring the Parthenon before thanking Greece for giving the world the priceless, but unpredictable gift of democracy. In what seems to be a snatched backstage interview, Obama tries to reassure the audience that the trendlines towards peace are too entrenched to bring about an easy change in direction. But Rhodes admits that, while the younger generation shares Obama's vision, reactionary elements have seized the levers of power and they could do untold damage before they are voted out of office. Power has no intention of quitting, as the fight begins now. But, while Obama reminds us all that we are merely links in the long chain of history, he and Rhodes are optimistic that they have planted seeds that will produce fruit in years to come.

As The Brothers & Sisters launch into their gospelly rendition of a classic Dylan protest song, we are left with a shot of a shirt-sleeved Rhodes sidling out of a side door and into history. One suspects that no one was in the mood to allow Barker to eavesdrop on any transition discussions. But, surely, after 90 days and 21 countries, he made an attempt during the long months of post-production to persuade one or more of the protagonists into commenting on Trump's bid to demolish their edifice? By confining himself so rigidly to the final year, however, Barker has merely produced a time capsule that is bereft of perspective rather than a fully contextualised analysis of the last chapter of a story that promised so much.

Editors Joshua Altman and Langdon Page do a decent job of conveying the breakneck pace of life in the diplomatic fast lane. But their flash cut approach prevents Barker from delving into complex issues or getting to know Kerry, Power, Rhodes and the barely seen Rice as people. As a consequence, this chummy piece of reportage falls a fair way behind the standards that Barker set himself in Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt for Bin Laden (2013) and follows Pacho Velez and Simon Pettengill's The Reagan Story (2017) in failing to make the most of a golden opportunity.