Parky at the Pictures (DVD 8/11/2012)

The son of a quality shoe manufacturer, Méliès became obsessed with magic after a visit to London. On his return to Paris, he purchased the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in the Boulevard des Italiens and made his name as an illusionist. However, on 28 December 1895, he attended the first public screening of the Lumière Cinématographe and quickly realised that moving pictures would be an enticing addition to his act. His first efforts, like Card Party (1896), owed much to the Lumière tradition, but The Vanishing Lady (1896) introduced a new showmanship to cinema and established Méliès among its great innovators.

Yet, as we hear Méliès himself explain in a thrilling audio clip, he discovered the effect that enabled the substitution of figures and props quite by chance while filming on the street. His camera jammed momentarily and, by the time he had repaired it, the coach that had been in shot had been replaced by a hearse and Méliès realised that simple tricks and spectacular transformations could now be achieved as if by magic. As the great auteur Costa-Gavras explains over extracts from The Four Troublesome Heads (1898) and Fat and Lean Wrestling Match (1900), Méliès combined stagecraft and mechanical know-how and Amélie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet reckons that he must have been a bit of a techno-geek like James Cameron in conceding to a certain envy that it was easier at the turn of the last century to break new ground with titles like The Man With the Rubber Head (1901) and An Impossible Balancing Feat (1902) than it is now.

Over footage from Cinderella (1899) and The Christmas Dream (1900), Michel Gondry states that Méliès had a childlike fascination for film and this reinforced the wonderment of his work. But he was actually an artist with the energy and dedication of an artisan, as he designed, directed and often starred in 500 films over 18 years. Like The One-Man Band (1900) and Off to Bloomingdale Asylum (1901), the majority were produced at his purpose-built studio in Montreuil (which is erroneously identified here as the world's first, when this was Thomas Edison's Black Maria in New Jersey), which was reconstructed by Tom Hanks in 1998 for HBO mini-series From the Earth to the Moon.

As Hanks re-enacts a typical day's shooting, narrator Bromberg explains that Méliès could only film between 11am and 3pm each day, as this was when the sun shone through the studio's glass walls and he devoted the remainder of the day to creating the sets and costumes for each new project. But nothing matched the ambition of A Trip to the Moon, which took its inspiration from the novels of Jules Verne and HG Wells and an operetta by Offenbach. Méliès had surveyed the heavens before in The Astronomer's Dream (1898), but Wells's Selenites seemed to spark his imagination and Hanks notes that in envisaging how a rocketship would blast off and return home he anticipated some of the techniques that would be used by the Apollo missions of the 1960s.

Universally admired, A Trip to the Moon was also shamelessly pirated, with Edison, Selig and Lubin running copies from a purloined print in the United States and Méliès and his Star Film company lost a small fortune as a consequence. Back in Europe, rivals like the Spaniard Segundo de Chomón simply plagiarised the picture in An Excurion to the Moon (1908), although this had the added attraction of being in colour. Méliès himself collaborated with former magic lantern arists Elisabeth Thuillier to produce hand-painted versions of films like The Infernal Cauldron (1903) and The Inventor Crazybrains and His Wonderful Airship (1905) and an actress voicing Thuillier explains how she employed dozens of girls in her studio at 87 Rue de Bac to meticulously colour each frame and the time-consuming nature of the work considerably increased the cost of a print.

Michel Hazanavicius, the Oscar-winning director of The Artist, deems coloured films like The Kingdom of Fairies (1903) to be paintings in motion and he praises their beauty and poetry. But the public quickly tired of such novelty and began demanding longer pictures. Locked into a realm of trick shorts, Méliès struggled to adapt to new storytelling techniques and not even a second studio enabled him to compete with industrial concerns like Gaumont and Pathé. Moreover, reality was beginning to catch up with his fantasies and his 1912 opus Conquest of the Pole looked decidedly quaint and antiquated alongside authentic footage from Roald Amundsen's expedition of the same year.

As a result, the 52 year-old Méliès closed his studio in 1913 and never filmed again. A decade later, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin was demolished during the extension of the Boulevard Haussmann and, on being forced to sell the Montreuil property to pay off his debts, he torched much of his archive believing it to have no commercial value. Costa-Gavras declares this an act of artistic suicide over photographs of Méliès at the toy store he ran at the Gare Montparnasse with his frequent co-star and second wife Jeanne d'Alcy. But he was never entirely forgotten by the cine-fraternity, with the famous Studio 28 cinema hosting a benefit screening for him in December 1928. Sadly, only eight Méliès titles could be found and the programme was supplemented by Cecil B. De Mille's The Cheat (1915).

However, the coming of sound meant that many more of Méliès's contemporaries would be cast into oblivion, as only 25-30% of all films made before 1930 have survived. Indeed, some 300 Méliès titles are presumed lost forever, with chemical erosion accounting for those that were not wilfully destroyed by the maestro himself. Yet prints long thought gone occasionally turn up out of the blue and co-director Eric Lange explains how Anton Gimenez from the Filmoteca de Catalunya approached Lobster Films in Paris in the hope it had some De Chomón titles in its vaults. In passing, he mentioned a colour print of A Trip to the Moon and a swap was arranged for a copy of The Golden Spider (1909).

The reel was incredibly fragile and Lange explains (over a wonderful clip of Stan Laurel conducting a botched experiment) how it was placed in a glass jar and painstakingly unrolled over many months so that the freed frames could be digitised. In all, 13,795 images were preserved in this manner. But the technology simply didn't exist in 2002 to produce a restored version and, as Nicolas Ricordel from the CNC Film Archive recalls, the project was shelved for eight years before Tom Burton at Technicolor Creative Services in Hollywood found a way of scanning the frames without risk of further damaging them and a new generation was finally able to experience one of the most important films in cinema history.

Comprised of 30 scenes running for an unprecedented 825 feet or some 14 minutes, A Trip to the Moon set the standard length of films at one reel for the next few years. Designed with his typical imaginative flamboyance, the scenes were essentially theatrical tableaux, which Méliès filmed front-on with a static camera to approximate the gaze of a patron in a prime seat in the auditorium.

But, ever the showman, he littered the action with visual effects, such as the iconic shot of the rocket landing in the Man in the Moon's eye (which he achieved by moving the papier maché moon towards the camera on a dolly rather than the other way round) and the disappearance of the Selenites in a puff of smoke on being struck by the umbrellas of Professor Barbenfouillis and his fellow members of the Astronomer's Club.

Yet, for all its ingenuity, this was still very much a rudimentary picture, with the action being linked by dissolves rather than cross-cuts within or between the individual scenes. Nonethless, Méliès gave film a new fictional function and not only paved the way for such contemporaries as Edwin S. Porter and DW Griffith, but also for the later avant-garde. Naturally, it's up to you which order you watch the films, but the 110 year-old gem is all the more dazzling having witnessed the ingenuity and patience that went into both its making and salvaging.

It's not often that wishes come true. But, having released an abridged version in cinemas earlier in the year, Soda Pictures has decided to release the full version of Robert B. Weide's Woody Allen: A Documentary on DVD. Essential viewing for fans, this compelling profile also provides a few answers for those who have never quite understood what the fuss is about with the bespectacled New York nebbish whose private life makes more headlines than his movies and yet who continues to command a loyal following in the face of occasionally damning criticism and a marked lack of consistent commercial success.

Originally shown in the American Masters series on the PBS network, Weide's study pays little heed to the musical aspect of Allen's career, which was admirably covered by Barbara Kopple in Wild  Man Blues (1997). Nor does he pry too deeply into his romantic liaisons or find room for many naysaying voices. But, as a chronicle of Woody Allen's evolution from teenage gagsmith to septuagenarian auteur, this is unlikely to be surpassed.

Born in the Bronx, Allen Stewart Konigsberg was raised in Brooklyn with his sister Letty by their parents Martin and Nettie. His home life was occasionally fractious and he used magic tricks to court popularity at school. In his teens, however, he started writing jokes for newspaper columnists and graduated to television after a short stint at New York University. Guided by managers Charles Roffe and Jack Rollins, he teamed most notably with Mel Brooks and Larry Gelbart in producing award-winning shows for Sid Caesar and Pat Boone. But it was his management's insistence that he concentrated on his stand-up act that led to stardom and a chance to write and act in Clive Donner's farce, What's New Pussycat? (1965).

Unhappy with the lack of control he had over his material, Allen decided that he would only return to the cinema if he could direct and he made an auspicious debut with Take the Money and Run (1969). Co-starring second wife Louise Lasser, this cod documentary initiated a series of gag-led comedies that he referred to in the Felliniesque Stardust Memories (1980) as 'the early funny ones'. Yet Bananas (1971), Play It Again, Sam (1972), Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975) allowed him to learn screen technique and strengthened his bond with former lover Diane Keaton, who would headline Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979), the masterpieces that demonstrated a new comic and cinematic maturity that was reflected in his 1978 homage to Ingmar Bergman, Interiors.

Having failed to convince with his first attempt at serious drama, Allen found himself on the end of another backlash after some perceived the self-searching Stardust Memories as an assault on his fans. However, he returned to favour during a 12-film association with Mia Farrow that included such enduring favourites as A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), Zelig (1983), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and Radio Days (1987). However, a darker edge appeared in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Crimes and Misdemeanours (1989) before Farrow discovered during the shooting of Husbands and Wives (1992) that Allen had been having an affair with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, who is 34 years his junior.

Allen tries to laugh off the scandal by protesting amazement that people could be so interested in such a non-celebrity. But the incident is rather skated over and no mention is made of the recurring criticism that he frequently cast himself opposite much younger actresses. Yet, because of his ability to compartmentalise, he continued to produce work of the calibre of Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Deconstructing Harry (1997) and Sweet and Lowdown (1999), as well as quirkier fare like Shadows and Fog (1992). John Cusack, Mira Sorvino and Sean Penn all readily testify to the privilege and pleasure of collaborating with Allen, but only Mariel Hemingway mentions that this period also saw the release of several clunkers and it's one of the few shortcomings of this picture that no mention is made of enjoyable outings like Small Town Crooks (2000), let alone such critically derided features as Celebrity (1998), The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001). Hollywood Ending (2002), Anything Else (2003) and Melinda and Melinda (2004).

Similarly, too little is made of the reasons for his decision to quit New York - to which he has only subsequently returned for Whatever Works in 2009 - and work in Europe, with the underwhelming quartet of Match Point (2005), Scoop (2006), Cassandra's Dream (2007) and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) being shot in London, while the locations for Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Midnight in Paris (2011) and To Rome With Love (2012) are pretty self-explanatory. This failure to address the misfires in any depth comes from the heavily reliance on talking-head contributions from long-term collaborators like Letty Aronson, Marshall Brickman, Tony Roberts, Diane Wiest and such admirers as Dick Cavett and Martin Scorsese. But Allen is happy to concede that he would rather be prolific and mess up occasionally than agonise over precious works of art or be idle for any length of time.

Notwithstanding the tendency to gloss, this is a fascinating tribute, with the standout moments including Allen displaying the contents of a drawer stuffed with scrap-paper ideas and discussing his surprise at stars like Scarlett Johansson and Penélope Cruz wanting to work with him. But genuine revelations about his backstory and his working methods are few and far between, as Allen clearly exercises as much control over deferential profiles as he does his own pictures. Yet Weide still manages to imply that Allen's peak among America's most important film-makers was dismayingly short and that, while he is still revered on the European festival circuit, he fell victim to the unmentioned menace of the Hollywood blockbuster that aimed itself squarely at undiscriminating kids and dumbed down the potential future audience for Allen's witty, urbane style of old school film-making.

Shot over two years and compiled from 100+ hours of footage, Kirby Dick's Sick: The Life and Times of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997) can safely be said to have no equal. Flanagan died in 1996 after a lifelong battle with cystic fibrosis. Performance artist, poet, stand-up, film-maker and diarist, he is the unlikeliest movie hero of the year. But hero he is. Whether demonstrating how shampoo can make a Visible Man doll perform all manner of bodily functions or being beaten with diverse implements for a photomontage called Wall of Pain, Flanagan was certainly prepared to suffer for his art. But then, his wife and collaborator, Sheree Rose, was more than prepared to do her bit, too.

In `Autopsy', she talks us through the scars and bruises on his body before giving him a `play piercing' through his scrotum. But that's nothing compared to the act of pushing a sizeable metal ball up his rectum to the rasping accompaniment of her rubber gloves. In addition to readings, S&M art exhibits and darkly comic songs (including a brilliant reworking of `Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'), the film also includes the shocking sight of Flanagan nailing his penis to a wooden board, sending a cascade of blood over a glass sheet above the camera lens. Yet, none of these images quite matches the traumatic effect of watching him cough his guts up or try to explain to his ever-domineering wife that he no longer has the strength to be her submissive slave.

Rose only agreed to the making of this film with great reluctance, feeling it challenged her status within the marriage. Certainly she's much harder to like than Flanagan, but it's clear he would never have fulfilled his sexual or artistic ambitions without her. A treatise on pain and death? The swan song of an exhibitionist? The last testament of a courageous artist? Whatever you want to call Sick, it is anything but a piece of exploitative voyeurism and it says much for the nannying idiocy of the British Board of Film Classification that several scenes were excised in case they encouraged sado-masochistic copycatism. Variously sombre, hilarious, wince-inducing and inspiring, this is a courageously unflinching piece of actuality art and it is very much to the credit of the BFI and the BBFC that it has finally been release in its intended form.

Ben Rivers profiles a less extreme personality in Two Years at Sea. Shot on Super 16mm monochrome stock that was processed in the director's kitchen, this is again very much an art film that develops themes first broached in This Is My Land, the 2006 short in which Rivers introduced hermit Jake Williams, the Tolstoy-bearded hermit who lives in a ramshackle house in the middle of a Cairngorm forest in the wilds of Aberdeenshire. Sticking to surfaces, yet constantly prompting the viewer to speculate, the action sometimes barely merits the term. But, whether Williams is pottering about his property, staring into space or embarking upon another eccentric odyssey, this teasing mix of observation and manipulation is rarely less than mesmerising.

Accorded seemingly unlimited access, Rivers first films Williams from behind as he trudges through the snow towards his remote dwelling. Indeed, such is the licence to roam that Rivers even records Williams having a shower and making his breakfast before he heads off to climb a tree and haul down another with a block and tackle after severing some branches. The lifestyle is hardscrabble and simple and Rivers emphasises the isolation of the residence with establishing shots that he contrasts with reflected images of clouds scudding across a leaden sky.

These leisurely nature studies presage a sudden burst of activity, as Williams clears out an old caravan, with the clutter offering fleeting clues to his personality and past. But nothing is as it seems, for no sooner has Williams tucked himself under a blanket for a snooze than Rivers reveals that the caravan has been mysteriously hoisted to the top of a tree. Yet the waking Williams takes in the view with no semblance of puzzlement and even steps outside with the confidence of a sleepwalker.

Rivers makes no attempt to explain how Williams makes a living. Instead, he shows him lying in the heather during a ramble beside a lake with a low mist hovering over the ground. The quiet smile of satisfaction is entirely understandable, as this is an idyllic existence filled with rummaging in workshops while listening to crackling LPS, meals cooked on outdoor stoves and reading sessions in a comfortable chair.

However, Williams has an adventurous streak - albeit a languorous one. In a lengthy passage that Rivers teases out, he strides across the moorland carrying four large plastic water containers and a metal or wooden frame. After a while, Williams reaches a loch and proceeds to construct a raft from his bric-a-brac and complete it with a couple of inflatable li-lo. Gently paddling out into deeper water, he starts fishing with a wooden pole and Rivers playfully allows the makeshift craft to float out of the frame and then, just as slowly, drift back into shot before Williams decides the exertions have all been too much for him and he lies down for a nap.

This is the centrepiece of a splendidly unconventional picture. For the remainder, Rivers shows us Williams loading logs into the back of his car, marking the text of a book he is reading and lugging a mattress out of the main house and up the tree to the caravan, so he can admire the unique view in greater comfort. At no stage, do we glean what Williams thinks or does. He speak once and, for the rest, contents himself with coughing chestily. His contribution to wider society is left unquestioned and it's by no means certain that the memorabilia he has gathered pertains to his life at all. Indeed, he remains as much an enigma as he stares into the light of a nocturnal campfire in the closing eight-minute take as he was in the opening shot when all we saw was the back of his head.

Rooted in the eccentric study tradition epitomised by Philip Trevelyan's The Moon and the Sledgehammer (1971), this is what happens when an avant-gardist and a recluse dabble with structured reality. Adopting a faux detachment to capture the hard graft and poetic solitude of a rigorously alternative lifestyle, this is frequently compelling, as everything Williams does seemingly generates a quirky monochrome magic. However, not knowing whether the activities he performs form part of his daily routine or were suggested by Rivers often makes this as frustrating as it's intriguing. Whatever he does, Williams transfixes. But, the absence of sustained socio-psychological insight is disappointing, while the passivity of the technique means that this is never as innovative or captivating as such masterly shorts as Slow Action (2010) and Sack Barrow (2011).

The latter chronicles the final days of a family-run electroplating factory on the outskirts of the capital that was originally opened in 1931 to provide work for disabled ex-servicemen. It would make a fine companion to Julien Temple's London: The Modern Babylon, which is easily the pick of the films released to coincide with the Olympics, as it fuses hundreds of images from a century of history to show how ordinary people shaped the destiny and personality of the metropolis that once dictated the fate of a sizeable proportion of humanity. Putting a punk spin on the `city symphony' format that has striven to capture the dynamism of urban existence since the silent era, this mesmerising montage is accompanied by a driving soundtrack that provides an ironic commentary on visuals that have been meticulously researched and slickly assembled to reaffirm Dr Johnson's contention that anyone tired of London is tired of life.

Pride of place goes to Hetty Bower, a 106 year-old from Hackney who sets the anti-nostalgic tone by recalling that a day trip to Tower Bridge was a significant childhood treat. She also remembers waving off the troops at Dalston Junction in 1914 and playing her part in the Battle of Cable Street, when East Enders resisted a march by Sir Osward  Mosley's British Union of Fascists. Indeed, conflict plays a crucial part in London's recent past, whether it brought Home Secretary Winston Churchill to Stepney for the 1911 showdown between the police and an anarchist gang in the Siege of Sidney Street or sent him as Prime Minister into the neighbourhoods decimated by the Luftwaffe during the 1940 Blitz.

What is most striking about these early sequences is the squalor endured by the masses in the first third of the last century, with Temple using footage from the films of Harry B. Parkinson and the members of the 1930s British Documentary Movement to show the appalling conditions in the crowded slums and reinforce the insight of Madness singer Suggs that `there were no good old days'. That said, there was certainly a heyday, particularly on the wharves of the docklands that sustained the trading empire. Tony Benn remembers being taught that the world was divided into the British and foreigners and his quip that there always seemed to be a lot of the latter highlights the role that immigrants have always played in the city's prosperity, whether they were Irish, Jewish, West Indian or Asian.

Temple avoids easy clichés about melting pots, however, and the inclusion of an anecdote about a boy of Caribbean extraction having his 11-plus scholarship withdrawn and handed to a white classmate eloquently sums up the injustices and prejudices that have kept racial tensions simmering. Yet, Temple doesn't necessarily see strife as a bad thing and he juxtaposes footage of the 2011 riots with an archive clip of Malcolm McLaren averring that the `London Mob' is a force that the authorities should ignore at its peril.

This thesis seems pertinent in the context of the shifting cultural and fashion trends that prompted the emergence of hippies, punks, New Romantics and rappers. But Temple places too much emphasis on restless youth in the final third of the film and loses sight of the quotidian majority in the inner city and the suburbs who keep the city ticking. Moreover, he seems to set greater store by the opinions of artists like poet Michael Horovitz and The Kinks frontman Ray Davies than representatives of the political, administrative, financial or commercial sectors. Short shrift is also afforded to ordinary Londoners. But these are minor quibbles considering the acuity of Temple's editing and the wit and trenchancy of montages that convey the ever-changing face of London and its remarkable capacity for absorbing disparate peoples and forging them into thriving, pulsating and sometimes fractious communities.

Alison Klayman coud learn much from a pugnacious film-maker like Temple, as Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is much more a fan letter than a serious critical study of one of China's most important artists. As much an activist and a performance provocateur as a conceptual creator, Ai is a Warholian superstar, who has put his genius for social-networked self-promotion to heroic use in exposing police brutality, the darker side of the Beijing Olympic dream and a conspiracy over the number of schoolchildren killed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. But, while she extols Ai's courage and ingenuity in baiting the Communist hierarchy, the debuting Klayman presents few insights into the value of his art and glosses over issues in his private life that seem at odds with the carefully concocted Confucian image of `Teacher Ai'. Thus, while this engaging portrait ends on the chastening note of Ai being humbled by the regime he had striven so hard to discomfit, this frequently compelling portrait is ultimately somewhat scattershot and lightweight.

The son of controversial poet Ai Qing, Ai Weiwei spent the first 16 years with his mother Gao Ying in the remote town of Shihezi after his father was sent to the labour camp in Xinjiang. In 1978, Ai enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy, where his classmates included such Fifth Generation pioneers as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige. However, he was more committed to the Stars avant-garde art group before spending two years in New York in the early 1980s, where he became interested in creating conceptual pieces from ready-made objects.

He returned to China when his father fell ill and published Black Cover Book (1994), White Cover Book (1995), and Gray Cover Book (1997) to publicise the growing significance of the experimental movement based in Beijing's East Village. In 1997, Ai co-founded the China Art Archives & Warehouse and began introducing local audiences to works by the younger generation and major international names. The following year, he moved into architecture when he designed his own studio house in Caochangdi, from which he curated several landmark exhibitions and where he started the online blog and the Twitter account that were to become increasingly key to both his creative and socio-political activities.

As stills from a famous series showing Ai extending a middle finger to a variety of famous buildings suggest, Ai is quite prepared to take risks in order to express his views. So, having contributed to the design of the Bird's Nest stadium for the 2008 Olympics, Ai became increasingly critical of the policy of bulldozing entire neighbourhoods to make room for the Games facilities. He then became even more provocatively vocal in challenging the official casualty figures of the Sichuan earthquake and conducted exhaustive research in order to publish the government-suppressed names of the children who perished in the calamity.

Moreover, he further antagonised the Party by pressing charges against the Chengdu policeman he claims struck him so fiercely on the head in a hotel room in 2009 that he required emergency surgery. There is something Michael Mooerish about the way in which the portly Ai strides into a police station to have his statement taken in the presence of Klayman and his own videographer. But the subsequent pursuit through the adjoining streets by cops intent on demonstrating who had the upper hand in this situation should have set the alarm bells ringing.

The chance to travel to London to supervise the filling of Tate Modern's Turbine Hall with 100 million ceramic sunflower seeds gave Ai a brief respite. But he relaxed sufficiently to let slip that, even though he had been married to artist and selfless supporter Lu Qing for some 15 years, his affair with Wang Fen, an actress-turned-editor who had collaborated on Ai's underground documentaries, had resulted in the birth of his only son, Ai Lao. Yet rather than pressing Ai on his casual attitude towards both Lu and Wang, Klayman shifts the focus to present Ai as a victim, as a technicality prompts the demolition of his new Shanghai studio and Ai himself is subjected to an 81-day detention from which he emerges subdued and sad, but possibly not wholly vanquished.

Incorporating footage from Ai's own documentaries Hua Lian Ba'Er and Lao Ma Ti Hua, Klayman ably captures the diversity and dynamism of the artist's manifold projects. But no attempt is made to contextualise or evaluate his achievement. Instead a who's who of Chinese worthies is encouraged to eulogise about his courage as both a creator and an activist. Among those falling over themselves to extol his virtues are cinematographer Gu Changwei, rock star Zuoxiao Zuzhou,  performance artists He Yunchang and Hsieh `Sam' Tehching and photographer RongRong, assistants Lee Ambrozy, Liu Yanping and Inserk Yang, critics Karen Smith, Philip Tinari, Feng Boyi and Hung Huang, patrons like Ethan Cohen, tele-celebs like Hung Huang and such artists as Zhang Hongtu, Chen Danqing and Li Zhanyang

Much of what the above have to say is illuminating and/or amusing. But, bearing in mind the unprecedented access that Klayman had to Ai Weiwei over several months, this is a sloppily unstructured and hagiographically unquestioning fan letter. Moreover, just as Klayman demonstrates no overall vision, she fails to convince that Ai is any less dilettante in pursuits that often seem content to bait the establishment rather than make a coherent statement. Given that he has devoted his entire career to forging an enigmatic persona, Klayman can be forgiven for both being manipulated by her quarry and for failing to solve his carefully constructed riddles. But the absence of in-depth analysis of his museum shows or any intimation of what Ai and his work mean to ordinary Chinese leaves this looking rather naive and slight.

In stark contrast comes a gem of a documentary, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, which was directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland in collaboration with Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng. Both a homage to the grandmother-in-law she never met and a celebration of the spirit of the times she captured with such panache during her stints at Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, this is a whistlestop tour through 20th-century taste that includes talking-head contributions from the models, photographers and designers who owed their fame to Diana Vreeland and recall with enormous affection being simultaneously inspired and intimidated by her as she transformed the manner in which magazines were edited and read and the way in which fashion was perceived by the masses.

In 1983, the 80 year-old Vreeland hired George Plimpton to ghost write her memoir, DV, and extracts from the transcript of their conversations in the living room she called `a garden in hell' are voiced here by Annette Miller and Jonathan Epstein to link the dazzling array of archive clips, glossy print spreads and interview testimonies that not only bring Vreeland alive, but also the compellingly contrasting eras through which she lived. Occasionally, Miller sounds more like Katharine Hepburn than Diana Vreeland. But this is an innovative method of structuring the wealth of material and making it both educational and entertaining.

Diana was born in Paris in 1903 to ex-pat British stockbroker Frederick Dalziel and his big-game hunting American wife Emily, who made no attempt to disguise the fact that she thought her ugly and gauche in comparison to her younger sister, Alexandra. Yet Diana seemed to have a blissful childhood, whether she was witnessing the Coronation of George V or being taught to ride in the Rocky Mountains by Buffalo Bill. One quickly comes to realise that Vreeland had a blasé attitude to the truth, as the essence of an anecdote or recollection was always more important to her than any cold, hard fact. But it's almost an irrelevance whether she could speak any English by the time she arrived in New York at the age of 10. What matters is that she had a zest for life and a respect for creativity and freedom that came from watching the Ballets Russes in Belle Epoque Paris and Josephine Baker in Jazz Age Harlem.

Having earned a reputation for being a bit `fast' with the boys, Diana met and married Yale graduate Reed Vreeland in 1924 and relocated to London, where she began to move in couture circles and both befriended Coco Chanel and opened a lingerie store that supposedly furnished Wallis Simpson with the three nightgowns that nearly brought down the British monarchy. However, sons Tim and Frecky were primarily raised in Brewster, New York, where she insists she saw Charles Lindbergh at the start of his pioneering solo flight across the Atlantic, even though The Spirit of St Louis took an entirely different route.

Vreeland's own life was about to change direction, however, as while she adored being a wife, she found motherhood tiresome and the need to occupy her time and make a little pin money led to her being hired by legendary Harper's Bazaar editor Carmel Snow in 1937 to write the `Why Don't You...' column, which offered readers suggestions such as painting world maps on nursery walls to prevent children from growing up with parochial attitudes. She dropped the item on the outbreak of the Second World War, as she thought it inappropriate for such grave times. Yet, Vreeland could never understand the conflict, as, having once seen Hitler at the Munich Opera House, she was bemused why such a great nation would slavishly follow the whims of a man with such a ridiculous moustache.

Newly installed as Harper's fashion editor, Vreeland began to exploit the knowledge and chic acquired during her time in Europe and soon developed a keen eye for a ravishing layout and a striking model, as she discovered a young Lauren Bacall and started offering readers the chance to dream of alternative lifestyles rather than simply keep abreast of the latest trends. She published the first American pictures of the bikini and helped popularise blue jeans and photographer Richard Avedon and then-model Anjelica Huston eagerly credit her with devising the exotic location shoot and taking the magazine focus away from aspirations of perfect wifehood to fantasies of glamour and style.

But Vreeland also came to be known as a hard task mistress and former assistant Ali McGraw's memories of her terrorising underlings is amusingly contrasted with clips from Stanley Donen's Funny Face (1957) and William Klein's Who Are You, Polly Magoo? (1966), in which Kay Thompson's Maggie Prescott and Grayson Hall's Miss Maxwell were thinly disguised parodies of a maven who became such a byword for refinement that Jackie Kennedy consulted her over her outfit for John F. Kennedy's inauguration as president in 1961.

Yet, even though Vreeland wielded such power and influence, she could only command an annual salary of $18,000, Thus, when the publishers offered her a meagre $1000 raise, she accepted Alexander Liberman's offer to become editor of Vogue in 1962 and, once again, found herself helping to define the zeitgeist as she introduced American readers to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, as well as the new breed of supermodels typified by Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy. Recognising in the Swinging Sixties the same social exuberance and cultural audacity that had characterised the Roaring Twenties of her own youth, Vreeland not only understood what she termed the `youth quake', but also appreciated that air travel was shrinking the planet and she began championing the introduction of ethnic styles into mainstream fashion and sent photographers like David Bailey and Joel Schumacher to the far-flung corners to create the most eye-catching spreads.

She also encouraged her shutterbugs to emphasise what others might have considered the imperfections of their subjects and made a virtue of such features as Barbra Streisand's Nefertiti-like nose. Thanks to Vreeland, stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren and Catherine Deneuve became mannequins, while such hip models as Penelope Tree, China Machado, Lauren Hutton, Veruschka von Lehndorff and Marisa Berensen (who was Vogue's first-ever nude) became celebrities. Even designers like Manolo Blahnik, Diane von Furstenberg and Calvin Klein acknowledge their debt, as Vreeland made fashion desirable, relevant and accessible to a new generation of women.

Readily embracing vulgarity, kitsch and even pornography, Vreeland fearlessly accepted the changes brought about by the Civil Rights movement, drug culture and the gay scene (although she always questioned the validity of feminism). Consequently, Vogue always felt ahead of the game, as she experimented with imagery, fonts, colour and white space to ensure the eye always travelled across features that she helped shape with memos fired off during her dressing-gown mornings and hectic office afternoons before she swanned off in the evening to the latest soirée, premiere or opening. Undaunted by the death of her husband in 1966, she found herself at the centre of a new clique that included such Hollywood icons as Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson. However, not everyone was seduced by the Vreeland pizzazz and, following a series of complaints from advertisers, she was fired from Vogue in 1971 and never forgave Liberman for lacking the courage to break the news in person.

Momentarily, Vreeland was cast adrift. But before she could entertain any feelings of self-doubt, she was invited to become a consultant to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she soon began ruffling feathers as she played fast and loose with historical accuracy to curate exhibitions that enticed unprecedented crowds to learn more about 18th-century France, Sergei Diaghilev, the fashions of her own salad days and the allure of Golden Age Hollywood, as well as the work of such contemporary designers as Yves Saint Laurent. Her flamboyant approach and penchant for celebrity parties irked stuffier colleagues like Philippe de Montebello, who received a flea in his ear when he attempted to question her academic credentials. But, if Vreeland occasionally followed fancy rather than fact, she brought a new freshness to the displaying of vintage clothing and revealed how fashion reflected the personality of a period and its people.

The trio of directors cannot be faulted for the glittering galaxy assembled to offer their insights into Diana Vreeland's life and work. In addition to sons Tim and Frecky, there are also contributions by her grandsons Alexander and Nicky and great granddaughter Olivia, as well as by onetime assistants Felicity Clark, Simon Doonan, Harold Koda, Katell le Bourhis, Tonne Goodman, Jeff Daly, June Burns Bove and Kurt Thometz (who was her personal librarian), writers Ingrid Sischy, Bob Colacello, John Richardson and Reinaldo Herrera, editors Barbara Slifka, Rae Crespin, John Fairchild, Polly Devlin, Susan Train, photographers Lillian Bassman, Melvin Skokolsky and Stephen Paley and designers Hubert de Givenchy, Oscar de la Renta, Anna Sui, Tai and Rosita Missoni, Kenneth Jay Lane, Carolina Herrera and Pierre Bergé.

Some are only accorded single lines. But each conveys the awe and allegiance that Vreeland expected from her associates, along with their appreciation of her achievement. Yet this is never a hagiography, with the closing animation depicting her caricature sitting behind Lindbergh at the start of his epic flight and suggesting that Vreeland recognised that she was part of the illusion she had contrived and that it was her duty to play up to her own imperious myth.

While Vreeland was reinventing herself, a Hispanic singer from Detroit was trying to make a name for himself. However, as Swedish debutant Malik Bendjelloul reveals in Searching for Sugar Man, Sixto Rodriguez soon discovered that American audiences were not yet ready for his Dylaneseque style of social balladeering. Despite decent reviews, the two albums he recorded for Sussex Records, Cold Fact (1970) and Coming From Reality (1971), failed to sell and he was dropped by the label.

Opting to continue with his education, while working as a demolition man, Rodriguez forgot all about the music scene. However, amidst rumours that he had succumbed to a drug overdose or perished on stage in a hail of bullets or a blaze of glory, Rodriguez began to acquire a cult following in Australia. Somewhat reluctantly, he played there in 1979, with two of the gigs being recorded for posterity as Alive. But this was nothing compared to the following that Rodriguez started attracting in South Africa, where tracks like `I Wonder', `Can't Get Away', `I'll Slip Away' , `Street Boy' and `Sugar Man' spoke to white Afrikaaners, who felt alienated by apartheid. Bootleg copies of the album At His Best sold in their hundreds of thousands and only Elvis Presley and The Beatles could hope to match such sales.

Yet Rodriguez knew nothing of his success or status and it was only when Cape Town jeweller and record shop owner Stephen Segerman began looking into his background while setting up a fansite that he and friends Mad Andy Harrod and Craig Bartholomew Strydom learned from record producers Dennis Cofey and Mike Theodore that Rodriguez was still alive. Better news came shortly afterwards when the website was contacted by Eva Koller, who turned out to be Rodriguez's daughter, and a six-date tour was hastily arranged for 1998.

Such overdue recognition provides Bendjelloul with a happy ending of sorts. But one thing continued to puzzle Rodriguez - if he had been selling records all this time, who had been cashing the royalty cheques? An attempt to elicit answers from `Godfather of Black Music', Clarence Avant, who had signed Rodriguez to Susses, brings only a testy response. But Rodriguez seems content with the belated acclaim and Bendjelloul ably succeeds in providing a showcase for his talent, while also turning his dual life into an engaging kind of anti-thriller. With South African author, journalist and songwriter Rian Malan among the interviewees and cinematographer Camilla Skagerstrom ably capturing the contrasts between Detroit and Cape Town, this is a fascinating study of clashing cultures, the capriciousness of celebrity and the corruption, cynicism and greed of the music business.

On 2 April 2011, the post-punk dance combo LCD Soundsystem played its last gig at Madison Square Garden in New York. In an interview a few days earlier, chat show host Stephen Colbert had wondered why 41 year-old frontman James Murphy was canning the band when it was so clearly at the top of its game in helping to define 21st-century pop culture. Smiling archly, Murphy had claimed that the time felt right and that he wanted to preserve his status as an average Joe who could ride the subway without being recognised. But as Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace's documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits progresses, one gets the feeling that panic and fear were the primary motivating factors in a decision that had been regretted almost as soon as it had been made.

Taking their cues from Martin Scorsese's record of The Band's farewell concert, The Last Waltz (1978), Southern and Lovelace cut between highlights from the show and an interview designed to provide insights into Murphy's personality and his musical achievement. However, they depart from the template by following Murphy on his first day of retirement, as he wakes after an epic backstage party and potters around his apartment, walks his French bulldog, pops into the empty LCD office and holds a half-hearted post-mortem with manager Keith Wood. But it's only when he goes to a lock-up to survey the instruments and equipment that will either have to be stored or sold that Murphy lets slip any sense of emotion and the muffled sobs merely reinforce the suspicion that rather than being a hip rocker making the ultimate cool statement by calling it a day while still at the top, this is a man having a mid-life crisis.

During his one-to-one session with journalist Chuck Klosterman in an empty downtown restaurant, Murphy complains about touring turning his hair grey. His concern that this is an outward sign of the inevitable decline of his vital organs will strike a chord with many viewers of a certain age. But it also reveals a self-preoccupation that Southern and Lovelace indulge by keeping their focus firmly on Murphy at the expense of bandmates Nancy Whang, Pat Mahoney, Tyler Pope, David Scott Stone, Matt Thornley, Gavin Russom, Al Doyle, Phil Mossman, Petunia and Gunnar Bjerk, whose expert musicianship makes the 11 tracks culled from the 29-strong set sound so slick.

For those coming late to the MSG `funeral', tracks like `Losing My Edge', `Dance Yrself Clean', `All My Friends', `North American Scum', `Someone Great` and `Jump Into the Fire' will come as something of a revelation. Sounding almost like dance variations of Talking Heads, The Smiths and New Order, LCD Soundsystem apparently captured the mood of the nation in the aftermath of 9/11 and proved Murphy's contention that an ordinary bloke could become a rock star. But the validity of these claims don't seem to concern the co-directors, as they make little effort to assess or contextualise the onetime DJ, his band or their music. Instead, they are content to allow Murphy to exploit their project to facilitate his readjustment to normality and to justify his exit from the limelight in rambling answers to pompous questions whose hesitancy is intended to convey profundity, but actually betrays the trepidation of facing an uncertain future.

It's fitting that Southern and Lovelace opted to film LCD's goodbye dinner through the restaurant window, as, for all the access to Murphy on the day after the night before, this is very much a profile by outsiders looking in. Nobody as self-conscious or introspective as Murphy would be willing to open himself up such frank scrutiny at the very moment of his retreat into reclusivity. But while this exercise in mythologisation always feels overly stage-managed, it still makes a fine introduction to some fascinating and frequently funky music and to a frontman whose recent announcement that he is set to direct a short film with Ron Howard means that he will clearly not be in the shadows for too long.

Good intentions similarly prove insufficient to keep the debuting Alma Har'el's quirkily poetic documentary Bombay Beach from lapsing into patronising self-indulgence. The Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when the Colorado River burst its banks and created a 385 square-mile saline oasis in the Californian desert. As Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer revealed in their 2004 snapshot Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea, the resort situated some 50 miles south of Palm Springs became a boom town in the 1960s. However, it soon ceased to be the destination of choice for celebrities and tourists and the derelict landscape captured by Har'el during her year-long sojourn betrays its current status as a refuge for eccentrics, outsiders and those with nowhere else to go.

Falling very much into the first category, octogenarian Dorran `Red' Forgy still fancies himself as something of a ladies' man and regularly tootles between Bombay Beach and Slab City on his four-wheeler to flirt with new friends and old flames. He also makes a few coppers on the side by buying cigarettes in bulk from the local Indian reservation and selling them as singles to his neighbours. Otherwise, the former oil worker leads a lonely existence, having not seen his children (now aged 55 and 48) since they were small. Consequently, when he suffers a mini-stroke, Red has to convalesce with nodding acquaintances in Fresno, where boredom quickly sets in.

By contrast, teenager CeeJay Thompson appreciates backwater tranquility, having voluntarily come to live with his father after witnessing his cousin being gunned down during a gang feud in South Central Los Angeles. Now a key member of the gridiron team at Calipatria High School, CeeJay is desperate to improve his grades so he can go to Eastern Oregon University on a football scholarship. However, he has recently become distracted by a crush on best buddy Blaine's sister Jessie and eagerly offers a shoulder to cry on when she begins having problems with her older, possessive beau, Brantley.

Six year-old Benny Parrish is no stranger to adversity himself. When only a couple of months old, he was placed in care after parents Mike and Pamela were jailed for supposedly forming an illegal militia in the wake of 9/11 (they insist they were merely detonating munitions on what was akin to an adult playground). Subsequently, diagnosed as bipolar and hyperactive, Benny has to take a cocktail of drugs daily and frequently endures interminable journeys to meet with consultants who confess to being unable conclusively to identify his condition. He knows he can be a scamp. But siblings Sarah and Michael indulge him as much as his folks, who have a fourth child on the way.

There's nothing particularly remarkable about the people Har'el profiles. If anything, they're rather resistible, with Red denouncing miscegenation with a casual bigotry that finds echo in Mike's drunken attempt to pick a fight with a buddy and then lament that he should be beaten for bringing such misfortune upon his loved ones. Yet there's a touching decency about Pamela's determination to make amends for past mistakes and do the best for her offspring, while CeeJay's ambition to become the first member of his family to get to college has a nobility that also informs his charming romance with Jessie.

But Har'el seems unwilling to trust the simple fascination of stories that would not be out of place in the fictional features of David Gordon Green or Matthew Porterfield. Consequently, she inserts dance routines choreographed by Paula Present at various points throughout the narrative, which initially seem spontaneous and sweet, but become increasingly convoluted and intrusive. CeeJay and Jessie's white-masked dream sequence is particularly gauche, while Benny's reverie about being a fireman feels tacked on at the end.

Scripted reality is all the rage at the moment, but passages as self-consciously manufactured as these debase genuinely authentic incidents and belittle the people who have invited the film-maker into their lives. The Tel Aviv-born Har'el made her name as a video artist and her stylised interpretation of tracks by Bob Dylan and Beirut was probably designed to have the same distancing effect on the viewer as the lip-synching in Clio Barnard's Andrea Dunbar memoir, The Arbor (2009). But it merely has the unfortunate effect of trivialising wretchedness by reducing it to a series of pop promos.

Things are not that much better for a lot of the kids in Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin's Oscar winner, Undefeated, which perfectly encapsulates the key legacy message of sport being a builder of character and a provider of life-changing opportunities for those otherwise doomed to struggle on life's lower rungs. Thus, this profile of coach Bill Courtney and his Manassas Tigers team is as likely to motivate younger audiences as any edition of Match of the Day or The Football League Show.

Having made himself a comfortable living in the lumber business in a neighbourhood decimated by the closure of the Firestone tyre factory, Coach Courtney is able to give his services for free to the high-school team from a rundown part of Memphis that was once so far down the rankings that it survived on the appearance fees it earned by playing warm-up games against wealthier institutions from across the state. Yet, despite retaining the whipping boy tag, the Tigers have slowly evolved into a decent side, with seniors like right tackle Montrail `Money' Brown, linebacker Chavis Daniels and left tackle OC Brown attracting attention from universities looking for the next college football star.

However, as Lindsay and Martin reveal, these stars have plenty of problems off the field. Chavis, for example, has just been released from a correctional facility and his short temper constantly threatens to erupt, with Money being a frequent target for his rage after he misconstrues his support for homosexual lust. By contrast, gentle giant OC is struggling with his grades and the grandmother raising him is concerned that his chances of securing a scholarship will be lost unless he devotes more time to his studies.

But OC's preoccupation with sporting matters is entirely understandable, as, since they suffered an opening game thrashing, the Tigers have gone on an unbeaten run that has seen them reach the play-offs for the first time in decades. However, Courtney and assistant Mike Ray are acutely aware that the school has never won a knockout game in its 110-year history and everything depends on whether Money can recover from a cruciate injury that has forced him to miss almost a third of the season.

Much has been made in the United States about the fact that a portly, middle-class white guy is the hero of this story and comparisons have obviously been made with The Blind Side (2009), the melodrama that earned Sandra Bullock her Academy Award for playing a woman who inspires a bunch of African-American youths to expect the best of themselves in order to exceed their expectations. But, while it runs the risk of being patronising, this is clearly intent on showing what can be achieved with a little investment in kids convinced that the odds have been insurmountably stacked against them.

There are uncomfortable moments, such as when OC moves in with the Courtneys and finds himself part of the dinner table banter and the minor tensions that exist between the coach and his wife Lisa, who thinks that six years is long enough to devote to strangers when he has four kids of his own to worry about. But these are easily outweighed by the sight of the team bonding as they surprise themselves with each victory and even Chavis comes to realise the courage Money exhibits in returning from a potentially career-ending injury to make the bench for the play-off game.

As with Steve James in Hoop Dreams (1994), Lindsay and Martin manage a rare level of intimacy and, in editing down their 500 hours of footage, build the suspense of the narrative with considerable skill. But this is never sentimental in its depiction of the underdogs having their day. Indeed, the sequence in which the Tigers have to race for the bus after defeating rivals with a reputation for post-match violence is both darkly comic and highly revealing of the gang mentality that drives so many American males. The fact that Courtney has convinced the group of knowing when to pick their battles suggests the influence he has had upon them. But the fact that he resigns to coach his son's team leaves one to wonder how many of those coming into the squad will get the chance to emulate the achievements of Money, Chavis and OC, who all benefit from their gridiron experience.

Ice hockey is the sport most readily associated with the woman who, four years ago, was in the eye of the political storm as Barack Obama fought John McCain for the White House. Now, with America's first black president safely installed for a second term, it seems apt to take a second look at the Vice-Presidential running mate who was hardly heard from in this country during the run-up to the Obama-Romney showdown. But, no matter what one's views might be on her politics and strategies for remaining in the public eye, the former Governor of Alaska deserves better than Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill's snide snapshot, Sarah Palin - You Betcha!

Broomfield and Churchill make much of the fact that they have retained their integrity by refusing to follow the celeb-doc route of ceding control in order to gain access. Thus, denied the chance to meet with Palin herself after a brief encounter and a half-hearted promise of an interview at a book signing, they content themselves with raking up old stories (some of which have their origins in the far from reliable National Inquirer) and having them corroborated by folks who fell out long ago with a ruthless ambitious politician with a tendency to dispense with those who are no longer discreet or useful.

Somewhat surprisingly, Palin's parents, Chuck and Sarah Heath, agree to speak to Broomfield in their hometown of Wasilla. But, despite his trademark impostrous ingratiation, Chuck quickly detects the hidden agenda and Broomfield is forced to express an obviously bogus interest in purchasing some antlers in order to prolong the meeting. Once he is off the premises, he becomes persona non grata and is compelled to fly to Alexandria in Egypt to discuss schooldays with a former classmate. However, the dirt he manages to dig consists of the truth behind her nickname `Barracuda' and the revelation that the former Palin home is now a thrift store. A pastor suggests she would be capable of starting Armageddon, while Republican Senator Lyda Green comments on the number of people Palin had tossed `under the bus' during her ascent of the icy pole.

Ditched adviser John Bitney, Troopergate casualty Walt Monegan and the sister (Mercedes) and agent (Tank Jones) of soon-to-be ex-son-in-law Levi Johnson all toss in their five cents worth. Little of it is new, less still is enlightening. Similarly, the rehashed footage of the calamitous TV interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson is dusted down, along with the radio stunt pulled by the Montreal comedy duo Les Justiciers Masqués, which saw them convince Palin she was speaking by phone to French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Broomfield has built a career by mock-stalking the likes of Margaret Thatcher, Eugène Terre'Blanche and Courtney Love. But this is so full of cheap shots that it comes perilously close to character assassination, while the lack of genuine wit and insight often leave the on-screen accuser looking every bit as vindictive and smug as his target. Yet, what most disappoints about this slipshod effort is an absence of curiosity to seek out scoops or discover a new line of attack. Consequently, this feels rushed, opportunistic and trite.

Palin's withdrawal from frontline politics also leaves the film looking slightly irrelevant. Events have similarly overtaken The Island President, Jon Shenk's profile of Maldive president Mohamed Nasheed, as he was forced to resign on 7 February 2012 (reportedly at gunpoint) following weeks of unrest on the streets of his idyllic Indian Ocean archipelago. But, even though the Liverpool-educated Nasheed has been ousted from power, this remains a compelling account of his efforts to raise global awareness of the threat posed by climate change to the 1200 islands comprising his nation.

Imprisoned for his opposition to longtime dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Nasheed lacks neither courage nor conviction. He also has a gift for publicity and stunts such as the underwater cabinet meeting succeed in amusing as well as alerting. Yet, despite Nasheed's impassioned ingenuity, Shenk (who intelligently exploits his unprecedented access) stresses the indifference of the emerging economic superpowers to the plight of the world's most vulnerable state and dismayingly concludes that few lessons will be learned from the Maldives becoming a paradise lost.

None of the islands making up the Maldives is more than eight foot above sea level. If carbon emissions continue at their current rate, therefore, they will disappear beneath the waves in under a decade. On taking office in 2008 (following the country's first genuinely democratic election), Mohamed Nasheed realised that expensive infrastructure projects like dykes and sea walls could only hold back the tide for so long and vowed to bring the plight of his people to the attention of the wider world in the hope of securing changes to eco policy that could retard the melting of the polar ice caps and stop water levels from rising.

Having been arrested 12 times and tortured twice during the tyrannical rule of his predecessor, Nasheed had the courage to match his energy and tenacity and he was soon bestriding the world stage to the manor born, as he addressed the United Nations, the British Parliament and any journalists who would listen to him about the deterioration of the situation since the 2004 tsunami. Prepared to be contentious to make headlines, he compared global warming to Nazism to provoke people into recognising its gravity. But he must have known when he arrived at the 2009 Climate Summit in Copenhagen that developing nations like India, China and Brazil, as well as industrial giants like the United States and Germany, were never going to consent to his stringent global emissions cap of 350 parts per million.

Given unprecedented access, Shenk succeeds in capturing the personality and passion of a remarkable man, who is prepared to work long hours and risk his own reputation to make his case. But Shenk is also aware of the uphill battle Nasheed faces just to make the Maldives carbon neutral, let alone transform international energy policy. Thus, when not hurtling hot on the heels of the perpetually mobile president, Shenk depicts him as a tiny figure in a vast whirl of competing agendas, whose positivity is might precipitate the odd pause for thought, but never a radical rethink.

Fredrik Gertten proves more provocative with Big Boys Gone Bananas!*,  a stirring account of how Swedish consumers and politicians supported the documentarist when American academics, lawyers and media outlets obsequiously acquiesced in the Dole Food Company's bid to block Bananas!*, his 2009 exposé of their use of banned pesticides in Nicaragua. Exposing the extent to which big corporations try to use the legal system to scare and silence opposition, this is also a fascinating insight into the politics of the documentary and the risks that film-makers take in trying to acquaint audiences with the truth.

When Gertten brought Bananas!* to the Los Angeles Film Festival, he could hardly have expected the furore that followed. Despite not having seen the film, Dole claimed that it was defamatory and pressurised the organisers of the event to withdraw it from the programme. Over the next few days, the KCRW radio station backed the Dole stance, as did the Los Angeles Business Journal, which castigated Gertten and his findings without apparently seeing them first-hand. UCLA law professor David Ginsburg even went so far as to compare the picture to the anti-Semitic propaganda produced in Nazi Germany.

Ultimately, festival director Dawn Hudson insisted on showing the film (albeit out of competition), but prefaced the screening with a statement that left Gertten isolated. Lacking the clout or the resources to mount a protracted defence of his work, Gertten and producer Margarete Jangård appeared to be in a no-win situation. But, much to their surprise, the Max burger company took exception to Dole's bullying tactics and announced a boycott of the fruit firm's products. A supermarket then followed suit and, soon, thousands of consumers began uniting to teach the corporate giant a humbling lesson.

Gertten then showed the offending film to Social Democrat MP Luciano Astudillo and it received cross-party support. Indeed, such was the official outcry that two hours before the Parliament was due to meet with Swedish supermarket bosses, Dole withdrew its lawsuit against Gertten on 15 October 2009. A week later, his lawyers secure a prosecution for defamation against Dole and the director was awarded £200,000 in legal fees.

While it is difficult to resist the temptation to cheer a behemoth being felled by the underdog, it is disappointingly easy to resist the mood of triumphalist self-righteousness that pervades this accidental sequel. Nonetheless, the courageous manner in which Gertten and Jangård stick to their convictions is admirable and it is amusing to note that the Swedish campaign might never have gained its irresistible momentum if Gertten hadn't bumped into Astudillo in his local cheese shop.

Some of the specialist testimony from the academics, commentators and spin doctors assembled to analyse the litigation process is a tad dry. But the insights into the relationship between big business and media outlets, educational institutions and seemingly independent websites should alert viewers to the dangers of believing everything they see and read. Yet, even as Gertten emerges victorious from his ordeal, the message that comes across loudest and clearest here is not that the customer is always right or that documentarists have a duty to pursue the truth whatever the cost. It is that multi-nationals don't like having their business secrets broadcast and that while the odd everyman or woman will find a loophole and defeat them, the vast majority will be crushed. This may hardly be news, but it is worth repeating if it encourages a sceptical reception of the variants of the `truth' that travel with ever greater speed and conviction in our misinformation age.

Finally, we head back seven decades for Will Hood and Adam Lavis's Wojtek: The Bear That Went to War, which draws on WA Lasocki and Geoffrey Morgan's illustrated book Soldier Bear for the narration by Brian Blessed. The story starts in the Alborz Mountains of northern Iran in 1942, where a boy found an orphaned brown bear cub and brought it home as a pet. A few weeks later, the village in Hamadan Province was visited by members of the `Anders Army', which was comprised of Polish POWs who had been released by the Soviet Union when Hitler turned on his erstwhile ally in 1941. The 22nd Artillery Supply Company acquired the cub in return for some tinned food and he accompanied them through Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, during which time, veteran Wojciech Narebski recalls, he became a lucky charm and something of a celebrity on account of his fondness for beer and both smoking and eating cigarettes.

The beautiful friendship looked set to come to an end on 14 April 1944 when dock officials Alexandria refused to allow a wild animal on the troop ship bound for Italy. But brothers-in-arms including Henryk Zacharewicz and Dymitr Szawlugo were determined not to go without him and secured the permission of the top brass to sign up Private Wojtek, who was given a service number and a pay book so he could make the crossing to Europe. Standing six feet tall and weighing 34 stone, Wojtek did his bit by carrying munition crates and he even ferried mortar rounds during the famous Battle of Monte Cassino in the spring of 1944.

Such was Wojtek's importance to the 22nd Artillery that the high command allowed it to adopt a bear carrying a shell as its emblem. Yet, when the war ended, he found himself being demobbed at Winfield Aerodrome in Berwickshire and it was decided in November 1947 that he would be relocated to Edinburgh Zoo rather than repatriated to Warsaw. He became a popular attraction and several old comrades came to visit before Wojtek passed away at the age of 22 in 1963. However, he has remained a hero to both Poles and Scots and this unassuming little film tells his story with affection, accuracy and acuity.