Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 18/10/2018)

As she sets up a camera with her crew, Adina (Adina Pintilie) complains to an off-screen person that they have never bothered to ask what her new film is about. She is reflected on a glass below the lens and her impassive expression is mirrored by 50 year-old Laura (Laura Benson), as she tries to engage with the Bulgarian escort (Georgi Naldzhiev) who is showering in her apartment. However, he refuses to translate the passage of a beloved book tattooed on his side and leaves in silence after masturbating on the bed. Once he's gone, Laura lies face down on the sheets and sighs. 

While visiting her ailing father in hospital, she sees a touch therapy session and pauses to watch the patients exploring the face of a partner. Having lost all of his body hair to alopecia, Tómas (Tómas Lemarquis) feels self-aware as his fingertips brush against Christian (Christian Beyerlein), who is suffering from spinal muscular atrophy and whose protruding upper teeth make it difficult for him to control his saliva. When asked to discuss their feelings, Tómas admits finding it difficult to cope with Christian's physical appearance, while he confides his disappointment at not being able to see Tómas's soul through his eyes, as he has put up too many defences. 

Laura is uncomfortable watching her father (Rainer Steffen) being lifted into his wheelchair for a meal and tries not to meet his gaze. She goes home to browse the Internet and comes across the website of Hanna (Hanna Hofmann), a transsexual therapist who comes to her apartment to help her gain a better understanding of why she hates to be touched. Hanna explains that she uses music in her therapy because her father was a concert pianist and she finds the mood of a chosen piece can set the tone for a session. When Laura mentions her encounters with the Bulgarian gigolo, Hanna reveals that she has always wanted to perform in a peep show and she strips on the bed for Laura to watch, while she describes her changing relationship with a body that currently has female breasts and male genitalia. 

Back at the hospital, Laura sees Tómas chatting to Christian in the corridor. He describes the feeling of losing his hair at 13 and looks on with a smile as Christian embraces his wife, Grit (Grit Uhlemann). Laura follows Tómas when he leaves and sees him pick up a red scarf left in a clothes shop by Mona (Irmena Chichikova). They appear to meet up for a trust session, in which they lie naked and talk, as the camera roves slowly over their skin. However, it's not clear if this happened or if Laura simply imagined it and related the fantasy to Adina, who continues to appear solely via a screen beneath the camera. 

Continuing her quest, Laura meets Seani (Seani Love), a body worker who uses physical contact and consensual aggression to coerce clients into breaking down the barriers preventing them from accepting themselves and the intimacy of others. He grips her wrist to prompt a reaction and pummels her chest before touching and tasting her tears. However, she confides to Adina that she found the session more alienating than helpful. 

During their next group session, Christian and Tómas are paired together again and the latter seems more at ease because he has got to know Christian as a man. Once again, Laura follows him and he seems to stare at her as she watches him sitting in a café chair that Mona has just vacated and starts sipping from her cup. She also meets up again with Hanna, who tells her that she suspects she has an inhibition from her past that she has yet to confront. As they talk on the bed, Hanna reveals that she has named her breasts Gusti and Lilo and she reassures Laura that she will find what she is looking for. 

On returning to the hospital, she eavesdrops on Christian and Tómas again, as the former discusses his favourite body parts. He likes his eyes because they sparkle and his long hair because it helps him express his freedom-loving personality. But he enjoys his penis most, as it's one of the few parts of his body that functions normally. After the therapy, Laura follows Tómas, but it transpires that he is stalking Mona and she wants him to leave her alone because their relationship is over. In what we surmise is a dream state, he touches her face in extreme close-up before squeezing her cheeks and throat so that Mona appears pale and frightened. Tómas goes to a fetish club and he looks round wide-eyed at the kinky activities going on there. He is surprised to see Christian and Grit, who are naked on one of the beds and we hear the former explain in voiceover how he likes to experiment, as he views sex as something of an art form. 

A sudden cut to a top shot looking down on a topless Laura waking from a dream suggests that she is becoming so obsessed with the new friends that she is placing them in imaginary scenarios. But little can be taken at face value in a film that keeps showing the paraphernalia of its own making. Nevertheless, we plough on, as we see Laura and Adina sitting together on a white sofa and hear an unsynchronised conversation about the latter's dream of her frail and naked mother appearing in her bed while she was trying to make love with her boyfriend. 

Adina then interviews Christian and Grit about the dynamics of their relationship, only to cede the director's chair to Tómas, who is intrigued to learn about the emotional and physical balance they have achieved over the years and he clearly envies them, while also feeling happy for them. Meanwhile, Laura is revisited by Seani, who tries to introduce lustful touching in a bid to provoke a reaction that will enable her to detect the origin of its fury. He certainly makes her roar with resentment when he places both hands on her belly and employs suggestive language. But her distress feels enacted rather than natural and this is where so many of this fitfully engaging, but predominantly superficial film's problems lie.

Seemingly as a result of this encounter, Laura marches into her father's room and smashes an LP record before turning off his life-support machine. As she strides away, she hears some dogs barking on a piece of wasteland and stops to confront them. Meanwhile, Tómas shares an epiphany with the group because Christian has made him realise that he has erected barriers to stop emotions coming out rather than to protect him from pain. As he speaks, we cut away to a light reflector being used on the shoot, which is covered in insects. Tómas goes to the sex club, where Hanna is among those watching Mona give a dominatrix performance, in which she turns out to be more vulnerable than her S&M slaves. 

Laura bumps into Tómas at the hospital and persuades him to come back to her place. She asks if he will look at her naked and they lie on the bed together, as she sings a childhood song about a corpse and he croons an Icelandic lullaby. Left alone, Laura begins to dance maniacally like Denis Lavant at the end of Claire Denis's Beau Travail (1998). However, the films that most spring to mind while watching this mostly tiresome exercise in flaccid self-reflexivity are Vilgot Sjöman's I Am Curious Yellow (1967), Dusan Makavejev's WR Mysteries of the Organism (1971) and Pawel Lozinski's You Have No Idea How Much I Love You, which also similarly sought to put a new spin on docureality by having eminent Polish psychiatrist Bogdan De Barbaro play himself guiding actresses Ewa Szymczyk and Hanna Maciag through a mother-daughter case from his own files. 

If you want to see a truly avant-garde film bearing the title Touch Me Not, seek out Jacques Rivette's 13-hour Out 1: Noli Me Tangere (1971). Pintilie's long-gestating picture can't hold a candle to it, in terms of either its content or form. The only authentic moments come from Christian Bayerlein, who is essentially playing a variation on himself in a way that professional and able-bodied actors Laura Benson and Tómas Lemarquis quite clearly are not. But even Christian's encounters with Tómas ring hollow because the latter is such a flimsy construct (with a bogus hang-up) rather than a living, breathing human being that their phoniness echoes around the hollow edifice that Pintilie has constructed. 

While it may be intellectually shallow and emotionally mendacious, the film is not without visual interest, as George Chiper's camera follows the characters at a discreet distance or peers through doorways and the slats of Venetian blinds. Adrian Cristea's production design is also evocative. But the mix of throbbing percussion, orgasmic wailing and primal screaming in Ivo Paunev's score is as calculatingly disconcerting as Pintilie's direction. Consequently, for all its non-voyeuristic integrity and laudable insights into what makes a body and a person beautiful, this lacks the sophistication to match its self-assurance.

There are many ways to become a film-maker. Leanne Welham produced her first shorts with a camera borrowed from the family video company where she worked as an editor. As their standard improved, she received a grant to make Novio (2007), with Spanish director Ignacio Tatay, and this prompted the Film Council to back her next two ventures, Transgress (2009) and Nocturn (2010). Having completed `Big Girl' under Channel Four's Coming Up banner, Welham followed the shorts. Castaway (2014) and Occupy (2015), with a stint filming for various charities in Africa. 

This brought her to the attention of Sophie Harman, an academic at Queen Mary University in London, who wanted to use the prize money she had won for her work in global health politics to make a film about women living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Initially, Harman envisaged produced a documentary. But, as they interviewed some 80 women in the coastal Tanzanian village of Miono, Welham decided the subject matter was better suited to a docurealist drama and the result is Pili, which was filmed over five weeks in the spring of 2016, with one trained actor and a lead who was spotted when she accompanied her older sister to the research sessions. With over 65% of the cast having been diagnosed HIV+, this gives `slice of life' cinema an entirely new meaning. 

Waking with a start in the simple shack beside a busy road that she shares with her two young children, Pili (Bello Rashid) is dismayed to discover that someone has damaged two of the planks in her front door. Having packed her son Ibrahim (Hardi and Faridi Yusufu) off to school and left her daughter (Latifa Samil) with her neighbour, Sekejua (Mwantumu Hussein Malongine), Pili passes through the village with a hoe over her shoulder. She is stopped by market trader, Mahera (Nkwabi Elias Ng'angasamala), who offers her a bun and reminds her that she can always come to him if she has any problems. 

Pili has much to worry about, as her untested husband had deserted her when he discovered that she had been diagnosed HIV+. However, she had kept the news secret and goes to a clinic in a neighbouring village to collect her free medication. She has the odd bout coughing while working for a pittance in the fields, but she has managed to hide her condition for several years. But, with her pills about to run out, Pili has to find the time and money to get a repeat prescription. 

Complicating the situation is the chance to realise a dream by taking over a vacant kiosk in the marketplace and opening a shop selling beauty products. Mahera gives her 48 hours to find the deposit and Pili visits the local Vikoba microcredit group to arrange a loan. Despite Pili needing the money urgently,  Leila (Mwanaidi Omari Sefi) insists on doing things by the book and tells her to produce a business plan for the committee to consider. Knowing that Pili is determined to improve herself (she listens to programmes in English on her wind-up radio while she toils), her friend, Cecilia (Sesilia Florian Kilimila), agrees to intercede for her. But she doesn't get her hopes up and asks farm foreman Abdul (Barry Issa Ally) if he would be willing to give her a loan. 

Thanks to Cecilia and Pili throwing herself on the committee's mercy with an impassioned speech, Leila bends the rules and even agrees to waive the usual week's wait for the money to be paid. However, Mahera is impatient to fill the stall and warns Pili that he will consider other applicants if she keeps messing him around. She pleads with him to give her time, but faints in the field the next morning and has to go to the village pharmacy to buy some ARVs. When she learns that the price has gone up, Pili is faced with risking sickness or facing up to the taboo surrounding her condition and registering at the free clinic. 

Frightened of being judged by her gossiping neighbour Ana (Siwazurio Mchuka) and jeopardising her chances of getting the kiosk, Pili takes the bus to Msata. She blacks out in the waiting room and Dr Mbwewe (Catherine Mgimwa) reminds her of the dangers of failing to take her medication. Advising her to take a CD4 test, the doctor offers to pay her bus fare to Bagamoyo and Pili agrees to go because the Viboka meeting isn't until 7pm. Passing a couple of white tourists at a market stall, Pili arrives at the hospital and looks at posters urging HIV patients to live positively and fight the stigma of the disease by avoiding isolation. She fears missing the bus and is about to leave when the doctor (Castor Alfred) calls her and warns her that her levels are low and that she needs to medicate in order to stave off full-blown AIDS.

Calling Cecilia when her bus breaks down, Pili hitches a ride on a truck and arrives back in Miono just as the committee meeting is breaking up. Realising she has no option, she confesses to her HIV status and explains that she had to go out of town for some emergency drugs. Leila agrees to reconvene and uses her casting vote to grant Pili the loan, even though she had initially been against her. She is suitably grateful and leaves Ibrahim to look after his sister so that she can pay Mahera. 

Initially, he refuses to see her, as he says the deadline has expired. But Pili shows him the money and Mahera invites her inside. His wife is in Dar-es-Salaam and he suggests that they seal the deal by sleeping together. Naturally, Pili is dismayed by his terms, especially when he insists on not using protection. But she has set her heart on opening a stall and she persuades him to allow her to keep half of the deposit to buy stock. 

Now taking her medication in public, Pili smiles when Ibrahim informs her that he is going to become a doctor to cure her. She is wearing bright red clothing and feeling so good about herself that she even invites Ana over for a cup of tea. While serving her first customer, Pili exchanges glances with Mahera and waves at Zuhura, as she heads out to the fields alone. Pili goes to call after her to explain what has been happening, but lets her wander into the distance, as there will be plenty of time to put things right.

Ending on an optimistic note, while remaining rooted in reality, Welham avers that there is hope if people are honest about their HIV status. Yet, by withholding vital information from Mehera, Pili shows a lack of responsibility that suggests she hasn't entirely come to appreciate the seriousness of her situation and its associated dangers. However, many will forgive her this grave misdemeanour, as she was seeking to provide for her offspring and clearly has no intention of repeating her mistake. 

Overcoming attempted extortion and a number of deaths in the village, Welham has produced a poignant and important film. It's not without moments of gentle humour, such as when Pili watches Ibrahim show off his dance moves to some music playing on her radio. But the focus is firmly on struggle, as Pili has to cope with exploitative employers, judgemental neighbours and the effects of her sickness. Interestingly, unlike many African films about the oppressive nature of patriarchal chauvinism, there are few male characters and no mention is made of religion. But Welham honours the tradition of indigenous film-making in her measured pacing and the deftly elliptical nature of her storytelling. 

She and cinematographer Craig Dean Devine also capture the contrasting atmospheres of the different villages and avoid sentimentalising the poverty in which Pili and her community live. Indeed, Welham presents a positive picture of how microfinancing initiatives allow people to help themselves rather than live on charitable donations. But this is a film intent on ensuring that audiences in the developed world don't forget what is happening in Africa and one hopes that Welham will return there some time in the future, after she follows her visit to Oxford to shoot an episode of Endeavour with a drama about the London Blitz.

It's not every first-time film-maker operating on a no-budget basis who can smuggle Warren Beatty, Catherine Deneuve, Kenneth Branagh and George Clooney into his feature. But Limerick's Liam Ó Mochain made shrewd use of footage captured during Q&A sessions at the Venice Film Festival to include these cinematic superstars in The Book That Wrote Itself (1999) and, two decades on, he is still doing whatever it takes to get his movies made. Filmed over five years, Lost & Found is Ó Mochain's third feature - after WC (2007) - and by far his most ambitious in terms of storytelling, as it seeks to weave together seven plotlines. The odd continuity problem conspires against him, as does the varied quality of the performances. But this is an intrepid and engaging indie that deserves a chance to find its audience. 

As his mother, Pauline (Mary McEvoy), works in the ticket office at Portarlington Station in rural County Laois, Daniel (Liam Ó Mochain) applies for a part-time job helping Joe (Brendan Conroy) in the lost property office that is housed in a portacabin on the platform. He's taken on immediately and is pleased to discover that his first customer, Maria (Gail Brady), works at the same home as Sile (Aoibhin Garrihy), the girlfriend of his mate Gabriel (Seamus Hughes). Maria has found a suit on a bench, but snappish men looking for wallets and brief cases prove less agreeable. He is also put out when a man wheels in a pram containing a baby and repeated messages over the tannoy fail to alert the mother. Ultimately, a stressed nanny comes to collect the child and she explains that she had only nipped to the toilet on the train and returned to find the buggy missing. 

Daniel also works in a pub owned by his uncle, Paudge (Donncha Crowley), who keeps changing the décor in the hope of attracting new customers. He has asked Daniel to find some Mongolian throat singers and friend PJ (Diarmuid Noyes) wishes him luck in tracking some down when he comes to borrow the suit that Maria handed in for a job interview. This turns out to belong to Declan (Adam Goodwin), who used to be in a band and agrees to play some variations on a Mongolian theme for cash in hand and a few drinks. As he leaves, ticket inspector Moya (Norma Sheahan) drops in a prosthetic leg she found on her last service and she realises that her flatmate, Zoe (Olga Wehrly), is Daniel's girlfriend. But the day ends on a low note, as Daniel is given a warning by David the stationmaster (Paul Daly) for not filling out the logbook properly. 

At this point, the `day in the life' narrative is interrupted by a caption to a vignette entitled `Ticket to Somewhere', which centres on Eddie (Liam Carney), who seems to be in a state of confusion over a lost ticket. He claims he needs to get to Dublin because his wife's in hospital and Daniel and Declan are among several people to give him a few euros to help towards the fare. Eventually, Pauline agrees to trade a year-old ticket for a valid one and he is happily riding on the train when he's recognised by Moya, who informs him that he doesn't need to pay because he has a free pass. She calls Sile at the home where Eddie lives and his journey seems to be at an end. 

Cutting to Dublin airport, `The Proposal' follows Gabriel, as he tries to prevent Sile from discovering that he has hidden an engagement ring in a musical box in his holdall and that he intends popping the question in mid-air en route to Paris. The woman at the check-in desk (Annette Flynn) thinks it's hugely romantic and insists on trying on the ring for herself. But, as they wait in the bar to be called, Gabriel's nervous demeanour attracts the attention of a security guard (Anthony Morris) who is convinced that the musical box is an explosive device and has Gabriel pinned to the ground by guards. Mortified at being caught up in such an incident, Sile despairs when Gabriel frees an arm to reach out with the ring and asks her to marry him. As she stalks off, Gabriel resigns himself to the fact he's not going to make the flight. 

An abrupt change of scene opens `The Tent' in a back garden in the Polish town of Krasowiec, as a concerned couple (Kasia Lech and Jacek Dusznik) wonder if the occupant is okay. A flashback shows Daniel visiting his grandmother, Eva (Barbara Adair), who had been raised in Eastern Germany until she was seven years old. She now has Alzheimer's, but can remember her childhood very clearly and tells Daniel that her father had buried her beloved bracelet along with other family keepsakes before they saw her off on the Kindertransport. 

Following her funeral, Daniel finds a photograph of his gran wearing her bracelet and he decides to follow the map she had given him in the hope of tracking it down. Armed with a metal detector, he finds the spot in the field at the back of the house once owned by his great-grandparents and pitches his tent. He's seen in silhouette against the canvas, as he digs through the night and beats a hasty retreat before first light with his booty. As the tale ends, he places the bracelet on Eva's grave and bids her a fond farewell (although it seems likely it will be stolen if it's of any value). 

Another death occurs at the start of `The Will' and Mack the undertaker (Daniel Costello) and his assistant, Tadhg (Sean Flanagan), prepare the body to lie in an open coffin in the chapel of rest. Desperate for a loo, Moya asks if she can use the restroom and is surprised to see that the deceased is Eddie. She explains to Mack that she often saw him on the train, as he tried to visit the wife and daughter who had been killed in an accident in Dublin. At the end of the day, Mack calls Anderson to inform him that there is only one name in the book of condolences. When Moya goes to Anderson's office a few weeks later, she is informed that he asked that his estate went to anyone who signed the book, as he had no living relatives. 

While Moya's luck is in, Paudge's is most definitely out in `Grand Opening', as he keeps trying new ways to entice the punters into his pub. A bearded Daniel helps him out with a sign from the lost property office and Jackie (Lynette Callaghan) is hired as the barmaid. But Joe is the only customer when Paudge tries a Hawaiian theme and he's only joined by a Chinese by-passer when he goes for an Oriental look. However, only the band show up for the Australian refit and Paudge falls off his ladder while taking down the bunting after having a blazing row with Daniel. Yet, there's a smile on his face, as he sees lots of people in mourning dress file into the pub and it's only when he looks in the coffin that he realises that they have come for his wake and that he's a ghost. 

Gabriel also has the look of a dead man walking in `The Wedding', as he goes along with Sile's every wish to ensure her big day goes exactly the way she wishes. Eventually, however, the micromanagment gets on top of him and Gabriel breaks off the engagement. She tells Jackie and Zoe that she is keeping all the bookings, as she is confident she can find Mr Right within a year and Zoe wishes her luck, as she has broken up with Daniel after he slept with Moya. Sile goes speed dating at the pub where Gabriel works behind the bar and Zoe is furious when she sees Daniel chatting to her friend, Trish (Fionnuala Flaherty). However, he makes an even bigger impression on Sile and, one year later, they marry, with Gabriel as the best man. 

The cornball pay-off is the perfect way to end this jolly jumble of shaggy dog stories, recurring characters and convoluted connections. Considering how long he had to keep the ideas in his head, Ó Mochain does a splendid job of keeping the stories flowing into one another. However, he throws editor Ciara Brophy a few curve balls and it's inevitable that there are a few continuity lapses along the way. That said, there are also a number of neat gags involving items left at the lost property office, with Daniel acquiring the red jacket he had spotted on his first day and Declan wearing the blue pin-striped suit loaned to PJ on his way to his successful interview with Anderson, who had overheard PJ badmouthing him to Daniel. 

The script also comes up with some unexpected twists that cause pause for thought. For example, where did Paudge keep finding the money for refits when he never had any customers and did Moya sleep with Daniel before or after she inherited Eddie's riches? But the biggest puzzles relate to why Sile took Gabriel back after he had made such a fool of himself at the airport and how she was transformed from a reluctant fiancée into a control-freakish Bridezilla. 

Driven along by Richie Buckley's jaunty score, the episodes dovetail neatly, although some are more consequential than others. The performances are also something of a mixed bag, with Liam Carney stealing the limelight with his affecting turn as Eddie. Credit should also be given to cinematographer Fionn Comerford and production design David Wilson for belying the picture's modest budget. Indeed, Ó Mochain and his cast and crew should feel pretty proud of themselves for sticking with it and coming up with such an enjoyable picture. Warren, George, Catherine and Kenneth must be kicking themselves that they missed out.

Having made his global reputation with the uncompromising gangster drama, Gomorrah (2008), Italian director Matteo Garrone has explored the allure of transient celebrity in Reality (2012) and made his English-language debut with the folk triptych, Tale of Tales (2015). However, he returns to the effects that crime can have on ordinary people in Dogman, a demoralising story rooted in fact that is set in the same rundown coastal town of Castel Volturno that also provided the backdrop for The Embalmer (2003), a simmering neo-noir centring on a diminutive taxidermist, his new assistant and a wealthy femme fatale. 

Marcello (Marcello Fonte) runs a dog-grooming parlour in a southern Italian holiday resort that has seen better days. Devoted to his nine year-old daughter, Alida (Alida Baldari Calabria), he can soothe the most savage canine breast. But Alida's mother (Laura Pizzirani) has long lost patience with him and the fact that he deals cocaine on the sly to keep cash coming into his coffers. One of his best customers is Simone (Edoardo Pesce), a hulking palooka who consistently throws his weight around and drives the local bartender crazy by smashing up video games whenever he loses. However, Marcello seems convinced that he can tame Simone in the same way he can pacify the most ferociously snarling hound.

Away from his sleazier activities, Marcello enters poodle shows and enjoys sharing his prizes with Alida. He longs to take her on an exotic holiday and imagines them diving down to swim with the fishes. But his reality is being coerced into using his van as a getaway vehicle for Simone and his equally thuggish mate, who appals Marcello by putting a yapping Chihuahua in the freezer of the house they are burgling to prevent it from giving them away. Having dropped the pair off in town, Marcello returns to the scene of the crime to shin a drainpipe and rescue the dog before it freezes to death. 

The members of Marcello's five-a-side football team want to bump Simone off after he gets into an argument and breaks someone's nose. But Marcello remains loyal to him, even after Simone drags him off to get a fresh supply of coke and winds up brawling with a couple of pushers (Mirko Frezza and Marco Perfetti). He also tags along when Simone goes clubbing and allows himself to be matched up with a girl on the dance floor wearing an angel costume (Miriam Piatano). Moreover, when Simone is wounded in the shoulder on leaving the club (by the assassins hired by Franco and his cronies), Marcello manages to get him on to the back of his motorbike and takes him home to his mother (Nunzia Schiano), who despairs of Simone's antics and rips open his bag of cocaine. As Simone hugs her to calm her down, Marcello drops to his knees and scoops up the white powder to please his friend before removing the bullet. 

Marcello tries to draw a line when Simone demands the keys to the parlour so he can break into the next door pawn shop owned by Franco (Adamo Dionisi). But he is bullied into submission and keeps looking guiltily at Franco during their football session. Next morning, he returns from walking his dog to find the police crawling over Franco's store and an inspector (Aniello Arena) arrests him for being an accessory to the break-in. He warns Marcello that everyone knows he's Simone's pal and offers him a lighter sentence if he squeals on him. Torn between protecting his friend and stopping Alida from learning what a fool he's been, Marcello makes his decision and he is shown wandering along a corridor lined with menacing old lags, as he tries his find his prison cell. 

One year later, Marcello returns to the beachside shop and receives a hostile welcome from former friends who feel he has betrayed them. Unfortunately, the scene is witnessed by Alida, who has come to reunite Marcello with his own dog, Jack. He peers through the blinds, as Franco bangs on the door and Alida looks back in bemusement, as she's led away by her mother. Moreover, he's barred from the trattoria where he used to eat with his football friends. But Marcello tries to return to normal and starts boarding dogs in his basement. 

However, he is determined that Simone is going to pay him the €10,000 he owes him from the robbery and is furious when he gets fobbed off and threatened that he will suffer if he keeps pestering. But he quickly comes to regret bashing Simone's motorcycle with an iron bar, as he comes to the parlour and beats the living daylights out of him before hauling him outside in front of his neighbours to have his bloodied face pressed against the bike's dented red metalwork. Even the watching Franco feels a pang of pity, but Marcello refuses to buckle and makes light of the cuts and bruises on his face to take Alida on a scuba diving excursion off the coast. He enjoys a moment of respite on the deck at dusk, as his daughter rests her head on his shoulder at the end of a perfect day. But he knows that he is going to have to deal with Simone or live the rest of his life in fear. 

Venturing into the garage where Simone's bike is being repaired, he offers him a sample of a new batch of cocaine. He convinces Simone that they can overpower the couriers and steal a big enough supply to disappear from this godforsaken backwater and make a fresh start. However, Simone is reluctant to hide in a dog cage and Marcello has to explain that no one will think of searching there and that he can pounce without anyone knowing he's there. Once he has Simone in the cage, however, Marcello locks it and asks how he likes to be trapped. 

Seething with rage, Simone begins kicking at the cage door and manages to get his head out, only for Marcello to knock him unconscious. When he wakes, he has a chain around his neck that is attached to a restraining hook on the wall. Marcello tries to staunch the bleeding from a gash on Simone's skull, but he gets too close and the brute puts him in a headlock. Struggling for breath, Marcello reaches the foot control to lower the bench on which Simone is sitting and he is able to wriggle free and watch his tormentor choke to death. 

Bundling Simone into his van, Marcello drives to the dunes and sets light to the sack containing the corpse. However, he hears his pals playing football and rushes back to douse the flames and carry the body to the all-weather pitch to show his neighbours that he has slain the giant. But there's nobody there and Marcello is left with the cadaver on the edge of the children's playground, as he looks back at the decrepit beachfront buildings and wonders what to do next. 

Seeking to recast the story of the Dogman of Magliana, near Rome, as a latterday Western, Garrone and production designer Dimitri Capuani struck gold with the desolate Parco del Saraceno in the Pinetamare district of Castel Volturno. Resembling the main street of a frontier town, the row of buildings housing Marcello's dog parlour cruelly expose him to the slings and arrows hurled by fate in the form of the lumbering Simone. His situation could be likened to that of a little man being repeatedly ground down by a state that cares only for its own concerns. But this appears to be a simple fable about the code of honour among thieves, misplaced trust, the demise of machismo and owning the decisions one makes in an effort to survive. 

These themes may not coalesce into a particularly deep message, but Garrone doesn't seem to be in the mood to delve far beneath the surface or maintain the plausibility of the increasingly unhinged action. Consequently, we learn little about Marcello's prior life or how he came to father a child. His friendship with Simone also remains a mystery, as it puts a menacing spin on the dynamic between Lenny and George in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Indeed, with his rasping voice and seedy demeanour, Marcello recalls Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), who tried to help Joe Buck (Jon Voigh) become a gigolo in John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy (1969), which became the first X-rated film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Somewhat surprisingly, given its unflinching violence, this has been given a 15 certificate. But the two films share a sense of desperation and an insight into mismatched friendships. 

Although little is required of Edoardo Pesce other than to be gargantuan and irrational, he contributes a sociopathic presence that evokes Tale of Tales in his resemblance to a fairytale ogre threatening the villagers. Moreover, he makes an imposing foil for Marcello Fonte, whose puppyishly naive need to please everyone extends to feeding Jack pasta from his own fork. However, as Nicolai Brüel's colour-muting camera prowls in his wake, it becomes clear that Marcello is no angel himself. After all, he deals drugs and is happy to take a cut of Simone's ill-gotten gains (albeit to treat his beloved daughter). Like the unpopular sheriff who has cleared up the Wild West town, however, his future is left uncertain at the fadeout.

The action is equally uncompromising in La terra dell'abbastanza/Boys Cry, which is the latest offering from CinemaItaliaUK and will screen at the Regent Street Cinema in London on 24 October. Marking the writer-directing debut of 29 year-old twins, Fabio and Damiano D'Innocenzo (who took a scripting co-credit on Dogman), this Roman lowlife saga reinforces Garrone's contention that so many young men on the margins of Italian society find themselves drifting into crime in order to survive and claw back a little self-respect. And the Garrone connection is further reinforced by the fact that this disconcerting descent into darkness shares editor Marco Spoletini with Gomorrah. 

Chomping on chicory panini while parked on a sports field abutting a housing estate on the outskirts of Rome, childhood pals Manolo (Andrea Carpenzano) and Mirko (Matteo Olivetti) debate whether they have done the right thing in going to catering college. As they drive along a deserted road, they joke about becoming waiters or bartenders like so many of the Albanian and Romanian immigrants who have moved into their neighbourhood. But, as Mirko plays down his ambition to become a chef, he knocks over a pedestrian who runs into the road and Manolo urges him to drive off before anybody sees them. 

Without checking whether the stranger is alive or dead, they seek refuge with Manolo's father, Danilo (Max Tortora), who can't believe they have done something so stupid. He quickly determines that Mirko was behind the wheel and suggests that they go to bed, while he ponders the best thing to do. Mirko goes home next morning to the apartment he shares with his mother, Alessia (Milena Mancini), who takes him to buy cakes when he picks her up from work. He looks like a kid, as he peers through the glass at the pastries in the counter display and Alessia smiles with pride at her boy. 

During a gym lesson at college, Mirko shows off in front of girlfriend Ambra (Michela De Rossi), who is taking voice lessons as part of her bid to become a star. In bed together that night, she sings for him and he teases her, as he puts his hand over her mouth to make her stop. Meanwhile, Danilo discovers that the victim of the hit-and-run was a former member of the Pantano clan, who had been in hiding since becoming an informer. Apparently, he had only been leaving his safe house at night to get food and the reason Mirko hadn't seen him is that he didn't want to be seen. As an inveterate gambler, Danilo thinks Manolo has hit the jackpot and suggests coming clean to Angelo Pantano (Luca Zingaretti), as they were classmates and he is sure that he would find Manolo a cushily lucrative job in gratitude for the hit. 

When Manolo reminds him that Mirko had been driving, Danilo tells him to put family before friends. But Mirko becomes frustrated when Manolo starts ignoring his phone messages and is furious when he reveals that he has been running errands for Angelo and has been profiting from his misfortune at having killed someone. So, when he's asked to put the frighteners on a Moroccan shopkeeper who has fallen behind in his payments, Manolo asks Mirko to accompany him and henchman Simone (Giordano De Plano) agrees to let him join the gang. He provides them with guns and reminds them to do the job on foot, as cars are too much of a liability. 

Having considered using a flip-flop as a holster, Manolo collects Mirko and they walk into the shop in a busy neighbourhood in broad daylight. Manolo pulls the trigger and walks calmly into the street. However, Mirko isn't sure the bullet was fatal and returns to fire two more shots at close range before the friends blend in with the crowd. They wait on some waste ground for Danilo to collect them, although he is hardly discreet when he arrives in a bright yellow car with his horn tooting. 

Fighting down any lingering feelings of guilt, Mirko says nothing about his new career to Alessia and, when he comes home with bags of groceries, he spins a story about Manolo's uncle needing to get rid of stuff before its sell-by dates expire. When not on missions, the boys help Carmine (Walter Toschi) in the kitchen, which also doubles as a drug laboratory, and are invited to share meals with Angelo and his cronies. He fails to notice when Manolo takes a selfie with Angelo in the background, but he proves ruthless in all other matters and the pals are dispatched to off another shopkeeper before making a getaway on a motorbike.

Despite having been more spooked by killing the grass, Manolo seems to take to the lifestyle more readily than Mirko, who is disturbed when he sees Manolo watching Carmine breaking in some trafficked Eastern European girls before they start working as prostitutes. He also feels revulsion, as he drives round the ring road to provide the girls with condoms, bottled water, crackers and lip gloss. When Manolo jokes about a punter asking about underage girls, Mirko ducks out to attend a cookery class at college with Ambra. Shortly afterwards, however, Alessia finds messages from clients on his phone and she is disgusted with him for pimping defenceless women. She forbids him to attend his half-sister's birthday party and he also upsets Ambra by being rough with her in bed.

Ignoring Alessia's warning, Mirko turns up at the rooftop party with lots of expensive presents and Dani (Nicole Centanni) is delighted. However, her mother is livid with Mirko for making her look cheap and she tells him to leave her alone. When Dani's father, Mauro (Andrea Di Casa), tries to intervene, Mirko threatens him and tells Alessia that he is moving out and he hopes she can manage on the pittance she earns. When he tells Manolo that he's planning to move into a hotel, he is impressed and smirks when he says he'll be using in-house girls rather than Ambra in future. They muse about becoming so powerful that they can take over from Angelo and can't believe how quickly their lives have been transformed.

The boys are invited to a family christening and Angelo sounds them out about another hit. He warns them that Ruggero is an ex-boxer who lives in a remote shack and protects himself with fighting dogs, but they are cocky enough to think they can take down anyone. Simone whispers to Angelo that he dislikes their attitude and the boss wonders whether his underling is getting a bit jealous of the new brooms. However, he accepts Simone's reasoning that this is a risky assignment and it would be safer to send novices with no overt ties to the family than a known associate, whose failure could spark a turf war. 

As they drive across country, Manolo broaches the subject of eliminating the leadership and taking over their operations. But, while he succeeds in murdering Ruggero, he catches Mirko by surprise in the cabin and is accidentally gunned down. Fleeing to the car, Mirko sobs as he speeds along and beeps the horn in fury at having killed his friend. However, he has regained his composure by the time he breaks the news to Danilo, who remains calm, as Mirko explains how Manilo and his quarry wiped each other out. He tries to behave like a father whose son has died in war and only breaks down after retiring to his bedroom and combing his hair in the mirror. Mirko stands helplessly outside, knowing he can do nothing to make things better and dreading Danilo ever finding out the truth. 

Creeping home, Mirko makes Alessia a pot of coffee and places some biscuits in a bowl, even though she has trouble with her teeth. She sits with him at the kitchen table and tells him this is her way of saying she has forgiven him. He asks where she would live in an ideal world and reminds her that dreams sometimes come true. They kiss gently before he leaves and we see him steeling himself in the car to cross the road to the police station. As soon as he gets out, however, he becomes the victim of a drive-by shooting and is left in a heap on the tarmac. As the film ends, Alessio bumps into Danilo in a corner shop. He has had Manolo's name tattooed on his forearm and suggests she honours Mirko in the same way. She makes her excuses and, when he asks what she's going to cook for dinner, she replies whatever she has in.

Echoes reverberate throughout this impressive first feature of the `rise and fall' sagas that became a fixture of the Warner Bros crime cycle in the early 1930s. But there are no rattling guns and heroic hails of bullets here. Much of the violence takes place off screen, with the D'Innocenzos staging the shack killing with particular finesse, as they use a towering crane shot to reduce Mirko and Mauro to specks closing in on their prey. A small flash accompanies the sound of the gunshot before a rapid cut reveals the victim lying in a pool of blood in his white underwear. 

Such nuances consistently characterise the direction, as the siblings avoid glamourising violence and seek to show how foolish Manolo and Mirko are to ditch their studies and part-time pizza delivery jobs for the sham glory and transient riches of organised crime. Coping with varying degrees of success with the moral and psychological ramifications of their actions, newcomers Andrea Carpenzano and Matteo Olivetti (who was born and partially raised in the UK) play their parts with a disarming mix of swagger and susceptibility, although Manolo is a markedly less shaded character than Mirko, whose relationships with his mother, sister and girlfriend are much more interesting than his bond with his buddy. 

Milena Mancini also excels as Alessia, while comedian Max Tortoria plays effectively against type as the schlubb living vicariously through the son who had been a disappointment until he became a nark slayer. Those used to seeing Luca Zingaretti as TV sleuth Salvo Montalbano will also be intrigued to see him play such a callous and calculating villain. But, while the performances are as impressive as cinematographer Paulo Carnera's unerring use of close-ups and Toni Bruna's stealthily smoky jazz score, it's the self-taught D'Innocenzos who emerge from this compelling cautionary tale with the most credit and it will be fascinating to see what they come up with second time around.

Having established themselves among Belgium's up-and-coming directors with Image (2014) and Black (2015), Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah park the social realist style that has become their forte to indulge in some comic caperishness in Gangsta. The fact this picture has been switched from a theatrical to a streaming release suggests a lack of faith in its effectiveness. But, with its echoes of Nabil Ben Yadir's The Barons (2008), this is a cogent and engaging account of what it's like to be a young Belgian Moroccan male in a time of recession and terrorist paranoia. 

In the Kiel district of Antwerp, Adamo (Matteo Simoni), Badia (Nora Gharib), Yunes (Yunes Lazar) and Volt (Said Boumazoughe) have been pals since childhood. Yunes is a breakdancer who thinks he's in a pop video, while Volt imagines himself a gangster saga and Badia sees herself as the kickboxing girl from their video games and Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. The son of a Moroccan father and Italian mother, Adama is a Catholic with a fascination with the Seven Deadly Sins and pictures the parish priest with his cowl up as a Jedi Knight giving him The Force. 

Having grown up in a tough neighbourhood, the quartet are pals for life and always watch each other's backs. As Adamo has a thing about Sloth, they do nothing all day except hang out at the restaurant owned by Uncle Farid (Noureddine Farihi), a friend of Adamo's father who deals drugs on the side. He teases Adamo about settling down with Badia, whose mother is worried she's a lesbian because she causes so many fights over video games. As our narrator, Adamo says he knows people will ask why they don't make something of their lives, but he believes they have no chance in a racist country like Belgium and that nothing would change even if they were armed with diplomas. However, Adamo and Badia drive pizza delivery scooters at night and Adamo has high hopes that an interview with local kingpin Orlando Marie (Werner Kolf) will help him land a good drug pushing connection. 

Taking a computer game metaphor and tying it to the Seven Deadly Sins, the story's Level Two is Envy and we see Orlando and his posse roll into the neighbourhood in their flashy cars. Adamo tells his pals that Orlando was once a major dealer in his part of Amsterdam and vowed vengeance on the white racist thug who had killed his brother in a drive-by shooting. He waited until the culprit got an early release and gunned him down while standing over him, so he knew who was boss. Orlando now has major connections with some Colombian drug lords and wants to use Farid's knowledge of smuggling contraband through the docks to establish a new route for his merchandise. But Farid is wary of artificial drugs and doesn't want to take any risks and Adamo is astonished that he can turn down such vast sums of easy money. However, he also fails to see the look that Orlando gives Badia as he leaves the restaurant. 

Determined to get to the next level to prevent his life becoming a carbon copy of each passing day, Adamo thinks big. But he is aware that his old buddy, Yasser (Nabil Mallat), has his beady eye on him in his new capacity as a cop. Unlike many of his Belgian colleagues, Yasser tries to go straight and protect the migrants from abusive cops. But the chief denies there is any such thing as a bad egg in his force, even though Stijn (Axel Daeseleire) and Geert (Jeroen Perceval) are shown beating up dealers and menacing hookers. Yasser despairs of Adamo for being so impressionable and weak. But he manages to talk Farid into cutting a deal with Orlando, on the proviso it's a one-off money maker and that they go back to pushing hashish. What's more, no one is to let Badia know that her beloved father has an illegal sideline. 

Unfortunately, Badia goes along to the waterfront to pick up the incoming consignment after Volt borrows a car from his garagist brother, Aziz (Nabil Ben Yadir). They get to the docks (which are like a sieve because security is so lax) and pass the drunken Rudy (Stefan Perceval) on the barrier. As Adamo, Yunes and Badia climb into a container with a case full of cocaine, Volt stands guard. However, Rudy lets a patrol vehicle through and Volt panics about how to keep it from catching his pals in the act. He tries to put a rope across the road, but merely pulls off the bumper of his own car (complete with its licence plate) and, when the guards corner him in a side road, Volt has no option but to ram them backwards into the water. 

Keeping shtum about his bit of bother, Volt picks up his mates and Badia whoops through the sun roof that they will be gangstas forever. But Aziz is furious with his sibling for wrecking a good car and, even though Adamo pays him off, he warns the lads to ensure that the bumper doesn't fall into the wrong hands or they will all be in serious trouble.

Suddenly rolling with the heavyweights, the friends accompany Orlando to Amsterdam to see a kickboxing fight. At the venue they are introduced to Dutch big hitter Mathijs Steensma (Eric Corton). As they chat, Adamo tells Orlando how he lost parents, Ahmed and Maria (Rabbah Besseghir and Aza Declercq), when he was 10 years old, after they were killed by hooded robbers in a 7/11. He had been hospitalised for many months afterwards because a bullet had bounced off his mother and shattered the screen of his gameboy, while he was sitting beside some shelves. Farid had taken him in and he had been like a brother to Badia ever since. 

As the booze begins to flow, however, all three pals admit to having had lascivious thoughts about her and Adamo is jealous when she goes to the funfair on a date with Orlando. While she's away, the trio get followed by the police and have to toss some of the coke bags they are ferrying into the River Scheldt before flipping the car. They just about manage to clamber out and make their getaway before the cops can catch them. However, their erratic behaviour arouses Orlando's suspicions and he summons them to the club. 

They try to play it cool and work out what to do in a way that will keep them out of trouble. But Orlando thinks Farid is trying to steal from him and beats Adamo up in a green-lit backroom at a trendy nightclub. He is about to let his henchman, Azar (Donnya Zidan), shoot him when Badia comes in and protects him by making him swear on his parents' life that he is telling the truth. Orlando spares Adamo, but says he won't work with him again and Farid is furious with him for being so careless with his good name. He still thinks Badia knows nothing about his operation, but the action rewinds to show how Stijn and Geert found the number plate of the borrowed car and discovered that Volt and his pals were responsible for importing a cache of cocaine. 

Moving on to `Level Three: Greed', Adamo sends a frogman into the harbour to retrieve the missing bags and he tries to convince Badia that he has not been trying to cheat Orlando. But the gun incident rankles with Adamo, even though Orlando has promised Badia that he won't let the Italian come between them. She insists on being kept in the loop and they use Aziz's garage as a warehouse and a chemistry lab, so that they can cut the coke with vitamin B and claim that it's healthier than rival product. A montage shows the pals dealing to people in the posh Zuid neighbourbood of Antwerp, where right-wing hypocrites snort the coke provided by the immigrants they profess to detest. It's a snarky piece of politicised narration, as Adamo attacks Belgian society for its post-imperial prejudice and its preoccupation with `white joy', regardless of the exploitation of the overseas poor. 

However, while the friends think they are getting away with the scam, El Toro (Paloma Aguilera Valdebenito) - Orlando's Colombian contact, who is a respectable mother whose eyes are blacked out in the footage to stop her from being recognised (one of the many neat touches that keeps this from just an imitation Mockney drug flick) - informs him that there is a rat in his organisation. But Adamo also has to worry about Stijn and Geert, who have started mooched around the city's clubs looking for leads on the quartet so that they can steal their stash. 

As `Level Four: Lust' kicks in, Adamo warns Badia not to flash her new Rolex around and is aghast when Volt and Yunes turn up outside the pizzeria in a ritzy new car, just as Orlando is putting the screws on Farid because he knows that someone is undercutting his prices on the street. He reminds him that the Colombians won't be so polite if they get involved. But Stijn and Geert are furious at the news they are also being shafted and vow vengeance on the Moroccans for queering their pitch. Moreover, Yasser has also discovered what's going in and he tells Farid that he can't let family loyalty prevent him from doing his duty.

With Adamo unable to convince the others to lay low and not brandish their newfound wealth, `Level Five: Gluttony' sees them head to Morocco, where they can be ostentatious without drawing much attention to themselves. They jet ski off Tangier (which Adamo reckons is built on dirty money) and ride camels, while living in the lap of luxury. Taking a break from football on the beach, Adamo comes close to kissing Badia, but he gets hit on the head by the ball. 

While whizzing around town, however, they are challenged by Dutch Moroccan Hassan Kamikaze (Ali B.) and his crew at the traffic lights and he makes a play for Badia. When he tries again in a nightclub, a fight breaks out and - after Volt yells that he's swindled Orlando and is too much like Tony Montana from Scarface to be scared of a Dutchman - Hassan pulls a gun and the pals only just manage to escape after a chase through the streets. Deciding they'd be safer at home, they head back to Antwerp, only to be arrested on arrival and Farid has to watch as Badia is bundled into a van.  Adamo accuses Yasser of being a tame monkey, but he has no evidence to convict them and Farid sends fast-talking lawyers Karim (Othman Azzouz) and Nassim (Ibrahim Boukamza) to spring them. However, he is livid with Badia for being so reckless and with Adamo for not having the sense to realise that everyone would know that they had been pushing cheap drugs because the supply would dry up the moment they left for Morocco.

As `Level Six: Wrath' begins, the mates return to the garage to discover that Stijn and Geert have stolen all their money and drugs from the hiding hole in the floor. Volt and Yunes have had enough, but Adamo refuses to back down. Armed with the gun he had earlier posed with à la Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, he attempts to hijack Stijn. But he gets overpowered and is shot in the shoulder. He pleads with Farid for help, but is spurned for involving Badia in crime. 

She is out on a date with Orlando in Amsterdam and has a nervous moment when he demands to see her phone and she is relieved that she didn't take any holiday snaps while in Africa. However, when they go to a prizefight, Hassan can't resist telling Orlando that Volt had been boasting about cheating him and a gun battle breaks out. Orlando escapes back to his luxury apartment and orders Badia to tell him what she knows about the missing drugs. 

Thinking on her feet, she fingers Stijn and Geert and Orlando and Azar execute them by the docks after they find watermarked cocaine parcels at their digs. As mobster-turned-media personality Mathijs Steensma (Eric Corton) appears on various TV shows to opine that Orlando and Hassan are engaged in a turf war, a montage shows victims being gunned down across the city. Azar bumps off Steensma in a strip club for being a sellout. In voiceover, Adamo claims that this feud had been brewing for a while and suggests that World Wars III and IV had erupted. However, Hassan offers to eliminate Orlando and Adamo's crew for El Toro and she sends sidekick Tong Po (Carlos Schram) to oversee the showdown. 

Never one to stick to a watching brief, Tong Po also gets busy and shoots Rudy, among many others. He also blows up Farid's pizzeria and he swears to get even. But, as `Level Seven: Pride' swings into action, Adamo urges Yasser to remember that he is Badia's cousin. Moreover, he reminds him that he will always be one of the gang and that he owes more to his community than he does to the racist police force that would cheerfully see him behind bars in order to shame his kin. So, Adamo persuades Yasser to convince the chief (Vic de Wachter) and a seemingly incorruptible magistrate (Gene Bervoets) to announce the drugs had been confiscated to allow things to cool down by forcing the Cartagena cartel into backing off. 

Crowing in what initially seems like a closing summation (as the credits start to roll), Amato declares that El Toro made a truce with Orlando and Yasser received an award for his brilliant plan to foil the gangs. He also reveals that Volt and Aziz opened a new garage, while he swept Badia off her feet. But the truth proves to be very different. Instead, El Toro sees through the fake press conference and sends Hassan to get her cocaine and cash back. Having ambushed Orlando and riddled him with bullets, he abducts Badia, Yunes and Volt and takes them to an abandoned church where he hangs her upside down and burns the word `whore' into Volt's chest. 

Hassan sends phone footage to Adamo, who is about to do a bunk when he also gets caught and taken to the church. Making him look in a mirror, Hassan scars his face with a Stanley knife and Adamo sees doves fly against the stained-glass window and imagines he hears a choir singing, as he looks round apologetically at his pals. But he had called Yasser to have him tailed and the cops raid the church and unleash their firepower. In the melee, somebody cuts the rope suspending Badia over a crushing machine and it starts to fray. However, Adamo jumps up to catch her as it snaps. Yasser shoots Hassan, as he turns the gun on Adamo. But, with his dying twitch he kills Yasser and Adamo is distraught that he is to blame for his pal's demise. He dies in hospital and Volt prays over him, after Adamo spots a priest (François Beukelaers) floating like a Jedi along the corridor to give the Last Rites to a patient in a lift. 

A statue is unveiled to Yasser and Nassim and Kasim use their wiles to get Adamo and his gang off scot free by threatening to release footage of the clay-footed magistrate fooling around with some girls in a club. Adamo wraps things up (for real, this time) by explaining how Volt came off drugs and became a social worker, Yunes formed a breakdancing act with a British girl and Badia becomes a champion kickboxer. As the film ends, Adamo insists he has learnt his lesson and is going to apply for a legitimate job. But he still envies the gangstas and grins into the camera as he slips away to negotiate the deal that will transform his fortunes. 

Novelty might be at a premium in this formulaic crime lark, but El Arbi and Fallah are fine film-makers and they sock the action across with plenty of nudge-and-winking pizzazz. By making the heroes bungling rogues rather than hardened criminals, the duo are able to keep the audience rooting for them, while also allowing them to pepper proceedings with comic incidents, as well as combustible set-pieces. Matteo Simoni is ingratiatingly cocky, as the small-timer with big plans, while Werner Kolf and Ali B. make suitably hissable villains. Nora Gharib also shows well, as she is given enough moxie to avoid being just another damsel in distress. 

Despite erring on the brash side, Robrecht Hayvaert's photography captures Kiel's working-class vibe, while Stijn Verhoeven's production design amusingly asserts that nightclubs look pretty much the same whether they are in Flanders or the Maghreb. Hannes De Mayer's score also has a generic feel, but it provides plenty of forward momentum for a movie that revels in its own excess and implausibility. El Arbi and Fallah might have delved deeper beneath the polished surfaces. But it's clear where their sympathies lie and discriminating audiences should be find the messages hidden between the lines.

Documentarist Jerry Rothwell can never be accused of resting on his laurels. Having made his feature bow with a study of doomed 1960s yachtsman Donald Crowhurst in Deep Water (2006), Rothwell profiled a punk band whose members gleefully overcome their learning difficulties in Heavy Load (2008) before introducing sperm donor Jeffrey Harrison in a thoughtful treatise on the modern family, Donor Unknown (2010). He then followed a visit to the Ethiopian village of Bekoji in Town of Runners (2012) with a look back at the early days of Greenpeace in How to Change the World (2014) and an exposé of compromised wine connoisseur Rudy Kurniawan in Sour Grapes (2016). Now, he has devoted three years to The School in the Cloud, which examines the pros and cons of the Self-Organised Learning Environment (SOLE) scheme pioneered by Newcastle-based educational technology specialist, Professor Sugata Mitra.

An opening caption contains Rabindranath Tagore's wise maxim, `Do not limit children to your own learning, for they were born in anther time.' Puzzled why the world still employs a method of schooling that was designed to provide administrators for the British Empire, Sugata Mitra clearly agrees with this advice and, in 2013, we see him travelling to Korakati in the vast forested Sunderbans region close to the Bay of Bengal to meet landowner Nitish Mondal, who has agreed to help build a school that will enable local children to learn via computer through SOLE tutorials. The prospect of being taught via a screen puzzles and excites 11 year-old Krishanu Gayen, who learns by memorising passages of his textbooks when not helping his poor parents in the fields. 

In Chandrakona in West Bengal, 12 year-old Priya Pal is also intrigued, as she is always being scolded about her lack of application by parents who want her to exceed their modest achievements. Mitra is amused by her concerns about deleting important information while she learns how to use a computer and we flash back to 1999, when he pioneered the `Hole in the Wall Experiment' by knocking through part of the wall separating his company office from a New Delhi slum and placing a computer with a high-speed Internet connection in the gap. Within weeks, local kids had learned how to navigate their way around and start to play games and this convinced Mitra that leaving youngsters to their own devices might prove more beneficial than plonking them behind desks and spouting facts at them. 

As a physicist, Mitra was inspired by the `edge of chaos' theory and quit computer programming to dedicate himself to creating a school in the cloud. His concept earned him a prestigious prize from the media organisation, Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED), which also agreed to provide a three-year sponsorship grant to seven such cloud schools in England and India. Starting in 2013, the experiment started at George Stephenson High School in Killingworth in North Tyneside with Mitra seeking the advice of 12 year-old Jude Duck and her classmates in designing a learning space. They dispense with desks and assistant head Sally Rix and Design Technology teacher Amy-Leigh Douglas look on, as the pupils begin their first SOLE session.

Progress is slightly slower back in Korakati, but 12 year-old Mridul is impressed by the solar panels on the roof of the new building. But digital educator Donald Clark is sceptical about whether children will learn if they are given a piece of state-of-the-art technology. He fears Mitra is a bit too utopian and we visit the Bengali village of Gurjala to show how the Hole in the Wall experiment can misfire. Twelve year-old Suraj and one of the local grown-ups report that the computer broke down after three months and that it was never returned when it was sent away for repair. Moreover, there was no one to push the children in useful directions and Clark fears that SOLE is simply a form of `educational colonialism' that drops shiny objects into impoverished areas and hopes for the best. 

Despite being stung by such assertions, Mitra responded positively to them and accepted that many schools were left with holes in their walls and nothing to fill them. However, he remained convinced that the experiment demonstrated that children will organise themselves to benefit from the technology and, by 2014, he had started to implement changes that would make the SOLE system work more effectively. We see him set students at the Greenfield Community College in Newton Aycliffe in County Durham the task of discovering the reasons why teardrops are such a distinctive shape and they work in groups to come up with their answers. He asks a class at Killingworth to measure a mountain, as an exercise in practical trigonometry, which he thinks will be less stimulating to a young mind that solving a real-world puzzle. 

Jude enjoys the independence this method brings and says it's more satisfying learning with friends than being told by a teacher. Mitra avers that `if children are allowed to wander around the Internet, they will crystalise around big ideas'. However, Rix and Douglas believe the sessions work better when they are supervised and the kids can consult a teacher for guidance. Douglas sets her class a `Big Question' about robots taking over from humans and leads a discussion at the end of the session with the different groups sharing ideas and countering each others findings. It certainly makes for a lively lesson and Douglas insists SOLE has changed the way she approaches conventional teaching. 

Not everyone is convinced, however, and a montage follows showing the negative feedback to both SOLE and Mitra, who is dismissed by some a snake-oil salesman with his head in the cloud and by others as an enemy of teachers. Even those working with Mitra in India are worried about the open-ended method, as education on the subcontinent is dominated by the concept of `right answers'. Moreover, there have been infrastructural problems in getting the centres at Korakati and Chandrakona finished and connected in time for the launch. But Mondal remains ultra-enthusiastic and young Aditi Gayen looks forward to being able to see places across the planet at the click of a button. However, Priya's father is dubious about the enterprise and declares that he will monitor her behaviour and, if she fails to make significant progress, he will start seeking a suitable husband for her. 

One of the ways in which Mitra attempts to help students is by providing them with a `Granny Cloud' to offer suggestions and support during lessons. Aware how children respond to adults asking them to help them solve a problem, he started recruiting retired teachers like Liz Fewings from Hackney, who is shown leading a discussion on jellyfish with a class in India. The director of the Granny Cloud team, Suneeta Kulkarni, explains that the term rather stuck, but anyone can be a `granny' if they have something to offer the students. But, even with such input, the programme is not running smoothly in Korakati and project leader Ashis Biswas complains about poor connectivity. However, as the footage shows, the majority of kids are using the Internet to play games rather than further their education.

Undaunted, Mirta tells a story about a man climbing a mountain with a fridge on his back by taking one step at a time and a new aerial revives the Korakati project and Mridul is delighted to see his first Charlie Chaplin film, The Circus (1928). His mother, Hemlata, is proud of him for putting in so much effort at school and he grins when he reveals that it's better to learn by computer because there's no one there to strike you if you get something wrong. 

An unexpected development was the emergence of local volunteers becoming mini-grannies on the ground. Having been hired to open and close the Korakati building, Aniket Mondal found himself sitting in on sessions and offering advice and translating so that the children can communicate with the English-speaking grannies. Joydev Goswami serves in a similar capacity in Chandrakona, where Priya is thriving and has decided that she would like to become a cop and she informs her mother that she will earn enough to hire a cook so she can be emancipated. But things do not go so well for Krishanu
in Korakati, as his father is diagnosed with cancer and he is sent to the city to live with his cousin. Mridul misses his friend and Mirta laments that there is sometimes no avoiding the harshness of daily life. 

Two years pass and Mridul has come on leaps and bounds, but Priya's conservative father doesn't like her leaving the house and she only rarely attends SOLE sessions. She continues to study alone, but has been warned that she will be married off if she doesn't do well in her exams. The kids in the North East are preparing for their GCSEs and Mirta questions the long-term values of the skills required to do well in a timed test. He admits his own system is far from perfect and concedes that events have often proved him wrong. But he concludes that a research project should come up with the next set of questions, as well as some answers, and he has faith that SOLE will eventually prove its worth. 

The fact that Priya remains determined to join the police force and that Mridul now has the confidence to leave his village to pursue his ambition to become an engineer demonstrates the potential of SOLE, particularly in remote parts of the developing world. But Rothwell and co-director Ranu Ghosh struggle to make a convincing case for or against Mitra's methods, as their film contains too many imponderables. While we meet a few Indian parents, we hear nothing from their English counterparts. Similarly, there is no input from the education authorities in either country or from specialist educationalists. Moreover, only one dissenting voice is heard at any length and there is a marked absence of UK-based teachers who have tried the scheme and been unimpressed. 

Clearly, there are considerable differences between the Indian and English schools - and the children that attend them - and it would take too much time to assess them in worthwhile detail. But, without such background information, it's difficult to see how a Mitra's approach can be applied across the board. Nevertheless, the speed with which the Internet has changed so many aspects of modern society, it seems likely that it will have further dramatic impact on teaching and learning and cloud schools are certainly an intriguing phenomenon. All credit to Rothwell, therefore, for latching on to the topic and opening out the debate.