Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 7/2/2019)

The son of a Baptist preacher and his home-making wife, Jared Eamons (Lucas Hedges) is sent to Love in Action to cure himself of his homosexuality. Father Marshall (Russell Crowe) stays behind, while mother Nancy (Nicole Kidman) travels to the big city and checks into a hotel while Jared registers at the centre run by Victor Sykes (Joel Edgerton), who uses a dollar bill during his introductory address to show how a damaged human being can be repaired through the intercession of the Lord. During the first session, Jared and his fellow newcomers are required to fill out genogram charts denoting family members whose tendencies might have provided a bad example and, when he asks Nancy about any family flaws he should know about, she mentions an uncle who was sent away for being effeminate. 

Jared notes that he is staying in the same hotel as Sarah (Jesse Latourette), who is one of the few girls on the course alongside Gary (Troye Sivan), Cameron (Britton Sear) and Jon (Xavier Dolan), who is attending the course for a second time and has taken to saluting to avoid the contact involved in shaking hands. He also tells Jared about the residential block and that they are merely being assessed on a 12-day induction by Victor and assistants like Michael (David Joseph Craig) to see what therapies would be useful to them. 

On the second day, Brandon (Flea) speaks to the group about reclaiming his life from the brink. He also teaches the guys about adopting triangular body shapes because they radiate masculinity and has Sarah rank them in order of physical stature. She gets hit on the head during a baseball pitching exercise. But, while the others show a lack of hand-eye co-ordination, Jared clubs a home run. Sarah is also made to go first when the group comes to confess to past misdemeanours and Jared feels uncomfortable on her behalf, as she stands before them (and a video camera) to testify.

In compiling his own moral inventory, Jared thinks back to when he started college and was befriended by Henry (Joe Alwyn), who rapes him on a creaking bunk bed when his roommate is off campus. Shocked by the betrayal, Jared goes home for the weekend and is appalled when Henry calls Nancy and outs him. After consulting with senior members of his church. Marshall informs Jared that he will be asked to leave unless he agrees to seek help for his perversion and he signs up for Love in Action, even though Dr Muldoon (Cherry Jones) assures him that his sexuality is his own business and cannot be deprogrammed by do-gooding Christians. 

Back at the centre, Jared is summoned by Sykes, who quizzes him about some stories he has written for an English assignment. He refuses to accept that they are works of fiction and suggests that Jared should drop out of college and spend a year on the programme to cure himself of wayward thoughts. This convinces Jared that Sykes is a charlatan, as he insists that students hide the nature of the sessions from their parents. while the course material is strewn with spelling mistakes. When Nancy asks to read his welcome pack, he hands it over and she is appalled to see a reference to `Dog's design' in one of the leaflets. 

Wrestling with what to say during his testimony, Jared thinks back on his chaste relationship with Xavier (Théodore Pellerin). He also takes note of Gary's disclosure that the entire enterprise is a money-making scam and that he will be trapped unless he tells Sykes what he wants to hear. A mock funeral for Cameron, in which his family and friends beat him with a bible to drive out the demon that is possessing him, further convinces Jared that he is dealing with zealous bigots rather than trained counsellors. So, when Sykes tries to goad him into discussing his activities with Henry, Jared rebels and storms out of the hall and calls Nancy to collect him. When Sykes and Brandon attempt to coerce him, Cameron pushes them aside and Jared is dismayed when he gets home (after Nancy withdraws him from the course) to learn that his friend has committed suicide. 

Four years later, Jared publishes an article on Love in Action and the practices that are still permitted in 36 US states. Nancy is proud of him, but Marshall continues to avoid a frank discussion. He has always hoped that his son would take over his car dealership and produce grandchildren, but he makes an effort to connect by offering Jared the pen with which he writes his sermons and accepts that he is going to have to be the one who changes because Jared is gay and proud of who he is. As he drives to the airport to fly back to New York, he dangles his hand out of the car window - which his mother is always warning him about because it's potentially dangerous. 

Closing with pictures of Garrard Conley and his parents and a caption revealing that the real-life Sykes now has a husband of his own. this is a well-intentioned, carefully made, but emotionally calculating picture that essentially preaches to the choir. Frequently making gauche use of slow-motion for dramatic emphasis and close-ups that leave the viewer with little room for emotional or intellectual manoeuvre, Edgerton writes and directs with the same lack of nuance that colours his performance as the despicable Sykes. This is a shame, as he had made such a promising start to life behind the camera with the deeply unsettling chiller, The Gift (2015).

The Golden Globe-nominated Lucas Hedges also deserves better, as he conveys a palpable sense of confusion and forsakenness in realising that Love in Action is a sham and that his father has entrusted him to Sykes to protect his own reputation rather than help him. That said, he hardly goes through the psychological wringer and this lack of insight into his plight proves debilitating. Growling paunchily, Russell Crowe creditably slips between revulsion and sadness, while Nicole Kidman is deftly effective as the homebody who slowly ceases simpering to stand up to her spouse and support her son. But Xavier Dolan, Troye Sivan and Britton Sear struggle to make anything of their sketchily drawn ciphers, while Jess Latourette fails to make Sarah anything other than a tokenist lesbian afterthought. 

The action is proficiently photographed by Eduard Grau, but production designer Chad Keith places too much emphasis on the ordinariness of the LIA premises for them to seem as oppressive as, say, the cult camp in Sean Durkin's cult exposé Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011). Consequently, the setting serves to reinforce the deliberate nature of Edgerton's approach, which is so intent on respecting Jared's sensibilities that it fails to generate either righteous fury or the kind of mocking intensity that made The Miseducation of Cameron Post so discomfiting. The solutions offered by institutions like LIA are rooted in a detestable homophobia that is itself a by-product of pernicious socio-spirito-political beliefs that Edgerton opts to ignore in both his screenplay and in his portrayal of an opportunistic hypocrite, whose lack of qualifications and unconventional methods are only really called into question when Cameron kills himself off camera.

In 2015, it was announced that Nicole Holofcener was adapting Lee Israel's memoir, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, for Oscar winner Julianne Moore. Unfortunately, the project was shelved after Moore walked away citing creative differences and it remained in turnaround until Marielle Heller came aboard to follow up her acclaimed debut, The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015). Holofcener retained her writing credit alongside Jeff Whitty, however, and they have gone on to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. 

Yet, in her quieter moments, Holofcener must wonder why she was eased out of the director's chair after having racked up such lauded and lucrative credits as Walking and Talking (1996), Lovely and Amazing (2001), Friends With Money (2006), Please Give (2010) and Enough Said (2013). As the stepdaughter of Woody Allen's producer, Charles H. Joffe, Holofcener would be well acquainted with the vagaries of the movie business. But, given the nature of Israel's experiences in the early 1990s, Holofcener must also have been struck by both the similarities in their situations and their very different responses to what potentially could have been a considerable career setback. 

Having been fired from her job for drinking at her copy-editing desk and insulting the boss, 51 year-old Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy) accepts a party invitation from her agent, Marjorie (Jane Curtin), in order to goad her into discussing future projects. In the past, Lee had enjoyed success with biographies of actress Tallulah Bankhead, TV personality Dorothy Kilgallen and cosmetics tycoon Estée Lauder. However, Marjorie has no faith in her latest work on vaudeville legend Fanny Brice and Lee leaves the gathering early after snorting with derision at Tom Clancy (Kevin Corolan) insisting that writer's block is an excuse dreamt up by lazy authors.

Next day, Lee gets further sneered at by the clerk at her local New York bookshop when she goes to sell some unwanted titles and is shown a pile of unsold discounted copies of her Lauder tome. Pleading with building supervisor Andre (Gregory Korostishevsky) for more time to pay her rent and dismayed by the fact that the vet won't treat her ageing cat, Jersey, because of an unpaid balance, Lee hits a neighbourhood bar to drown her sorrows and runs into English gadfly and occasional drug pusher, Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant). She recalls him urinating in a closet filled with fur coats at a swanky literary soirée and he walks her home after spending the day getting drunk together. 

Needing cash after a heated exchange with Marjorie about her misanthropic attitude and non-existent bankability, Lee decides to part with the handwritten letter that Katharine Hepburn had sent her after they had met for an Esquire interview around the time of Spencer Tracy's death in 1967. Bookseller Anna (Dolly Wells) is touched by the missive and, as an admirer of Lee's writing, gives her a generous price and also purchases a couple of typewritten and signed letters from Fanny Brice that she had found between the pages of a book while researching in the New York Public Library. However, Anna pays much more for the one Lee doctored by adding a zinging PS and she senses that she may have hit upon a way of making money without having to go out an get a proper job. 

Acquiring an old typewriter and digging out a package of aged A4, Lee begins forging letters from the likes of Noël Coward and dupes up-market antiquarian Paul (Stephen Spinella) into taking them. She also flogs a couple more items to Anna, who suggests they go for a drink the next time she calls. As she has been alone since breaking up with a lesbian lover who had wanted her to broaden her social horizons, Lee is pleased to be asked, especially as she refuses to go to any lengths to make herself look presentable. Moreover, she takes increasing pleasure in the company of Jack, who rewards her confiding her criminous secret by taking her to a drag cabaret lounge and helping her make a crank call to the bookstore clerk who had disrespected her. He also mucks in when she is forced to clean her apartment after the cat faeces under the bed start attracting flies. 

While visiting an antique book fair, Lee and Jack learn from Nell (Shae D'lyn) which dealers are more cavalier in authenticating memorabilia and she makes a beeline for Alan Schmidt (Ben Falcone), who is willing to take anything he can sell to clients who often have more money than sense. As a consequence, Lee throws herself into churning out letters from such literary lights as Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman and Edna Ferber, as well as actresses like Marlene Dietrich, Louise Brooks and Judy Holliday. 

Over dinner, Anna asks Lee to read some of her short stories and they discuss family, ageing and achievement. When Anna reveals that she has inherited her father's shop and isn't sure she is doing him credit, Lee feels a pang of guilt at swindling her and she bids her goodnight with a cool civility that disappoints Anna, who had been hoping things would go further. Putting Anna's stories to one side, Lee throws herself into pastiching correspondence and takes to lightly baking the paper to give it an aged appearance. However, shortly after Jack comes to her apartment late one night after being beaten up by an angry rent boy, Lee gets a call from Paul, who has detected a problem with the sexual frankness of one of the Coward letters.

He tips her off that she has been blacklisted by dealers across the city and her problems mount when Alan demands $5000 to prevent him from testifying against her to the FBI. Desperate to raise the sum, Lee asks Jack to sell some letters for her, but she catches him stealing from her and she is angered by his cavalier attitude both towards her writing and the risks they are running by counterfeiting artefacts. However, he comes up with the idea of stealing genuine letters from the archives and substituting fakes in the files. So, while Lee goes to Yale to purloin an Edna Ferber item, Jack cat-sits and smuggles in his waiter lover, Kurt (Christian Navarro). 

Distraught on returning to find Jersey dead under the couch, Lee orders Jack to leave. But she needs to sell her merchandise and sends him to Paul with the Ferber. The FBI are waiting for him, however, and he readily squeals to save his own skin. Meanwhile, Lee meets up with her ex, Elaine (Anna Deavere Smith), and admits that she regrets losing her. However, Elaine no longer has the desire to talk Lee off the ledge and she is left to face the music alone after being served with a subpoena by agents Solanas (Erik LeRay Harvey) and Doyle (Pun Bandhu) in her favourite bar. 

Lawyer Lloyd (Marc Evan Jackson) urges her to get a job, join Alcoholic Anonymous and enroll in a community service scheme to show penitence. Before sentence is passed, Lee admits that she feels no remorse, as she was proud of her forgeries. But she accepts she has done wrong in cheating the booksellers and she receives a five-year probationary sentence, along with six months of house arrest. 

She breaks curfew to meet Jack (who has been diagnosed with HIV) and ask for his consent to write a book about their exploits. As he had rather enjoyed their liaison, he cheerfully agrees and they exchange tearful insults be he hobbles off on his cane. Working on a computer and tickling the tummy of her new black-and-white kitten, Lee writes her book and feels better about herself because she is writing with her own voice at last. 

While strolling, she sees one of her Dorothy Parker letters in the window of a high-class bookshop and makes inquiries about its authenticity. Having been assured it's genuine, she fires off a rejoinder in Parker's style, but the owner opts to leave the item on sale. Closing captions reveal that Lee Israel produced over 400 fake letters, two of which were quoted in a 2007 biography of Noël Coward, while the New York Times called her memoir sordid but fabulous. 

When writing to explain that she was ineligible for jury duty because she was a convicted felon, Israel had joked that crime pays after all and something of that spirit suffuses this engaging and empathetic biopic. Magnificently played by Oscar-nominated Melissa McCarthy, Lee comes across as a self-loathing curmudgeon who sought refuge in a past more respectful of literary endeavour on discovering that she was living out of her own time. Her dinner scene with Dolly Wells hints at the softer side of her personality, while the carousing sessions with the excellent Richard E. Grant (who also thoroughly merits his Oscar nod) expose the extent of her loneliness and her readiness to open up to someone willing to accept her for her flawed self. But, as was the case with Lasse Hallström's account of Clifford Irving's Howard Hughes scam in The Hoax (2006), Holofcener and Whitty are less critical of the perpetrator than they are of the book trade that was prepared to profit from her duplicity. 

Despite being set in the early 90s, this is very much a comment on post-millennial attitudes to women of a certain age and physical aspect. It's also a lament for a time when the content of a book mattered more than the profile of its author and a celebration of the lost age of elegance and wit that Israel chose to mine. The fact she can out-zing Dorothy Parker speaks volumes for Israel's talent. But Heller resists the temptation to make Israel a victim of a chauvinist system, as she brings the majority of her problems down on herself, with her refusal to brush up her social skills or play the publishing fame game. Yet, despite opting for a warts and all depiction, Heller manages to humanise Israel without patronising her or the audience by over-egging the story's comic caperness. 

Lovingly photographed by Brandon Trost to capture the melancholic magic of the Manhattan skyline and its grimmer realities at ground level, the action refuses to fetishise the 1990s tropes. However, Stephen Carter's production design, Arjun Basin's costumes and the hair and make-up looks conceived by Sarah Stamp and Ma Kalaadevi Ananda are all spot on. In our age of instant information and communication, it seems infeasible that Israel should have managed to get away with her ruse so easily and for so long. But the focus here is on character rather than crime and, thanks to McCarthy's masterclass in depicting self-doubt, solitude, redundancy and despair, this affectionate and accepting profile proves as riveting as it is revealing.

There's something inescapably intrusive about documentaries that centre on families either going through a crisis or recovering from a momentous event that has scarred the remaining members. In the case of Jonathan Couette's Tarnation (2003), Karen Guthrie's The Closer We Get (2015) and Orlando von Einsiedel's Evelyn (2018), the director was personally involved in the story and can claim that making the film had a cathartic effect. But it's harder to condone outsider offerings like Andrew Jarecki's Capturing the Friedmans (2003) and Tim Wardle's Three Identical Strangers (2018), which feel more invasive because the film-maker is merely an observer on private grief. 

In the case of Erick Stoll and Chase Whiteside's América, the eponymous character is on screen for much of the time. But, such is the nonagenarian grandmother's declining mental and physical state that she is less a participant in the action than a befuddled bystander, as her fate is decided by corrupt officials and family members whose differing priorities provoke confrontations that often feel as though they have been staged for benefit of the conveniently present camera. Moreover, despite offering cursory reflections on familial duty and care for the aged, it's difficult to gauge what Still and Whiteside are striving to achieve with a picture that often feels like it is snooping and more than a little exploitative.

Mexican Diego Alvarez Serrano is working as a surfing instructor in the Pacific resort town of Puerto Vallarta, while his younger brother, Bruno, toils to the strains of `Staying Alive' as an Elvis impersonator on stilts before a smattering of indifferent customers in a half-empty restaurant. The siblings hail from the south-western city of Colima, where their 93 year-old grandmother, América Candevielle Levas, lives with their father, Luis. However, they receive a call from their elder brother, Rodrigo, informing them that Luis has been arrested for neglecting his mother and that he is too busy running his dog food business and holistic meditation sessions with his girlfriend Cristina to cope with América on his own. 

Diego seems glad to return home to dote on his grandmother and greets her fondly when she wakes from a nap. She seems surprised to see the camera and Diego declares her `a startled star'. We learn that América had fallen out of bed while Luis was out shopping and had made such a pitiful noise that the neighbours had called the police. As he is unable to meet his bail payment, Luis remains behind bars and Diego rides his motorcycle to the prison to visit him. The brothers have no doubt that Luis has been doing his best for his mother and that the charge of neglecting a senior citizen is not only harsh, but also cynical, as the magistrate overseeing the case is open to reaching a settlement in return for an inducement. 

As Cristina sits at the kitchen table with América, the older woman is charmed by her beauty and zest for life, as she listens to the radio while having her breakfast. Cristina is touched by the compliment, but she and Rodrigo are concerned by the fact that América is constipated and keeps wetting herself in the night. They are happy to let Diego sweet talk her into taking a shower and he slow walks her across the courtyard and fusses over her while she washes. But América gets nervous when he practices his aerial silk act from some ribbons tied to the mango tree in the garden, as she has forgotten that he is an acrobat and is convinced he is going to fall. 

In a bid to cheer her up, Diego shows her some old photographs. However, América fails to recognise herself and becomes emotional when he tells her that the pictures were taken 20 years ago and she laments the fact that the woman in the picture must now be very old. Much to Diego's dismay, Rodrigo wonders if they are simply keeping América alive to stay out of jail, as he feels she is often too confused to know what is happening around her. But Diego is sure she is aware that her grandsons are protecting and trying to give her a decent quality of life. In an effort to prove his point, he takes América on an outing to a rooftop overlooking Colima to listen to the church bells ringing. However, she is more interested in going home for something to eat than in enjoying her trip.  

Six months pass and the lawyer prosecuting Luis asks for a delay in the court proceedings, as he has been too busy to build up a case. This happenstance brings Bruno home to do his share of granny-sitting and he joins his siblings in forming a human pyramid with the burly Rodrigo at the base. Diego reveals that the trio haven't always gotten along and he hopes that they can grow closer in rallying round América. She seems to have responded to the attention she has been receiving and even manages to attend a neighbourhood party. Indeed, she is in such good spirits that she grins mischievously when Rodrigo describes how she spits out the laxative tablets he has been trying to hide in her hot chocolate. 

Meanwhile, the brothers seek to have the case against Luis dismissed because he has been incarcerated for eight months and deserves to be cut some slack as he is also a pensioner. However, their lawyer holds out little hope of him being released and suggests that they apply for legal custody of their grandmother to prevent her from being taken into care. Yet, while they make their application, it becomes entangled in red tape and tensions between the increasingly frustrated Rodrigo and his brothers begin to mount.

Bruno tries to keep América amused by juggling. As the active type, he is convinced thats he needs to get more exercise and insists that she walks behind her wheelchair when they go to the nearby park. Wanting to be left alone, América complains about being bullied and proves equally recalcitrant when they take her to the bathroom. On one expedition to the park, she becomes distressed when Bruno refuses to take her hand or let her lean on the chair while she walks. Her protests attract the attention of some passers-by and six cops arrive on the scene to question Bruno about his treatment of an old dear who is clearly upset and in pain. 

On arriving home, Bruno explains to his siblings how he was almost arrested for cruelty and Diego has to mount a charm offensive when Samantha the social worker comes to inspect América's living conditions. She makes copious notes and informs Diego that a decision about his grandmother's future will be made once her report has been assessed. In consulting with his brothers, Diego infers that they are leaving him to do the dirty work and he is put out when Rodrigo tells him to stop bellyaching as caring for América is his only job. Despite being nettled by the suggestion that he is only expending so much energy on his grandmother because he hopes to benefit from her will, Diego gets up in the night without complaint when she needs the bathroom and he continues to devote himself to her. 

Some time later, the lawyer calls with the news that the judge has agreed to release Luis for the sum of 25,000 pesos. They celebrate and Diego commends Rodrigo for their teamwork in caring for their grandmother. But Bruno is in no mood to party and he accuses Diego of failing to make a financial contribution to América's upkeep. As Rodrigo and Cristina look on, the younger siblings start to wrestle on the ground. At one point, Bruno rips off his brother's shorts and begins spanking his bare behind. Diego makes a sarcastic apology and a single tear trickles down Cristina's face, as the camera alights on a fly crawling over a cracked mango oozing juice in the backyard. 

An unspecified period of time passes before Diego reveals that things came to a head after Luis was released from prison and bluntly announced that he had no intention of taking care of his mother because he didn't want to waste a second of his newfound freedom. Rodrigo and Cristina had also decided to withdraw to focus on their own enterprises. So, with Diego and Bruno being unable to provide round-the-clock car, they had been forced to escort América to the home of the affluent relatives who had agreed to let her stay with them. We see them riding unicycles while pushing her chair along and Diego lies beside América as she sings along to an old song on the radio. Despite seeming frail, her voice is clear and, moreover, she remembers all of the lyrics. But this is the last we see of her, as the film ends two years later with Diego and Bruno smiling through tears in the backseat of a taxi, as they hold an urn containing América's ashes. 

Having met at university in Ohio, Stoll and Whiteside had planned to make fictional features before being drawn towards actuality after attending a mandatory documentary class. They had gone to Mexico to make a film about American tourists abroad, but had befriended Diego and decided to switch the focus of their film to the plight of his grandmother. By shooting (over three years) in carefully composed widescreen, the duo rather betray the fact that they had a degree of control over the content. But, while it's unclear whether incidents like the tussle between Diego and Bruno were stage-managed, it's evident that América isn't always certain why she is being filmed and this raises a clutch of uncomfortable questions about the respective roles of the film-makers and the audience in the recording and viewing of material acquired in somewhat specious circumstances. 

Photographed by Stoll with sound designed by Christian Giraud, this could never be described as a malicious film. But it does seem to take advantage of América's state of mind in recording her response to the efforts of the Alvarez Serrano siblings to nurse and stimulate her. Moreover, Stoll and Whiteside appear to take Diego's part in the feuds with Rodrigo and Bruno. They make the odd potent point about the corrupt nature of the Mexican legal system and the country's flawed policies on social care. But, even though Whiteside and Stoll had made activist films for New Left Media back home, their emphasis is more on the personal than the political. Consequently, for all the discretion and tenderness on view, this still feels like an imposition on a muddled and vulnerable old woman.

Borough Park in Brooklyn is home to the biggest ultra-orthodox Jewish community in the United States. Since 1969, it has also boasted the world's largest volunteer ambulance force. But, while the Hatzolah is proud of its emergency response record, strict rules relating to gender segregation has resulted in large numbers of women being reluctant to call the service for fear of compromising their modesty. As Paula Eiselt reveals in 93Queen, the need for an all-female Hasidic EMT corps was self-evident. Yet, when Rachel `Ruchie' Freier co-founded Ezras Nashim (`Helping Women'), she not only faced hostility from die-hard conservatives, but also resistance from the very people she was trying to help. 

Mother of six who became a lawyer in her forties, Ruchie is a force of nature. She bustles around the neighbourhood with an enviable energy that she is also able to channel into encouraging others to follow her lead, even though they may have misgivings about challenging centuries-old conventions about the status of women. Fortunately, husband Tzvi Dovid Freier supports her wholeheartedly and twins Faigy and Leah help out in the kitchen. But, even though she finds willing volunteers like divorcee Hadassah Ellis, Ruchie is denounced online for breaching the rules and seeking to undermine the community by exposing it to secular concepts like feminism. 

Abetted by co-founder Yocheved Lerner and co-ordinator Yitty Mandel, Ruchie registers Ezras Nashim and begins recruiting volunteers and raising funds for their training. However, the medical supply companies that deal with Hatzolah are reluctant to deal with them and media coverage of their struggle invites criticism from traditionalists who insist that women are happy to place their trust in male volunteers, even though they are not supposed to even shake hands with a man who is not their husband. Both Ruchie and Yitty wear wigs to keep their own hair covered and they take time out to pray during their busy schedules. Moreover, they are expected to keep house and raise their families (Yitty has four kids), while running Ezras Nashim. 

Despite being denied rabbinical endorsement, Ruchie ploughs on because she is convinced God is on her side (even though she admits it would make life easier if He had made her a man). Her daughters and their friends help stuff envelopes, while Yocheved finds a supplier and dispatch trainer Rochel Halpert provides insights into how to deal with emergency phone calls. Yet, even though progress is being made, Ruchie keeps being singled out for opprobrium, with her selection as `Mother of the Year' at her children's school inviting screeds of chatroom negativity to which she feels she must respond in order to protect Ezras Nashim's integrity. In distancing herself from radical feminism, however, Ruchie risks alienating members of her own team, especially when she decides to exclude single women from the volunteer force, as they lack the life experience necessary to gain the trust of potential patients. 

As training continues, medical director Dr Allen Cherson chairs a meeting to discuss the structure of the service. However, Yocheved feels that Ruchie has become overly dictatorial and resigns because of her stance on single women and she brushes off a deputation urging her to be more inclusive in her managerial style. There's no doubt that Ezras Nashim would have remained a pipe dream without Ruchie's dynamism and standing in the community. But, as the organisation launches with its `93Q' call sign, it's evident that class has played a prominent part in Ruchie's rise, as she has a nice home, a supportive family and a self-confident sense of style, while the corpulent, unmarried and decidedly rough-and-ready Yocheved lives in a cluttered bedsit with her cat. 

A surfeit of prank calls blights the first day's operation, but Ruchie gets to attend a pregnant woman who consciously opted for Ezras Nashim over Hatzolah and they are up and running. They also have to overcome a negative publicity blitz when Ruchie's emergency vehicle is clamped and the image goes viral. But her tireless campaigning pays off and the group quickly gains acceptance. Shortly afterwards, Hadassah gets remarried and Ruchie announces her candidacy to become a civil court judge. Once again, she faces prejudice from the old guard, but she triumphs to become the first Hasidic Jewish woman to hold public office in the United States. 

Similar in many ways to Norah Shapiro's Time for Ilhan (2018), this bristling documentary leaves you in little doubt that, if they joined forces, Ruchie Freier and Ilhan Omer could very well change the world. Yet, while this profile confirms Ruchie as a remarkable woman whose achievements are matched only by her courage and commitment, it's difficult to overlook the contradictions that impinge upon her aims and her approach to accomplishing them. Clearly not one to suffer fools gladly, her controlling nature leaves little room for sentiment and her shrugging dismissal of the collapse of her relationshiip with the highly principled, but strategically naive Yocheved leaves a deleterious impression. 

Nevertheless, it's impossible not to be awed by Ruchie's intelligence and tenacity, as she switches between baking challah bread, running her legal practice and delivering babies without seeming to break stride. During the course of the four-year shoot in which she served as her own cinematographer, Eiselt (whose Orthodox faith helped her gain access to Ruchie's milieu) must have seen a downside. But she and editors Sunita Prasad and Rebecca Laks accentuate the positive at all times, even when Ruchie is being accused of trashing the Torah and undermining the foundations of Hasidic society. 

Despite the numerous ambience-establishing pillow shots, the choppy nature of the narrative will leave some feeling as though they are being chivvied along before they can ask awkward questions. However, the propulsive style also gives momentum to the evolution of Ezras Nashim and reaffirms the sense of the relentlessness that is the secret of Ruchie's success. With dissenting voices being reduced to a distant hubbub (as much through patriarchal restriction as directorial choice), the sound of glass ceilings being shattered comes through loud and clear. Yet it's obvious from this acute, if not always inconveniently inquisitive account, that the smashing is still only being done by a certain kind of woman. 

The spate of films about the rarefied world of fashion continues unabated. But those hoping for a coruscating critical insight will remain frustrated because anyone granted access to the hallowed halls knows that they will be jettisoned into outer darkness if they deign to cast aspersions about the haute couture hierarchy. As a former journalist, New Zealander Pietra Brettkelly is clearly aware of these consequences. Thus, she opts for a largely deferential approach in shadowing Chinese designer Guo Pei for the Dochouse offering, Yellow Is Forbidden. 

But Brettkelly also has a nose for a good story, as she has previously demonstrated in profiling American pageant hopeful Teca Zendik in Beauty Will Save the World (2003), adopting artist Vanessa Beecroft in The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins (2008) and Afghan film curator Ibrahim Arify in A Flickering Truth (2015). Thus, while she treads carefully, she raises some pertinent points about Guo's creations and what they say about her and her clientele. Moreover, she also shines a light into the murkier corners of the French fashion establishment, in particular that bastion of self-serving chauvinism, La Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. 

In a breathless opening, we see a fluorescent dress, some wealthy Chinese women attending a fashion show at Guo's atelier (which she compares to that of Christian Dior), a class of female students gazing in awe at a gold-threaded jacket (which they are politely forbidden to touch) and Guo's luxurious home, complete with her collection of 400 teddy bears. She gushes about her love of kaleidoscopes and Cristóbal Balenciaga, as well as her husband, Jack Tsao, and their three children. Then, she shows off her sketchbooks, whose pages prompt a cutaway to the red carpet at the Met Gala in 2015, when Rhianna caused a sensation in a 55lb yellow gown made from fox fur and gold thread that took two years to make.

Guo tells the press in Paris that this piece had been created for a show in 2010 and been stored away after a terrified model had failed to show it off to its best advantage on the runway. She is grateful to Rhianna for reviving it (although she admits she had no idea who the singer was when she contacted her people), but the ultra-confident Guo doesn't come across as someone who needs celebrity endorsement. As she shows the great and the good around an exhibition, she laps up the adulation from the likes of Philip Treacy, as she points out details in creations that are at once gaudy and exquisite. Yet, she is clearly nervous when she meets the Baudelaire-quoting Pascale Morand and Tsao translates for her as he haughtily explains that few are chosen to become members of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. 

Following a pilgrimage to a Jeanne Lanvin exhibition, she is more relaxed when meeting a journalist who asks about accusations that she dresses the wives of Communist Party bigwigs and is detached from the ordinary people. Smilingly, Guo explains that she was raised during the Cultural Revolution and educated at the Beijing Second Light Industry School, as designing clothing was considered a functional occupation rather than an artistic vocation. However, she graduated in 1986, as Deng Xiaoping was beginning to turn back the Maoist tide and was already making her own waves on the domestic scene before `The Big Gold' brought her to the attention of the wider world. 

As an African migrant sells souvenirs on the pavement below, Guo supervises a rooftop shoot in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower before she is whisked off to a compatriot's renovated chateau in the countryside. With barely a pause, she heads to a fabric convention and meets with a British pair who are confident that they can translate to cloth the images she had snapped of the painted cupola of La Madeleine. Back in China, she shoos her youngest daughter away so she can work, but takes her on a trip to see her parents. Her father served in the People's Army, while her mother was a kindergarten teacher. However, her poor eyesight meant that Guo spent a lot of time with her grandmother and Brettkelly makes evocative use of jointed shadow puppets to illustrate her recollections of the stories the old lady had told her about her experiences at the imperial court. 

Living in an apartment in a soulless residential block, Guo's parents are clearly proud of her. Yet they have never been to one of her unveilings and the  contrast could not be more marked between their simple existence and that of a sixtysomething woman who orders 24 outfits at a private fitting session and is rewarded by being made a member of Guo's VIP club, with the entitlement to sit on the front row of her runway shows. At ease with affluence and power, Guo accepts the need to flatter and fawn. But she refuses to be labelled as a symbol of a changing China and insists she creates for herself and not her country. 

During an interview, she reveals her annoyance at having to justify her prices at the start of her career and concedes that she relied on Tsao's wealth to allow her to make mistakes before hitting her stride. She calls him the wings that have enabled her to soar and he advises against flying too high. But, on a trip to New York, Guo is feted by Wendi Deng Murdoch prior to Time magazine's dinner to celebrate its 100 Most Influential People. She seems unimpressed by the news she has been seated next to Donald Trump and takes in the scene on the red carpet with a wry detachment that suggests that, despite reaching the stratosphere, her feet are still very much on the ground. 

Shrewdly, Brettkelly cuts away from the make-believe world of celebrity to the harsher realities facing the emroiderers, who work long hours for modest wages. Earlier, we had seen Guo undergoing stress therapy, as she forever feels she is on the precipice. But, while she may be under pressure to meet her deadlines and generate the wow factor that will sustain a reputation that has been hard-earned over three decades, she has it easy compared to the anonymous women who make her designs tangible. Consequently, her peevish lambasting of the boss for the delays and spiralling costs involved in producing the intricate, hand-stitched embroidery does her little credit. 

She's in a much better mood when she announces to an exclusive audience of clients that she has been accepted by the Chambre Syndicale and uses the opportunity to reprimand the keepers of the couture flame for past prejudices against non-Western designers. Of course, she's right. But, coming so soon after her diatribe at the workshop, such an assumption of the moral high ground feels more than a little disingenuous and her peevishness remains to the fore as she makes the final preparations for the show at La Conciergerie, which was where Marie Antoinette spent her last 76 days before her execution in 1793. Guo visits the queen's cell and is shown her silk nightdress before she heads backstage to supervise the show, which the 87 year-old Carmen Dell'Orefice has announced will be her last. 

Some of the items on display beggar belief, including a domed creation topped with a crucifix that is so heavy that the model almost buckles under the weight. But Guo's daughter, Daisy, is overcome with emotion as the applause rings out. In closing, Guo admits being the slowest designer in the world, but she confides that she now feels like an empress, as she has reached her peak. As the credits roll, she listens admiringly as her mother sings a song of farewell, in which she urges her daughter not to forget her. It's a touchingly intimate moment in a film that often feels detached from reality, as it echoes the cultural concerns explored in Andrew Rossi's The First Monday in May (2016) and the cult of personality issues broached by Lorna Tucker's Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist (2018).

While watching Guo Pei on camera, it's tempting to compare her to the younger Yoko Ono, as there is something deceptively disarming in her demeanour that belies her unswerving confidence in her own vision and talent. Doubtless the fashionistas will be able to provide a more informed analysis of her creations, as the untutored eye is too often distracted by their extravagance and occasional eccentricity to form a worthwhile opinion. But Brettkelly is less concerned with Guo's designs than with the processes involved in their genesis and production. That said, she is scrupulously careful to avoid anything that might appear to be either judgemental or promotional. Consequently, this says a lot less about Guo the person or her mindset and methodologies than appears to be the case from the bustle of Jacob Bryant's handheld camerawork and the business of Nicolas Chaudeurge and Margot Francis's editing. 

Don't be misled, however, by the throwaway references to pink crocodile skin and artificial fluffy leather. Brettkelly is fascinated by Guo and the fact she's a tad starstruck and dazzled by the spotlights seems to distract her from the follies of haute couture and its preening Gallic guardians. Indeed, she also seems to give Guo the benefit of the doubt when contrasting her behaviour in the presence of her patrons and her underlings. But, while she avoids hagiographising her subject, she also declines the opportunity to peer behind the smoke and mirrors or solicit the views of independent observers. As a result, for all the pretty pictures, while we are informed that one of her jackets costs €115,000, we learn next to nothing about the artistic value, intellectual context or historical significance of Guo's work.

Having co-directed Traveling With Mr T (2012) with Andreas Dalsgaard and Graine de Champion (2016) with documentary titan Viktor Kossakovsky, Dane Simon Lereng Wilmont makes an impressive solo debut with The Distant Barking of Dogs, a sobering study of the impact of warfare on impressionable minds that made the shortlist for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Showing under the Bertha Dochouse banner, this is a timely reminder of the forgotten War in Dombass that has been rumbling away in the background of European events for the last five years and shows no sign of being resolved. 

Situated on the east bank of the Kalmius River, the small village of Hnutove (Pop. 700) lies within earshot of the frontline in the battle between Ukraine and the Moscow-backed Donetsk People's Republic. Ten year-old Oleg Afanasyev has lived with his grandmother, Alexandra Ryabichkina, since the death of his mother, Natasha, when he was still small. Trudging through the snow, the pair visit her grave and leave tears and flowers, as dogs can be heard barking over the distant thunder of artillery a mile away. 

Back home, Oleg plays with a white cat and watches dogs mooching around the yard with his younger cousin, Yarik, who lives with his mother, Olena Bendes. They are full of energy and enjoy playing with Kostya Kabanov, an older boy who swings them around by the arms, teaches them how to fire a catapult at some bottles and shows them the bullets he has found in the fields. At school, female soldiers give lectures on the dangers of land mines and Oleg's classmates seem as familiar with the different kinds as they do with the trucks that clatter along the well-patrolled road to the front, which is regularly featured on the radio as one of the most active in the entire conflict. 

Although many left Hnutove when the fighting started, Alexandra refuses to quit her ramshackle cottage and declares `every dog has a lion in its own home'. As we see shots of decimated buildings, she recalls the death of a neighbour sitting at his kitchen table when a mortar struck and decides to put a bed in the cellar so she can protect Oleg when the fighting intensifies. She sings him a lullaby, as aftershocks cause the glass jars on the shelves to rattle. There is no wonder, therefore, that Olena's soldier boyfriend, Igor, wants to move her and Yarik to a safer part of the country. But Alexandra insists on staying put, along with the farmers who bring in the hay with both thunder and gunfire rumbling in the distance. 

On Yarik's last day in the village, the cousins go swimming in the river and run along a path with their towels fluttering in the breeze like superhero capes. They play-fight on the bed before Oleg helps Yarik pack his bag and Alexandra warns him not to go swimming alone, as he is too small to go into the pool unaccompanied. Oleg watches quietly, as Olena gives her son a haircut before whisking him away and Oleg clings to Alexandra, as he realises he has lost his best friend and will now have to face the ever-present dangers alone. 

He starts spending more time with Kostya and they go swimming at dusk and collect wood for a bonfire. The battle rages close by and the boys decide that discretion is the better part of valour and run home. Alexandra is relieved to see them, but realises that they are not directly in the line of fire on this occasion. Nevertheless, the sky lights up with tracer fire and explosions, as the relentless nature of the stress endured by the villagers is made chillingly apparent. Indeed, it's noticeable that there are far fewer children in Oleg's class when they practice a safety drill and he spends increasing time alone, playing in derelict buildings or painting the blue Orthodox cross on his mother's grave. As he works, he confides that he was scared during a recent bout of shooting and the boy seems jumpy when out with the camera crew one dank, grey afternoon.

After a while, Olena brings Yarik back to Hnutove because he doesn't get along with Oleg and is being bullied by the boys at his new school because he speaks Russian. He is glad to be back with his grandmother and is soon engaging in some rough and tumble with Oleg during a fishing expedition. They hurl aggressive insults at each other and swing their fists inexpertly before collapsing on the ground in a fit of giggles that continues after bedtime, when Alexandra has to chide them for tussling instead of sleeping. She sits alone in the kitchen with a black kitten mewing at her feet, as she muses on the fact that periods of silence are often disconcerting because they represent the lull before a new storm. 

Her fears are justified and a ferocious exchange drives the family into the cellar, where Alexandra starts cleaning to try and hide the fact that her hands are trembling. During the daytime, the boys go to an abandoned barracks with Kostya and find bullets and a land mine. He recalls coming to sell fish to the soldiers and being threatened with a rifle, but they seem inured to the presence of danger and watch laptop footage of an attack on a nearby town with a dismaying impassivity.

When Alexandra falls ill, the cousins try to fend for themselves and make a mess in the kitchen. The close-ups of Oleg's concerned face emphasise how young they are, as does the haunted expression as he waits for the doctor to assess his grandmother for nervous tension. Yet, the pair use curse words and belligerent banter like surly teenagers and it's clear that the proximity of the conflict has prompted them to adopt macho postures to mask their fear. 

As the latest in a long line of ceasefires is announced, Alexandra offers the homespun wisdom that `hope blossoms like greens ready to be pickled in a glass jar'. However, peril comes from closer to home, as Kostya gets hold of a pistol and Oleg is hit in the heel by a ricocheting bullet and he is rushed to the clinic when the wound keeps bleeding. He is okay, but Alexandra scolds him when he confesses to shooting a frog and his eyes burn with shame as she forces him to consider the cruelty of killing a creature in cold blood. However, he beams with happiness when they redecorate the front room and paste up wallpaper depicting sunlight shining through dense woodland. He also has a dreamy faraway look when he gazes across the valley with his grandmother and marvels at how big Ukraine is. 

But such moments of tranquility remain few and far between and a coda presents phone footage of Oleg and Yarik eating while ordnance booms overhead and a caption reveals that the factions remain at odds despite ongoing negotiations and short-lived truces. The boys look older, but are still small and vulnerable and Alexandra continues to hope against hope that she will remain able to care for them and that peace will eventually return.

Filming over three years and acting as his own cinematographer, Lereng Wilmont clearly established a rapport with Oleg that enabled the boy to forget he had a camera trained on him. Every now and then, however, he casts an anxious look into the lens, as if to ask whether they are going to keep recording while being caught in the crossfire. Such moments drive home the unremitting awfulness of being trapped in a war zone and being powerless to do anything other than wait and pray. Yet, what emerges from this poignantly intimate portrait, is how war becomes such a part of Oleg's everyday existence that he is able to find ways of pushing it into the background in order to salvage some semblance of normality.

It's somewhat inevitable that Oleg and Yarik would become fascinated by the very weapons that imperil them, especially as they are so in awe of the older and wiser Kostya. But he is also very much a kid and the shock on his face after Oleg is wounded in the leg is affectingly palpable. It might have been useful to learn something more about his circumstances, as he plays such a crucial role in proceedings and has a considerable influence on what appear to be his only friends (in spite of the telling age gap). But Lereng Wilmont is content to let viewers speculate, as he limits his focus to Oleg's restricted milieu and understanding of the crisis enveloping him. 

Expertly edited by Michael Aaglund, the footage deftly juxtaposes the cramped interiors with the sprawling vistas to suggest that Oleg and Alexandra are at risk in what might otherwise by a spartan idyll. Uno Helmersson and Eric Enocksson contribute a discreetly atmospheric score, but the audio highlight is the sound design created by Pietu Korhonen, Heikki Kossi and Peter Albrechtsen, which blends barks and miaows with thunderclaps and missiles while also hinting at the plangent thud of heartbeats against the susurration of held breath.