Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 25/10/2018)

For those unconvinced by the need to dramatise these brutal events, the release of two films on the subject in such a short space of time will seem particularly disconcerting. But they will be even more perplexed by the fact that Poppe had opted for such an immersive approach that places the audience at the heart of the mayhem. This viscerality is clearly well intentioned, as the film is designed to be a memorial to the 69 who lost their lives rather than provide exploitative entertainment. But it has the effect of making the viewer feel as though they have been pitched into a ghastly video game or virtual reality environment. Consequently, this is more akin to a `last girl' horror movie than an authentic recreation.  

As captions set the scene for the CCTV footage of the bomb going off in the government quarter of the capital around 3pm on Friday 22 July, the action cuts to Kaja (Andrea Berntzen) looking earnestly into the lens and stating that no one will ever understand and that it's important to listen. In fact, she is not addressing the audience, but is chatting to her mother on a phone headset some two hours after the explosion. She promises to keep an eye on her younger sister, Emilie (Elli Rhiannon Müller Osbourne), and gives her a ticking off in their tent for squealing with some boys on her way back from a swim when their friend, Oda (Jenny Svennevig), is worried about her mother's safety. 

The girls are attending a summer camp organised by the Workers' Youth League and Kaja breaks the news of the Oslo attack to the napping Magnus (Aleksander Holmen) before joining her friend, Petter (Brede Fristad), to reassure the frightened Kristine (Ingeborg Enes) that everything will be okay because they are perfectly safe on a remote island. They are joined at a waffle stand by Caroline (Ada Eide) and Issa (Sorosh Sadat), who hopes that the incident in the capital is not the work of Islamic terrorists. Kaja and Petter get into a good-natured argument about the presence of Norwegian peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan before they are disturbed by the sound of what they take to be firecrackers. 

Screaming kids running out of the woods convinces them otherwise and, as panic sets in, they take refuge in a one of the camp buildings. As no one is sure what is happening, they huddle in the corridor and speculate, as the sound of gunshots gets closer. Kaja remembers that Emilie is alone in their tent and wants to go and find her. But, when they decide to flee into the woods to avoid being sitting targets, Kaja finds herself having to console the terrified Kristine, who has hurt her foot. 

Hunkering down in the undergrowth, the teenagers try to fathom what's going on. Magnus calls the police and Petter grabs the phone to ask if someone is conducting a security drill on the island. Kaja leaves a message for Emile and tries to keep a lid on her emotions, as youths run past them and the shots continue to ring out. Someone suggests heading for the beach and swimming for the mainland, but they decide the water will be too cold. Kristine is told to stop whining about her sore foot, as Kaja calls her mother and tells her that they are being targeted. Another lad takes cover with them and states that the police are shooting at them. However, he doesn't know how many cops there are or why they have gone on the rampage. 

Desperate to find her sister, Kaja returns to the field full of tents. She finds Tobias (Magnus Moen) waiting for his brother in a bright yellow jacket and she tells him to take it off and hide in the woods. There is no sign of Emilie in the tent and Kaja finds her phone under her quilt. Beating a retreat into the trees, she calls home and promises her mother that she will find her sibling and bursts into tears. However, she is soon confronted with the reality of the situation when she stops to help an injured girl (Solveig Koløen Birkeland), who has been shot in the shoulder. Removing her sweatshirt, Kaja tries to staunch the bleeding and keep up a conversation to stop the girl from drifting off. But she dies in Kaja's arms and, when Caroline finds them, she is shocked to realise that she knows the victim. 

Unable to persuade her friend to leave the dead girl, Kaja rushes off towards the lake. Red flare smoke billows through the branches and the sound of a helicopter can be heard overhead, as she reaches the narrow shoreline. Several small groups are cowering in nooks in the rock face and they refuse to make room for her in case they are exposed. Wading into the water, Kaja sees a corpse floating a short distance away and she stumbles before staggering her way around a number of inlets before recognising Magnus. He is squeezed together with Even (Daniel Sang Tran) and Silje (Mariann Gjerdsbakk), who are reluctant to allow Kaja to stay. Silje wonders why no one has come to rescue them and, when Kaja and Magnus dismiss her suggestion of swimming across the lake, she joins a large party making its way in the direction from which Kaja has just come. 

Appreciating her fears for Emilie, Magnus tries to take Kaja's mind off the situation by asking what she'll do when she gets home. She decides she would take a bath, while he invites her to Stavangar to the best kebab shop in the country. When he inquires about what she wants to do when she's older, Kaja reveals that she hopes to become an MP and he jokes that he would love to become a celebrity. Kaja volunteers that she belongs to a choir and Magnus cajoles her into singing Cyndi Lauper's `True Colours'. The song is heard by Oda, who calls down from a ledge above the pair and Kaja jumps up to look for her. However, the shooter (seen for only the second time as a distant silhouette) spots her and opens fire and she presses herself against the rocks in sheer terror. 

Feeling guilty that she has not found her sister, Kaja starts to wade back around the rocks. She finds Tobias in his yellow jacket and Magnus urges her not to blame herself for his death. He also reminds her that it will serve no useful purpose if she is shot and he tries to pull her into the cover of a bush. However, shots rain down again, as Magnus notices a boat speeding towards them. Several kids emerge from hiding and make a dash for the boat. Among them is Emilie and she implores the wounded Kaja to stay calm because they are going to survive. 

The first in a series of captions confirms that the Utøya ordeal lasted for 72 minutes. In all, 77 people were killed in the two incidents, while 99 were seriously injured and over 300 suffered massive psychological trauma. The unnamed `attacker' claimed that he had unleashed Judgement Day to warn the Labour Party to change its policies and swore in court that he would have no hesitation in committing the same acts if given the chance. A commission on the events of 22 July concluded that the Oslo bombing could have been prevented and that reaction times to events on the island were inadequate. 

Only then does Poppe reveal that his story concerns fictional characters in fact-based re-enactments before he issues a warning about the rise of right-wing extremism in Europe and the Western world. He then allows the entire credit sequence to pass before signing the following statement: `This is a work of fiction - based on reality, but not a documentary. Its basis is one truth. Others may exist.'

The appearance of such a craven admission long after the majority of cinemagoers would have left the auditorium is despicable. Surely this rider should have been placed before the fabricated action commenced to prevent viewers from gaining the impression that they were about to watch a faithful reconstruction of the 22 July assault. By burying it in the closing crawl, Poppe and his producers (who have opted not to mention Breivik by name and reduce him to a shadowy bogeyman) prove disingenuous at best. The distributors might also have reconsidered releasing the film the week before Halloween, especially as Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the 13th (1980) was also set on a lakeside summer camp.

Notwithstanding such conscious calculations and thoughtless errors of judgement, this is a slickly made stalk`n'slash picture that has Martin Otterbeck's scurrying around with the laudably committed cast in order to generate a sense of immediacy and suspense that is reinforced by Gisle Tveito's potent sound design. The debuting Andrea Berntzen is excellent as Kaja, as she remains so firmly in the moment that she persuades even the most sceptical viewer to forget that they are watching a meticulously planned movie. But her primarily purpose is to give the audience someone to root for, as the carnage takes place around her.

By having her search for her sister, Kaja also gives Poppe an excuse to cover plenty of ground and encounter fellow campers taking markedly different approaches to staying out of range. But the sleight of hand is never as cannily concealed as the edit points joining the best footage taken from the single takes filmed over five consecutive days. This isn't the first time that Poppe has melodramatised serious events, as he had drawn on his own experiences as a war zone photojournalist for A Thousand Times Good Night (2013). Here, however, he oversteps the moral mark in a manner that the occasionally cumbersome Paul Greengrass just about managed to avoid.

Mention a character couped up in a confined space with only a phone to communicate with the outside world and most people will think of Stephen Knight's Tom Hardy vehicle, Locke (2013). But even before Swede Gustav Möller made his debut feature, The Guilty, a couple of pictures have dwelt on emergency service centres taking frantic calls from imperilled women. In her BAFTA-nominated short, Operator (2015), Caroline Bartleet kept the camera close to Kate Dickie, as she tries to keep the terrified Vicky McClure calm after she reports a house fire. But Brad Anderson opted to allow Halle Berry to take the law into her own hands and venture outside her command post in The Call (2013), after she is given a chance to make amends for a botched operation when she receives a call from kidnap victim Abigail Breslin.

The redemptive theme recurs in the 30 year-old Möller's scenario, as Copenhagen cop Asger Holm (Jakob Cedergren) finds himself consigned to call duty after he is suspended from the beat after a reckless action that exposes his tendency to act first and think afterwards. However, he is convinced that this will be his last night behind a desk, as he expects to be cleared by the next day's disciplinary hearing after his partner, Rashid (Omar Shargawi), gives evidence on his behalf. But he has to get through his last shift, alongside colleagues he views with a mild disdain that is nothing compared to the contempt he feels towards the majority of his callers. 

Based in a communal office at Emergency East, Asger has little sympathy with a man suffering the effects of a bad trip or a BMW driver who has just been mugged by an Eastern European prostitute in the Red Light District. Indeed, while chatting to his boss, Bo (Jacob Lohmann) about the incident, he suggests leaving the indignant victim to stew for a while. Bo wishes Asger luck with his hearing the next morning, but he refuses to speak to journalist Tanya Brix (Laura Bro) when she calls on his mobile and he gets a ticking off from the duty supervisor for taking private calls during working hours. 

Lost in his own thoughts and oblivious to his lack of people skills, Asger doesn't hear an incoming 112 call and thinks Iben Östergård (Jessica Dinnage) is crank calling him or is under the influence, as she is highly evasive in her answers. As he is about to hang up, however, Asger realises Iben is in a car with a driver who thinks she has phoned her young daughter and he asks a series of questions requiring yes or no answers to determine that she has been abducted in a white van and is travelling on the motorway in the North Zealand district of the Danish capital.

Calling the dispatch office to get a squad car sent to the scene, Asger asks the operator (Jeanette Lindbæk) to patch him through to the pursuing cops and listen anxiously, as they pull over a vehicle matching Iben's vague description. However, the driver is alone and Asger is frustrated that Iben has rung off and that he is unable to do anything to help her (and himself, as a little headset heroism the night before his hearing could only prove beneficial). He uses his computer to find a landline registered in Iben's name and gets through to her eight year-old daughter, Mathilde (Katinka Evers-Jahnsen), who is alone with her infant brother, Oliver. She tells Asger that she heard screaming in the baby's room and saw her father, Michael Berg (Johan Olsen), dragging her mother away by the hair. Clearly afraid of her father (who no longer lives with them), Mathilde mentions a knife before accepting Asger's advice to sit with her brother until help comes. 

Calling Zealand dispatch, Asger loses patience with the female operator, who reminds him to do his job rather than overstepping the mark. As he seethes with impotent frustration, his colleague, Torben (Morten Thunbo), can be seen munching on a sandwich in the blurred background. He is utterly unconcerned with Asger's problem, but accepts his apology for having acted like a bear with a sore head during his time at the call centre. Moreover, he advises Asger that he can log out of the main room computer and retain access to previous callers if he moves into the side office for a bit of privacy. 

Asger needs to be out of earshot to ask Bo if he can send a car to Michael's place and break in if necessary to search for clues as to where he might be taking Iben. However, Bo is appalled that he would suggest such a breach of procedure and asks if he would like to speak to another psychiatrist, as he knows he has been having problems with the one assigned to him. Asger declines the offer and accepts the ticking off. But he doesn't appreciate the extension of good wishes to his partner, Patricia, because she has left him and he is trying to keep a lid on that particular problem until the hearing is over. 

As he tries to think of something to do to keep tabs on the van, Asger has to deal with a call from a clubber who has been assaulted by a bouncer. When Michael hangs up on him, Asger calls Rashid and catches him drinking in a city centre bar. He reminds him that he has to give evidence and that his defence rests on the version of events on which they have agreed. But Rashid is afraid that he will say something wrong and perjure himself and ruin Asger's career. Telling him to pull himself together, Asger sends Rashid to Michael's house, just as he gets a call from Mathilde. The police have arrived and she wants to know if it will be safe to let them in. Asger asks her to pass the phone to the male cop (Peter Christoffersen), who stays online as he searches the house. However, he is appalled to find that Oliver has been sliced open and left for dead and Asger is left alone in the dark office with his own imagination and a growing fear for Iben. 

Rather than report the case to the duty officer, Asger remains determined to impose himself on the situation from a muddled sense of duty, machismo and self-interest. However, his professionalism is immediately compromised by his rudeness to a woman requesting an ambulance having been knocked off her bicycle. Pulling down the blinds, Asger calls Michael and informs him that Mathilde is covered in his son's blood. He is cross that she has disobeyed him and entered the bedroom and asks what will happen now. When Asger tells him he will go to prison, Michael (who has already done time for GBH) sounds desperate. But Asger refuses to allow him to play the victim and loses his patience and bawls out that scum like him should be executed. 

Unsurprisingly, Michael hangs up and Asger is about to call him back when Rashid arrives at the house. He finds the door open and the apartment almost empty. Asger orders him to search through the unopened post for a possible destination address and dismisses his partner's protestations that they will get into trouble for exceeding their jurisdiction. More in hope than expectation, Asger dials Iben and, when she picks up, he tells her to put on her seatbelt and pull on the handbrake. 

When the line goes dead, he paces the room and is relieved when Iben calls back. However, she has been overpowered and locked in the back of the van. Trying to help her protect herself, Asger tells her to find something she can use as a weapon and she opens a box of bricks that Michael has for his job. Briefly dipping out to alert Zealand to her whereabouts, Asger attempts to keep Iben from fixating on the idea that Michael is going to kill her by asking about her favourite place. She tells him about visits to the Blue Planet aquarium with her children and how peaceful it looks underwater. But, as she continues, it suddenly dawns on Asger that Iben has killed Oliver to remove the snakes that have been giving him tummy ache and he has to listen powerlessly, as Michael stops the van and Iben beats him with the brick before making her getaway. 

Staring into the abyss, as he realises he has made a mess of things and that this will reflect badly on his overall conduct, Asger tries to think of a worthwhile course of action. He calls Michael again and learns that he is at the psychiatric centre where Iben has been receiving treatment. Asger asks where she has gone, but Michael has no idea. He only knows that his ex-wife is unaware that she has murdered their son and that she will be crushed if she discovers the truth. When Michael rings off, Asger smashes a table lamp in fury at having misjudged things so badly and landed himself in fresh trouble. So, when Rashid reports back, Asger tells him that he doesn't have to lie to save his skin the next day, as he was the one who shot and killed the suspect they had been confronting. But, as his partner reminds him, they have already conspired to pervert the course of justice and that he has to stick with the lie to protect himself. 

When another operator pops his head into the office to tell Asger that Iben is on the line, he decides to take it in the main control room, as there is no longer any point in trying to conceal his actions. She has wandered on to a bridge over the motorway and seems set to jump because she has realised what she has done to Oliver. But Asger tells her to stay where she is and, with the other duty officers listening in, he confesses that he also killed somebody when trying to do the right thing. As she listens, he essentially sacrifices himself in a bid to save her and he is relieved when Zealand lets him know that they have Iben in custody and the operator even congratulates him on doing a good job.

Walking out of the control room in a stupor, Asger calls somebody on his mobile, as he stands in the corridor. We don't get to eavesdrop on the call or discover whether he is phoning his wife, Rashid, his psychiatrist or his lawyer. All we know is that Asger is a beaten and broken man, who has learned the hard way that rules exist for a reason and that his badge does not make him a superhero who can act like a maverick with impunity. The contrast couldn't be starker with The Call's ludicrous closing scene, in which Halle Berry dispenses her own brand of justice on a perpetrator who also happens to be called Michael. But the chasm between these stories and operational reality is too wide for either picture to close with any credibility.

In fairness, recent Danish Film School alumbus Möller and co-writer Emil Nygaard Albertsen build the suspense in this real-time thriller with considerable skill, as they leak details about Iben and Michael's relationship, as well as Asger's complex backstory. Making a Dogme-esque virtue of his restricted budget, Möller also keeps Jasper Spanning's camera oppressively close to Jakob Cedergren's face, as he tries to focus on achieving a bloodless resolution to the crisis, while also keeping a lid on his own emotions, as he sees the career that defines his identity slowly slipping out of his grasp. 

But, for all Cedergren's intensity, the claustrophobic functionality of Gustav Pontoppidan's sets and the unobtrusive restraint of Carl Coleman and Caspar Hesselager's score, it's Oskar Skriver's sound design that makes this so compelling, as it uses the noises made by windscreen wipers, revving engines and tyres on wet roads to pitch the audience into the cruel and hostile world beyond the frame, while also reinforcing the cop's ineffectualness, as his often resourceful attempts to control the high-stakes situation merely exacerbate it. However, don't underestimate the value of silence to the maintenance of tension or the vocal skill of Cedergren's unseen co-stars.

Some things never change and viewers of a certain age - or, at least, regular watchers of the Talking Pictures TV channel - will spot the similarities between Ed Lilly's debut feature, VS., and Lance Comfort's Be My Guest (1965). Each film has a seaside setting and centres on an aspiring musician. But, while David Hemmings had to overcome the resistance of his Brighton hotelier parents to play with his pop combo, Southend-based Connor Swindells has to conquer his demons after spending much of his youth in care in order to realises his ambition to become a rapper. 

When another blazing row brings to an end a foster placement, 17 year-old Adam (Connor Swindells) promises his case worker, Terry (Nicholas Pinnock), that he will try to keep his nose clean for his last 11 months in the child protection system. Deciding to take him out of London, Terry finds him a room with retired foster mother Fiona (Ruth Sheen) in Southend. While exploring the seafront, Adam flirts with Makayla (Fola Evans-Akingbola), who works in the change kiosk at an amusement arcade, and she introduces him to street cleaners Blaze (Joivan Wade) and Joe (Kieron Bimpson), who promise to hook him up with some weed at a rap battle session that Makayla is helping to promote.

The evening has already started by the time Adam arrives and he sees Makayla introducing Miss-Quotes (Paige `Paigey Cakey' Meade), who rips into Rulez (Kola Bokinni). He also watches an increasingly personal showdown between and Word Phyzix (Adam `Shuffle T' Woolland) and Liam (Adam `Shotty Horroh' Rooney), who bills himself as `Slaughter'. There is clearly no love lost between the pair and Adam is amused by some of the traded insults. However, he is less than delighted to discover that Liam has a thing for Makayla and, when she tries to fob Liam off in the car park after the show, Adam finds himself flat on the floor after being pushed over for daring to interfere. Undaunted, he gets to his feet to deliver a couple of stinging lines that put Liam in his place and get appreciative applause from the onlookers. 

Makayla takes Adam for a milk shake and she compliments him on his comeback. They discuss their backgrounds and Adam reveals that he hails from Southend. As he speaks, he looks up to see his birth mother, 
Lisa (Emily Taafe), chatting to the owner at the counter and he goes quiet. Still feeling frail, he ignores Fiona when she asks how his day has gone and he says nothing when he finds a set of headphones left in his room as a welcome present. 

The following day, Makayla shows up with two bottles and offers to help Adam work on his rapping skills. They knock back the booze and thumb through the pages of a dictionary, as they come up with lyrics to show off his wit and attitude. She also finds his scrapbook and tries to coax him into opening up about his past. He was clearly fond of one foster mother, who fell ill. But he can't make up his mind whether to pay Lisa a visit and confront her. 

After Makayla leaves, Adam smokes a joint in the garden. Fiona suggests that there are less harmful ways of calming down and hopes that they can find a way of making things work during his stay. The next day, Makayla accompanies Adam to Scissorhands, the salon where Lisa works. He has booked an appointment and has to steel himself, as he sits in the chair and she gives him a No.2 trim. As she reveals more of his skull, Lisa recognises a distinctive mark and abruptly halts the chit-chat and hurries him to the door as quickly as possible. 

Sporting his new look and his rap name. `Adversary'. Adam is drawn against Blaze at the next Project Battle session. As they keep getting moved on by the cops, the venue is kept secret and a cameraman films the event for live streaming online. Once again, Makayla is the MC with Odds (Elliot Barnes-Worrell) and she introduces Adam, who gets the odd whoop from the crowd in attacking Blaze and his drug-dealing racket. He responds by mocking Adam for having no Internet profile to give him ammunition and launches into a diatribe about his mum being fat and ugly. When Adam hisses that his mother being dead, he is accorded a right of reply and he trashes Blaze by revealing that he once wet himself while reading from the Bible in front of his class. 

Luckily, Blaze is a good sport and he invites Adam to a party, where he meets Katie (Ellie James), who congratulates him on his performance. Liam takes exception to them chatting and warns Adam to stay out of his face. But, as a montage shows Adam becoming a fixture on the battle scene (and even buying a black baseball cap to make him look more street), it becomes clear that the pair are heading for a titanic collision. Indeed, during one stand-off, Adam walks past his opponent to deliver his invective to Liam, who is on the front row of the audience. 

Adam is grateful to Makayla for helping him find his feet. But he misreads her interest in his talent and she backs away when he closes in for a kiss. Feeling foolish, he asks Odd to set up a battle with Missy so that the winner can take on Liam, who has been mouthing off that he is too big for the Southend scene and is ready to spread his wings. When Terry comes to visit, Adam also agrees to a supervised meeting with Lisa, who recovered from the shock of him coming to the salon. She explains that she had been very young when she had him and found the pressure of being a single mum hard to bear. Despite putting him into care, she had always planned to take him back. But she had been advised by her social worker that she was still emotionally unready for the burden and she had gone along with their verdict. 

Furious at hearing that she had sacrificed his future for her sense of well-being, Adam raves at Lisa and storms out of the building, despite Terry pleading with him not to burn his bridges. He tries to call Makayla, but she doesn't answer and, when he spots her in a bar with Liam, he wanders off along the promenade. Finding Katie sat on a bench with her baby daughter, Adam stops for a chat and he walks her home. She explains that Liam is the child's father, but he pays nothing towards her upkeep and rarely sees her. Adam jokes that she is lucky that she didn't inherit her father's looks and he tumbles into bed with Katie, who persuades him to stay the night. 

Arriving home to find Terry waiting for him, Adam asks why everyone conspired to stop Lisa taking him back. But Terry advises him to concentrate on the present not the past and suggests letting the dust settle to see how Lisa feels about future meetings. Channelling his anger, Adam goes into battle with Missy and is nettled when she taunts him for failing to get a snog out of Makayla. So, he responds by outing Missy and Makayla as lesbians and spews out misogynist bile that is cheered to the echo by the mostly male crowd, thus securing him a victory by acclamation. 

After the show, however, Makayla harangues him for betraying her secret and reminds him that he had no right to use her life for his own gain. She leaves wth Missy and Liam browbeats him for disrespecting his friend. Adam responds by accusing Liam of being a worthless father and a fight breaks out. Odds and Blaze try to intervene, but Adam takes a beating and lose his temper with Fiona when she explains that she is dutybound to tell Terry what has happened. Throwing a tantrum, Adam smashes a photograph of one of Fiona's former charges and she tries to calm him by promising to stand by him. He even goes to the salon to ask Lisa what's wrong with him before going to see if Blaze will give him a floor for the night. But Odds is livid with Adam because the owner of the venue has barred them from using it again and he urges him to think about the people he has let down by trying to be the big man. 

Having slept rough on a bench at the railway station, Adam goes to the arcade to apologise to Makayla. However, while Missy is happy to let what happens in the battle stay in the battle, Makayla knows the power of words and refuses to forgive. Needing a platform for his mea culpa, Adam persuades Liam to engage in a showdown by the pier at 4am. Pleading with Terry and Fiona to let him finish what he started, Adam strides into the arena for Adversary vs Slaughter.

Odds and Makayla adjudicate and send Liam into bat first. He rips into Adam for his chauvinism and for lying about his mother being dead. But, while he gets plenty of gasps and giggles from the crowd, he barely lays a glove on Adam, who comes out of his corner fighting. However, having dissed Liam for his lack of parenting skills, he uses the moment to tell the watching Lisa that he finally understands what she must have gone through and he apologises for having put his own feelings first. Liam nods in appreciation at this honesty and Adam hands over to Missy to have her say before slipping away to see Lisa. She thanks him for recognising that she had never wanted to lose him and they agree to meet up again soon. As he rejoins the circle, Adam asks Makayla to forgive him, which she does by acknowledging that he has talent to match his guts. 

Although many have compared this seething first feature to Curtis Hanson's Eminem vehicle, 8 Mile (2002), it actually has more in common with Michael Caton-Jones's Urban Hymn (2015), in which repeat offender Letitia Wright finds redemption singing in care worker Shirley Henderson's choir. Moreover, this is the latest in a long line of features dating back to the 1930s that captures the ambience of an English coastal resort that has seen better days and whose tawdry seafront glamour masks the socio-economic problems festering beneath the surface. In his regard, Ed Lilly is indebted to production designer Anne Pritchard and cinematographer Annika Summerson, although he also seems to have been lucky with the Essex weather. 

Writing with Daniel Hayes, Lilly isn't always on such sure ground. The first meeting between Adam and Makayla feels like something crafted for the stage rather than anything snatched from life, while his conversations with Terry and Fiona also feel forced. Moreover, the loose ends are tied together with a neatness that would not have been out of place in a Cliff Richard `putting on a show' picture like Sidney J. Furie's Wonderful Life (1964). But, as the narrative develops, the dialogue begins to sound more natural, while the on beat and a cappella battle raps fizz with a pulsating unPC energy that is both disarming and revelatory. 

Clearly, the contents of the raps is going to shock and Auntie will have a lot of explaining to do when this eventually airs (unless it gets buried on BBC3) to licence payers who will be baffled by the fact that Adam's best hope of regaining his emotional equilibrium lies in couching violent impulses in language that would be deemed socially unacceptable in any other context. There will also be questions asked about why the hero has to be a poor white boy who is never once accused of cultural appropriation. But Connor Swindells seizes his opportunity and seems set to become a familiar face. Such is the state of British cinema, however, that one suspects the estimable Fola Evans-Akingbola, as well as grime artist Shotty Horroh, will find similarly choice roles harder to come by. 

Anyone fortunate enough to have seen Ursula Maier's Shock Waves - Diary of My Mind at the London Film Festival will have been reminded of Fanny Ardant's deft touch as a screen performer. She is quietly devastating, as the French teacher implicated in Swiss student Kacey Mottet Klein's double parricide solely because he had outlined the reasons for his crime in a homework assignment that he had taken the trouble to post to her before giving himself into the police. However, Ardant proves to be the mystery woman in Waiting For You, which marks the feature bow of Charles Garrad, whose credits as a production designer include Christopher Monger's The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (1995), Philippe Rousselot's The Serpent’s Kiss (1997) and Michael Lindsay-Hogg's 2001 take on Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot.

When his ex-soldier father, Len (Sam Cox), mentions something on his deathbed about a captain from his army days and a house in southern France, Paul Ashton (Colin Morgan) is mildly curious. At the funeral, he speaks about his father having left part of himself in Aden and his old comrades are curiously reticent about Captain Brown, other than to dismiss him as a tyrant. As Len had been cooking the books at his garage, widow Janet (Clare Holman) fears she will lose her home. So, prompted by a snapshot and a postcard in a box of Len's old 45 rpm singles, Paul decides to quit his bookshop job and investigate. 

Arriving in a quaint village in Provence, he takes a room in the café run by Antoine (Vincent Jouan) and his daughter, Sylvie (Audrey Bastien), who recognises the woman in the photography as her old piano teacher, Madeleine Brown (Fanny Ardant). She is the captain's daughter and has trouble maintaining the 18th-century property he left her. Posing as an architecture student named Gary Huntley, Paul befriends Ahmed the gardener (Abdelkrim Bahloul), who takes a shine to him and persuades Madeleine to let him stay for a few days in the old billiard room to conduct a study survey of the house. 

Sylvie teases Paul that the Colonel (as he was when he retired) was a monster, who filled the garden with the corpses of his victims. But he receives a warm welcome from Ahmed, who gives him a guided tour of the rooms, whose faded elegance finds echo in the tinny sound of Madeleine's piano. He points out the Colonel's old study and warns Paul that he will never be allowed in there. However, the next day, while Madeleine is out and Ahmed is busy in the garden, Paul finds a box of keys in the kitchen and one fits the locked door. 

Inside, he finds lots of mementos of the Colonel's time in Aden and he even spots his father in one of the regimental photos. However, Paul also discovers pictures of tortured prisoners hidden in a basket on top of a cupboard and he recognises the snake tattoo on  his father's arm in one of the shots. He is about to delve further when Madeleine returns unexpectedly and he has to cower in a corner until she goes to bed and sneak out without her hearing him. 

Wandering into the village, he is invited for a drink by Ahmed, who describes how his father was assassinated by a schoolboy because he worked for the British in their oil refinery. However, Ahmed's son, Hassan (Bellamine Abdelmalek), is less cordial, as Paul had knocked him off his scooter on the road leading up to the house. Moreover, he is jealous of the fact that Sylvie has developed a crush on Paul and Ahmed has to quieten Hassan down when he starts fuming about his father working for a pittance because Madeleine feigns impecunity. 

Having stopped off for a drink at the café, Paul falls asleep in his car and Madeleine takes advantage of his absence to snoop around his room and inspect the copious drawings he has made of the house. Next morning, Sylvie taps on the car window and invites Paul to accompany her to the market. But the revelation that his father had been involved in torturing prisoners preys on his mind and he tells Sylvie the truth about his mission. She suggests his father was merely being a good soldier in following orders, but Paul is disgusted by his actions and he apologises for snapping at her and accusing her of not understanding. 

That afternoon, Madeleine is curt with Paul when she sees him measuring a front window and wishes he would leave. He exacts his revenge by repairing an old record player and booming Billy Stewart's `Sitting in the Park' (the single he had brought with him), from a speaker pointing into the garden. Madeleine comes to his room and recognises him as Len's son and she is in the process of ordering him to leave when he reveals that his father has died and left his mother penniless. Realising she has spoken too harshly, Madeleine invites him to stay for another few days and suggests that they could get to know each other while he helps her in the garden. 

As they chat, Madeleine admits to having had an affair with Len that resulted in her being sent to France with her mother and Len being invalided home to keep him out of Martin's reach. She explains that he had been in awe of her father and that each man in the unit did what was required with unfailing loyalty. But she also teases Paul for sharing his father's naiveté about love and he is nettled by her condescension. While digging, however, he finds the toy Mini that he had remembered running over some smooth tiles in fleeting flashbacks to his childhood (which Madeleine has unknowingly shared when her playing was interrupted by the sight of a small boy at the patio doors).

Over a glass of wine on the terrace, Madeleine urges Paul to relax. But he wants to know why she wrote a death threat on the back of the postcard and why he has the feeling of having been in the house before. However, she claims to have forgotten the past and refuses to discuss the matter further. So, Paul goes to a party with Sylvie, who kisses him on the dance floor, as a disapproving Hassan looks on. He and girlfriend Céline (Norah Lehembre) joke that Madeleine's father supposedly buried a fortune in the garden and suggests it's hidden under the bench where she sits in the sun. 

A sudden flash of memory prompts Paul into jumping up and running back to the villa. He tears up the crazy paving and digs down into the earth. Hearing the commotion, Madeleine comes down with a torch and a gun and warns Paul that he won't like what he is about to find. He scrabbles at a casket and realises that it isn't treasure, but a coffin that Madeleine takes back to the house. At first light, she comes back to the bench to explain that she had been pregnant when she was sent home and had not been able to have any more children after his half-brother died. Years later, Len had brought Paul to the house to meet her and had offered to do the right thing by her. But she knew her father would hound them if they got back together and she sent Len home to Janet. 

They wander back to the house to sleep. But Sylvie is angry with Paul for leaving her high and dry at the party and she give him a piece of her mind before they kiss and make up, When he returns to the house, Paul finds Ahmed waiting for him. Madeleine has decided to relocate to Paris and she wants Paul to have the house. However, he refuses the offer and says he will find a way to provide for his mother. But he keeps the string of pearls that Madeleine leaves on the front seat of his car. He collects Sylvie, who has decided to come to Britain with him and continue her studies, while Madeleine buries her child in the village cemetery and leaves Ahmed to caretake the house until someone needs it. 

Once again demonstrating her mastery of screen craft, Fanny Ardant exudes enigmatism in this involvingly grown-up saga scripted by Garrad and Hugh Stoddart. In places, it seems to contain echoes of Roger Michell's Le Week-End (2013) and Andrew Steggall's Departure (2015). But Madeleine also has a hint of Miss Haversham about her, as she buries herself in a gloomy house filled with the bitter memories of her past. However, this is a very modern tale, with numerous references to the post-colonial legacy, cultural assimilation and the current political and humanitarian crises in Yemen. One only wishes that the writers had made more of these aspects, as they are never openly addressed and marginalised once they've made their shock impact.

But it's also a human story about the secrets people hide and how impossible it is to know everything about even those closest to us. The script might have lingered longer on the father-son bond and Paul's relationship with his mother, as we learn little about the Ashton family dynamics before he is whisked off to France. However, Garrad and Soddart sustain the suspense admirably during Paul's sojourn, even though they don't quite pull off the Mini flashbacks and never quite explain how Ahmed and his father fit into the wider narrative. They also leave their time frames rather vague, as it's never entirely when Len and Madeleine had their fling, although Billy Stewart's record dates from 1965. 

Paul's romance with Sylvie is also feels somewhat contrived, while her decision to throw up everything and start afresh on the other side of the Channel on the basis of a couple of kisses seeming particularly far-fetched. Nevertheless, Audrey Bastien brings a little pep to proceedings, even though her chemistry with Colin Morgan doesn't always fizz. That is presumably down to a combination of his grief and his confusion over Len's role in Aden and his relationship to Madeleine. But the character's sketchy background is more to blame, as Paul remains a touch one-dimensional throughout and Morgan doesn't have Ardant's experience at breathing life into flatly written roles. 

On the technical side, Garrad directs steadily without too many fancy flourishs. However, even though country life is invariably more leisurely, editor Anuree de Silva occasionally allows the action to drift with a surfeit of scene-setting sequences. As a production designer, Garrad must have been delighted with the house and Ben Smith's carefully decorated interiors, while cinematographer David Raedecker makes atmospheric use of both the nooks and crannies and the narrow streets of the village and the house's glorious isolation within a surrounding forest. Indeed, the closing long shot is probably the most memorable in the entire picture.

It's rather unusual for a documentary to reach the big screen a few days after it has aired on television, but Bernadett Tuza-Ritter's A Woman Captured receives a theatrical release in the same week that it was shown on BBC4. Given the theme of confinement, this troubling piece of interventionist cinema probably works better in a more intimate space. But, while there is no denying the emotional potency of this harrowing study of a Hungarian woman's decade of pitiless enslavement, one has to question the tonal shift in the final third, as Tuza-Ritter becomes a more active participant in the story and temporarily adopts an editorial style that is better suited to an action thriller. 

First seen waking on a sofa and feeding some caged ducks, geese and chickens in a muddy back yard, Marish is revealed to be in the enforced employ of Eta, who has agreed to allow Tuza-Ritter to film in her house for a monthly fee and a guarantee that neither she nor any members of her family will be identified. Her voice is heard giving orders and we glimpse the shocking pink nail varnish on the hand toying with a cigarette. But the focus is firmly on the weathered face of the 53 year-old Marish, who has aged considerably since first moving into Eta' home 11 years earlier. 

No reason is given for what amount to her incarceration, although it is implied that Marish owes some sort of debt. In order to pay this off, she also  has to work 12 hours a day in a factory and hand her wages directly to Eta. As she walks home, Marish picks some fruit and a few flowers from gardens in the street and she chuckles at the prospect of being told off for stealing. But, from the moment she walks through the door, she is expected to wait hand and foot on Eta and her children, even though she has at least a couple of other `servants' indentured on the same terms. 

A caption reveals that Tuza-Ritter regards this arrangement as a form of modern slavery and she learns during a train journey to the factory that Eta has driven Marish's daughter out of the house and now forbids her from seeing her. As she works seven days a week, Marish doesn't have the leisure time to visit her and isn't allowed to have money of her own to spend on travel. Yet, as she chats to one of the younger kids (who is puzzled why Marish sleeps on the sofa when she would be more comfortable in a bed), she appears fond of the child and jokes that one of its cuddly toys has more teeth than she does. She proves equally self-deprecating when the camera alights on a book she owns entitled, How to Find Happiness, and Marish remarks that it's never anywhere close to where she happens to be.

Having catered for Eta and been criticised for her coffee, Marish makes the beds and tidies the upstairs rooms. She hides something in a bag and makes Tuza-Ritter promise to say nothing to Eta about their conversations. Midway through the day, Eta phones to check that Marish is working hard and she is joined by Peti, a young man who is not allowed food without Eta's say so. He helps Marish mop the floors and she cooks a meal for Eta before setting off for the factory, with Eta's mocking words about her imagining herself to be Wonder Woman ringing in her ears. 

Eta feels no guilt at her treatment of Marish, as they have a written contract relating to her debts and which indemnifies Eta against any police complaint. Tuza-Ritter interviews her, as she feeds titbits from a bun to her lapdog, and she blithely claims that their situation is hardly unique in Hungary and that Marish gets food, accommodation and cigarettes and should be grateful that she works for someone who isn't a tyrant. That said, Marish has a plaster cast on her arm and she is scolded whenever she speaks out of turn or dares to let her standards slip. When Tuza-Ritter asks Marish whether she minds that Eta has profited from the terms of their filming agreement, she says it would be worth every penny if a single person saw the documentary and realised that people like herself are essentially house slaves. 

Captions explain that Marish had pleaded with Tuza-Ritter to keep her grim secret. But she had called the police anonymously and been told that they are powerless to intervene in such cases. However, following the latest in a line of beatings, Marish decides to run away. She searches the house for the ID card that Eta has hidden away and calls social worker Tomas to warn him of her actions and to keep an eye on her daughter, Vivi, in case Eta questions her to discover her mother's whereabouts. As they travel back from the factory, Marish tells Tuza-Ritter that she is the only person she trusts (having earlier stated that she thinks she will abandon her) and the director assures Marish that she loves her. But this is a word Marish has heard misused too often to take at face value. 

Having collected her wages from the factory, Marish makes a beeline for the railway station and Tuza-Ritter hastens alongside her with the camera to give the impression of a scene in a thriller. The music on the soundtrack ramps up until they are safely settled on the train and Marish can fight back the tears of relief at getting away from Eta and at the prospect of returning to her home town. On arriving, she explains in the back of a taxi how she plans to get a job and survive on a pittance. It should be easy, as she is used to eating little and doesn't need drink, drugs or men. She buys Tuza-Ritter some shower gel as a thank you present and tucks into a hearty breakfast in a chic café. 

Marish also smashes her mobile phone so that she can't be traced and calls a helpline for advice. They inform her that they can't help, as they only deal with people who have been abused by family members. The speaker recommends that she registers at a homeless shelter and, as we see footage of Marish wandering around the city centre, we hear her being interviewed as she signs the paperwork. A caption reveals that she is really called Edith and no longer wishes to be referred to by her slave name.

After just a fortnight in the city (seemingly Budapest), Edith gets a cleaning job and is unrecognisable with a little make-up on and a smile on her face. She is pleased with herself for taking the risk and proud of Vivi for speaking to Eta on the phone without giving away any important information. Vivi lives in a children's centre and Tomas agrees for her to spend Christmas with Edith. They embrace at the bus stop and Vivi is clearly delighted to see her mother again. She unwraps her presents with excitement and gratitude. However, she has to break the news that she is pregnant and Edith calls Tomas to let him know that she will be taking care of her. 

As we see Edith and Vivi decorating a tree for baby's first Christmas, a caption reveals that they share an apartment and that Edith is now working as a cleaner at the parliament building. She has plans to set up her own company and dreams of owning her own home. While she is free, however, 22,000 others are believed to be held as slaves in Hungary. This figure rises to 1.2 million across Europe and 45 million around the world. These are terrifying statistics and Tuza-Ritter should be commended for bringing them to wider attention and for taking the risk in filming Marish/Edith and aiding her escape. 

By all accounts, she spent 89 days at Eta's house and paid her for access throughout this period. Evidently, this proves to be money well spent, as the story ends on an optimistic note. But some will be troubled by this deal with the devil and Tuza-Ritter's approach will fuel the debate about a documentarist's duty of care to their subject and the extent to which they should intervene in the events they are recording. 

In this regard, Tuza-Ritter's relationship with Edith resembles that of film-maker Sahra Mani and abused Afghan woman Khatera Golzad in A Thousand Girls Like Me and few would quibble with her methods or actions. However, by allowing Csaba Kolotás's score to pulsate during the escape sequence, the debuting Tuza-Ritter takes the only false step of a film that makes evocative use of close-ups to reinforce Marish's sense of entrapment and deftly lets the hectoring Eta condemn herself on the audio track.

Now in his eighties, Jack Bond has been profiling artists since he and Jane Arden made on Dalí in New York for the BBC in 1965. While he is perhaps best known for this collaboration with Arden on Separation (1967), The Other Side of the Underneath (1972) and Anti-Clock (1979), Bond also became a fixture on The South Bank Show, for which he produced studies of Patricia Highsmith, Werner Herzog, Jean Genet and Albert Camus. He also worked with The Pet Shop Boys on It Couldn't Happen Here (1988) and Adam Ant on The Blue Black Hussar (2013). Now, Bond has returned to the world of painting for An Artist's Eyes, which explores the life and work of self-taught outsider, Chris Moon. 

The first nine minutes of the film are devoted to a painting Moon is working on in his studio in King's Cross. As Gabriel Bruce's `Hold Me Close Holy Ghost' plays on the soundtrack, Moon blackens a canvas and then starts adding smears of yellow, red, blue and green and in order to texturise what will become the backdrop for a bold image that Moon never explains, as he describes the thrill he feels at the start of each picture and the emotions that develop as it starts to take shape and he has to fight the temptation to overdo elements and stick to the ideas formed in his sketches. However, as he takes a photograph of a female model and begins to apply paint directly to a piece of glass, he insists that what matters most when commencing a new project is being brave. 

Bond mingles with the guests at the opening of Moon's show, `A Splendid Isolation, Part II', and eavesdrops as they discuss the influence of California on the paintings, the extent to which he has succeeded in his aims and the tyranny of the market when it comes to assessing an artist's worth. Bond prods a few specialists into assessing the work, but the opinions rather ring hollow against the hubbub of chatter and clinking wine glasses. 

Moon lives in Loughton in Essex, where he keeps some of his classic cars and has another studio. He sketches in the nearby woods and reveals in voiceover that he finds creating to be both exhilarating and draining and that he often suffers from bouts of depression when he finishes a work or runs into a dead end. However, experience has taught him to destroy less and see obstacles as a clue to a solution. We see him working late at night and using an image on a laptop to guide him. He explains that it's never easy when the vision in his head departs radically from the one that ends up on the canvas, but he has come to see this as a challenge and not a crisis. 

Taking a studio in Chelsea, Moon spends time in New York and surprises himself with the representational nature of the sketches he produces. He is taken more with the people than the city himself and strives to capture their personality in the images. Bond follows Moon through the streets, as he sketches and takes in the atmosphere of his new locale. He films him in moody grey sunlight on the waterfront and runs a slideshow of the canvases with their vibrant colours and snatched impressions of a living metropolis. Caught between the pressure created by the past and the anxiety generated by the future, Moon is both inspired and intimidated. But this is the stage of creation he enjoys most.

Six months pass and Bond returns in the depths of a snowy winter, as Moon finds a new exhibition space and spray paints the walls. He is up against a deadline when Art Forum publisher Knight Landesman comes to meet him and dealer Liam West. Photographer Mick Rock also descends to unleash a barrage of insults during a shoot in which he dubs the quiffed Moon,`James Dean with a paint brush'. Moon occasionally looks ill at ease, as he has to play the role for the camera. But the ebullient Rock also makes him laugh and they concur that the end result always justifies the means. 

On opening night, a rather pretentious couple dance to Edwin Starr's `War', while West gives Landesman a quick recap of Moon's career highlights to date. He suggests that he always absorbs his locale and swears that he is on the way to becoming a household name. However, he concedes that Moon has a self-destructive streak and that he can sometimes be his own worst enemy. But, as he walks away from another triumph, Moon declares that he would rather rip it up and start again than become a pale imitation of himself. The secret is to inspire himself, as the rest seems to flow once he has found something to express. 

The scene shifts from a frozen Manhattan to a sun-kissed Andalucia in southern Spain, as Moon embarks upon a road trip with photojournalist Ian Morrison. As he sketches in the great outdoors, Moon tellingly states that wasting paint is one of the most important facets of artistic creation, as it's only by making mistakes that an artist edges towards what they are trying to say. Morrison snaps Moon as he draws a charcoal mural on the white wall of an abandoned building and they discuss the potential of a landscape that Moon ends up sketching. He also hunkers down on a beach with a pad and some pastels to capture flesh tones against the sky and sand. 

Stopping frequently, the pair snap and sketch whatever catches their eye. Bond's camera blurs distant figures in the way Moon does and makes evocative contrasts between the light when it's sunny and pouring with rain. But a travelling shot of Morrison snapping Moon as he drives along feels a bit self-absorbed and it comes as a relief when they fetch up at a bullring and an American diner in the middle of nowhere. They stop in the Almeiria desert where so many classic Spaghetti Westerns were filmed and Moon sits in the mouth of a crevice to sketch the landscape, while he relates in voiceover discovering painting when he was around six years old and he was billeted with a neighbour who had drawn her garden. 

Joking that he would never have become an artist if making money had been his goal, Moon admits to having only consciously copied a single artist. Rather disingenuously, he feigns not to remember the full name of Portuguese abstractionist, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, in confessing a fascination with the scaffolding shapes in some of her pieces. He descends into an empty swimming pool to sketch the view before driving off, literally, into the sunset, as the sun comes so low through the windscreen that it dazzles Moon, as he negotiates a winding mountain road. 

More of a lightning impression than a full portrait, this offers a fascinating into the working mind of an artist on the move. In many ways, this recalls Tim Marrinan and Richard Dewey's Burden (2016). But there's next to no biographical information and, apart from the pseudy gossip at the Fitzrovia show, no concerted effort is made to provide a critical assessment of Moon's standing within the art world. Instead, Bond and cinematographers Mary Rose Storey and Peter Sinclair tag along with the restless Moon, as he seeks inspiration and finds ways to turn an idea into an image. Invariably, they capture his perspective with discretion and a deftness that ensures this is often as visually striking as Moon's own work. 

There are tumbleweed moments, such as when the London chatterati waffle under the influence of an agreeable red and when a curiously ill-informed Knight Landesman and a falteringly supportive Liam West discover they have absolutely nothing to say to each other in the rather thrown together New York happening. Some of Ian Morrison's attempts to spark an artily deep conversation on the roads of Andalucia also land with a resounding thud. But Moon emerges as a compelling character and a boldly innovative artist, while Bond demonstrates that his appreciation of the artistic mind has not been dimmed by the passing decades.

In honour of Don Quixote, Bond mischievously slips in a shot of the Andalucian wind turbines waiting to be tilted at and these steepling giants also figure prominently in Chico Pereira's exquisite odyssey, Donkeyote. A knowing docu-fiction rather than an authentic actuality, the film follows the director's 73 year-old uncle and godfather, as he undertakes a trial run across Spain for an ambitious attempt to honour the Native Americans who were driven off their lands during the Trail of Tears by following their route into the Wild West. Purists may take exception to Pereira's stage-management techniques, but this represents a welcome break from all the talking heads, archive clips and illustrative animations that have become as essential to the modern-day documentary as those duplicitous dramatic recreations. 

In order to test his own powers of endurance before crossing the Atlantic, Manuel Molera sets out to walk from his village to Algeciras on the Mediterranean coast. Accompanying him are his sprightly dog, Zafrana, and his ploddingly dependable donkey, Gorrión. They camp out at night and think nothing of pulling down the odd inconvenient fence to make the journey a touch shorter. But Manuel is in no hurry and dawdles behind a flock of sheep blocking a country road. The camera lingers on a dead lamb being carried by the shepherd before taking a step back to watch Manuel help the shepherd recover a sheep that had slipped off the straight and narrow. 

Such exertions take their toll, however, and Manuel's daughter, Paquita, questions the wisdom of his expedition, as she massages and bandages a knee showing signs of tendinitis. She reminds him of the heart attacks he has survived in the past and her fears that he won't be safe in the countryside by himself are exacerbated by the fact that he can't remember the phone number for the emergency services. 

In what seems to be a flashback, Manuel comes to see Paquita, who is the teacher at the village school. The children listen to Manuel's stories and enjoy feeding Gorrión. But Paquita is taken aback when her father announces over supper that he plans to walk the Trail of Tears with his donkey and has started taking English lessons. We see him doing a listen and repeat exercise with tutor Mamen Gómez Heredia and he is reluctant to sing along with a ditty that has been composed to teach children. Manuel is also put out when he calls a travel agency to book a passage for himself and Gorrión and the man at the other end of the phone suspects he is making a prank call. Having called a cargo transit company, however, Manuel is disappointed to learn that it will cost a small fortune to ship Gorrión, who will have to spend 60 days in quarantine before they can embark on their journey. 

Keen to check whether her father is fit enough to take on such an endeavour, Paquita takes Manuel to see a doctor, who put him on a treadmill to measure his heart rate and lung capacity. The medic advises him to take a GPS so that his family can keep tabs on him, but declares him healthy enough to make the Spanish leg of his trek. He also puts his 10 year-old donkey through a physical and films an appeal to a Coca Cola website promoting exercise for the elderly for a sponsorship deal. Mamen records several takes, as Manuel strays off message or looks at his feet shuffling on the ground. But, when he finally delivers the message with conviction, he has to do it all over again because his voice was drowned out by barking dogs. 

Before he leaves, Manuel shares a campfire with Paquita, who recalls a childhood trip that they had taken together shortly after her parents had separated. Despite the fondness of her memories, she is aware that this was a tough time for a young girl and she is now worried that the current enterprise will prove too much for Manuel. But she sees him off with a cheery wave and Manuel, Zafrana and Gorrión are soon passing through the outskirts of Sevilla on their way south. They find a campsite for the night and Manuel rigs up a cot near some caravans. However, loud music booms out until the small hours and Manuel gets so frustrated that he leaves the site and sleeps rough instead. 

The next morning, Manuel does his daily exercises, but has to admonish Zafrana for chewing through the bag in which he stores his camp bed. But he confides in his animals that they are easier to deal with than humans when he arrivess at Coke's headquarters and is informed that the person he needs to see has just left on a train trip and has switched off her phone. Trudging on, Manuel finds a layby to spend the night and tells his story to a couple of truckers who are curious to know how he plans to get Gorrión to America, as they dislike being on a different deck to their lorries when they sail to Britain.

Manuel makes some more friends the next day, when they spend the night near a railway station and he drifts into the nearby bar. He tells one of his stories and one the locals sings along to a flamenco guitarist. Pressing on, the travellers pass some galloping horses in a field and we get a close up of Gorrión chomping on some lush green grass after passing through a parched region. 

They reach a river, but the donkey flatly refuses to cross the footbridge on to the deck. Manuel tries coaxing and tugging him, but the creature proves mulishly stubborn and has to spend the night on the bank, while Manuel and Zafrana share some food. The next morning, however, Gorrión decides that he doesn't like being left behind and clip clops tentatively across the wooden planking and makes it aboard. When Manuel phones Paquita to report that he crossed the bridge like a fearless lion, Gorrión gives him a push in the back with his nose. 

All three enjoy the cruise and Gorrión also gets to watch as four donkeys haul wood from a forest to a waiting truck. He even gets to roam free by the riverside that night, as they rest up before the next leg. However, when Manuel tries to get up in the morning, he feels such a sharp shooting pain in his knee that Pereira calls out to his uncle from behind the camera to check he's okay. As if sensing something's amiss, Gorrión nuzzles his owner and almost knocks his hat off. Manuel reciprocates by giving his friend a brushing. But, as they continue their walk, Manuel confides that he doesn't like the idea of confining Gorrión in a packing crate during their voyage Stateside and he isn't looking forward to schlepping through the soulless industrial estates that line the route. 

As the heavens open, the trio traipse into the driving rain along a straight, deserted road. But the skies are clearer in the morning and silhouetted against them are the wind turbines that this particular quixotic quester had decided not to tilt against. On the other side of the hill, however, Gorrión reaches another bridge he doesn't fancy crossing, even though it leads to the beach and journey's end. Eventually, he decides to venture on to the sand and even goes for a paddle, as Manuel watches a cargo vessel slink past on the horizon. After an eventful night, in which Manuel was seemingly mistaken for a drug smuggler by an over-zealous policeman, the wayfarers turn for home and the film ends with Manuel making up foul-mouthed lyrics to a song about his encounter with the idiot cop who had accused him of being a trafficker. 

Ever since Roberty Flaherty gave directions to the eponymous Eskimo in Nanook of the North (1922), screen reality has been a mixture of the spontaneous and the suggested. Indeed, in coining the term `documentary', John Grierson defined it as `the creative treatment of actuality'. So, Chico Pereira is following in a noble tradition in occasionally putting his uncle through his paces in order to give his adventure a little extra frisson. 

Manuel clearly responded to the prompting like a seasoned professional and he does remarkably well to avoid being wholly upstaged by the scene-stealing Gorrión and Zafrana. Indeed, this may well be the best one man and his donkey double act since Robin Bailey and Sid (voiced by the inimitable Johnny Morris) considered the advisability of making thistles taste creamier in a 1980s Heinz soup commercial. Pereira and editor Nick Gibbon pace proceedings to perfection, while Julian Schwanitz's magnificent Spaghetti-hommaging photography ensures that we don't just see things from Manuel's perspective. Moreover, sound editor Mark Deas affords Zafrana and Gorrión plenty of opportunity to voice their opinion on their incredible journey.