Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 29/11/2018)

Each film represents a report on the state of a nation, while also sharing a fascination with family life and the difficulty of finding a niche in an age of economic recession, instant communication and social fragmentation. But, while Kore-eda gets up close and personal to his characters, Ceylan opts for a watchful detachment that nevertheless counters frequent accusations of ducking the major political issues facing his homeland to offer a slyly trenchant assessment of life under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Leaving the coastal resort of Çanakkale after graduating from college, Sinan Karasu (Aydin Dogu Demirkol) returns to the provincial town of Çan, where his teacher father, Idris (Murat Cemcir), lives with his mother, Asuman (Bennu Yildirimlar), and sister Yasemin (Asena Keskinci). They are too busy watching soaps on TV to give Sinan much of a welcome. But Idris is delighted that his son has completed his degree and persuades him to accompany him on a visit to grandfather Recep (Tamer Levent), who is looking after his prized hunting dog. 

Having spent his life teaching, Idris is about to retire and wants to work Recep's small plot of land and has been digging a well to irrigate the property. But, even though a frog hops across their path, they have failed to strike water and Sinan confides his frustration when he drops in to see his maternal grandparents, Ramazan (Ercüment Balakoglu) and Hayriye (Özay Fecht). They mention that Idris has been gambling again and that his creditors are becoming impatient and Sinan urges his grandmother to keep hold of her savings and not try to bail his father out, even though his debts bring shame upon the family. 

Sinan has written an experimental novel and seeks sponsorship from the mayor, Adnan (Kadir Çermik), because getting a book published in modern Turkey isn't easy. As Adnan flips through the pages of the manuscript, Sinan concedes that the text is more of a personal reflection on his hometown than a tourist guide. Thus, while he mentions the nearby site of Troy and the Great War cemetery at Gallipoli, he treats them no differently to the wild pear trees, as a starting point for his musings. Regretting that he can't dip into the tourism budget unless the content relates directly to the region, Adnan suggests that Sinan pays a call on Ilhami (Kubilay Tunçer), who has a sand quarry in the hills. 

While walking through the autumnal countryside, Sinan hears old classmate Hatice (Hazar Ergüçlü) calling to him. She is picking walnuts and he doesn't recognise her because she has covered her hair with a scarf. They talk about old times and she takes umbrage when he declares that he won't be hanging around with the bigots who fall into line behind anything the authorities tell them. Surprised that she didn't continue her studies, Sinan asks Hatice why she doesn't follow his lead and leave. But she reveals that she's engaged to a jeweller and has no option but to go through with the match. 

The wind rustles the leaves, as the sun twinkles through them and Hatice asks Sinan for a cigarette. They shelter under the branches as they smoke, in case they are spotted by her co-workers. Suddenly, Hatice removes the scarf and loosens her long, dark hair. She starts to cry and, when Sinan tries to console her, she kisses him and bites his bottom lip. He is taken aback, but barely has time to react before Hatice is called away and she ties her scarf before walking away without a backward glance.

As he heads back through a scruffy neighbourhood, Sinan calls a pal who has joined the police. He looks out across Çan and wishes he could drop a bomb on the place. His friend tells him about laying into some left-wing protesters and jokes about beating a particularly small man with his riot shield. They laugh and the voice on the other end of the line asks Sinan when he's due to take his teaching qualification exam. He admits that he regrets not being able to further his own education, but is glad to have a job with a future and teases Sinan about messing up and being forced to take a teaching post in some backwater in the Asian east of the country. 

Mooching into a café, as the rain begins to fall, Sinan spots Hatice's ex-boyfriend, Riza Ahmet (Rifat Sungar). However, he sits on the opposite side of the room and pretends to read the paper. Having watched a bride under a red veil (perhaps Hatice) embark upon her new life, the group piles into a car and drives into the hills. Riza guzzles beer while sitting on a rock overlooking the lake and Sinan can't resist taunting him about Hatice finding another man. They argue about whether Sinan was jealous because he made a failed play for Hatice himself and the pair have to be separated after Riza loses his temper. 

On the morning of the exam, Asuman has to borrow money from a neighbour so Sinan has the fare to get to the venue. Idris walks to the bus station with him and gives him advice on how to tackle the paper. However, he is more interested in getting hold of some cash to place a bet and cajoles his son into handing over a few lira so that he can buy a meatball sandwich. Jumping off the bus to check where his father has gone, Sinan sees him chatting animatedly with two men across the square and realises that he is in over his head. 

Leaving the exam early, Sinan goes to a waterfront café to collect a bag he had left behind the counter. He bumps into Nevzat (Sencar Sagdic), an old man doing calculations in a notebook to see how far he can make his weekly allowance go. He tells Sinan that life is tough on the margins, but the twentysomething is too young and preoccupied to heed his warning. Instead, he heads to a large bookshop to sell what he hopes is a rare volume. However, the bookseller reminds him that things don't acquire value simply because they are old. 

Looking up, Sinan spots celebrated author Süleyman (Serkan Keskin) working on the balcony. He explains that they had met during a literary symposium and asks if he can sit down. Too polite to refuse, Süleyman expresses courteous interest in Sinan's manuscript and resists the temptation to smile when he describes it as an `autofiction meta-novel'. However, he concedes that it isn't easy to publish a first book, as novices are always convinced that the world is longing to hear what they have to say.

Nettled, Sinan snaps back that Süleyman is hardly the last word in literary innovation and casually reveals that he hasn't read all of his books, as he doesn't need to keep too close an eye on the competition. Having put up with Sinan's boastful bluster and damningly faint praise for a while, Süleyman makes his excuses to leave. But Sinan accuses him of running away and accompanies him to a bridge over the river, while they ruminate on a letter that an absentee writer had sent to the seminar that not only outlined his reasons for staying away, but which also poured scorn on those seeking to be praised in public. Süleyman dismisses the missive as hypocritical and sentimental and warns Sinan that he will never make it as a writer if he insists on remaining an incurable romantic. 

Losing his temper, he complains about an oncoming migraine and stalks away. Unconvinced by his protestation that he would reject a Nobel Prize, Sinan intercepts Süleyman on the other side of the bridge and asks if he will read his manuscript. Once again trying to be civil, the author says he would never get any work done if he agreed to help every wannabe who pestered him. But, when Sinan jokingly questions whether that would be a bad thing, Süleyman struts off and Sinan attracts the attention of a fisherman by pushing a broken piece of statuary into the river. 

Beating a retreat along the towpath, Sinan realises he is being pursued and ducks into an estate of crudely painted houses. He takes refuge inside a statue of the Trojan Horse and quakes with fear when somebody tries to force the locked trapdoor. However, he has dreamt the incident after dozing off on the bus home and he steps down into the street to be browbeaten by a bypasser complaining that a teacher like Idris should set a better example than lounging around in the betting shop.

Venturing inside, Sinan asks his father why he hangs around with deadbeats. But Idris insists he is merely reading his paper before heading home. Despairing of him, Sinan returns to the apartment and starts searching for a lost notebook. Asuman sits with him and thumbs through an old photograph album. He lets slip that he saw Idris at the bookie's, but Asuman defends her husband by reminding Sinan how hard he worked to put him through school and how he never once raised a hand to him. 

A neighbour asks to borrow a rope to haul a sofa upstairs and Idris and Sinan offer to help. As she is trying to do her homework and doesn't like being leered at, Yasemin closes the kitchen door. But, when Sinan returns and checks his coat pocket, he is appalled to discover that 400 lira of the money he has been saving to publish his book has gone missing. He demands to know who has stolen from him, but resists openly accusing his father. However, Yasemin suggests that the neighbour might have taken the cash when he was left alone in the hallway and storms off to watch telly when Sinan continue to rage. 

Following the mayor's tip, Sinan pays a call on Ilhami and is encouraged when he says he likes what he sees. Pointing to a few books on his office shelf, he claims to be a voracious reader, although he hasn't had much time lately, as his mother has been ill. He has also been considering plans to expand his office and asks Sinan if he has a camera to take some pictures. However, he changes his tack when Sinan mentions that the book doesn't pay lip service to the region's past and Ilhami accuses him of disrespecting his heritage. When Sinan tries to defend his vision and explain that he is entitled to his opinion, Ilhami calls his secretary to bring in some papers he needs to read and their meeting ends with Sinan no closer to securing his funding. 

He drops into the café where his pals hang out and asks Ekrem (Çaglar Çan to stop leading Idris astray. Baffled why someone their age would want to hang out with his father, Sinan tells Ekrem to get a life. But he curtly informs him that he will do whatever he wants and walks out. Looking up, Sinan sees a TV news item about the majority of newly qualified teachers being sent to the East. 

When the weekend comes, Sinan takes Idris to the village to work on Recep's property. While Idris fixes an outhouse door, Sinan searches his grandfather's sparsely furnished house before paying a call on Hayriye and Ramazan. She is upset because Imam Veysel (Akin Aksu) has asked him to sing the call to prayer at the mosque and she think her husband is too old and will embarrass everyone by making mistakes. 

Wandering through the fields, Sinan spots Idris under a wild pear tree with a rope dangling from one of the branches. Fearing that his father has tried to hang himself, Sinan sneaks away. But his conscience gets the better of him and he creeps back to discover that Idris has ants crawling over his hands. He is relieved when Idris opens an eye and insists that he has merely dozed off and that the sun has moved and cost him the shade. Feeling awkward, Sinan announces that he is heading back to Çan if Idris wants a lift, However, he decides to finish his chores and asks Sinan if he's solved the crime of the missing cash yet. When he shrugs, Idris mockingly dubs him `Columbo' (after the 1970s TV detective played by Peter Falk) and demands to know if he is really so dumb that he can't work out who took the money.

Returning to the car, Sinan spots Iman Veysel up a tree scrumping apples, while Imam Nazmi (Öner Erkan) keeps watch. Amused at catching supposedly holy men pinching fruit, Sinan hurls two clods of earth into the branches and tuts loudly when he makes his presence known. He asks Veysel why he keeps asking the retired Ramazan to stand in for him when he's away, as he is 80 and doesn't need the stress. However, Veysel insists that he has a duty to attend weddings and funerals and resents Sinan's implication that he only goes to these functions because he is paid in gold by the grateful families. 

When Veysel tries to justify himself, Nazmi asks why he always quotes from the best-known passages of the Koran and the sayings of Mohammed's followers. He suggests that it would make a nice change to reference some minor figures to get a fresh perspective. But, feeling slighted at having his knowledge of the scriptures questions, Veysel protests that his flock prefer him to stick to the basics and the pair begin disputing the extent to which the Koran can be interpreted to back any line of argument. 

While walking into the village, Sinan warms to this theme and is busy questioning whether believe is a blessing or a curse when they stop for tea. Idris drives past in a neighbour's car and waves at them. Veysel declares Idris to be a good man, who works hard at the school and is good to his father and in-laws at weekends. However, Sinan inquires whether a man who fritters away his wages is a paragon of virtue and, when Veysel tries to defend him, Sinan sarcastically notes that clerics must have mixed emotions about gambling because their wages are probably paid out of dodgily accrued funds. When he asks whether human take the credit for things that go right and blame fate when they go wrong, Nazmi tries to interject with a theological point. But Veysel avers that they are straying into dangerous territory and should leave things where they are. 

Returning to Recep's to collect the car, Sinan spots his father's hunting dog in the yard. Aware that he is valuable, he sells him to one of the villagers and tries to avoid the animal's mournful eyes, as he drives away in a vehicle with a notice advertising `teacher's car for sale' obscuring the rear window. The next day, he walks into Idris's classroom to give him the first copy of his The Wild Pear Tree. However, Asuman had also asked him to collect his father's pay cheque, as the electricity has been cut off and she's at home in the dark. So, when he sees Idris trying to hide betting slips under his sleeve, he decides not to give him the book and has to rein himself in from insulting him in front of a class of curious children.

Getting home, Sinan tells Asuman that Idris hadn't been paid yet. However, he mentions the betting slips and wonders why she married such a deadbeat. As she sits on his bed wondering how they are going to cope, Sinan tosses her a copy of his book, which he has inscribed with the words `all thanks to you and you alone'. Asuman is deeply touched and so proud that her son has realised his ambition. She asks where he got the money from and he fibs about borrowing it from a friend. When he jokes that he is no better off than `Mr Loser', Asuman ticks him off for being disrespectful. She admits that she might have been better off marrying the first man who proposed to her, but she thought Idris was dashing and handsome and she has had no cause to regret her decision, regardless of the ups and downs. 

Sinan sneers at her romanticism, but she reminds him that he's not exactly got the girls forming an orderly queue. Moreover, she reminds him that people thought that he was a peculiar little boy and that she was forever having to defend him for doing things his own way. He resents the recollection and the smirk is wiped off his face, as he realises that, in essence, he is no better than the man he despises. When Idris gets home, therefore, and Asuman accuses him of spending his pay, Sinan remains in his room. But Idris feels betrayed by his snitching and shows him the wanted poster for his missing dog that he had been drawing when he waltzed into his classroom. When Asuman asks what Idris's excuse was, Sinan proclaims he was lying and laughs it off when his mother reveals that she had found her husband sobbing in the night over the loss of the only creature who didn't judge him. 

As it starts to snow beyond the window, the action flashes forward several months to show Sinan doing his military service in the frozen countryside. By the time he returns. Idris has retired and moved into the storeroom on Recep's plot. Asuman has used his bonus payment to buy a new fridge and a laptop for Yasemin. They jokingly refer to Idris as `the shepherd' and neither seems to be particularly missing him. However, they also have to confess to having left the piles of Sinan's book beside a leaky window, with the result that they got horribly damp.

Blue mould seems to be growing out of the brown paper packaging, but Sinan shrugs off the revelation and takes a trip to Çanakkale to see how the book has been selling. The bookseller needs reminding of the title and admits that he hasn't shifted a single copy. By contrast, Süleyman's latest volume is doing very nicely. Following a dispiriting walk by the choppy sea, Sinan catches a bus to the fogbound village. There's no sign of Idris in his spartan quarters and Sinan has to fight back a tear when he finds a cutting of a review of his book tucked into his father's empty wallet. He dozes off on the bed and dreams that a cradle is hanging from the rope in the wild pear tree and that ants are crawling over the sleeping baby's face.

Heading to the field, Sinan takes a step back when the sheepdog barks at him with a ferocity that brings Idris out of his hut to see what the commotion is. He is pleased to see his son and glad he has made it through national service in one piece. Sinan offers to help collect some hay bales for the sheep and they borrow a neighbour's truck to drive to the stores. Having unloaded in the snow, the pair sit outside Recep's house and Idris jokes that his father has told the locals that he will sling him out on his ear if he causes any trouble. 

Sinan asks if Idris has any luck with the well and he concedes that he should have listened to the locals when they said he would never find water. He smiles, as he talks about a tactical retreat and tells Sinan that he enjoyed his book. Naturally, he recognised the unflattering references to himself, but he was impressed by what he read and Sinan is ashamed that the only person to take his work seriously is the one he had written off. Idris inquires about Sinan's future plans and suggests that there are worse ways to start life than by teaching in a school in the middle of the Eastern nowhere. 

As the snow starts to fall, the exhausted Idris drops off to sleep. It's morning when he wakes after dreaming that Sinan had hanged himself in the well. He feeds the sheep and looks round for his son. To his surprise, he hears the sound of digging and he peers into the depths of the well to see Sinan wielding a pickaxe in his determination to prove the naysayers wrong and the man who had always believed in him right. 

It comes as something of a relief when Sinan shows a flicker of decency in this final scene, as he has been almost entirely unsympathetic to this point. Every writer needs faith in his ability, but the grotesquely self-absorbed Sinan has a conviction in his own rectitude that borders on the delusional. Ceylan wisely avoids disclosing the content and quality of his tome, but it's safe to suggest, on the basis of his character and conversation, that his stories and essays would be sanctimonious and querulous. Moreover, given how little he knows about the world, the past and himself, they would also be blinkered and naive. 

The same cannot be said of Aydin Dogu Demirkol's performance, however, which is perfectly judged and contains enough vulnerability to persuade the audience to stick with his rite of passage in the hope that he will eventually have an epiphany that will knock the chip of his shoulder and jolt him into facing reality. Murat Cemcir is equally effective as the shifty Idris, who has become a fringe player in his own existence, as he labours under the burden of both his addiction and the knowledge that his wife and children despise him almost as much as his loathes himself. The irony, of course, is that Sinan is just as much of a gambler as his father, as he withholds money the family needs to fund the publication of a book that stands little chance of recouping its costs, let alone turning a profit. Moreover, by selling his beloved dog, he proves even more underhand than Idris, who is never actually shown gambling at any point in the film.

There's no question that he keeps Asuman in the dark (literally, so at times), but the spark in their relationship has long since been extinguished and Bennu Yildirimlar plays her as a woman who has been battling the odds for so long that she no longer has time for affection. Ceylan contrasts her resignation with that of Hatice and it would be fascinating to know whether Idris and Asuman were matchmade or married for love. Although she's only on screen for one sequence, Hazar Ergüçlü makes a deep impression, as does Serkan Keskin, as the writer who endures a tirade of snarky questions and accusations during the brilliant bookshop scene. The exchange with Akin Aksu's complacent imam is equally compelling and confirms the acuteness of the script produced by Aksu in conjunction with Ceylan and his wife, Ebru.

Once again owing debts to such Russian writers as Anton Chekhov and Fedor Dostoevsky, Ceylan continues to explore such perennial themes as the chasm between European and Asian Turkey and the unbreachable differences between the secular and the spiritual and the urban and the rural. However, this is also an intense treatise on family living, personal responsibility, finding a niche and accepting one's limitations. It's also a cautionary tale about the need for honesty in a country where it's sometimes easier to accept convenient untruths. 

Shooting with a digital camera, Gökhan Tiryaki's photography is often stunning, with the images of the warm sunlight blinking through the rippling autumnal leaves feeling like a distant memory against the bleached out chill produced by the blanketing fog and snow. Meral Aktan's production design is also superb, with the meagre furnishings of the grandparental dwellings in the country village contrasting starkly with the cosy clutter of the family flat in Çan. Moreover, special mention should be made of the use of Leopold Stokowski's string arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, which reinforces the melancholic mood, while also serving as a link between the lived and the dreamed and reminding us of the beauty and truth that exists amidst the mundanity and mendacity of our daily lives.

A goodly number of films have been set amidst London's Jewish communities, with older items like Jack Clayton's The Bespoke Overcoat (1956), Caspar Wrede's The Barber of Stamford Hill (1962) and Michael Tuchner's tele-take on Jack Rosenthal's Bar Mitzvah Boy (1976) recently being joined by the likes of Josh Appignanesi's Song of Songs (2005) and The Infidel (2010), Paul Weiland's Sixty Six (2006), Paul Morrison's Wondrous Oblivion (2008) and John Goldschmidt's Dough (2015). 

Previously, only Ric Cantor's Suzie Gold (2004) had focused on the female perspective. But Sebastián Lelio follows suit with Disobedience, an adaptation of a 2006 novel by Naomi Alderman that the Chilean director of Gloria (2013) and A Fantastic Woman (2017) has written with playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who also collaborated with Pavel Pawlikowski on his Oscar-winning study of suppressed Jewish identity, Ida (2013).

When her Orthodox rav father (Anton Lesser) dies delivering a sermon on free will, photographer Ronit Krushka (Rachel Weisz) flies back from New York to attend the funeral in North London. She is only in time for the gathering at the home of her childhood friend, Dovid Kuperman (Alessandro Nivolo), who was her father's protégé. However, he is surprised to see her and it's clear that Ronit left under something of a cloud from the cool welcome afforded by uncle Moshe Hartog (Allan Corduner). But Ronit is even more taken aback when Dovid reveals that he has married her childhood confidante, Esti (Rachel McAdams), and she accepts their invitation to stay with them rather than check into a hotel with some trepidation. 

After the guests leave, Esti shows Ronit to the spare room in the eaves. But they remain guarded and Ronit asks Dovid why the local paper reported that her father had been childless. He dismisses this as sloppy journalism and makes a show of gratitude when Ronit gives him a book of her photographs. However, he leaves it on a table in her room and assures Ronit that he and Esti are very happy together before retiring for the night. But, if their love making is anything to go by, they are bound more by duty than passion.

Esti teaches at the local girls' school and proves to be every bit as timid with her class as she is with her husband. She invites Ronit to Shabbos dinner with Moshe and his wife, Fruma (Bernice Stegers). and Rabbi Goldfarb (Nicholas Woodeson) and his spouse (Liza Sadovy). They ask why she uses the name Roni Curtis for work purposes and question her about when she is going to settle down and have a family like a good Jewish woman. However, she upsets Moshe by mentioning her eagerness to sell the parental home and raises eyebrows by claiming that she would have killed herself if she had been coerced into a loveless marriage and forced to abandon her artistic ambitions. 

Despite visiting his grave, Ronit still feels detached from her father and is disappointed to learn that he has left the house to the synagogue. Moshe breaks the news when she comes to his wig shop and he chastises her for not nursing her father through his final illness. But Ronit complains that nobody had contacted her and he concedes that it must be painful for her dealing with the rav's loss when she had not received his forgiveness. 

Ronit wanders out of the shop still wearing the wig she had been trying on and Esti hardly recognises her when she sees her on the street. But she accompanies her to her father's house and consoles Ronit, as she goes between the familiar rooms that have scarcely changed since she left. She smiles when she turns on the radio to hear The Cure's `Lovesong' and they nod their heads to the music in a moment of fond nostalgia. Shrugging away her emotions, Ronit wishes that Krushka had referred to her somewhere in his will and is about to leave without taking any keepsakes when Esti kisses her on the mouth. She reciprocates eagerly, only to pull away and rush downstairs. 

They kiss again before taking their leave, with Esti grabbing the silver candlesticks that had belonged to Ronit's mother and stuffing them into her bag. As they stroll along the suburban street, Ronit asks Esti why she married Dovid. She reveals that the rav had encouraged her to take a husband in the hope that domesticity would cure her of her impure impulses and admits that things had turned out better than she had expected, especially as she was allowed to continue her career in teaching. But she finds her Friday conjugal duty to be something of a chore and regrets not having had any children. Esti asks if Ronit has been with other women since their romance and she shakes her head before lighting a cigarette and offering Esti an illicit puff. 

As dusk closes in, they visit the park where they used to tryst and hold hands beside the tree under which they first kissed. However, when they press against the mesh fence of the tennis court to embrace, they are interrupted by a couple coming to play under the floodlights and Ronit is left to chat with them while Esti flees. She rushes home and is showering when Dovid gets home and clings to him when he asks if she is okay. At school the next day, however, Esti is summoned before headmistress Hannah Shapiro (Caroline Gruber), where she is confronted by the couple from the tennis court.

While Dovid is being offered the chance to take over from the rav by Dr Gideon Rigler (Steve Furst), Ronit meets Esti out of school. She sense something is wrong and Esti tells her that she has tried to hard to live a good life and can't risk it all by having her reputation questioned and diminishing Dovid's standing in the community. But Ronit persuades her to take the Tube into Central London, where they make love in a hotel room. As they lie together, Esti reveals that she checked time zones so that she always knew whether Ronit was awake or asleep and they recall the fateful moment that the rav had walked in on them in bed together. Ronit takes Esti's photograph without her wig and she poses with a cigarette, as she looks back coquettishly over her shoulder. 

Dismayed to find his wife missing when he gets home, Dovid tries to seduce her at bedtime, but she asks him to desist. The following morning, Esti is sick in the bathroom sink and wonders whether she might be pregnant. But she has more pressing matters to deal with, as Shapiro has filed a formal complaint against her to the synagogue council and Dovid asks her why she is trying to ruin their live. Esti replies that she can't deny who she is and has wanted Ronit since they were girls. But, eavesdropping from the stairs, Ronit concludes that it would be better for everyone if she flew back to America and, feeling betrayed by her cowardice, Esti slams the door on her when she leaves. 

However, Esti gets up in the night and travels into London to check a pregnancy test in a hotel room. Dovid calls Ronit at the airport and she comes back to help him find his wife. They go to the Krushka house to find it has been completely emptied and Ronit smiles at the speed with which people are trying to move on while claiming to treasure her father's memory. On arriving home, they find Esti waiting for them. She asks Dovid for her freedom, as she wants her child to be able to chose its faith and he pleads with her not to make another mistake. But Esti is adamant and Dovid leaves for the memorial service for the rav without them. 

Ronit and Esti arrive at the synagogue together and take their seats in the upper gallery. As the cantor sings, Ronit asks Esti to come to New York with her and clutches at her hand. Moshe introduces Dovid as the new rabbi. But he is too emotional to use the speech he has prepared and recalls that Krushka had been talking about free will when he took his last breath. Looking up to Esti, he grants her the freedom she craves before turning down the promotion, as she lacks the understanding to fulfil the role. Outside, Dovid beckons Ronit to join him in a hug with Esti and the women link fingers against his back as they cling together.

The next morning, Ronit takes her leave. Waking on the sofa, Esti wishes her a long life. But she rushes after her taxi and urges Ronit to stay in touch and they declare their undying love as they kiss. Ronit also takes a detour to the cemetery in order to take a photograph of her father's unadorned mound and to whisper her last farewell. 

In making his English-language debut, Lelio astutely demonstrates that Ronit and Esti are no different to the protagonists of his two previous pictures. Like Gloria and Marina, the women are at a crossroads and fully aware that the next decision they take will set the direction that the rest of their lives will follow. But there is nothing more difficult than that first step into the unknown and both Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams poignantly convey the sense that the road to freedom is always a more difficult choice for a woman than it is for a man. 

From the opening scenes, Lelio and Lenkiewicz establish the contrasts between the lives the women are leading. Ronit is photographing an old man with a tattooed torso when her father collapses in his ceremonial robes and, while she manages to tear her garment in the prescribed manner, she only finds the nerve to do so after visiting an outdoor skating rink and having a knee-trembler in the washroom of the bar in which she has downed a bottle of wine. Further comparisons follow, as Ronit's wild hair and bohemian fashions set her apart from the other women at the funeral, with their wigs and sensible black dresses. Similarly, Esti's formal Friday night coupling with Dovid couldn't be more different from the passionate fumble she enjoys with Ronit in the hotel room.

A number of contrivances are required for the women to reach this stage, with the tennis court smooch being particularly gauche. But Lelio and Lenkiewicz capture the constricted atmosphere that Ronit shatters when she shows up in Hendon out of the blue and reminds everyone that their beloved rav had disowned his only child by putting faith and status above fatherhood and compassion. Interestingly, Dovid avoids committing the same error, as he has grown up with Ronit and Esti and the humanity and humility with which he grants the latter her freedom refreshingly avoids the stereotyping that is so infuriatingly prevalent in films about religious conviction. 

In truth, the central trio are the only fully fleshed characters, with too many of the secondary figures being ciphers. But Alessandro Nivolo proves every bit as effective as Weisz and McAdams, who give nuanced performances when it would have been so easy to lapse into star-crossed melodramatics. Lelio similarly resists this temptation by imposing a sombre mood that is reinforced by the chilly North London weather and the clunky comfort of Sarah Finley's interiors. Cinematographer Danny Cohen picks up the details within the décor without undue over-emphasis, which can't always be said for Matthew Herbert's score. But Cohen does stick close to Weisz and McAdams, as he captures the urgency and intimacy of their love making that contrasts with the formality of the group compositions involving Nivolo and his flock.

When one hasn't made a film since debuting in the mid-1990s, a sophomore outing can feel more like starting afresh than picking up from where one left off. In making Postcards From London, therefore, Steve McLean understandably feels the need to show the British film industry what it's been missing since he made a modest splash with Poscards From America (1994), which was adapted from the autobiographical writings of AIDS victim David Wojnarowicz. However, in seizing the overdue opportunity to showcase his artistry and intellect, while also name-checking his idols and influences, McLean has fallen into the first-timer trap of straining too hard to make a good impression. Consequently, his laudable ambition to recreate a Soho that no longer exists (and, perhaps, only existed in his dreams), can sometimes seem more than a little arch and self-satisfied. 

Arriving in London from Essex with the half-hearted blessing of his bemused parents, 18 year-old Jim (Harris Dickinson) is taught a few harsh lessons in life on the streets by a hustler (Jerome Holder), a mugger and a brassy barmaid (Emma Curtis). She tells him that he won't be lacking friends for long, as he has the face of an angel and his beauty is soon noticed by a quartet of escorts, who occupy booths in a neon-lit nook among the warren of shadowy alleyways. 

Calling themselves `the Raconteurs', David (Jonah Hauer-King), Jesus (Alessandro Cimadamore), Marcello (Leonardo Salerni) and Victor (Raphael Desprez) take Jim under their wing and explain their mission to drag male prostitution into the 21st century, while paying homage to the artists who have gone before. Sitting in a bar filled with sailors straight out of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1982 adaptation of Jean Genet's Querelle, Jim tries to hold his own, as the Raconteurs drop the names of their icons with a playful prissiness that takes the curse off their pretentiousness. David also explains that they specialise in older clients, who enjoy a post-coital discussion about culture as much as they relish the sex with a handsome young stud. 

Encouraging him to market himself as `The Boy With a Basket of Fruit', a character from a painting by Caravaggio, Jim poses for a snapshot he can pin up in call boxes and mugs up on the artist's life and work. David is impressed by his willingness to learn and suggests he will go a long way, as he is as mentally agile as he is well endowed. However, when his first john, George (Silas Carson), takes him to the National Gallery to see Caravaggio's `The Entombment of Christ', Jim is overcome by Stendhal Syndrome and collapses. However, a neat transition shows him posing as the dead Jesus along with his mother (Johanne Murdock), David and the barmaid, who tick him off for refusing to accept money after sleeping with George. 

He also returns the cash given to him by Tony (Trevor Cooper) for posing as St Sebastian, despite being reminded by his new friends that he is a sex worker and not a miracle worker. Feeling sorry for the old man in a toga and laurel wreath pointing a toy bow and arrow, Jim wonders if he should stop escorting because he is too sensitive to deal with all the pain and loneliness he encounters. So, David introduces him to Max (Richard Durden), a Francis Bacon-like artist who encourages him to tap into his inner George Dyer and become his muse. 

However, the Raconteurs are concerned about the fact that Jim keeps fainting in the presence of art and David refers him to a doctor (Leo Hatton, who had earlier played a prostitute who propositioned Jim on his first night in Soho). She blindfolds him during initial questioning before asking him to describe what he sees in `The Musicians'. However, he passes out and finds himself holding a lute in the composition with David, Marcello and the hustler and being berated by Caravaggio (Ben Cura) for chattering when he is trying to concentrate. When he comes round, the shrink informs him that he is suffering from a rare condition, but she can't tell him what it is because his session has elapsed.

She does warn him to stay away from Baroque art and the Raconteurs break the news about Stendhal Syndrome. They also tell him a little about the French novelist and Max decides to paint him in scenes from The Charterhouse of Parma after slashing his earlier canvases. But Jim begins to drift away from the cabal and, on meeting Stuart (Stephen Boxer) at the urinals in the bar, he explains that he feels less like George Dyer and more like Andy Warhol's muse, Joe Dallesandro. They dance, but he is distracted by the sight of Paul (Leemore Marrett, Jr.), the Raconteur who got away, who is drinking at the bar. He used to be the best rent boy in the business, but he realised there was a wider world to conquer than Soho. He warns Jim about letting his friends hold him back and, when he credits them with teaching him about the finer things in life, Paul avers that the best thing about art is the cash you can get for it.

He surmises that Jim's sensitivity to fine art will enable him to spot forgeries, as he won't be so stricken by a pale imitation. After they sleep together, Paul asks Jim to evaluate a painting and calls his client when the teenager crumples in a heap on the gallery floor. In the ensuing reverie, Jim finds himself in a tableau of `The Martyrdom of St Matthew' and being challenged to a duel by Caravaggio because he is tired of him disrupting his studio. On coming round, Jim finds a nick on his throat and Paul expresses concern about the way he disappears into the world of the paintings he sees.

Back in Soho, however, the Raconteurs are furious with Jim for associating with Paul and warn him that he is selling his soul to the devil. A couple of wide boy modernists (Rhys Yates and Archie Rush) tell Jim that he needs to break the cycle and should embrace the Shock of the New and cure himself of Stendhal Syndrome by looking at some modern art. However, when Paul calls him, Jim goes to the gallery to help an art dealer (Georgina Strawson) verify some paintings. 

Exhausted by the constant fainting, he returns to the bar and feels overcome on seeing the display of cardboard boxes that the hustler has created in his corner of the alley. Recognising him as a street artist, Jim gives him the money he has just earned and insists that he is much more than just a wheeler dealer. Back in the bar, Jim joins the Raconteurs in a dance. However, he has realised that he has served his apprenticeship and that, now he is able to detect beauty, the time has come to create his own. 

Steve McLean started out by rubbing shoulders with some of cinema's biggest names in contributing Jimmy Somerville's `From This Moment On' segment to the Cole Porter anthology, Red Hot + Blue (1990). According to his credits on the BFI website (as opposed to the ever-unreliable IMBD), McLean had also produced a 1999 film entitled Wasted and a TV documentary called White Man's Disease (2000). Yet he struggled to find backers for potential projects and spent 15 years in the restaurant trade before finding his way back behind the camera. One can confidently predict, however, that he will only have to wait a fraction of that time before he is back in the studio.

For all its smug aestheticism and stylistic flounces, this is an intriguing and intelligent work. McLean might have reined in the references to such gay icons as Oscar Wilde, Arthur Rimbaud and Pier Paolo Pasolini and could have opted for less flamboyant visual inspirations than Derek Jarman, Wong Kar-wai and Vertigo vintage Alfred Hitchcock. But he commits to his creative vision and is superbly served by cinematographer Annika Summerson and designers Ollie Tiong, Sally King and Fiona Albrow, who have created a soundstage Neverland that recalls the one that allowed Pablo Behrens to recreate the same milieu with such fidelity and finesse in his chic adaptation of Colin Wilson's 1961 novel, Adrift in Soho.

As he did in Eliza Hittman's Beach Rats (2017), Harris Dickinson proves a magnetic presence, as he provides a thoughtful variation on the kind of characters played by Peter Pittaros and Lewis Wallis in Andrew Haigh's Greek Pete (2009). Some of the supporting turns are more stilted or florid, but Trevor Cooper amuses as a crusty moustachioed type trying to fire sucker-tipped arrows at his fantasy Sebastian. Ben Cura also stands out as a Caravaggio who has enough on his plate with murders and exiles without having to worry about pretty boy models who won't keep their yaps shut. 

There are moments when idiosyncrasy becomes submerged by self-indulgence and the surfeit of artifice also means that the meandering narrative rarely registers on an emotional level before rather fizzling out. Moreover, too many of the highbrow bon mots land with a thud instead of a Noël Coward-like caress. But this is admirably ambitious for a comeback project (which would make a magnificent theatrical piece) and it often sounds as good as it looks, thanks to Julian Bayliss's score and the tracks selected by music supervisor Christian Siddell.

If a documentary on a sensationalist subject is going to engross and convince, it requires more than just a good story. It needs to be told from an objective viewpoint and reach a credible conclusion, otherwise its content will merely have curiosity value and it will run the risk of becoming nothing more than a `stranger than fiction' anecdote. British debutant Tim Wardle couldn't have a more compelling topic in Three Identical Strangers. But, in seeking to apportion blame for the travesties and tragedies it unearths, this well-intentioned exposé stumbles into conspiracy territory without possessing the necessary evidence to conclusively prove its contentions.

Sitting down in front of the camera, Bobby Shafran admits that his story seems far-fetched. But he can vouch for every word of it being true, as he takes us back to 1980, when the 19 year-old Bobby drove a battered Volvo nicknamed `The Old Bitch' to in the Catskills in order start his first term at Sullivan County Community College. He was surprised that so many people kept greeting him like a long-lost friend and it was only when someone called him `Eddy' that he had pause for thought. 

Michael Domnitz had been Eddy's best pal and he had burst into his dorm room to ask Bobby if he had a twin. When he replied in the negative, Domnitz had inquired about his birthday and they quickly established that Bobby and Eddy Galland were both born on 12 July 1961. Intrigued, the pair had dashed to a call box to phone Eddy. Following a brief conversation, during which the strangers learn they were both adopted from the Louise Wise Services agency, Eddy and Domnitz drove to Long Island and got a speeding ticket in their haste to solve the mystery. When they eventually arrived, Eddy was amazed to be confronted with his double and they realised  immediately that they were identical twins. 

When Howard Schneider at Newsday got a call about the story, he initially thought it was a hoax. But he soon recognised it was a major scoop and it was picked up by other outlets, including the New York Post. This is where Ellen Cervone and Alan Luchs spotted Bobby and Eddy's resemblance to their friend, David Kellman, and his mother confirmed that he had also been born on the same day at Long Island Jewish Hospital. David had called Eddy's home and spoken to his astonished mother and arranged a reunion at the home of his aunt, Hedy Page, who remembers them romping around like puppies within minutes of being reunited. 

Bobby's parents, Mort and Alice Shafran, and Eddy's father, Elliott Galland, also recall their surprise and joy at seeing the boys together. We see old home movies of them walking with their arms around each other and playing frisbee in the street. They also compared notes on their lives so far and David was pleased that he had a better car than Bobby, when his adoptive father was an eminent Scarsdale physician. 

Amidst the euphoria, Eddy wondered whether their meeting was going to be a good or a bad thing. But they had little time to contemplate the complexities of their situation, as they were whisked off to become overnight media celebrities. They appeared on chat shows and magazine covers across the nation and, in the clips with Phil Donahue and Tim Brokaw, their expressions and mannerisms are eerily similar. Everything seemed wondrous and fun, as they also discovered that they had the same tastes in food, cigarettes and (older) women. Moreover, they realised that they each had an adopted sister who was two years their senior.

Yet, while they forged an instant bond, they were still essentially strangers from very different backgrounds. Bobby had been raised by a doctor and a lawyer, while Eddy's father was a teacher from a middle-class suburban home. By contrast, David had been raised by blue-collar immigrant parents, who owned a small shop and spoke English as a second language. But the triplets preferred sharing their together time with Richard Kellman, who was nicknamed `Bubala' and was delighted to be able to declare Bobby and Eddy his new sons. 

However, Aunt Hedy recalls the anger of the adoptive parents at not being told that their child had brothers. She also reflects on how scary it must have been for six-month infants to suddenly find themselves alone after sharing a crib with two others. Indeed, both Bobby and David used to bang their heads against the bars of their cots in what they have since been informed were manifestations of separation anxiety. 

As the novelty of the reunion subsided, questions started to be asked about the role of Louise Wise Services, which had enjoyed an impeccable reputation since its founding in 1916. Speaking in 1982, company president Justine Wise Polier had insisted that it would have been better to have kept the siblings together. However, when the senior LWS team first met with the furious families, they had revealed that the brothers were parted because it would have been impossible to find anyone who would have taken all three. This feeble excuse infuriated Richard Kellman, who would willingly have adopted the triplets. But it was Mort Shafran who had made the most sinister discovery of the evening, as he had returned to retrieve a forgotten umbrella and seen the agency hierarchy opening a bottle of champagne with a gusto that suggested they thought they had dodged a bullet. 

None of this bothered the boys at the time, however, who were too busy living it large in New York and being papped at Studio 54, Limelight and the Copacabana. They even made a cameo appearance ogling Madonna in Susan Seidelman's Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) before getting an apartment together. As Luchs and Cervone recall, they partied hard and Bobby and David admit to having had a ball. During this period, they also found their future wives and Ilene Shafran, Janet Kellman and Brenda Galland all insist that they got the pick of the litter. 

Everyone agrees that Eddy got the biggest kick out of the reunion and it was he who proposed that they should try to track down their birth mother. After going through the records at the New York Public Library, they found her address and arranged a meeting at her local bar. During the course of the evening, she had explained that she had been very young when she got pregnant. But, while they sympathised with her plight at having become pregnant on her prom night, none of the boys felt a particularly strong connection. 

David remembers being disturbed by how much she booze she had guzzled in such a short space of time and concedes that she only played a minor role in their story. This had taken another turn, however, as the brothers had opened the Triplets restaurant in SoHo. Footage shows the trio orchestrating the fun and David reveals that they cleared $1 million in their first year, as busloads of curiosity seekers came to be waited on by the lookalikes. 

As Cervone reveals, however, it was also around this time that things started to go `a little funky'. Journalist Lawrence Wright was researching an article for the New Yorker on separated twins when he came across an article in a journal entitled The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, which claimed that siblings had been selected from Louise Wise Services and placed in different home. Realising that this had been a conscious policy, Wright had contacted the triplets, who were appalled by the news. 

However, they all recalled being subjected to regular aptitude tests throughout their childhoods by a couple who would film their responses with a 16mm camera. As the families had been told that this was part of a survey of adopted children born within a specific time frame, they had thought nothing of it. But the realisation that scientists had been systematically visiting the brothers over many years, while fully aware that they lived within a 100-mile radius of each other, proved deeply disturbing. 

Wright also discovered that the person leading the inquiry was Dr Peter Neubauer, an Austrian refugee from the Holocaust, who was not only one of the most pre-eminent psychiatrists in New York, but who was also in charge of the Sigmund Freud archive. Among the twins Neubauer studied were Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein, who turned out to be film school graduates and went on to co-author the book, Identical Strangers. But Wright couldn't figure out what Neubauer had been striving to achieve, as he had never published his study and had imposed stringent legal restrictions that prevented anyone who had been under his scrutiny from accessing the paperwork. 

Undaunted, Wardle tracks down Natasha Josefowitz, who had been Neubauer's research assistant at the Child Development Centre. She now lives in La Jolla, California and shows the crew around her comfortable home, pausing to show off photographs of her posing with Errol Flynn, Robert Reford, Al Gore and Barack and Michelle Obama. But Josefowitz is more than willing to discuss Neubauer and his study, although she insists that she was on its periphery rather than an active participant. Nevertheless, she heard it being discussed in the office and still believes that its aim to discern whether humans are the product of `nature or nurture' was worthwhile. 

Josefowitz also asserts that the study took place in very different times to our own, when the cause of scientific discovery was paramount and few had serious scruples about deliberately separating unwanted twins at birth and charting their development in isolation. However, as she had relocated to Switzerland in 1965, she had lost touch with Neubauer and has no idea what happened to his findings. Nevertheless, knowing his intellect, she has little doubt that they would have been momentous. 

Aunt Hedy explains that Holocaust survivors know all about the damage that cruel experimentation can cause and she remembers thinking that the triplets were throwing themselves into their relationship without having had the benefit of coming to understand each other as individuals while growing up in a shared space. Thus, when Richard Kellman died and the siblings started arguing about workloads and responsibilities at Triplets, Bobby decided to back out and Eddy and David felt betrayed. Speaking to camera, both David and Bobby agree that this breach damaged the bond beyond repair and they concede that things between them were never quite the same again. 

As he had been the keenest to make the reunion work, Eddy was hit the hardest when the road got rocky. Brenda recalls how his behaviour had become increasingly erratic, while his moods had started to swing. Eventually, Eddy was diagnosed with manic depression and committed to a psychiatric facility and David particularly emphathised with him because he had been hospitalised during his teens. Indeed, all three siblings had experienced problems in adolescence, with Bobby being caught up in a murder case when he had covered for some friends. 

Yet the adoptive parents had seemingly never been informed about any incidence of mental illness in the birth family. By contrast, Elyse Schein had received a letter from Louise Wise Services explaining that her birth mother had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and had spent many years in therapy and/or institutions. When David is asked if their own mother had had mental health problems, he speculates that she might have had some minor difficulties. But he doesn't know for sure and looks uneasily into the camera. 

Bobby similarly shifts in his seat when asked about Eddy and he suggests that Wardle lets David fill in the details. He recalls Eddy failing to turn up for front of house duties at the restaurant and, as they lived opposite each other, he had called Janet to see if his brother's car was in the drive. She had gone to check on Eddy and had called David back in great distress and had pleaded with him to come home. By the time he arrived, however, the police had sealed off the house and David was informed that he wouldn't want to see what had happened inside. 

With the pain still evident, Bobby explains that Eddy had shot himself and he appears to go into a daze, as he stares into the lens reliving his emotions when David had called him. He had sensed something was wrong before his brother had spoken to him and David similarly drifts off into his own thoughts before the camera prior to wandering off the set in a state of numbness. 

Having discovered that the majority of the separated twins and triplets in Neubauer's study were born to mothers with a history of mental illness, Wright concluded that he had been seeking to determine whether such conditions were heritable. After Eddy's death in 1995, David vowed to find out what was in the study, in case it had any ramifications for himself and his family down the line. However, when Neubauer died in 2008, he donated his archive to Yale and placed it under embargo until 2066. When David calls the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services to see if it would be willing to let him see the material, he is repeatedly fobbed off and Wright reveals that this body has some very powerful backers who would not want to incur any resulting adverse publicity if the documents proved combustible. 

Wright had interviewed Neubauer on tape and his evasive responses to questions about a possible publication date suggest that he had no intention of going public with his findings. But Wardle tracks down his former assistant, Lawrence Perlman, to Ann Arbor, Michigan and he is willing to discuss his part in the study. For 10 months, the 24 year-old Perlman had been one of the field assessors who had visited the homes of Neubauer's twins and triplets and he jokes that he was always aware that he couldn't let slip casual remarks about having recently seen their siblings, as he would have given the entire game away. He also reads from some notes he had taken during his visits to Bobby, Eddy and David and insists that he was solely studying the parental style of the different families and reveals that the older sisters had already been placed with them in order to provide some points of comparison. 

David and Bobby come together on camera to view Perlman's interview on a laptop and they agree to feeling like lab rats. Alice Shafran explains that the families were very different, with Richard Kellman doting on David's every deed, while her husband, Mort, had been a busy man and didn't always have sufficient free time to spend with him. However, she insists that Mort was equally devoted in suggesting that Eddy had the toughest relationship with his father because Elliott Galland was a traditional disciplinarian, whose word was law. 

Aunt Hedy posits that Eddy had a tough time and recalls that he didn't talk about Elliott, who rarely attended family gatherings. Brenda concurs that they were very different, as Eddy was arty and his father had a very soldierly approach to life. Elliott admits that he could be strict and Brenda says Eddy often confided in her that he was an outsider who felt he was in the wrong place. Elliott admits that he didn't preside over a sharing family when it came to problems. But he maintains that they had looked out for one another at all times and neither Bobby nor David blames him for what happened to their brother. Eddy simply didn't fit in and this happens in biological families, too. Nevertheless, Elliott clearly regrets not helping his son prepare for life's vicissitudes and reveals that he and his wife had sobbed when they had been told that Eddy had committed suicide. 

Concluding captions reveal that the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services had responded to new of the making of the film by giving David and Bobby access to 10,000 pages from the Neubauer files. The majority, however, had been heavily redacted and, even if Neubauer had reached any definitive conclusions, they had been withheld. As the film ends, Perlman and Josefowitz confess that four individuals from the study remain unaware that they have a twin. David finds this mind-boggling, although Wright implies that no one should be surprised if they turned a corner and bumped into a twin whose existence had been suppressed in the name of scientific research. 

This final declaration rather sums up the problem Wardle that has in tying up the loose ends relating to the triplets in particular and the Neubauer study in general. He seemingly shares Bobby and David's conviction that Elliott did his best in rearing Eddy and that it's impossible to say whether he would still be alive if he had been placed with an easier going father. 

But, even though we might consider Neubauer's programme to be reprehensible (especially as he had fled a regime that had sanctioned similar, if more hideous, experiments by the likes of Josef Mengele), by judging it according to modern ethical standards, Wardle finds himself on shakier ground. There's no question that Josefowitz and Perlman are seeking to cover their own backs in rationalising Neubauer's hypothesis and methodology. But the lack of indictable evidence from the Neubauer archive leaves the waters looking as much muddy as murky and the film rather self-righteously pushes its luck in intimating that the 2066 seal has any sinister connotations.

By and large, however, Wardle does a decent job in drawing the audience into what remains a remarkable story. He also deserves credit for adding an investigative element to the talking-head reminiscences. At times, he makes irksome (over)use of dramatic reconstructions, with the decision to dub a voice for Eddy as Bobby recalls their first phone call being the tackiest of his missteps. Paul Saunderson's score also has a tendency to overplay its hand, despite it allowing Wardle to make some tricky tonal shifts, as the story turns from tabloid gold to the stuff of dystopic science fiction. But, that said, Michael Harte's cutting of the footage of Brenda and Eddy's wedding to Billy Joel's `Scenes From an Italian Restaurant' reveals the deftest of touches.

Similarly supremacist notions recur, albeit on a shockingly larger scale, in Lorna Tucker's Amá, an exposé of the sterilisation strategies implemented by the Indian Health Service on behalf of the US the Department of Health, Education and Welfare under the auspices of the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act. A decade in the making and taking its title from the Navajo word for `mother', this is a timely and important study and represents a considerable improvement on Tucker's fawning first outing, Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist. 

Opening with Michelle Obama's 2015 assertion that the problems facing the Native American population are the result of `a long history of systematic discrimination and abuse', the film introduces us to 67 year-old Jean Whitehorse of the Near Mountain Clan from New Mexico. She reveals that she had signed a paper authorising her sterilisation when she was in agony awaiting an appendectomy and has said nothing about her ordeal because she was so ashamed and believed hers to be an isolated case. However, she came to realise that she had been the victim of a concerted policy sanctioned by Washington and agrees not only to appear in Tucker's film, but also to testify to at a hearing in Green Bay, Wisconsin into the sterilisation scandal. 

During her speech, Jean refers to her grandmother, who had lived to the age of 106. As her Navajo name translated as `Many Children', Jean felt that she had let her grandmother down by only having a single daughter before she had undergone a tubal ligation. She had told Jean about the infamous Long Walk in the 1860s, when the Navajo were forcibly removed from their tribal lands and resettled in Bosque Redondo in what is now New Mexico. En route, they were used as forced labour during the building of Fort Sumner, which they dubbed `the Place of Despair'. 

Despite the attempts to establish a reservation, however, the Navajo were permitted to return to their homeland. Under the terms of the accompanying treaty, however, they agreed to have their children educated and Jean takes Tucker to the boarding school to which she had been dispatched at the age of five. She recalls how the genders were segregated and describes some of the punishments she endured. Moreover, she declares that every attempt was made to detach the children from their own history and traditions. 

In order to learn more about the Indian Health Service programme, Tucker goes to Seattle to meet Reimert Ravenholt, a doctor of Danish extraction who had been raised as part of a family of nine. As part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's `War on Poverty', he had devised the formula `Resources divided by Population equals the Human Condition' and he beams for the camera in concluding that it makes sense to limit the number of children poor families can have because the extra mouths merely drag them deeper into poverty. 

Having finished school in 1968, Jean was subjected to mandatory relocation, as part of a nationwide effort to distance Native American youths from tribal influences. She was sent to Oakland, California and quickly become radicalised through her contact with Black Power groups. Moreover, when she visited San Francisco, she participated in the 1969-71 occupation of the island prison of Alcatraz, which had been chosen because its inescapable isolation and lack of amenities. However, she had also become pregnant during her stay and Jean reveals that the clinic had tried to persuade her to give up her child for adoption in order to offset her medical bills.

During her interview with Ravenholt, he had remembered being impressed by the speed and efficiency of the new tubal ligation techniques that had been introduced in the late 1960s. We see archive footage of an operation taking place before Tucker heads to Houston, Texas to consult a specialist in the field of reverse procedures, Bernard Rosenfeld. As a young doctor, he had been appalled at being ordered into cajoling all gynaecology patients into having their tubes tied and recalls one senior medic telling him that the country had a right to control the poor if they had to pay for them. Consequently, Rosenfeld blew the whistle on the practice of slipping sterilisation consent forms into the papers women were being asked to sign before having emergency surgery and caesarian sections. 

He had been threatened with being struck off for revealing the names of colleagues who had been violating the rights of women like Jean, who had been duped into signing forms before her appendectomy. But, as historian Sally Torpy confirms, Jean also felt she had been denied the right to enjoy the riches of a large family, which the Navajo place far above any material wealth. Torpy has conducted extensive research into the efforts of Native American doctor Connie Uri to investigate concerns among her nursing staff that women were being mistreated. She persuaded Democratic Senator James Abourezk, who was chairman of the Select Committee on Indian Affairs, to open a General Accounting Office inquiry and helped publicise its findings that 3406 Native American women had been sterilised in four of the 12 IHS hospitals in the Bay area between 1973-76. 

Yet few women were willing to discuss their plight because of the stigma involved. But Tucker meets Yvonne Swann, who had been given a total hysterectomy without her consent. Her treatment reflects Rosenfeld's contention that a study had shown that 94% of obstetricians believed that women who had given birth to three or more illegitimate children should be compulsorily sterilised. He insists that the policies underpinned by such views caused more harm than good, as many families fell apart because husbands wanted more children and lots of women were denied the chance to remarry because they were not able to give their new spouse the offspring he might have wanted. 

A member of the Comanche nation, Charon Asetoyer is the director of the Native American Women's Health Education Resource Centre in South Dakota. In addition to providing hot meals for the underprivileged, she also runs classes to help preserve tribal languages and offers support to women who have become alcoholics because they have been denied the right to become the head of the kind of large households in which they had been raised. Jean admits that she spent a decade struggling with drink and Yvonne laments that she had no one to confide in, as she felt so alone with her pain and shame. 

As Asetoyer reveals, laws were introduced in the 1970s to remove the legal validity of documents signed under duress, while a 30-day waiting period was introduced to give women a chance to change their minds. But Rosenfeld is frustrated by the fact that these rules can be circumvented and wants to force hospital administrators to take fuller responsibility by vouching for the legitimacy of all procedures that take place under their jurisdiction. 

Following a rather muddled segment on the benefits that Jean derives from sundancing (which isn't helped by the fact that the filming of Native American tribal and spiritual rites is forbidden), Asetoyer welcomes Tucker to her newly established radio station. She reveals that it had played a role in the (unsuccessful) protest against the Dakota pipeline that had had such a unifying effect upon the tribes that representatives of the Crow and the Sioux had joined forces for the first time since the Battle of the Little Bighorn. But, more importantly, the camp had introduced a new generation of Native American women to the concept of standing up for themselves and she hopes that the radio station will continue to educate and encourage, as the louder the voices the harder they are to ignore. 

At the end of Tucker's chat with Ravenholt, he becomes emotional when he recalls the positive contribution made by his anti-poverty crusade, But Torpy tells a very different story, as she describes how a Native American pressure group had presented evidence relating to enforced sterilisation to a human rights body in Geneva and been informed that the programme was a form of genocide. She also reveals that one small tribe had been wiped out because all of the women of child-rearing age had been sterilised. 

Tucker takes Jean back to Alcatraz with her daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter and she makes a short speech about how she had demanded her money back as a 19 year-old because the prison had been built on stolen land. She vows to keep telling her story and Tucker voices the  hope that justice will finally be done before concluding with a Cheyenne proverb about a `nation not being conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground'.

According to a caption, North Carolina became the first state to admit its culpability for the sterilisation of African-American women in 2002. But Native American women have yet to receive any form of apology and Tucker ends by urging viewers to get involved with the campaign. Such advocacy is admirable and the film serves a vital purpose in publicising an atrocity that should shame a nation. 

However, the documentary has its shortcomings. Tucker has a tendency to presume foreknowledge in presenting striking pieces of archive footage or referencing salient facts. She also takes her story at a heck of a clip and, given that the film runs for under 75 minutes, she might have devoted more time to contextualising and clarifying her information. A case in point is the stance taken by Connie Uri, whose name will be wholly unfamiliar to those not already familiar with the IHS scandal. Similarly, Tucker can be cavalier with statistics, such as Rosenfeld's claim about 94% of obstetricians, a figure that is presented without a verifiable source or any supplementary details relating to the location of these clinicians or when they made their remarks about enforced sterilisation.

Such emotive material needs to be handled carefully and Tucker's organisational skills sometimes let her down, as she jaunts across the United States and flits between the intimate and the institutional without always laying the groundwork. She also fails to press Reimert Ravenholt, whose conscience seems as free as those of Natasha Josefowitz and Lawrence Perlman in Three Identical Strangers. Nevertheless, getting him to appear on camera at all and allowing viewers to reach their own conclusions is a commendable achievement and, in this instance, what matters most is what Tucker's film has to say rather than how it is said.