After 655,471 words, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that 2018 has not been a vintage year for cinema. Indeed, it may well be the least memorable in the decade since the Parky at the Pictures columns departed print to become an online part of the Oxford Times. Yet the fact that admissions nationwide rose by 5% seems to suggest that audiences were happy enough with the fare being served up for them. Or were they simply grateful for anything to distract them for an hour or two from the gloom of real life?

According to Box-Office Mojo, 672 features went on general release in the UK during the first 51 weeks of the year, with siblings being responsible for the highest and lowest grossing offerings, as Anthony and Joe Russo's Avengers: Infinity War took $96.6 million and Jason and Carlos Sanchez's Allure made just $39. On our own doorstep, Oxford got a new cinema and bade farewell to the much-admired owner of its oldest, while Didcot was chosen as the location for a new studio. Who knows, we may all soon be cheering, `Hooray for Diddywood'. 

The early part of the year was dominated by such Oscar fodder as Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water, Joe Wright's Darkest Hour and Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. We also witnessed the much-heralded final performance by Daniel Day Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread and admired the craft behind Saul Dibb's Journey's End, Aaron Sorkin's Molly's Game, Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird and Craig Gillespie's I, Tonya. Yet none of these admirable pictures will live long in the historical memory and the same is true of such later releases as Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born, Bryan Singer's Bohemian Rhapsody, Damien Chazelle's First Man, Mike Leigh's Peterloo, Spike Lee's BlacKKKlansman, George Tilman, Jr.'s The Hate U Give and Joel and Ethan Coen's The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.

Like Alfonso Cuarón's Roma, the latter was intended more for the Netflix viewership than cinema-goers and the furore about what can and cannot qualify for the major awards is bound to rumble on into what they are already calling 2019. So will the fact that sequels and remakes continue to dominate the box-office charts, with the only `original' duo in the Top 10 being Ryan Coogler's Black Panther and Will Gluck's truly awful Peter Rabbit - and they are, of course, presold spin-offs from a Marvel comic and a Beatrix Potter book that has been adapted in various forms before. 

For the record, the retreads in the Top 10 were Ol Parker's Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again!, Brad Bird's Incredibles 2, JA Bayona's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, David Leitch's Deadpool 2 and David Yates's Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Not one of these titles was greeted with anything approaching euphoria by the critics and the gulf between tastes will only widen as respected publications disappear and the studios continue to promote their pictures by cherry-picking the most sycophantic gushings of their favoured fansites. Word to the wise, if the quote plugging a movie is in huge type and its source is microscopic, don't believe the hype. 

Among the titles to find critical favour were Debra Granik's Leave No Trace, Tamara Jenkins's Private Life, Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here, Steve McQueen's Widows, John David Lowery's The Old Man & the Gun, Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You. Bart Layton's American Animals, Paul Schrader's First Reformed, Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs and Greg Berlanti's Love, Simon. It was also a notable year for sophisticated horror, with fewer than usual having a bad word to say about Ari Aster's Hereditary, Krasinski's A Quiet Place, Alex Garland's Annihilation and Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria.

Moving into the realm of American independent cinema, the inimitable Harry Dean Stanton checked out in fine form in John Carroll Lynch's Lucky, while Andrew Haigh made a solid Stateside bow with Lean On Pete. There were impressive performances to admire in otherwise dramatically unpersuasive outings like Camille Thoman's Never Here, Desiree Akhavan's The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Björn Runge's The Wife and Michael Mayer's The Seagull, while the quirk quotient was high in Justin Chon's Gook, Christina Choe's Nancy and Marc Meyers's My Friend Dahmer. 

Among the non-blockbuster animations, the most intriguing were Amalie Næsby Fick, Jørgen Lerdam and Philip Einstein Lipski's The Giant Pear and Richard Lanni's Sgt Stubby: An Unlikely Hero. But, otherwise, this was a below par year for kidpix, with Disney holding sway courtesy of animations like Lee Unkrich's Coco and Rich Moore and Phil Johnston's Ralph Breaks the Internet, revists including Ron Howard's Solo: A Star Wars Story and Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time and such reworkings as Mark Forster's Christopher Robin and Rob Marshall's Mary Poppins Returns. 

Detouring Down Under for Warwick Thornton's Sweet Country and the Kiwi anthology, Waru, we arrive in Blighty with two contrasting accounts of a doomed round the world yacht attempt in James Marsh's worthy The Mercy  and Simon Rumley's much more interesting, Crowhurst. Rupert Everett also indulged in a touch of the biographicals in The Happy Prince, while Josh Appignanesi innovatively toyed with notions of narrative in Female Human Animal. Timothy Spall gave a bewilderingly bravura series of turns in Stephen Cookson's Stanley: A Man of Variety, while artist Rachel Maclean went dayglo crazy in Make Me Up. 

Elsewhere, John McPhail proved that patience is a virtue when Where Do We Go From Here? and Anna and the Apocalypse finally secured theatrical releases, while there were reasons to commend about such diverse offerings as Dominic Savage's The Escape, Michael Pierce's Beast, Mark Gillis's Sink, Mitra Tabrizian's Gholam, Jean-Stéphane Sauvage's A Prayer Before Dawn and Sebastián Lelio's Disobedience. But the less said the better about such homegrown misfires as Sid Sadowskyj and Scott Elliott's Scott and Sid and Matt Gambell's King of Crime. 

Crossing to the continent, the French have kept arthouse audiences entertained with Michel Hazanavicius's Jean-Luc Godard biopic, Redoubtable, François Ozon's L'Amant Double, Claire Denis's Let the Sunshine In, Anne Fontaine's Reinventing Marvin, Laurent Cantet's The Workshop, Xavier Legrand's Custody, Léonor Serraille's Jeune Femme, Robin Campillo's 120 Beats Per Minute, Xavier Giannoli's The Apparition, Laurent Tirard's Return of the Hero, and the Arnaud Desplechin duo of My Golden Days and Ismael's Ghosts. 

The pick of the Germanic contingent is Valeska Grisebach's Western, although there were moments to recommend Fatih Akin's In the Fade, Robert Schwentke's The Captain and Emily Atef's Romy Schneider biopic, 3 Days in Quiberon. Another year of film watching has been considerably improved by the bi-monthly contributions of CinemaItaliaUK, while Italian offerings like Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza's Sicilian Ghost Story and Matteo Garrone's Dogman were unlucky to miss out on the Top 12 of 2018. There was also much to like about such Euro pictures as Icelander Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson's Under the Tree, Swede Gustav Möller's The Guilty, Portuguese sophomore Pedro Pinho's The Nothing Factory, Pole Malgorzata Szumowska's Mug and Ukrainian Sergei Loznitsa's A Gentle Creature. 

Roving further and wider, African cinema continued to struggle to make a global impact, in spite of such fine films as Tarik Saleh's The Nile Hilton Incident, Leanne Welham's Pili and John Trengove's The Wound. Palestine and Iran made admirable contributions with Annemarie Jacir's Wajib and Ali Soozandeh's Tehran Taboo, while, on the Asian front, Hirokazu Kore-eda's The Third Murder and Mouly Surya's Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts were joined by such adult animations as Mamoru Hosoda's Mirai and Jian Liu's Have a Nice Day. Finally, Sebastián Lelio's A Fantastic Woman and Lucrecia Martel's Zama relieved an otherwise forgettable 12 months for Latin American film. 

12)  THE SQUARE.

Reuben Östlund must have suspected that he would come away from the Academy Awards empty handed, as only four films have ever managed to follow a Palme d'or victory at Cannes with the Oscar for Best Foreign Film: Claude Lelouch's Un Homme et une Femme (1966), Volker Schlondörff's The Tin Drum (1979), Bille August's Pelle the Conqueror (1987) and Michael Haneke's Amour (2012). The odds are even worse for an English-language film, as Delbert Mann's Marty (1955) remains the only Cannes winner to scoop Best Picture. By combining Swedish and English in The Square, Östlund almost guaranteed he would be pipped by Sebastián Lelio's A Fantastic Woman, which also turns the spotlight on prejudice, snobbery and injustice. Indeed, this recreation of events surrounding a 2014 art project that had been devised by Östlund and producer Kalle Boman revisits several of the themes that Östlund had explored in his distinctively darkly humorous manner in Involuntary (2008), Play (2011) and Force Majeure (2014), 

Since Sweden abolished its monarchy, the royal palace has been converted into a modern art gallery known as X-Royal Museum. The senior curator is Dane Christian Nielsen (Claes Bang), who is the epitome of artsy trendiness. Yet, he struggles to explain a pompous piece of postmodernist jargonese on the museum website when challenged by an American journalist named Anne (Elisabeth Moss). She shrugs at his response and terminates the interview, while trying to work out whether her handbag really would become a work of art if placed in a gallery. Outside, as an equine statue is hauled down from in front of the palace, workers install in its place an exhibit made up of neatly arranged cobbles that is fitted with a brass plaque that reads: `This Square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within its boundaries, we all share equal rights and obligations.' 

One morning while walking to work, Christian sees a distressed woman (Sofie Hamilton) running away from a thuggish pursuer. When she asks a stranger (Robert Hjelm) for help, Christian feels compelled to support him and they manage to repel the angry man, while the other commuters on the square melt away. The have-a-go heroes congratulate each other on their response to a crisis and Christian walks away feeling good about himself. However, when he checks his pockets for his phone, he realises he has been robbed and he suddenly becomes as invisible as the man sleeping rough nearby when he asks a woman if he can borrow her mobile to report the robbery. 

Arriving for work, Christian goes to a meeting with the PR company handling the launch of The Square. The account manager (John Nordling) dandles his new-born baby while his hipster hotshots (Daniel Hallberg and Martin Sööder) waffle on about the need to generate a controversy that will persuade journalists into writing something about what is, to all intents and purposes, a dull bunch of stones. Christian protests that this is a significant work of art that encourages viewers to reflect on the world around them and the PR people nod sagely before promising to return with an eye-popping campaign. 

Christian ends the meeting by describing his experience and assistants Michael (Christopher Læssø) and Maja (Maja Gödicke) later join him at his desk to watch the progress of the tracking device in his phone. However, he is scooted off by Elna (Marina Schiptjenko) to address the Friends of the Museum, who have been invited to a sneak preview of The Square. He begins by talking about its creator, Argentinian artist Lola Arias, but is interrupted by a phone ringing. Christian uses the interruption as an excuse to ditch his notes and speak from the heart (a gambit he has just rehearsed in the washroom). While he receives a warm round of applause, no one bothers to listen to the chef (Jonas Dahlbom), as he outlines the menu he has laid on for the guests. So, he bellows at them until they let him finish. 

Having tracked down the signal to a residential block in a rundown part of the capital, Michael suggests that Christian posts a threatening flyer through every letter box demanding the return of his property. He is sceptical, but Michael convinces him that aggression is the only language the thieves will understand. They get the giggles composing the text over supper and wine and belt out a track by a band called Justice, as they drive to the estate on the outskirts. Christian is disappointed with Michael when he refuses to go inside and post the letters and questions whether he can trust him in a professional capacity when he is willing to let his high-profile boss risk detection. But, having put on gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, Christian gets a rush out of dashing along the corridors and down the staircases. Sat in the car, however, Michael (who is black) keeps being pestered by likely lads and he is mightily relieved when Christian comes back and they can speed off. 

Undaunted by finding the heirloom cufflinks he thought had been stolen, Christian heads for work the next morning through a city centre full of people being ignored as they beg. He calls into the 7/11 he had denoted as the drop-off point for his stuff to see if anyone had left a parcel and gets waylaid by an angry woman who demands that he buys her a chicken ciabatta without onions. Smiling graciously, Christian orders the sandwich, only to toss it on to the table with a curt insistence that she fishes out her own onions. 

At the museum, an invigilator stops the only person who has shown any interest in an exhibit comprised of small hills of dirt and a neon sign reading `You Have Nothing' from taking a photograph. In another room, Sonja (Annica Liljeblad) starts a Q&A session with a celebrated artist named Julian (Dominc West). However, their dialogue keeps being interrupted by the interjections of a man with Tourette's Syndrome (Stefan Gödicke) and Julian insists on continuing, even though some of the audience members are offended by the graphic language. Meanwhile, Christian gets a call from the 7/11 to inform him that a package has been left for him and he is so pleased that his ruse has worked that he gives all of the cash in his wallet to the chicken ciabatta woman, who is begging outside. 

That night, Christian dances furiously at a museum function and plays a harpsichord during an impromptu tour of the royal apartments. While queuing for the bathroom, he bumps into Anne and, despite promising himself that he will not sleep with her, winds up back at her apartment. He is taken aback when a chimpanzee wanders past and starts looking at drawings on the sofa. But Anne enters the bedroom to initiate a vigorous session of love-making that ends with an argument over the disposal of the condom. Christian insists he will handle the matter, but Anne stomps in carrying a pedal bin and accuses him of thinking so highly of himself that he protects his semen. She tugs at the condom and Christian lets go for fear it will break and Anne dumps it in the bin and strides off with a sense of seething satisfaction. 

Distracted by a note left at the 7/11 threatening chaos for accusing the author of being a thief, Christian is late for a meeting at the PR team announce that the museum is competing for attention with terrorists, natural disasters and the bile of right-wing politicians. Consequently, they have created a promotional film to stop people in their tracks by showing a young blonde beggar girl being assaulted inside The Square. Michael and Nicki (Nicki Dar) can barely suppress their mocking amusement at the concept, while Sonja and Maja are stunned. But, when Christian pops in to drag Michael and Nicki away, he gives the artwork a cursory glance and urges the publicists to develop their theme. 

Christian sends Michael and Nicki to collect the note from the 7/11 and the former is cornered by a tweenage immigrant boy (Elijandro Edouard), who points out that his parents have grounded him because the letter posted through their door accused him of being a thief. When Michael tries to explain that he isn't Christian, the kid becomes aggressive and knocks over a rubbish bin in demanding to be taken seriously. Back at the museum, Anne finds Christian to ask why he has been avoiding her since they slept together. Sonja interrupts briefly to tell Christian that a cleaner has sucked part of the `You Have Nothing' piece into their sit-on vacuum and he promises to come and help her sort things out. But, first, he has to endure a dressing down, in which Anne suggests that he enjoys using his status to seduce women and he struggles to gainsay her without tripping himself up. One of the invigilators tries to eavesdrop on them from beside a noisy exhibit of some piled schoolroom chairs, as Christian tries to deflect Anne's assertion that she finds him both fascinating and sinister. 

Alone in his apartment, Christian is reading the migrant boy's letter when he hears someone rattling his door handle. He is relieved to find it is daughters Lise (Lise Stephenson Engström) and Lilly (Lilianne Mardon), although it takes a while before he is able to stop them squabbling. In order to keep them amused, he takes them on a tour of the museum and they are puzzled by the exhibits, including The Square. He also takes them shopping. But, while he is waiting for them to meet him, Christian receives a phone call from YouTube congratulating him on the promo film going viral. Leaving a beggar (Copos Pardaliam) to mind his bags, he goes searching for his daughters. 

By the time he arrives at the museum, we have seen the footage of the tiny child being blown to smithereens while holding a kitten inside The Square. Elna is waiting in Christian's office to inform him that he must abide by any decisions that the board takes on his future and he reluctantly agrees, despite protesting that he had nothing to do with the offensive content. That night, they both attend a fund-raising gala, where Christian has arranged for performance artist Oleg Rogozjin (Terry Notary) to interact with the guests a a human ape. Initially, the antics are greeted with nervous laughter. But one man storms out after Oleg knocks his glass out of his hand and squares up to him when he tries to laugh off the incident by making monkey noises. Christian stands to call for applause to end the show, but Oleg is in no mood to back down and leaps on a table and begins pawing a woman (Madeleine Barwén Trollvik) before he pulls her behind him by the hair. A number of men in dinner jackets leap to their defence and, with one woman calling for them to kill Oleg, the set about beating him to a pulp. 

Returning home in a downpour with Lise and Lilly, Christian runs into the boy from the flats at the foot of the stairs. He demands that Christian comes to speak to his parents to clear his name and apologises for getting him into trouble. Sending the girls upstairs, Christian tries to reason with the boy, but he starts knocking on doors in order to humiliate Christian in front of his neighbours. Outside his own apartment, Christian gives the kid a push and he falls backwards down the stairs. Bundling his daughters inside, Christian tries to ignore the cries for help (as does everyone else in the building) and it's only when he's sure he is gone that he goes down to the dumpster and scrambles through the bin bags in an attempt to find the piece of paper on which the youth had scrawled his phone number. 

Back on his sofa, Christian records a message in which he apologises for his baseless accusation. However, he feels the need to justify his actions and claims that he is not solely responsible for the divisions in society. He even suggests that those on the lower rungs have misconceptions about the privileged that match their own mistrust of the marginalised. But his inability to express himself causes him further problems when he announces his resignation at a press conference and one journalist accuses him of imposing a limit on what might be considered acceptable levels of free speech. When Christian suggests that freedom to say what one wants comes with a degree of responsibility, the reporter condemns such self-censorship. Another demands to know why the girl was blonde when the migrant crisis in Europe suggests she should have had darker hair. But Christian strives to put a lid on things by quoting the plaque in the middle of The Square. 

Next day, the papers are united in their condemnation of the museum for its sick provocation and a priest, a rabbi and an imam join forces to condemn Christian. That afternoon, he goes with Lilly to watch Lise perform in a cheerleading competition. On the way home, he stops on the estate to apologise to the boy who tumbled down the stairs, only to learn that his family has moved away. As the film ends, Lise and Lilly look at their father from the backseat and wonder what is going on. 

Coming in at a gruelling 151 minutes, this scathing satire on the slow death of complacent Western liberalism will seem astute or harsh depending on the viewer's political standpoint. As in his previous pictures, Östlund refuses to compromise in his depiction of protagonists sinking further out of their depth and his insights here into class, race, gender, political correctness and the commercialisation of culture have jagged edges that carve through audience preconceptions. Echoes abound of Luis Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock, Federico Fellini, Roy Andersson and Paolo Sorrentino, as Östlund takes dark comedy to its bleakest extremes to chart the decline and fall of a smug, superficial chauvinist who makes so many poor choices that one is forced to question the judgement of those who placed him in a position of such power and influence. 

This is, of course, the whole point, as we are the guilty ones who allow status, privilege and freedom of speech to be abused by our failure to hold the rich, famous and powerful to account. But there is still something ghoulishly satisfying about watching a preening popinjay like the mischievously named Christian getting his just desserts, even if some of us do hope that the experience of being reduced to nothing under the unblinking gaze of his daughters will prove his first step on the road to salvation. 

Oozing bourgeois hubris and passive hypocrisy, Claes Bang excels as the third-rate alpha male whose shortcomings are exposed with such cruel precision. His scenes with the marvellously pugnacious Elijandro Edouard and the typically riveting Elisabeth Moss are particularly squirm-inducing and, by all accounts, there are some astonishing out-takes of the condom sequence hidden away in Östlund's vaults. He is splendidly served by production designer Josefin Åsberg and cinematographer Fredrik Wenzel, as every gallery space, office and dwelling sheds light on Christian's milieu and mindset. A few gags fall flat, such as the Tourette's interlude, while he lets Christian give Anne the slip a little too easily. But, as the exploding waif and human ape sequences show, Östlund is a film-maker prepared to take chances, as he knows that the more he risks alienating the audience, the closer he is getting to their truth.

11)  COLD WAR.

Having studied for a PhD in German literature at Oxford before decamping to make actualities for the BBC, Polish-born Pawel Pawlikowski held the post of Creative Arts Fellow at Oxford Brookes University during one of the most traumatic periods of his life. He had been lauded for the features Last Resort (2000) and My Summer of Love (2004) and was nearing completion of an adaptation of Magnus Mill's novel, The Restraint of Beasts, when his Russian wife Irina was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died in tragic circumstances in October 2006.

Opting to devote himself to his teenage children, Pawlikowski remained in Boar's Hill and taught at the National Film School before resuming his career with the poignant Parisian-set ghost story, The Woman in the Fifth (2011). During this period, Pawlikowski also returned to his Warsaw roots, although his Oscar-winning drama, Ida (2013), also owes something to his Oxford sojourn, as it drew on the life of controversial military prosecutor Helena Brus-Wolinska, whom he had met during his student days through her economist husband, Wlodzimierz Brus. However, the characters in Pawlikowski's new film, Cold War, were named after his doctor father and dancer mother and their story owes something to the spirit of their often fractious relationship.

It's 1949 and Wiktor Warski (Tomasz Kot) and Irena Bielecka (Agata Kulesza) are travelling around rural Poland with Lech Kaczmarek (Borys Szyc) to record traditional folk songs and unearth talents for a specialist performance troupe. As peasants sing and play for the reel-to-reel recorder, Wiktor and Irena are enchanted by the variety of music they hear. But Kaczmarek is harder headed and refuses to entertain dialect lyrics, as he drives their van through the snowy countryside. But even he can still have his conscience pricked, as he looks around the ruins of an abandoned church and is taken aback by a frescoed face peering out from a layer of cracked plaster. 

They invite hopefuls to a remote stately home and Zuzanna Lichon (Joanna Kulig), who is most certainly not a simple country girl, persuades another woman to duet with her. Irena sees nothing special in the ambitious blonde, but Wiktor is sufficiently impressed to ask her to sing alone and she charms him with a song about love that she had heard at the movies. As he has Communist Party connections, Kaczmarek runs a background check on Zula and discovers she received a suspended sentence for killing her father. When Wiktor confronts her, however, she insists she merely used a knife to remind him that she was not her mother and that he is still alive. 

Accepted into the troupe, Zula learns how to dance and is driven hard by the sceptical Irena, who also makes the peasant costumes to be worn on stage. But Wiktor is convinced she has a unique energy and is pleased when she lasts the course and finds herself performing in Warsaw in 1951. Such is the success of the show that Wiktor and Irena are asked by a government minister (Adam Ferency) to add songs about land reform, the Party hierarchy and world peace to the repertoire. But, while Irena is dead against such propagandising, Kaczmarek is very much in favour, as he knows they could be invited to perform in capitals across the Soviet bloc. 

Thus, at their next concert, a large portrait of Joseph Stalin is unfurled behind the female choir and Irena leaves the auditorium in disgust. As the conductor, Wiktor decides to accept the inevitable. Yet, when he becomes Zula's lover and she informs him that she is spying on him for Kaczmarek, he is powerless to walk away. Indeed, when she throws herself in the lake in protest at his bourgeois petulance, he returns to see her floating in the sun-kissed water and gazes into her eyes, as she dries out on the bank.

In 1952, the Mazurek company (now without Irena) is invited to East Berlin and Kaczmarek reminds everyone on the train that the city is on the border between the socialist and imperialist worlds. He also points out that, even though the GDR is now part of their family of nations, its citizens are still Germans and good Poles would do well to remember the difference. Meeting up in the toilet, Wiktor tells Zula that he has made plans to defect to the West and gives her a map showing her where they are to meet after the show. However, while he waits in the cold near the checkpoint, Zula loses her nerve, as she fears becoming a nobody in a foreign land and she remains with Kaczmarek, as he fraternises with his hosts. 

Two years later, Wiktor is playing piano with a jazz band at L'Elipse in Paris. After a gig, he waits at a backstreet café for Zula to meet him. She has slipped away from the hotel while on tour and they only have a few minutes together before she has to return. As they walk, Zula confesses that she didn't escape because she felt she lacked the talent to make it abroad and Wiktor is dismayed by her timidity. They embrace before she rushes off into the night and Wiktor returns to the apartment he shares with Juliette (Jeanne Balibar), who asks if he has been whoring before rolling over to sleep. 

When Mazurek appear in Yugoslavia in 1955, Wiktor obtains a visa to see them. He is greeted outside the theatre in Split by Kaczmarek, who offers him a seat in his VIP box. But Wiktor declines and fixes his eyes on Zula throughout the performance. She spots him during a dance routine and slightly loses her timing. However, he is bundled away by Yugoslav agents during the interval and deposited on a train back to the West. Zula tries to suppress her anxiety when she notices his empty seat and closes her eyes, as she feels the emotion of the song about lost love.

Back in Paris, Wiktor begins composing scores for film director Michel (Cédric Kahn) and he is working on a thriller scene when Zula arrives at the studio in 1957. They become lovers and take a romantic trip along the Seine on a Bateau Mouche, even though she has married a Sicilian and left Poland legally. She moves into a garret room and sings `I Loves You, Porgy' at L'Eclipse. Yet they still dance to `Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby' and have Billie Holiday's `The Man I Love' playing in the background as they forge a new life together. 

Moreover, Zula resents the fact that Jeanne has translated the lyrics of her signature song. She confronts her at a party and snarkily insists that Poland is a nicer place to live than France. Moreover, she takes exception to Wiktor telling Michel her life story and embellishing it with details about dancing for Stalin in the Kremlin and marrying an Italian duke. Grabbing a bottle, Zula hides away in the bathroom until Wiktor tells her they are going to the club. While he drinks at the bar, she bops with various men to `Rock Around the Clock' and Wiktor has to catch her when she falls backwards off the bar. 

She complains that he has changed when he dumps her on the bed, but she swears she still loves him. Yet, when he arranges for her to record an album, Zula sulks at the microphone and accuses him of helping her for his own ends. Thus, when he presents her with a copy of the disc on their way home from a soirée at Michel's, she tosses it into a fountain and he slaps her face when she says she would rather sleep with a confident Frenchman than a pathetic artist in exile. Zula returns to Poland and, when Wiktor applies to follow her, he is told by the consul (Adam Woronowicz) that he is persona non grata and will only be considered for repatriation if he informs on some of his fellow émigrés. 

Having walked back across the border, Wiktor is sent to a gulag and, in 1959, Zula gets permission to visit him. She bribes a guard so they can be alone and they kiss after he jokes that he has been accused of spying for the British. When she vows to get him released, Wiktor tells her to marry a steady guy and, by the time he gets out in 1964, Zula has had a child with Koczmarek and is performing in a black wig with a Polish mariachi band. He sympathises that Wiktor's hands have been too badly damaged in custody to continue his playing career, but he suggests re-recording the Paris album in Polish to boost Zula's fortunes. Staggering off the stage, she takes refuge in the bathroom and begs Wiktor to get her out of the country for good. 

They take a bus to a stop beneath a tree at a rustic crossroads and walk to the abandoned church with the peeping fresco. Kneeling before the altar, they light a candle, lay out a row of pills and exchange marriage vows. Having swallowed the tablets, they hold hands on the bench beneath the tree before Zula suggests they cross to the other side, as the view will be better. 

Dedicated to the parents who couldn't live with or without each other and who died in 1989 before the Berlin Wall came down, this irresistible drama demonstrates once again that Pawlikowski is the master of economical and elliptical intensity. The story might span 15 years, but it flies past, as Zula and Wiktor conspire to keep each other apart, as much as the political systems under which they find themselves living. Joanna Kulig and Tomasz Kot are exceptional in the leads and they are ably supported by Agata Kulesza as the principled musicologist and Borys Szyc as the cynical apparatchik.

There are echoes of Martin Scorsese's New York, New York (1977) in the script Pawlikowski wrote with Janusz Glowacki and Piotr Borkowski. But this kind of plotline has been frequently retooled since the advent of the talkies and it is no less truthful for its familiarity. After all, troupes like Mazowsze continue to fly the folk flag in democratic Poland. The ensemble routines are impeccably staged and Katarzyna Sobanska and Marcel Slawinski's production design is as sublime as it was in Ida. Jaroslav Kaminski's editing is equally assured, while the monochrome Academy ratio photography of Lukasz Zal (this time operating without Ryszard Lenczewski) is more fluent and redolent of Polish and French cinema in the 1950s and 60s. 

Indeed, the shot of Kulig floating on the water is simply one of the most beautiful images in any film in the last 20 years. So, while this may not be Pawlikowski's most emotionally demanding picture, it's perhaps his most visually striking and one can only await his adaptation of Emmanuele Carrère's novelised biography of Eduard Limonov (with its spoiler alert subtitle, `The Outrageous Adventures of the Radical Soviet Poet Who Became a Bum in New York, a Sensation in France, and a Political Antihero in Russia') with keen anticipation.

10)  LOVELESS.

Siberian auteur Andrei Zvyagintsev has steadily become one of the most significant voices in Russian cinema. Since winning a Golden Lion at Venice with his feature debut, The Return (2003), he has held up a mirror to the regimented and detached society being fashioned by Vladimir Putin in The Banishment (2007), Elena (2011) and Leviathan (2014), which was nominated for an Academy Award. Subtlety has never been a Russian screen trademark and Zvyagintsev's symbolism is a little laboured in his latest Oscar-nominated outing, Loveless. But there is no denying the artistic integrity and political potency of this intense blend of social realism and procedural noir.

Following shots of gnarled trees in a frozen landscape on the outskirts of Moscow, 12 year-old Matvey Novikov heads home from school alone. He pauses to pick up a strip of police cordon tape and wraps it round a branch jutting over a stretch of muddy brown water. As he tries to do his homework, mother Maryana Spivak shows some potential buyers around the flat she is selling because she is about to divorce husband Aleksei Rozin. She teases Novikov about being a cry baby and pays him little further heed before Rozin gets home. They discuss custody of their son, with Spivak refusing to take him on because she feels entitled to a fresh start after putting up with Rozin for so long. Unaware that the boy is sobbing behind the door, they consider sending him to boarding school, but Rozin is aware that his boss is a fundamentalist Christian who insists that he is married with children. 

Novikov can barely get out of the apartment fast enough the next morning, while Rozin listens to news on the car radio about a Mayan prediction of the end of the world. Eyes glued to her phone, Spivak takes a train into the city to spend the morning in her beauty salon. She coos about her new lover and despairs of Novikov while chatting to stylist Evgeniya Dmitrieva, who is equally dismissive of her 19 year-old daughter. Meanwhile, over lunch in the office canteen, Rozin consults colleague Roman Madyanov about company policy on divorce and remarriage. They eat joylessly, while gossiping about a worker who hired a fake family for a corporate function in order to keep his job and Rozin's terror of being unemployed with debts is contrasted with Spivak's hope that he loses everything for making her life a misery. 

After work, Rozin goes supermarket shopping with pregnant girlfriend Marina Vasilyeva. As her mother is away, they have the apartment to themselves and make love before Vasilyeva tearfully asks for reassurance that Rozin isn't going to abandon her and the baby. Across the city, Spivak leaves the salon and is collected by Andris Keišs, her wealthy older lover, who takes her to a posh restaurant. As the camera prowls through the room, a woman gives a stranger her phone number while on a date and a group of singles cluster together for a selfie. Spivak plays footsie under the table while flirting with Keišs and they return to his luxurious pad for energetic sex. Returning to bed with some wine, Spivak tells Keišs that she loves him and confides that she has always found intimacy difficult because her mother showed her such little affection, while she quickly realised that marrying Rozin and having a child was a mistake. She recalls the agony of giving birth and the sense of revulsion she felt for Novikov, who has barely crossed the mind of either parent, while they spend the night away from home. 

Returning after dawn, Spivak checks her phone before curling up in bed. But she is woken later in the morning by a teacher asking after Novikov, as he hasn't been to school for two days. Spivak calls Rozin, who is in the canteen queue and is quick to blame his wife for failing to notice if their son was home. He is convinced the boy has simply run away and will soon return and cop Sergei Borisov is of the same mind, as he explains to Spivak how staff shortages and a need to tackle more serious crimes prevent him from doing anything more than logging the notification. But she is stung by the suggestion that she might have reported Novikov missing to cover a murder and Borisov suggests that she goes online to find a local search team if she is so concerned that something untoward might have happened. 

By the time Rozin gets home, Spivak is already being interviewed by search chief Aleksei Fateev, who is dismayed by how little the pair know about their son and his life. While he initiates a search of the neighbourhood, volunteer Varvara Shmykova accompanies Rozin and Spivak to see if the latter's mother, Natalya Potapova, has seen Novikov. They argue incessantly during the three-hour car journey, with Rozin playing loud rock music and Spivak wanting to smoke. Eventually, they arrive and have to climb a fence and bang on the door to make Potapova respond. She is more concerned about her lost phone than her missing grandson and berates Spivak at the kitchen table, while Rozin half-heartedly joins Shmykova in searching the grounds. Potapova spews bile at Spivak, who similarly lays into Rozin on the way home, as she bemoans the fact she didn't have an abortion and allowed him to ruin her life because he needed a wife and child to boost his job prospects. She pities Vasilyeva for falling for his spiel and suggests he'll dump her when it suits him. But this remark pushes the usually placid Rozin over the edge and he pulls off the road and orders Spivak out of the car. Left in the middle of nowhere, she lights a cigarette and tries to call Keišs to rescue her. 

While Spivak sleeps, Rozin joins a search of the parkland near the high-rise estate. He also joins Fateev and Borisov in checking CCTV footage and they reach the conclusion that Novikov either disappeared or was kidnapped. Out shopping with mother Anna Gulyarenko, Vasilyeva interrupts the meeting to complain that she feels neglected and Rozin has to reassure her that things will return to normal soon. She smiles with relief and takes a selfie with Gulyarenko, who mumbles that all men are the same and that Vasilyeva must be mad for thinking Rozin is any different. 

Having tracked down Novikov's only school friend, Artyom Zhigulin, Fateev coaxes him into revealing that they hide out in an abandoned apartment block in the woods. They launch a search around the building and Rozin (who has taken time off work) remains stoic as he wanders through rooms piled high with rubble and with leaking ceilings. There's no sign of his son, however, and Spivak's trip to a nearby hospital with Keišs and Shmykova proves to be another dead end. 

As snow falls, both parents help put up posters around the neighbourhood and accompany Fateev to the morgue, where they are so relieved that a badly decomposed body isn't their son that Spivak lashes out at Rozin and he cowers crying in a corner. But this is the last time they join forces to look for Novikov. Tajik builders renovate their flat and Rozin moves in with Gulyarenko. However, as his toddler son gets in the way of the television as he watches news reports from Ukraine, Rozin unceremoniously deposits the boy in his cot and leaves him to bawl for his mother. Across the city, Keišs watches the same bulletin. But Spivak is unconcerned and, putting on a tracksuit top with the word `Russia' emblazoned across it, she goes for a jog on the running machine on the balcony. As she slows down, she looks directly into the camera, with a look that is both despondent and accusatory.

Ending with a shot of the police tape fluttering from its branch close to a lamp post bearing Novikov's missing poster, this is a grindingly sombre snapshot of modern Moscow. Disquieted by the lack of empathy in Putin's Russia, Zvyagintsev uses the story of a lost soul to deplore the deterioration of community spirit amongst a rising bourgeoisie preoccupied with easy living and instant gratification. Countless characters are shown glued to their phones, as the world passes them by. But Zvyagintsev and co-scenarist Oleg Negin are just as concerned by the mundanity of the content they look at when the country is beset by corruption, avarice, religiosity, self-obsession and neglect. With government agencies understaffed and the military interfering in the affairs of sovereign states, this appears to be a Russia that has gone backwards since the collapse of Communism. Yet, while he dots the action with barbed criticisms, Zvyagintsev has no solutions to offer other than the population remaining united. 

He similarly avoids speculating on Novikov's fate, although he suggests in the closing coda sequences that Spivak and Rozin have learnt nothing from their experiences. The ferocity of their mutual loathing was inspired by Ingmar Bergman's From the Life of the Marionettes (1980) and Spivak and Rozin bring a chilling intensity to their antipathy towards each other and their indifference towards a son whose existence and absence is little more than a nagging inconvenience. Yet, while the passively aggressive Rozin is undoubtedly a nasty piece of work, there's a disagreeably chauvinist undertone to the depiction of the female characters, with only Shmykova's volunteer possessing untainted decency. 

Elsewhere, Zvyagintsev does little to disguise his disillusion and occasionally allows his frustration to coarsen his allegorical finesse. But his artistry remains impeccable throughout, as he channels the influence of Alfred Hitchcock, Michelangelo Antonioni and Michael Haneke, as well as Romanian new wavers Christian Mungiu and Christi Puiu in capturing the sinister undercurrents of everyday life. In this regard, he is superbly served by cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, production designer Andrei Ponkratov and editor Anna Mass. Andrei Dergachev's sound design and Evgeni and Sasha Galperine's score are also admirable, as they reinforce the sense of unease that permeates both the dysfunctional drama and the vigilante search. Yet, while this treatise on the demise of love is primarily Russocentric, it also has a universality that makes it even more soberingly resonant. 

9)  THE GUARDIANS.

Surprisingly few films have been made about the Great War over the last four years. Since Ermanno Olmi produced Greenery Will Bloom Again about the Asiago plateau campaign, Austrian Ernst Gossner has visited the Alpine theatre in The Silent Mountain (both 2014), Dmitri Meskhiev has commemorated the 1st Russian Women's Battalion of Death in Battalion, Paolo Cevoli has recreated the Battle of Caporetto in Private (both 2015) and the César-winning Albert Dupontel has explored the last days before the Armistice in See You Up There (2017). In Britain, James Kent has adapted Vera Brittain's memoir in Testament of Youth (2014) and Saul Dibb has remade RC Sheriff's classic stage study of trench life, Journey's End (2017). New Zealander Peter Jackson has also raided the Imperial War Museum archives for a hand-colourised 3-D documentary that premiered at the London Film Festival, but Hollywood has yet to contribute anything to the centenary remembrance.

While the majority of features about the 1914-18 conflict have focused on the Western Front, a handful have examined the impact of the `War to End All Wars' on women. Marking the centenay of the Armistic, Bertrand Tavernier's Life and Nothing But (1989), Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement (2004) and François Ozon's Frantz (2016) are joined by Xavier Beauvois's The Guardians, a grindingly authentic adaptation of a 1924 Ernest Pérochon novel that centres on the female members of a Limousin family striving to maintain their farm while the menfolk are in uniform. 

As gas hangs on the air over corpses lying in the 1915 mud, formidable matriarch Hortense Sandrail (Nathalie Baye) and her daughter, Solange (Laura Smet), are ploughing a field at Paridier Farm under the watchful eye of the grey-bearded Henri (Gilbert Bonneau). The following year, Hortense's son, Constant (Nicolas Giraud), comes home on leave and shows his medal at the kitchen table. He calmly reveals that the victory was a backs to the wall affair and the country might have been doomed if they had failed. But he is greeted as a conquering hero at the school where he used to teach, as his replacement (Anne-Cécile Le Quere) has taught the children to recite a poem about the atrocities committed by the Boche. 

Constant urges his mother to modernise while Solange's husband, Clovis (Olivier Rabourdin), is away and he approves her plan to buy a combine harvester and share it with some of her neighbours to secure a government grant. He mentions that warfare is also becoming more mechanised, but says little about his experiences. Indeed, he finds himself consoling Solange when she reveals that she can't have children. But his visit is soon over and he wanders into the morning mist along the road abutting the farm, prompting Hortense to write to her other son, Georges (Cyril Descours), so he knows she is thinking about him. 

Needing help with the harvest, Hortense applies to Edgar (Xavier Maly) and he arranges for 20 year-old orphan Francine Riant (Iris Bry) to move to the farm. She puts a crucifix on the wall over her bed and helps with the chores, while also learning from Henri how to make miget out of stale bread and wine. He takes a shine to her, but Solange and Marguerite (Mathilde Viseux) - who is Clovis's daughter from his first marriage - barely say a word to her, even though she works hard cutting corn for the other workers to bundle up and stack in the field. A slow tracking shot captures the back-breaking nature of the toil before everyone tucks into a simple, but well-appreciated lunch. 

Clovis returns and confides that the war is a monumental folly because they fight over the same patch of ground for days on end. Moreover, the Germans are not monsters, but ordinary blokes like themselves. Hortense worries when she sees him drinking so much, but Henri assures her that this is normal for the front, as the officers make the men booze to give them courage. Keen to do his bit in the fields, Clovis joins the harvesters and tentatively renews his intimacy with Solange. But he soon returns to his regiment, as the locals listen to the roll call of the dead in the parish church. 

Shortly after Solange informs Francine that she wishes to retain her for another year, Georges comes home on leave. He is amused that Clovis keeps sending instructions back from the trenches, as he knows his mother is quite capable of running the farm on her own. Hearing Francine sing, Georges takes her into the forest to chop firewood and promises to show her where he keeps his hidden treasure. He asks her to write to him and she is pleased that someone is thinking about her. Having developed a crush on Georges, she is relieved when Hortense promises to keep her on after the war ends and, as the snow settles, she starts to feel part of the family after being shown how to use the patterned wooden butter moulds. 

As 1917 dawns, Solange receives news that Clovis has been captured and sent to a POW camp at Mannheim. Hortense takes down the atlas to show her whereabouts in Germany her husband is being held and reassures her that he is now safe. However, Constant is still in the firing line and Hortense collapses when Henri tells her that he has been killed. She remains stoic beneath a black veil during the memorial service, but it pains her that she is unable to bury her son because his body cannot be found. Francine does her best to console Hortense, Solange and Marguerite and she smiles coyly when Edgar suggests that she will make someone a good wife, when she is presented with her diploma and the bursary that the state awards her on her 21st birthday. 

In a bid to cheer up Marguerite, Francine buys her a butterfly broach. But Marguerite (who had hoped to marry Georges on his return) has found their letters and realised that he has fallen for Francine and she orders her out of the room. Hortense knows nothing of this tension, however, as she watches Francine operate the new harvester and hopes that they have turned the corner and won't have to sell any more livestock to make ends meet. They also attract new customers when the United States joins the war and Doughboys come from the nearby camp to buy vegetables. Solange is happy to chat with them. But the returning Georges is furious that they are having a glorified camping holiday while Constant is rotting in the mud and he is enduring nightmares in which he single-handedly fights off a German unit, only for the last man he kills to have his face when his gas mask falls off. 

Francine reminds Georges that the Americans are young boys far from home and he calms down. He invites her to see his treasure in the woods and they ride in his horse buggy to the lichen-covered dolmen that he finds so enchanting. The camera follows their hands, as they brush against the soft surface and Francine allows George to seduce her. She smiles at the thought of their intimacy when she returns to her room. But Marguerite calls Georges a hypocrite when he collects her from the railway station, as she had always thought that they would be sweethearts. 

Henri sells the Doughboys some of his hooch and they come to help with the threshing. Hortense is concerned that Solange is far too interested in the handsome John (Yann Bean) and spots her getting dressed after a tryst by the wood pile. Suzanne (Laurence Havard) warns Hortense that the neighbours are getting jealous of the business she does with the camp and hints that they believe the Americans patronise them because Solange is so free with her favours. 

Hortense also notices the looks exchanged by Georges and Francine, as they work in the courtyard, and feel sorry for Marguerite. On the night before he leaves, Georges makes love with Francine in her bed, but omits to mention of her by name when he makes his farewells after supper. Thus, when he sees Francine resisting John's unwelcome advances as his mother is driving him to the station, Georges asks her to fire Francine and she tuts that she has the loose morals of her late mother. 

Yet she finds it hard to sack Francine, as she is well aware that she has worked hard and done nothing to have her integrity questioned. She is wounded when Francine calls her heartless and feels a pang of remorse when Solange reprimands her for sacrificing Francine and for believing that she had slept with John, when she had merely fooled around before remembering her duty to Clovis. 

Refusing her severance pay, Francine goes to work for La Monette (Marie-Julie Maille), a charbonnier who needs help with a new batch of charcoal and with caring for her young daughter, Jeanne (Madeleine Beauvois). She quickly realises that Francine is pregnant, but is happy for her to stay, as Jeanne enjoys being read bedtime stories. As winter sets in, Georges writes to Hortense to describe the conditions in the trenches and admit that he is resigned to dying before peace can be declared. 

Unable to understand why Georges returns her letters unopened, Francine accepts La Monette's reassurance that fatherhood will soften his heart. But, when La Monette is widowed at the start of 1918, Francine becomes concerned that Georges will never know that he has a child. Edgar suggests that she writes to Hortense in the hope that she will pass the news to Georges. However, she throws the missive on the fire and suppresses a bitter sob at the way things have turned out. 

Shortly after Solange takes receipt of a new tractor, Georges returns and Hortense takes Marguerite with her to meet him at the station. He has been wounded in the leg, but he has survived and Hortense hopes that he can settle down with his new bride. However, when she sees Francine leaving the church after her baby has been baptised, Hortense feels faint at the realisation that she might never get to know her grandchild. 

Clovis returns some time in 1919 and hugs Solange when she shows him the tractor and the combine harvester. However, a dispute arises with Georges over who is to farm Constant's land and Marguerite sides with her father. Solange storms out in frustration because they are bickering when Constant's body remains undiscovered in some distant field. But Hortense is just glad to have them home and would rather they were at each other's throats than in mortal danger. As the film ends in 1920, Francine is singing with a small band at a dance in the village. The lyrics speak of the folly of love and commitment and she smiles as the couple waltz around the floor. But has she noticed Georges gazing up at her with a look of longing?

In 2010, Beauvois explored the impact of warfare on an enclosed community in Of Gods and Men, which focused on a monastic order under threat during the 1996 Algerian Civil War. The farm at Le Paridier may be less hermitic, but the lifestyle is equally austere and its continued existence is similarly jeopardised by the vicissitudes of war. Indeed, Beauvois and co-writers Frédérique Moreau and Marie-Julie Maille (who also edited the picture) pay as much attention to the seasonal cycle as they do the fears and feelings of their characters or the story's social, feminist and provincialist subtexts. Consequently, more time is devoted to Hortense toiling than emoting and, even then, she is frequently shown in long shot, as a diminutive figure on a flat expanse. 

Clearly, Beauvois and cinematographer Caroline Champetier studied the paintings of Jean-François Millet and the rustic realist Barbizon School, as well as such films as Georges Rouquier's Farrebique (1946), René Allio's I, Pierre Rivière (1976) and Ermanno Olmi's The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978). But production designer Yann Megard also deserves credit for finding such a wonderfully evocative farm setting, while Anaïs Romand's costumes are as faultless as Michel Legrand's sparingly used flute score, which reinforces the narrative's measured pacing. 

The performances are also impeccable. Reuniting with Beauvois after Le Petit Lieutenant (2004), Nathalie Baye reminds us why she is considered one of French cinema's finest actresses and there is added poignancy to her scenes with Laura Smet, as this is the first time she has appeared with her daughter by rock legend Johnny Hallyday. However, the debuting Iris Bry also makes a deep impression as Francine, with her freckled poise, steady gaze and auburn hair often giving her the look of a young Isabelle Huppert. she also sings beautifully and can count herself highly unlucky to have lost the César for Most Promising Actress to Camélia Jordana in Yvan Attal's Le Brio. 

There is one misstep, however, as the depiction of Georges's nightmare is too slight and stylised to do justice to the horrors of trench warfare with which most viewers will be well acquainted. Besides, Beauvois has already made his point about the senseless brutality of the conflict with the opening shot of the bodies bestrewing the battlefield. But the rest of the action is staged with an integrity and discretion that gives small moments like Francine taking Jeanne for a walk so La Monette can grieve alone the simple ring of truth that echoes throughout this quietly devastating drama.

8)  SUMMER 1993.

A child loses its mother in Carla Simón's Summer 1993. The winner of the prize for Best First Feature at the Berlin Film Festival, this autobiographical drama features a memorable performance by young Laia Artigas that ranks alongside Ana Torrent's career-defining work in Victor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) and Carlos Saura's Cria Cuervos (1976). But Simón's delicate evocation of time and place and touching respect for the resilience of her younger self are equally impressive and suggest that this London Film School alumna is a talent to watch. 

Watching the fireworks in the Barcelona street below the apartment where she has been living with her mother, Neus, six year-old Frida (Laia Artigas) doesn't seem to understand the bustle, as neighbour Lola (Montse Sanz) and Aunt Angela (Berta Pipó) help her Uncle Esteve (David Verdaguer) and Aunt Marga (Bruna Cusí) pack her belongings. Her grandparents (Isabel Rocatti and Fermí Reixach) fuss over her, as they struggle to contain their emotions following their daughter's death from AIDS-related pneumonia. But, as she clutches her doll in the backseat of the car, Frida still seems unaware that she is moving to the country for good to live with her four year-old cousin, Anna (Paula Robles). 

Waking the next morning to find a large grey cat named Feldespata on Anna's bed, Frida wanders into the bright sunlight to see her cousin picking plums with her mother. Marga chides Esteve when he tells Frida that she doesn't have to drink all of her milk and she smiles when he downs half the glass for her. Having helped Gabriel (Quimet Pla) box up some eggs from the chickens that make her nervous, Frida finds a statue of the Virgin Mary in a little woodland alcove. She also enjoys a free slice of ham in the butcher's, as the locals talk in code about her mother's demise. 

Back home, Frida unpacks her dolls and warns Anna not to touch them. The power fails during a storm and Frida is worried that the lantern will cause a fire. As she's troubled by eczema, Marga takes her to the doctor and Frida is frustrated at being made to undergo another series of tests after the medics in Barcelona had promised they would stop. So, she puts on lots of make-up and reclines on the sun lounger to play `mother and daughter' with Anna. She claims that she is too exhausted to play and uses lots of grown-up phrases that she obviously picked up from Neus, as she orders Anna to bring her make-believe portions of chips and olives. Later that night, she also sneaks a packet of cigarettes out of Marga's bag and asks the statue to pass them on to her mother, as grandmother Maria has told her that Neus is looking down on her from Heaven. 

Amused that Frida comes back with a cabbage when she sends her to the vegetable patch for a lettuce, Marga takes the girls to see a gigantes y cabezudos display in the village. She snaps at her friend Cesca (Paula Blanco) when Frida cuts her knee while playing tick and Cesca rushes over to prevent her daughter Irene (Etna Campillo) from touching her. Nevertheless, Marga wears a rubber glove to clean the wound, although she has no qualms about Anna and Frida sharing a bath and the latter watches with a degree of envy as Esteve dries Anna's hair. 

One weekend, his parents show up unannounced and Frida is delighted to see them. She is even more excited when Lola and Angela arrive and they sing a song while passing knotted napkins around the table. Marga is unimpressed and hisses that her mother-in-law had promised to let Frida settle before paying a visit. Sensing something is wrong, Frida asks why they are discussing a legal letter. But Lola takes her away to tell her a story about Atlantis and Frida boasts that she can hold her breath under water. After everyone has gone, Esteve puts on some music and Anna and Frida dance around on his feet. But Marga is in no mood for frivolity and, when Anna insists she has forgotten how to tie her shoelaces, she accuses Frida of being a bad example. 

Having taken a blouse to the statue and wiped away what she takes to be tears from its cheek, Frida gazes into the clouds, as though trying to work out where her mother might be watching from. She feels like being alone and, when Anna pesters her about playing, Frida takes her into the woods and leaves her sitting on a tree stump. When Marga becomes concerned about her daughter's whereabouts, Frida pretends not to know where she is - until she gets nervous and stands beside a stream in the woods hoping  Anna hasn't fallen in. In fact, she has broken her arm and is rather pleased with her plaster cast and sling. But Frida overhears Marga complaining to Esteve that the child has her mother's morals and she gets into further trouble when she picks some flowers from Gabriel's garden. Frida tries to show Marga some sympathy when she has period pains, but she is worried that her new mother is going to die on her and persuades Anna to pretend that she's scared in the night so that they can both climb into bed with her parents. 

However, the mood lightens when Frida's test results reveal that she is healthy apart from a cat allergy. Esteve tells Anna that Feldespata has gone on an adventure and she readily accepts the news. But, a few days later, he bawls at Frida after Anna slips while paddling in a deep pool and she feels left out when the rest of the family dance together during a fiesta. Thus, when her grandparents pay their next visit, Frida has a tantrum over the colour of a new nightdress and tells Lola that her aunt and uncle treat her like a maid. Moreover, she plants herself on the backseat of the car and has to be dragged out because she is about to start school and there isn't time for her to spend a few days in Barcelona. 

That night, Frida stuffs her dolls into a knapsack and heads into the kitchen for some fruit for the journey. Always awake at the slightest noise, Anna asks why she's leaving and insists she loves her when Frida declares that everyone hates her. Giving Anna a doll in gratitude, Frida strides out for the main road. However, she is frightened by a passing car and returns to inform the searching Esteve and Marga that she will go when it's light. Relieved that her niece is all right, Marga sleeps beside her and when they attend another gigantes y cabezudos procession, Frida beams with delight as she waves a Catalan flag while leading the figures into the square. 

While preparing her books for school, Frida asks Marga how her other mummy died and she explains that she succumbed to a virus that was too new for the doctors to know how to help her. Maintaining a serious face as she listens, Frida nods and starts decorating the cover of her exercise book. As they get ready for bed that night, Frida begins to bounce on the mattress and Anna needs little invitation to join in. Esteve feigns outrage and knocks them on their backs. Marga urges them to be careful, as Frida and Anna clamber over Esteve and he blows raspberries on them. Suddenly, Frida goes quiet and turns to the wall. She bursts into tears and Esteve, Marga and Anna console her as she sobs away the pain of her loss and the relief that she is safe and part of the family. 

With almost every shot centring on Frida or showing events from her perspective, a good deal is asked of Laia Artigas and she responds with an intelligence and restraint that makes Carla Simón's rite of passage all the more effective and affecting. She is deftly supported by Bruna Cusí and David Verdaguer, as the adoptive parents striving to make a home for a niece they will only have met sporadically since moving to the country. But it's Artigas's rapport with the adorably trusting Paula Robles that dominates the action, as she seeks to impose her seniority in a bid to wrest back some sort of control. 

Keeping Santiago Racaj's camera at a discreet distance, Simón allows the girls to chatter and play with a naturalism that makes the moments when Artigas places Robles in jeopardy all the more distressing. Her attempts to play on the emotions of her deeply religious grandmother also prove revealing, as does her calculating effort to convince Montse Sanz that she is being treated like Cinderella by her wicked aunt and uncle. But, as so much of the story is based on her own experiences (even the setting is the same), Simón appreciates the emotional rationale behind the child's behaviour and commends the strength she displays in coming to terms with such seismic shifts at such a young age. 

Working with production designer Mónica Bernuy, Simón cleverly uses the contrast between the bijou Barcelona apartment and the sprawling country villa to emphasise the daunting task to acclimatise facing Artigas. This is not made any easier by her unnerving encounter with the chickens, the gossiping of villagers whose views on AIDS are far from enlightened or the failure of the Marian statue to pass the blouse to her mother. But, taking her cues from Víctor Erice and Maurice Pialat, Simón tempers this loss of innocence with a celebration of the simple pleasures that help Artigas settle into her new surroundings and accept that she's finally in the right place with people who genuinely care.

7)  A CIAMBRA.

The son of an Italian father and an African-American mother, Jonas Carpignano was born in New York and raised in Rome. Film-making runs in the family, as his grandfather and uncle are documentarist Vittorio Carpignano and Luciano Emmer, who produced some of the finest films ever made about Western art. But Carpignano has been concentrating on Italy's ongoing migrant crisis since making an impression with A Chjàna, a 2012 short that recreated the unrest that erupted in Rosarno following the shooting of two African workers who had been picking fruit for the local Calabrian mafia. 

During the making of his debut feature, Mediterranea (2015), Carpignano had his car stolen in the coastal town of Gioia Tauro and his attempts to recover it from the nearby Gypsy settlement prompted him to script a loose sequel, A Ciambra. Executive produced by Martin Scorsese and produced by Carpignano's father, Paolo (who grew up in this neck of the woods), this provides positive proof that the glorious tradition of neo-realism is alive and thriving, as Carpignano elicits performances of raw power and dogged energy from a non-professional cast led by Pio Amato, who now forms part of an unholy trinity of scene-stealing juveniles with Enzo Staiola  from Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Salvatore Cascio from Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso (1988). 

Fourteen year-old Pio (Pio Amato) lives in a Roma ciambra camp outside Gioia Tauro. In the heyday of his grandfather Emiliano (U Ciccareddu), the currency was horses. But cars pay the bills for Pio's father, Rocco (Rocco Amato), and older brother, Cosimo (Damiano Amato). In addition to mother Iolanda (Iolanda Amato) and older siblings Riccardo, Simona, Antonella and Susanna, Pio also lives with nephews and nieces Nicolas Damiano, Patrizia, Cosimo, Gesuele Massimo, Cristina and Francesco Pio. He helps the latter melt down some copper wire, while trying to fire up an old motorino. But he can't afford the petrol to make it work.

Kids of all ages buzz around the outbuildings, cheeking their elders and smoking like chimneys and Pio revels in the bustle and bravura. At the disco, he runs into his Burkinabe buddy Ayiva (Koudous Seihon), who teases him about his crush on a teenage single mother and tries to force him into kissing another girl on the dance floor. But Pio is more interested in what Cosimo is up to, as he suspects he has a deal on the go. 

The next morning, the cops raid the camp and everyone scampers around to hide their illegal activities. Pio unhooks the wires siphoning off free electricity before jumping on the back of Cosimo's scooter. He shows him the car he has just stolen and asks Pio to ride lookout on the scooter while he drives it to the chop shop run by his pals. As the mechanics work, Cosimo gives Pio a crash course in how to hot wire a vehicle and disable any security devices. 

Back at home, Iolanda chides her daughters for drinking too much wine, while she chugs down a beer. They joke that they have started eating like Italians before the conversation turns to the African migrants staying near the town and the womenfolk admit to being intimidated by them. During supper, however, a couple of members of the local `Ndrangheta network, come to ask Cosimo if he has stolen a black Fiat Punto with a rabbit sticker and he assures them that he only picks up cars in Reggio.

Sceptical, the gangsters inform Cosimo that they have lined up a burglary for him in a big house at the Tonnara. Pio rides along in the flatbed van, but jumps out before they reach the address and doubles back to climb the fence. Scared off by a barking dog, he runs into a snooping neighbour, who apprehends him and calls the Carabinieri. Wriggling free, Pio makes his escape across the fields and reaches home at first light. He sees the cops descend and returns home in time to see Cosimo being bundled into one car and Rocco into another, when the cops rumble his electricity scam. 

Iolanda hollers about discrimination as her husband and son are driven away. But Pio knows he has to complete Cosimo's deal for a white Fiat and calls the man from Turin (Paolo Carpignano) who commissioned the theft. While he waits for the customer to call back, Pio overhears a `Ndrangheta minion ask Iolanda to return the car for a cut of the ransom money. However, Pio knows he can make more by selling it and asks Ayiva to help him when he can't spark the engine. They park it near the station and Pio conducts the negotiations with hard-faced aplomb for someone who can't read or write. 

Returning home, he slaps the money on the kitchen table when Iolanda browbeats him for taking such a risk. He stalks out and joins Keko at a card game, where he drinks and smokes alongside the grown-ups. During the night, however, the cops raid the house looking for some stolen copper and Pio has to move quickly to sneak the stash away. When he gets back, he sees the senior officer hand Iolanda a €9000 bill for the stolen electricity and she knows she doesn't have enough to pay. 

Pained to see his mother in such distress, Pio steals a suitcase from a train at the station and asks Ayiva if he knows someone who wants to buy a tablet. His friend Jennifer (Faith Uchenna Eburu) has a friend in Rosarno and they travel by scooter because Pio refuses to go by rail (as he is scared by anything that moves too quickly, like lifts). Too embarrassed to enter a squat, Pio waits for Ayiva by his bike and is disappointed only to get €70 for the trade. He's also stung when Ayiva insists on keeping some money for petrol and sulks on the pavement when his friend threatens to leave him to make his own way home. 

Unhappy that Pio is having to break the law to help her. Iolanda accepts the cash in glum silence. But Pio is delighted that he has cash for petrol and is able to get the motorino going. He also finds another bike in a shed and takes his cousins for rides around the compound, as his grandpa looks on. However, time is money and Pio needs to make more cash to help his mother. He finds a laptop in another suitcase and asks Ayiva to fence it for him. But he is having Skype problems with his sister and daughter and Pio realises how little he knows about his friend and his problems. 

Ayiva introduces Pio to Kingsley (Kingsley Asimung) at a tented camp on the edge of town. He also needs a television and Pio agrees to deliver the one Ayiva has in his lock-up. He doesn't want to discuss his private life and heads off to work, as Pio lugs the set across town on his head. Kingsley is delighted to see him and invites him to watch the game with his friends. Jennifer recognises him and explains that she is Nigerian, but everyone else is from Ghana. They chant Pio's name when their team scores and he has a whale of a time smoking and drinking with his new mates. When Ayiva arrives, he crouches down behind him so that Jennifer can push him over and he smiles at the boy he has become fond of since they first met when Ayiva was picking fruit. 

Next morning, Pio has a hangover and craves a cuddle from Iolanda, who joshes him about trying to be a man too soon. After a kickabout with his cousins, Pio helps grandpa in the garage. The old man confides that the Roma used to be free on the open road and laments being stuck in a permanent site. He also reminds Pio that the rest of the world is against them and he bears this in mind when a couple of `Ndrangheta heavies tick him off for nearly walking in front of their car. But what drives the message home is an encounter with a grey dappled horse on the road, as he walks home after helping Ayiva, and the vision of his youthful grandfather riding the animal around a blazing bonfire, as a symbol of the pride and freedom of their people. 

The next morning, Pio is woken with the news that grandpa has died and Rocco and Cosimo are allowed to attend the funeral. The `Ndrangheta boss, Raffaele (Pasquale Alampi), comes to the church to pay his respects and Pio resents the fact that they treat his family as inferiors. As the kids sing around a bonfire that night, Pio tells Cosimo that he has been the breadwinner while he's been inside and asks if they can start stealing together. However, his brother is disdainful and Pio vows to prove his worth by breaking into Raffaele's house. He throws a football over the fence in order to watch the code being tapped into the security gate and, when the capobastone takes his children out to dinner, Pio sneaks inside and fills a bag with valuables. 

Unfortunately, he is caught in the garden and driven home to face a humiliating audience with his entire family. Raffaele warns Pio that he will kill him if he ever steals from him again and orders Iolanda to pay compensation for the damage. Rocco is so furious that he throws Pio out of the house and he hammers on the gate in shame and frustration. He sees Emiliano and his horse at the end of the road and hears the clop of hooves, as they walk into the distance. However, a bike gang zooms in from the opposite direction and torches an outbuilding in reprisal. As the menfolk carry buckets to douse the flames, Pio cycles off to find Aviya and is grateful when he allows him to spend the night at the squat. 

Next morning, he receives a call from Cosimo and they meet on a rooftop at the abandoned housing estate abutting the ciambra. As his brother explains how Italians have more time for the Roma than the despised migrants, Pio accepts that he has to do something to earn back his family's trust. But he is horrified when Cosimo orders him to help burgle Aviya's lock-up and can't understand why everyone is so prejudiced against the Africans. Patrizia seeks him out to offer her support and she follows him to the railway station when he goes to steal some luggage. Spotting her on the train, while he is making his getaway, Pio jumps back into the carriage and leads her to the toilets to hide from the guard. He sweats profusely, as the train speeds along and Patrizia holds his hand when they disembark at the next station and make their way home without any loot. 

As dusk descends the next day, Pio sees the truck arrive to collect Cosimo and cycles off to distract Ayiva. He crashes his bike and calls Ayiva to tend to the cut he has sustained on his forehead. Huge tears trickle down Pio's cheeks, as the Burkinabe cleans the wound and asks what's bothering him. The boy clings to Ayiva, as he takes him home on the back of his motorbike and rests his head on his back, as he suspects these will be the final moments of their friendship.

But Cosimo is pleased with his efforts and, when Pio bridles on being teased about almost being a man, Cosimo pays for his younger brother to be fellated by a motherly backstreet prostitute. He returns to the ciambra next morning and Iolanda examines his forehead with unfussy affection. Walking on, Pio is faced with a choice of hanging out with the kids or joining Rocco and the grown-ups at the garage. In milky sunshine, he opts for the latter and a protective hand slaps him on the back, as he follows his father inside.

Reuniting Pio Amato and Koudous Seihon after their brief encounter in Mediterranea, Carpignano uses their colour blind bond to examine in intimate detail the hand-to-mouth existence of so many disenfranchised minorities on the margins of Italian society. Surrounded by relatives, Amato is on screen for much of the picture, with cinematographer Tim Curtin keeping tabs on his every move, as he ducks and dives in a bid to keep his family fed while his father and brother are behind bars. However, as the handheld close-ups of his wonderfully watchful face suggest, he is still very much an uneducated and impressionable kid and his dangerous errors of judgement betray his lack of understanding of his place in the macho underworld hierarchy. 

Chatting with engaging overlapping spontaneity, the remainder of the Amato clan are also natural performers, with Francesco Pio having a cocky insolence that is matched by Patrizia's sympathetic concern and Iolanda's world-weary maternalism. But Seihon also impresses, as the wheeler-dealing Africa whose own problems reinforce Carpignano's contention that so many find life a gruelling struggle. Yet, while he cannily notes that the migrant crisis has allowed the Roma to move off the bottom rung of the social ladder, Carpignano rather clumsily uses the visions of grandpa and his horse to emphasise the freedom that the travelling community has sacrificed in return for a smattering of security. 

Amato's loss of innocence with the voluptuous middle-aged hooker also feels unnecessarily heavy handed. Nevertheless, with Dan Romer's eclectic score providing a driving accompaniment to Affonso Gonçalves's muscularly skittish editing, this remains an unflinchingly authentic and unsanctimonious study of the everyday reality of grinding poverty.

6)  AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL.

It's readily evident from watching An Elephant Sitting Still that Hu Bo  had a promising future as a film-maker. Having graduated from the famous Beijing Film Academy with the award-winning short, Distant Father, Hu published two novels, Huge Crack and Bullfrog, the first of which provided the source story for his feature bow. But, in October last year, the 29 year-old Hu committed suicide and a team from China's FIRST Film Festival completed a project that had been launched under the auspices of famed director Wang Xiaoshuai's production company in July 2016.

Sprawling to almost four hours, this hugely ambitious picture brings to mind Béla Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) and Jia Zhang-ke's Unknown Pleasures (2002). But, as it interweaves stories about four characters with the fate of an elephant in a zoo in the northern town of Manzhouli, this hugely ambitious undertaking begins to establish its own identity and exert a soberly witty fascination. 

Teenager Wei Bu (Peng Yuchang) lives in a cramped apartment in a coal-mining town with his verbally abusive father (Zhao-Yan Guozhang) and distracted mother (Li Suyun), who is struggling to make ends meet since her husband lost his job for taking bribes. Bu is worried for high school classmate Li Kai (Ling Zhenghui), who is being threatened by a bully who has accused him of stealing his phone. Li Kai is grateful to Bu, but he takes matters into his own hands by pinching a gun from his father's collection to defend himself if the going gets too rough.

Somewhere on the same estate, Wang Jin (Liu Congxi) shares a confined space with his daughter (Li Danyi), son-in-law (Kong Wei) and granddaughter (Kong Yixin), whose ambitions to become a dancer have convinced her parents that it is time for Jin to leave them the flat and go into an old people's home. However, he doesn't feel ready to edge towards the exit and refuses to budge because the home won't allow him to bring his beloved dog.

Across the concourse, small-time crook Yang Cheng (Zhang Yu) has been spending the night with his lover (Wang Xueyang), who is married to his best friend (Wang Chaobei). Unfortunately, he comes home to collect some of his belongings and is so dismayed to see Cheng hiding away in the corner of the bedroom that he leaps out of the high-rise window to his death on the concrete below. Nearby, Huang Ling (Wang Yuwen) argues with her mother (Wang Ning about the blocked toilet and the fact that Ling has trodden on a piece of cake that her mother had walked miles to buy for her as a treat. As she leaves for school, Ling fumbles for a baseball bat in the doorway in case a growling white dog comes too close. 

Ling is friends with Bu and warns him not to risk alienating bully Yu Shuai (Zhang Xiaolong), as he has a thuggish brother. However, Bu is determined to defend his pal, even though it gets him a ticking off from the school dean (Rong Dong Xiang), who is having an affair with Ling, even though he has a wife (Guo Jing). He tells Bu that the school is about to close down and that he will be lucky to get a job as a fast food vendor. But Bu has a more pressing problem after he confronts Yu when he accuses his pal of stealing his phone and he accidentally pushes him down the stairs. Returning home to discover that his father has pinched the money he has been hiding under his bed, Bu goes on the run.

Meanwhile, the female owner of the white dog (Huang Ximan) puts flyers up around the estate after the dog disappears and Jin goes to see her after it attacks and kills his pet in an alleyway. When he tells her husband (Li Qing) about what happened, he accuses Jin of trying to blackmail him or make trouble and refuses to believe that Pipi could do anything so violent. Meanwhile, Bu takes a bus to hide out with his grandmother, only to find her dead in her flat and he wanders around the corner to inform his uncle (Liu Jianmin), who seems unconcerned by her passing. He goes to the snooker club to try and sell his cue so he can raise enough money to go to Manzhouli to see the elephant. Bu offers it to Jin, who is a neighbour, and he gives him what little cash he has after he intervenes when Pipi's male owner drives up in his car and tries to intimidate him.

With Yu in hospital, Cheng gets a call from his mother (Shunzi) ordering him to find Bu and avenge his brother. However, Cheng has been told by his dead friend's wife that his mother (He Miaomiao) is coming to see him because she is so distraught about her son's suicide. She dislikes her daughter-in-law because she thinks she bullied her husband into buying an apartment he couldn't afford and that the financial strain is the reason for his death. Cheng is grateful that the wife protects him by saying nothing to the cops about him being a witness to the plunge. Thus, when he sees Jin carrying Bu's cue, he calls off his henchmen and also sympathises with Bu when he sees him watching through the window of a swanky hotel, where Ling is meeting the dean.

He is disappointed because Ling has refused to go north with him and he wants her to break off with the dean before anyone finds out about the affair and her reputation is ruined. But she is happy to get what she can out of the relationship, even though the dean tells her that she is foolish if she thinks that life is anything but an endless struggle. However, he is the one to lament his fate when they go up to their room and Ling checks her phone to discover video of them together has been posted online. 

While the dean is cursing that Ling has ruined him, Cheng is saying the same thing to his lover (Zhuyan Manzi), as he is angry with her for rejecting his advances and driving him into the bed of his dead friend. She refuses to take the blame for his problems, but recognises that he is in a bad place because he has to deal with his pal's mother and his own mother's insistence that he punishes Bu, even though he is well aware that his brother is a thug who probably deserved what happened to him. 

Just as they are having their conversation, Bu arranges to meet Li Kai at the shopping mall. He is dismayed to see he has brought Bu's parents with him and, when he headlocks him into a stairwell, Li Kai admits that he stole Yu's phone because he had video of him weeing that he kept threatening to share on group chat. Li Kai also reveals that Yu has footage of Ling and the dean singing karaoke together and he mocks Bu for being so loyal and for lashing out and landing himself in a heap of unnecessary trouble. 

Meanwhile, Jin has returned home to tell his granddaughter that his dog is dead and his daughter wastes no time in suggesting that he no longer has a good reason for stubbornly refusing to go into the home. Despairing of her callousness, Jin collects a warm coat from the balcony (where he has been sleeping) and storms out. Still holding Bu's cue, he goes to the nursing home to take a look round and he is far from impressed by the sight of so many seniors sitting morosely without any stimulation or supervision. Nearby, as Ling wanders in a daze, she sees a poster advertising the circus in Manzhouli, which has become notorious because an elephant is simply sitting in trance and refusing all food, 

Both Bu and Cheng have mentioned going to see this pathetic animal and they almost run into each other when Bu goes to the hospital to see if Yu is recovering. However, he sees Cheng getting a rollicking from his mother about why he hasn't given Bu a beating and she also chastises him for having picked on Yu when he was a boy because his cruelty turned him into a bully. Ling's mother is also at the end of her tether, as she has returned home from a stressful day at work to hear about her daughter's affair going public. She berates her for sleeping with the dead and dismisses her insistence that she prefers being with him because his house is tidy. 

As they bicker, the dean and his wife (Guo Jing) bang on the door and demand to see Ling. In a panic, she leaves via her bedroom window. But she is so stung by the dean's wife calling her a slut that she picks up the baseball bat from the hallway and clubs them both unconscious with a single swing each before hurrying off. 

While Jin buys a ticket for himself and his granddaughter to travel to  Manzhouli, Bu tries to beat the queue by purchasing a cheaper ticket from a tout (Li Binyuan). It turns out to be a fake, however, and he demands a refund. The scalper insists they have to meet his boss and they go to some wasteland near the railway line to meet with his accomplice. They proceed to rough Bu up and discover from his ID card that he is the kid responsible for Yu's accident. 

The tout calls Cheng and he arrives to break the news that his brother is dead. He sends his sidekicks to buy a valid ticket for Manzhouli and asks Bu why he attacked Yu. He insists it was an accident, but also reveals that he no longer cares what happens to him and his courage prompts Cheng to call his friend's mother and confess that he was present when her son jumped out of the window. Turning back to Bu, Cheng is explaining that he is bound by filial duty to avenge his brother when Li Kai shows up brandishing his father's gun. Cheng is amused by his show of bravura, but Li Kai wounds him in the leg before declaring the world to be a disgusting place and shooting himself under the chin. 

Bu joins Ling, Jin and his granddaughter at the railway station. However, the train has been cancelled and Jin announces he would rather take the child home and get used to life in a hostel than take a changing bus service. He bemoans the fact that life is nothing but a sequence of dashed hopes and wishes he hadn't wasted so much of his time on false dreams. But Bu remains optimistic and urges the old man to join them on their journey to see what awaits them. Jin nods and the film ends with a long shot of the passengers playing keepy-uppy in the bus headlights when they hear the sound of an elephant trumpeting in the near distance. 

When film-makers from the Sixth Generation of Chinese cinema began to make an impact in the mid-1990s, their theme was invariably the effect of the new market conditions on ordinary citizens. However, the influence of the dGeneration of self-taught directors has filtered through to give post-millnennial Chinese films a starker neo-realist feel that reflects the harsh conditions caused by the post-recession downturn that stopped the economic miracle dead in its tracks. Hu  Bo's one and only feature captures this sense of austerity and disillusion with such potency and poignancy that it almost feels like a chronicle of a death foretold. Yet, the fact that he could also afford his characters an opportunity to make a fresh start roots his debut in the humanist tradition that dates back to the Strassenfilme of Weimar Germany and the Poetic Realism of 1930s France. 

In conjunction with production designer Lijian Xie and cinematographer Fan Chao, Hu uses close-ups, adroit framing and shallow focus to spare the audience from some of the grimmer details, while also directing their gaze towards the information he wants them to take to heart. Given the strictness of the Chinese censors, it's perhaps surprising that this unflinching depiction of graphic bleakness was allowed to slip through. But a number of critical Iranian films benefited from similar laxity around the turn of the century and one wonders whether Hu was allowed to speak his mind because the authorities knew he would not become an ongoing thorn in their side. 

One suspects that those entrusted with editing the picture similarly decided to honour Hu's intentions and resisted the temptation to trim the running time. However, such is the measured pacing that removing the odd narrative digression or philosophical diatribe would have done little to speed up proceedings, as they unfold over 12 hours in a single day with the occasional interjection of Hua Lun's affecting score. Besides, time never hangs heavy, as the central foursome edge towards their destinies in an unnamed northern town in which everybody seems to be aggrieved or aggressive. While excellent, Liu Congxi and Wang Yuwen seem less at the heart of the action than Zhang Yu and Peng Yuchang, who shade the distinctions between being the hunter and the hunted until Zhang seems to allow Wang to escape as an act of atonement for driving his friend over the edge.

5)  THE HEIRESSES.

They only started making feature films in Paraguay in 1955 and, like many of the earliest offerings, Catrano Catrani's Codicia was an Argentinian co-production. More recently, Galia Giménez's Maria Escobar (2002), Paz Encina's Paraguayan Hammock (2007), Juan Carlos Maneglia and Tana Schémbori's 7 Boxes (2012) and Hérib Godoy's Empty Cans (2014) have received international recognition. But the breakthrough picture has proved to be Marcelo Martinessi's delightful debut, The Heiresses, which earned Ana Brun the Best Actress prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Nodding in the direction of Gianni Di Gregorio's Mid-August Lunch (2008) and Sebastián Lelio's Gloria (2013), this is not only a disarmingly offbeat rite of late-life passage, but it also offers astute insights into recent Paraguayan history and the legacy left by decades of dictatorship.

Peering through the gap left by a half-open door, fiftysomething Chela (Ana Brun) watches her companion Chiquita (Margarita Irún) show a haughty woman around the items they have for sale in their dark Asunción home. As they have run up debts, Chiquita has tried to cook the books to keep cash coming in. But, despite the best efforts of their loyal friend, Carmela (Alicia Guerra), Chiquita has been sentenced for fraud and hires illiterate maid Pati (Nilda Gonzalez) to look after Chela while she's inside. She shows her how to prepare the drinks tray that Chela requires while painting and explains how many pills she needs to take each day. Yet, when Carmela offers them an envelope containing donations raised during her birthday party, Chela rejects it and criticises Chiquita for the fact that they have been selling her heirlooms and nothing belonging to her family. 

Nettled by the remark and by Chela's rebuttal of her advances because she smells of cigarettes and alcohol, Chiquita spends her last night on the sofa and Chela seems more concerned with the fact that her hair needs dyeing than with her partner's imminent incarceration. Looking very much out of place, Chela accompanies Chiquita to the prison gates and looks around anxiously when she pays her first Saturday visit and sees how well the pragmatic Chiquita has settled into her new surroundings. Back home, however, she keeps hearing noises in the night and asks Pari to sleep on the sofa to reassure her. However, she gently chides her for putting the items in the wrong place on her tray and only forgives her when she discovers she has a talent for foot massages. 

Chela feels the need of a little pampering after her elderly neighbour, Pituca (Maria Martins), asks if she can give her a lift to her daily card game. As she is afraid of being kidnapped, Pituca no longer trusts taxis and is willing to pay for Chela to drive her across town in the Mercedes left to her by her father. Chiquita is worried, as Chela doesn't have a licence and is usually nervous behind the wheel. But Chela welcomes the chance to get out of the house and earn a few guaraní. Moreover, after helping Angy (Ana Ivanova) collect her things after splitting up with her boyfriend, Cesar (Raul Chamorro), Chela develops a crush on the statuesque fortysomething and even agrees to risk the motorway to take her mother to Itauguá for her regular medical appointments.

Having told Pituca that Chiquita has gone to stay in Punta del Este, Chela hopes that her friends and neighbours will stop gossiping about her absence. But she asks Carmela to attend a meeting with Chiquita's lawyer on her own, as she wants to have a trial run on the M2 before taking Angy's mother. Moreover, when she sees Chiquita having her hair done by the working-class minions who have become part of her prison circle, Chela feels superfluous and feels put out by her lover's joke about her being like Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976).

However, she also feels more confident and comes out to greet the women browsing through her possessions. She refuses to offer a discount for her dining table and seems not to mind the hole that it leaves in the centre of the room. Indeed, Chela's focus is solely on Angy and she smartens herself up and uses lipstick for the trip to Itauguá. While waiting outside the clinic, she allows Angy to teach her how to smoke and tries on her sunglasses because the younger woman thinks they suit her. 

Having pleasured herself for the first time in a long while, she also accepts an invitation to meet two of her divorced friends while waiting for the card game to end. They chatter inanely and Chela puts up with their thoughtless remarks about lowering standards to drive people around because Angy kisses her on both cheeks and places a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Moreover, she would rather be associating with widows and bimbos than Chiquita's new acquaintances, like the woman who killed her husband's mistress. 

Having bought a small table to replace the one she sold, Chela lets her piano go. But she keeps taking tips from Pituca and her friends and delights in her moments alone with Angy in Itauguá. She discovers that Angy also paints and was nicknamed `Chiqui' by her father. On revealing that her own father called her `Poupée', Chela is thrilled when Angy starts to use it. However, she is hurt when Angy abandons her to go off with Cesar and Pati realises something is wrong when Chela mopes around the house that evening. Hiding her pain, she continues driving and listens as Pituca badmouths one of her bridge school after she reminisces about her 52 years of marital bliss. 

Having been disturbed by a prisoner shaking the bars of Chiquita's cell while she was waiting for her to return from the showers, Chela takes Pituca and Angy to a funeral. Saddened by seeing how one of her ex-lovers had gone to seed, Angy asks Chela if they can go back to her house with a bottle of wine, while the reception continues to midnight. Chela sends Pati to bed and listens intently, as Angy candidly describes how she used to have threesomes with her the man and his mistress and Chela is so overwhelmed by the fact that Angy is bisexual that she makes an excuse to calm herself down in the bathroom. When she gets caught peeking at Angy reclining on the sofa, however, she bolts back into the bathroom and is crushed to discover that Angy has disappeared into the night. 

Driving round in the hope of spotting her, Chela returns to the venue to find that everyone has left. She buys a hot dog at a snack bar and sits in a daze at one of the pavement tables. Indeed, she is so disorientated that she goes to the prison and is surprised when the duty guards tell her that she has missed visiting hours. Returning home, she leaves Angy a phone message and thinks she has called to see her the next morning when the doorbell rings. But it's Carmela bringing Chiquita home early and Chela has to fight to hide her disappointment. 

She is also dismayed when Chiquita does a deal to sell the bottle green Mercedes and remains so out of sorts that she drops her drinks tray. Unable to sleep next to her snoring lover, Chela gets up in the night and climbs the stairs to the roof of the house in which she was born to let the breeze blow across her face. Pati comes to check if she is okay and they hug. The next morning, there's no sign of Chela or the car keys and Chiquita is bemused to find the gates open and the car gone. 

The closing song, `Greetings From Ypacari', signifies that Chela has flown the nest for good. But Martinessi leaves us guessing whether she has taken her chance with Angy or simply decided to abandon the cosseted existence she has known since she was a girl. Given that he also uses a snippet from Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, the chances of an inglorious retreat remain on the cards, however.

Acting predominantly with her eyes, while occasionally arching a brow or inclining her head, Ana Brun is outstanding as the embarrassed heiress who comes to realise that status, privilege and material possessions are not as important as she had always believed. She might continue to prioritise her own desires, but she learns to fend for herself and make her own decisions without seeking the approval of her father or her partner. In many ways, her character resembles that of fellow Berlin laureate Paulina García in Gloria. But this is a much more watchful performance that is made all the more poignant by Margarita Irún's controlling complacency, Ana Ivanova's careless coquettishness and the excellent María Martins's class-conscious cattiness. 

Pacing the action to perfection, Martinessi has Luis Armando Arteaga's widescreen, but shallow-focused camera make telling comparisons between the wood-panelled gloom of Carlo Spatuzza's shabbily chic interiors and both the brightly coloured bustle of the prison visiting area and the sunlit city beyond Chela's front door. He also invites the viewer to realise that this is a world largely devoid of men and prompts speculation about what might have happened in recent patriarchal Paraguayan history to impact on survival rates among the elite. But, while it hints at dark deed, this is a story about reawakening and renewal, whose deft intimacy and caustic wit make it one of the best films of the year so far.

4)  THE WILD PEAR TREE.

It's not often that Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan comes away from Cannes empty handed. Having won awards at the festival for Distant (2002), Climates (2006), Three Monkeys (2008) and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011), he finally landed the prestigious Palme d'or with Winter Sleep (2014), Yet, while The Wild Pear Tree was in contention for the same prize, it was overlooked in favour of Hirozaku Kore-eda's Shoplifters, more of which anon. 

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.

3)  1945

Hungarian cinema didn't produce a film on the Holocaust until Barna Kabay's Job's Revolt in 1983. It has since sponsored Marta Mészarós's The Seventh Room (1996), Andor Szilágyi's Rose's Songs (2003), Lajos Koltai's Fateless (2005) and László Nemes's Son of Saul (2015), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Joining this august list is Ferenc Török's 1945, which the director has adapted with Gábor T. Szántó from the latter's short story, `The Homecoming'. Reinforcing the country's reputation for quietly intense studies of the Shoah, this simmering monochrome drama has much in common with John Sturges's Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), as it forces viewers to examine their own attitudes to the strangers in their midst. 

On 12 August 1945, the radio news informs the residents of a remote Hungarian village about the dropping of an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Town clerk István Szentes (Péter Rudolf) has other things to worry about, however, as his son, Árpád (Bence Tasnádi), is about to marry Kisrózsi (Dóra Sztarenki), a peasant girl who was previously engaged to Jancsi (Tamás Szabó Kimmel), a strapping farm worker who is convinced the forthcoming elections will change his country forever. István is also concerned about his addict wife, Anna (Eszter Nagy-Kálózy), who is convinced that Kisrózsi is only marrying Arpad because his father has placed him in charge of the local pharmacy. 

Down at the railway station, three soldiers from the Red Army look on from their jeep as a pair of Orthodox Jews, Hermann Sámuel (Iván Angelus) and his son Hermann, Jr. (Marcell Nagy), disembark from a train and load two heavy trunks on to the cart driven by Mihály Suba (Miklós B. Székely). The stationmaster (István Znamenák) is disconcerted by the arrival of the black-clad strangers and goes in search of István to alert him to their presence and tells Suba to take his time ferrying his passengers. 

Keen to ensure the celebrations go well, István calls on Kisrózsi's family and is embarrassed when Árpád chokes on a glass of brandy. He's polite to town drunk Bandi (József Szarvas) and his wife Andrásné (Ági Szirtes), and makes a fuss over a disabled war veteran (János Derzsi). István also offers a bottle of champagne to the Russian officer (Zsolt Dér), who is chatting to Jancsi, who still clearly has an emotional hold over Kisrózsi that makes Árpád nervous when his old friend announces that he wouldn't miss the wedding for the world. 

As Árpád shows Kisrózsi around the shop, István takes some money from the till and crosses the street to lunch in the local bar. He is disturbed by the stationmaster, who has cycled to warn him about the Samuels and their cases of cosmetics and perfume. Convinced that nobody of that name used to live in the village, István confides in cop Páli (Sándor Terhes), who shuttles him around in the sidecar of his motorbike. Having taken over property that once belonged to the Klein family, Páli is discomfited by the news and wishes that the victims of the Nazi round-ups could have stayed away for good. 

Árpád also knows his shop used to belong to the Pollaks and he flinches when he finds a family photograph album in the storeroom. István tells him not to panic, but tensions have already risen by the time the Samuels arrive. It's more a case of passions with Kisrózsi and Jancsi, however, and her mother, Rózsika (Tünde Szalontay), chides her for having a last fling with her former lover before coming home to try on her wedding dress. Anna also senses that her future daughter-in-law has been misbehaving and makes it clear that she will not stand by and watch her son get hurt. 

Suffering from a guilty conscience, Bandi is ready to return any appropriated property. But Andrásné reckons she deserves a nice house having lost one of her sons at the front and she warns István that her husband is being lily livered. However, despite Anna's reassurances, Árpád is also starting to get twitchy and he is unnerved when Bandi informs him that his father had coerced him into signing a complaint against the Pollaks. As the Samuels reach the centre of the village, István sends the stationmaster to keep an eye on them and reminds Árpád that he took a risk in securing him an exemption from military service and that he owes it to him to stand firm and defend his corner if things begin to turn nasty.

However, Árpád is too afraid to stay and he packs a case before heading to the station, as his mother seeks solace in her medication. Determined to protect her ill-gotten gains, Andrásné hides obviously Hebraic items in a broken-down car in the barn before cycling to warn Rózsika that she should do likewise. But she is too busy making preparations for the wedding and barely has time to listen to her mother confessing that she had betrayed the Jewish boy she had been paid to hide. Bandi also seeks absolution and tries to tell the village priest (Béla Gados) about how István and Andrásné had conspired against the Pollaks and forced him to sign a complaint. However, the priest refuses to listen to the ravings of a drunk and turfs him out of the church, just as the Samuels are passing on Suba's cart and having places of interest pointed out to them by his son (György Somhegyi). 

Unable to persuade Kisrózsi to leave with him, Árpád glares at Jancsi as he comes to see what is going on. István learns about his son's departure from Anna after he has threatened Bandi to keep his mouth shut. She curses István for betraying his best friend and making Bandi and Páli his accomplices and she accuses him of cheating on her with numerous women in the village. Meanwhile, the Samuels have reached the Jewish cemetery on the outskirts and the white-bearded Hermann asks the Subas to start digging, while he lays three tallits on the ground and reverently places various religious items, books and some children's shoes and a toy train upon them. When the hole is deep enough, he hands the bundles to his son to place in the earth and stands at the graveside to have the lapel of his suit torn.

As they are washing their hands, István arrives and asks the nature of their business. When the old man replies that he is burying what is left of the dead, the town clerk promises to keep the graves in good order to that nobody forgets and extends his hand. Samuel accepts the gesture and shakes the hand of the carter before starting the long walk back to the station. They pass Bandi's premises, just as his son finds his father's body hanging from a rafter in the barn and Andrásné fights back her anger and sadness as she brushes off his hat. She refuses István's attempt to console her and he wanders back into the village to see smoke billowing out of the pharmacy. 

Having been pursued in her wedding dress by the Soviets in their jeep, Kisrózsi has set light to the shop in revenge for losing her opportunity to escape poverty and she staggers into the street as István calls for volunteers to help douse the flames after the priest had forbidden anyone to leave the church to help. A clap of thunder erupts overhead and the Samuels are caught in the downpour, as they makes their way back to the station. They nod at Árpád in the waiting room before boarding the train. As István surveys the charred ruins of the pharmacy, a black plume of smoke from the locomotive rises into the air and drifts towards the village, as if linking it to the chimneys of the gas chambers. 

Rarely have silent avengers wreaked such havoc while on such a seemingly harmless mission. The Samuels don't have to do much to unsettle the villagers under István's jurisdiction, as almost everyone has their guilty conscience pricked by the mere presence of the strangers, whose attire alone is sufficient to evoke memories of the neighbours they had betrayed with their prejudice, envy and greed. István is the worst of the bunch, as he not only framed a close friend, but also abused his power for personal gain. But the priest and the cop have clearly sat on their hands, while the likes of Andrásné Kustár have regarded the misfortunes of others as recompense for her own suffering. Yet, the Red Army appears happy to maintain the status quo, as the troops who are both liberators and occupiers intimidate the locals into parting with goods and services, as well as anything else that takes their fancy.

Married in real life, Péter Rudolf and Eszter Nagy-Kálózy harrowingly convey the pent-up bitterness of years of treachery and sterility, while Ági Szirtes and József Szarvas provide flipsides of the coin a couple of rungs down the social ladder. Dóra Sztarenki also impresses, as the lustful gold-digger who wants to have her cake and eat it by stringing along both milksop Bence Tasnádi and hunk Tamás Szabó Kimmel. But one's attention keeps drifting back to Iván Angelusz and Marcell Nagy, who carry themselves with such dignity during their progress and take no pleasure from the tumult it provokes. 

Given current Hungarian attitudes to the migrant crisis, Török and Szántó lace the action with allegorical barbs. But the story (which bears a passing similarity to Gabriel García Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold) is as subtle as Elemér Ragályi's camerawork, which always seems to be peering through a window, door or gap in a fence and whose switches between detachment and intimacy are deftly handled by editor Béla Barsi. The settings crafted by production designer Laszlo Rajk (who also worked on Son of Saul) and art director Dorka Kiss are equally impeccable, as are Sosa Juristovszky's costumes, while Tibor Szemzö's score is both insinuating and unsettling. Consequently, this represents a sizeable stride forwards by the prolific Török, who was previously best known in this country for his feature bow, Moscow Square (2001), and his contribution to the portmanteau picture, East Side Stories (2010).

2)  COLUMBUS.

Dotted around the Internet, the `supercuts' made by the South Korean director Kogonada are well worth a look. Compiled from clips by the leading auteurs in world cinema, the films have self-explanatory titles like Eyes of Hitchcock and Hands of Bresson (both 2014), and Mirrors of Bergman (2015) and Godard in Fragments (2016). Amidst the acute studies of Yasujiro Ozu, Stanley Kubrick, Terence Malick, Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson and Hirokazu Kore-eda is a terse treatise entitled, What Is Neorealism? (2013). While his debut feature, Columbus, is strewn with references to his influences, it also owes much to neo-realism's founding father Cesare Zavattini's contention that the ideal film would depict 90 minutes in the life of a character to whom nothing happens. 

Professor Jae Yong Lee (Joseph Anthony Foronda) is visiting Eero Saarinen's Miller House in Columbus, Indiana with Yale academic Eleanor (Parker Posey) when he collapses and is rushed to the local hospital. As Lee's son, Jin (John Cho), flies in from Seoul and checks into the Inn at Irwin Gardens, 19 year-old Casey (Haley Lu Richardson) meets her mother Maria (Michelle Forbes) off her shift as a cleaner. Now in her early twenties, Casey is working at the Bartholomew Country Public Library with graduate student Gabriel (Rory Culkin), while trying to decide what to do with her life. She adores the architecture of her hometown and is keen to study the subject, but she is reluctant to leave their home in a rundown neighbourhood, as Maria is a recovering drug addict and Casey feels responsible for her. 

Over supper, Eleanor blames herself for Lee falling ill in her care. But Jin (who is an old flame) reassures her that his father is a stubborn man and he should know, as they have never been close and haven't spoken in the year since he left for Korea to work as a publishing translator. He mooches around the Inn and is wandering in the garden when he meets Casey, who offers him a cigarette. She was due to attend his father's lecture and takes Jin to Saarinen's First Christian Church, as they discuss the fact that Columbus is something of a Mecca for architecture buffs. She smiles at his suggestion that everyone in the town is an expert and regrets that most people couldn't care less about the treasures in the midst. 

Among them is her old high school friend, Emma (Erin Allegretti), who drops in to see her at the library. She has been studying away and urges Casey to get out of town as quickly as she can. Gabriel eavesdrops on their chat and sends Casey on an errand to stop Emma from giving her ideas, as he enjoys his conversations with Casey on such topics as the role that interest plays in maintaining an attention span. Bearing this attachment in mind, Casey applies for a museum job and drops Maria off at her second job at a packaging plant. 

Returning to her car, Casey spots Jin. She chases after him and takes him to one of her favourite buildings in Columbus, Saarinen's Irwin Union Bank. When she goes into a tourist guide spiel about the glass structure's modernist significance, however, Jin stops her and insists she tells him why the place moves her. The sound cuts at this point and we only see Casey pondering her response before she starts using her hands to illustrate her points. 

We are permitted to listen in again when the pair reach James Stewart Polshek's Quinco Mental Health Center, which Jin particularly admires. As he describes his views on its healing powers, however, he admits that he only recently read about the clinic in a book he found in his father's hotel room and she teases him for claiming to be disinterested in architecture when he is actually quite keen. 

At the library, Gabriel asks Casey to spend the evening with him. But she has already agreed to stay home with her mother and is concerned when Maria fails to make dinner. She leaves phone messages that go unanswered and goes to the Inn to ask workmate Vanessa (Shani Salyers Stiles) if she's okay. She claims that Maria's phone is out of charge and that she can't come down in person because they have a supervisor on site. 

So, Casey goes to find Jin to show him the Creekview branch of the First Financial Bank, which she remembers creeping into her consciousness when it took her unawares one night. As they gaze at the building, Casey admits that she has limited her horizons to support her mother, who became dependent upon drugs after a broken love affair and even dabbled with crystal meth. She reveals that architect Deborah Berke has offered to help her secure a place at Newhaven University and that she has often thought about leaving, but she genuinely loves Columbus and doesn't feel that Maria is strong enough to resist temptation without her. 

When Maria comes home in the morning without a word of explanation, Casey is concerned. Meanwhile, Jin takes his father's camera when he visits the 25 limestone pillars of Maryann Thompson's Veterans Memorial and he hooks up with Casey to see Saarinen's North Christian Church. He is surprised that she doesn't have a phone with an Internet connection, as only uses it to make calls and uses her computer to look things up. Inside, they discuss religion and monarchy and the contradictions inherent in their association with Modernism. 

Continuing their tour, they take in Stanley Saitowitz's observation tower in Mill Race Park before sitting on a bench by the round lake and walking across the enclosed bridge. Casey asks Jin why he's not at the hospital with his father and he reminds her that they're not in a movie and that nothing dramatic is going to happen to bring him out of his coma. She is taken aback when he admits that he would rather his father died now than recover sufficiently to return to Seoul, where he would feel obliged to care for him. Sensing her dismay, Jin urges Casey to take up Berke's offer and make something of herself. But she regards caring for Maria as a noble calling and chides him for knowing nothing about filial duty. Stung, Jin wanders off alone and Casey feels disappointed in him. 

They hang out with Gabriel and Eleanor during the montage that follows. But the latter suspects that Jin has a crush on Casey and recalls how cute he was when they dated. He kisses her, but she sends him back to his own room, as their moment passed years ago. As he wanders along the corridor, he finds Casey waiting for him and they go for a drive. She detours to the Republic Newspaper Building, where Maria is supposed to be cleaning, and Casey can see through the large windows that Vanessa is there alone. When she tries to leave a message, she is appalled when Vanessa calls Maria to warn her and then fibs to Casey that her mother is somewhere else in the building when she calls back. 

Frustrated by Maria's deception and fearful of what she might be doing, Casey invites Jin to a friend's party. However, he doesn't want to go and she parks in front of her alma mater, Southside Elementary School, and dances frantically to the car radio in the headlights. She doesn't explain her distress and laughs when Jin comments on the brutal functionality of the building. 

Casey crashes in his room and they are disturbed by Eleanor with news that Jin's father has had a setback. While they rush to the hospital, Casey heads home and is put out when Maria demands to know where she's been all night. Returning to the Quinco with Eleanor, Jin asks how long he has to stay and she hugs him with the insistence that he remains to the end so that his father doesn't die alone. He sits on the steps of Charles Franklin Sparrell's City Hall and eats cookies with Casey. She has decided to leave Columbus and he thinks she is making the right decision. 

As they say goodbye, Gabriel tells Casey that he doesn't smoke and had only taken fag breaks to spend time with her. She also has a poignant moment during her last night with Maria, who says she will miss Casey's cooking (with its understated aftertaste) and apologises for her past mistakes in promising not to repeat them. Jin has also made a decision and has taken an apartment to cut down on the costs of staying near his father. He reads at his bedside and tells Eleanor that he will stay for as long as it takes. 

Eleanor has offered to drive Casey to Yale and advise on her studies and she waits in the car, as Casey and Jin make their farewells. He convinces her that Maria is happy she is spreading her wings and she reminds him to stay in touch with news about his father. As they drive away, the camera revisits some of the landmarks before Kogonada closes on a shot of the Second Street Bridge, whose red and white colouring recalls that of the chimney stacks in Yasujiro Ozu's An Autumn Afternoon (1962).

Impeccably composed and paced, this is a delightfully delicate and deceptively deep exercise in reclaiming the birthplace of US Vice-President Mike Pence, In tandem with cinematographer Elisha Christian, the mono-monikered debutant (whose pseudonym seemingly pays homage to Ozu's regular screenwriter, Kogo Noda) not only captures the glorious architecture of Columbus, but also its ambience as both a civic museum and as home to the thousands who, when it comes to buildings, don't know their base from their apex. Indeed, this is a film that should resonate with Oxford audiences, as the colleges mirror the Indiana burg's modernist masterpieces. 

There's a hint of Bill Murray's byplay with Scarlett Johansson's in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003) in the way John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson interact. But there's nothing coy or calculated about their relationship, as Cho comes to recognise the need to forgive his father in order to move on with his life and Richardson realises that she has been using her mother's dependency to hide her own timidity. What is particularly touching, however, is the way in which Cho comes to appreciate through the eyes of a stranger the magic of a subject that his father had not been able to convey, in spite of his own lifelong passion. 

Although Kogonada adopts a cerebral approach in musing upon issues like female ambition, parental responsibility, culture, environment and the clash between tradition and progress, this is very much a human story, with the discreet devotion of Parker Posey and the drolly articulate Rory Culkin reinforcing the quotidian feel. Even Michelle Forbes makes the most of her limited screen time to offer glimpses into the past Richardson has endured and the future that may well envelope her unless she makes her move. Moreover, she also proves crucial to Kogonada's discussion of class, as she is one of the drones who has to toil inside the works of art that have made Columbus famous.

The dialogue is a little precious in places and Hammock's electro score can be a touch emphatic. But Cho and Richardson (who is splendidly unaware in her shapeless clothes) blend the emotional and the intellectual to such subtle effect that this masterly debut avoids the sterility that Michelangelo Antonioni detected in urban living to temper the cynicism of Kubrick and Godard with the low-key humanism of Ozu and Kore-eda.

1)  SHOPLIFTERS.

Throughout his increasingly compelling and significant career, Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda has focused on the mechanics of modern family life. In the process, he has been hailed as the heir to such classical masters as Yasujiro Ozu and Mikio Naruse. But, while I Wish (2011), Like Father, Like Son (2013). Our Little Sister (2015) and After the Storm (2016) examine how unconventional family units overcome quirky twists of fate, Shoplifters comes closer to the masterly Nobody Knows (2004) in showing how disparate individuals forge ties that bind them together to survive in the face of economic hardship and societal neglect. Having won the Palme d'or at Cannes, this exquisitely scripted and impeccably played saga confirms Kore-eda as the key chronicler of the troubled times that have witnessed a radical reassessment of what constitutes a family. 

Returning home from a shoplifting expedition to the local supermarket, Osamu Shibata (Lily Franky) and tweenager Shota (Kairi Jyo) see five year-old Yuri (Miyu Sasaki) alone and shivering in a dark ground-floor apartment. As it's freezing cold, Osamu decides to take her back to the home he shares with partner Nobuyo (Sakura Ando), her half-sister Aki (Mayu Matsuoka) and grandmother Hatsue (Kirin Kiki). While everyone tucks into a meal of croquettes and noodles, Hatsue notices that Yuri's body is covered with scars and bruises and Osamu and Nobuyo decide to give Yuri a bed for the night after they hear her mother involved in a blazing row when they try to take her home. 

Osamu works on a building site, while Nobuyo puts in long hours at an industrial laundry. But they don't insist on Shota going to school and, when Hatsue receives a visit from a snooper who thinks she lives alone, he slips out of the cluttered house to wander around the rundown Tokyo neighbourhood with Yuri, who refuses to tell him how she got the burn marks on her arms. Aki has misgivings about caring for Yuri, but Nobuyo notes that nobody has come looking for her and Hatsue concurs that she would be better off with them until her mother decides to reclaim her. 

Having injured his leg at work, Osamu is helped home by a colleague who is surprised to discover that he has a family. Shota takes Yuri out shoplifting and promises to teach her the tricks one day. He also suggests that she forgets about the dead grandmother who was so kind to her because she can no longer help her. Meanwhile, Aki takes Hatsue to collect the pension she keeps claiming on behalf of her late husband and is amused when the old lady discovers that she uses her sister's name, Sayaka, to perform at a sleazy peepshow, where she has a regular client known as Mr 4 (Sosuke Ikematsu).

In order to cut back on wages, the laundry puts Nobuyo into a workshare scheme and Osamu uses the phrase to explain to Shota that Yuri is now part of the team and that he should regard her as his new sister. She pulls the plug on the door at a tackle shop so that Shota can steal some fishing rods, but he likes being the baby of the family and resents the fact that Osamu keeps trying to get Yuri to call him `papa'. Despite being devoted to Osamu, Shota refuses to use the term, either. But he agrees to consider Yuri as his new sibling and asks Osamu if they can go fishing together before selling the rods. 

A short time later, Shota sees Yuri on the TV news and realises that her name is actually Juri. Her mother is being questioned by the police about her disappearance and Nobuyo decides to cut her hair short to make the child less recognisable and rename her Lin. She also takes her on a shoplifting trip to find new clothes and Yuri is particularly taken with a new yellow swimsuit. While the others are out, Aki asks Osamu if he ever sleeps with Nobuyo and he claims they no longer need a physical relationship because they are connected by the heart. Hatsue makes a similar remark to Nobuyo, as they ponder whether Lin will have a stronger bond with her new family because she has chosen it rather than being born into it. 

Yuri likes her swimsuit so much that she wears it in the bath, where she notices that Nobuyo also has a burn scar on her arm. She is happy they are together and calls Shota her brother when they go on a cicada hunt. But Nobuyo pays the price for taking Lin, as a workmate threatens to tell the police that she has stolen the girl unless she quits the laundry to allow her to retain her full-time job. With Osamu ineligible for injury compensation, the family needs money and Hatsue pays a visit to Yuzuru (Naoto Ogata), the son sired by her husband with his second wife. They are Aki's parents and we see her teenage sister on her way to school, as her mother, Yoko (Yoko Moriguchi), fibs that Aki is working in Australia (as they have no idea where she is). As she leaves, they give Hatsue a small gratuity and she complains to herself about their stinginess. 

While mooching around a corner shop, Lin steals a rubber ball and the aged shopkeeper (Akira Emoto) gives Shota some popsicles in warning him not to lead his sister off the straight and narrow. They arrive home in a downpour and nearly catch Osamu and Nobuyo in a rare moment of intimacy. She has purchased some new underwear with her severance pay and she seduces him over a lunch of cold noodles. Aki also snatches some physical contact when Mr 4 agrees to meet her in the peepshow chatroom and they cling to each other when she discovers that he is mute and hits himself as a form of self-punishment. She arrives home to tell Nobuyo and finds Osamu doing magic tricks to amuse the kids. They hear fireworks going off near by and a top shot looks down on their faces, as they peer upwards from beneath the sloping roof.

The idyll continues with a day at the seaside. Osamu notices Shota staring at Aki's bikini and reassures him that his curiosity about women is entirely natural for someone his age. As they watch Aki holding Lin over the incoming tide, Hatsue tells Nobuyo that she has a pretty face. She covers the age spots on her legs with sand and repeatedly whispers `thank you' because she has been given a second chance of security and contentment with her adopted family. 

During the night, Lin loses one of her milk teeth and Shota is tossing it on to the roof under Osamu's instruction when Aki realises that Hatsue has died in her sleep. As they don't want to draw attention to themselves, they decide to bury her in the back garden and Osamu tells Shota that he has to forget she existed and remember that there has only ever been five people living in the house. After he has finished digging, Nobuyo helps Osamu shower and they mention the fact that this isn't the first corpse they have buried. 

The next day, Nobuyo clears out Hatsue's bank account and Osamu finds some money she had hidden away in her belongings. Shota looks on, as though trying to work out his feelings for the couple who have raised him. While out with Nobuyo, he had asked why she had never been concerned about him not calling her `mother' and she jokes that she is different from Osamu, who likes feeling paternal. But the boy remains perplexed and he questions why Osamu is breaking into a parked car to lift a handbag when he had always told him that it's only okay to steal from shops because the goods on the shelves don't belong to anyone. He also inquires whether Osamu had really rescued him from a car or had snatched him during a robbery and he is only half convinced by the answer. 

Shota's doubts increase when he discovers that the old shopkeeper has died. But he has not forgotten the value of loyalty he has learned from Osamu and Nobuyo, as he sacrifices himself to prevent Lin from being caught stealing sweets in the supermarket and breaks his leg in jumping off a walkway in order to escape from the pursuing shelf-stackers. Osamu comes to the police station when he learns that the boy has been injured, but Nobuyo drags him away before he can say anything they might regret. However, as they pack up to do a midnight flit, they are apprehended and taken for questioning. 

While being quizzed by Takumi Maezono (Kengo Kora) and Kie Miyabe (Chizuru Ikewaki), Lin draws a picture of the trip to the beach and remembers not to include Hatsue. However, the cops convince Shota that his makeshift family was about to abandon him when they were stopped and they also inform Aki that Osamu and Nobuyo's real names are Shota Enoki and Yuko Tanabe and that they were charged with the murder and burial of her first husband, only for the judge to rule that they had acted in self-defence after being caught in a love affair. 

Under questioning, Osamu insists that Nobuyo had brought Juri home and that they had agreed it wasn't kidnapping because her home life was such a nightmare. However, Nobuyo takes the blame for burying Hatsue, even though she knows she will face jail. Meanwhile, Miyabe tells Aki that Hatsue had been taking money from her parents and suggests that she had only invited her to live with her because it made it easier to extort money from her guilt-ridden father. 

Maezono shows Shota the hostel where he will be staying and inquires whether he is looking forward to going to school. He asks after Juri, who is back with her mother, Nozomi Hojo (Moemi Katayama), who is sporting a fresh bruise on her face after another altercation with her husband, Yasu (Yuki Yamada). She snaps at the girl for poking at her cheek and quickly loses patience when Juri refuses to speak to her. Nobuyo is missing her and, when Miyabe asks whether she abducted her because she couldn't have children, she responds that giving birth doesn't automatically make a woman fit to be a mother. 

Aki returns to the house to find it empty, while Shota goes fishing with Osamu, who has been released without charge. They visit Nobuyo in prison and she tells the boy that they found him in a car outside a patchinko parlour and tells him the name of his birth family, so he can meet them if he so desires. It snows when Shota comes to spend a night with Osamu and they build a snowman under the streetlights. As they share a bed, Osamu admits that they were going to flee without him and, the next morning at the bus stop, Shota reveals that he allowed himself to get caught shoplifting. Hurt by the remark, Osamu runs after the bus to tell the boy that they planned coming back for him and Shota whispers the word `dad', as he turns to see him chasing after the vehicle. 

As the film ends, Juri is left to play alone on the balcony of the Hojo apartment. She climbs on a toy box to peer over the ledge and the film cuts to black, as we are left to wonder how these desperately sad characters are going to cope without each other. We are not told how long Nobuyo will be inside or whether Osamu stands a chance of finding another job. Similarly, we don't get to learn whether Aki returns home or tries to find Mr 4. But the sheer number of imponderables only increases the fascination that this exceptional piece of film-making exerts. 

All six members of the Shibata family are superb and it's such a shame that Kirin Kiki passed away in early September. As always, Kore-eda coaxes wondrously natural performances out of his juvenile actors, with Miyu Sasaki being adorably trusting as she comes to realise she's better off with strangers than her parents and Kairi Jyo struggling with his first feelings of curiosity and rebellion. Mayu Matsuoka also feels tempted to spread her wings, but remains out of loyalty to her grandfather's ex-wife, who she believes is protecting rather than exploiting her. But the rapport between Lily Franky and Sakura Ando is particularly poignant, as they cling together in a bid to forget their past and make the best of their calamitously ill-conceived situation. 

There's a hint of Setsuko Hara in the way Ando pauses in the doorway before returning to her cell and the spirit of Ozu clearly pervades proceedings. But the fact that the female characters are all prepared to make sacrifices to help loved ones brings to mind the masterly gendai-geki melodramas of Kenji Mizoguchi, in which mothers and sisters became geishas to help feed their families. This link is reinforced by the intimacy achieved by Keiko Mitsumatsu's cosily cluttered interiors and the gentle probing of Ryuto Kondo's camera that contrasts with the more challenging interjections of the score composed by Haroumi Hosono of the famous Yellow Magic Orchestra. 

But the picture's brilliance lies in Kore-eda's writing, direction and editing, which enables him to let vital information slip out through small gestures and expressions and half-guarded words that cause the viewer to double-take and question their precise meaning. Yet, even when the full truth is known, Osamu and Nobuyo remain eminently empathetic and one is left to recall Jean Renoir's famous maxim about everyone having their reasons. Kore-eda is known to admire Ken Loach, but this unpatronising depiction of life in the margins knocks spots off anything he has done since the early 1990s. This is what political humanist cinema should look like.