Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 13/12/12)

Based on a short story published in Ladies Home Journal in the early 1950s by Isak Dinesen (the nom de plume of Karen Blixen, of Out of Africa fame), this is very much a film about domestic duty and a woman's place. Yet, with Axel's direction consciously evoking the austere style of Carl Theodor Dreyer and Ingmar Bergman, it is also a deeply affecting religious tract and a fascinating study of spiritual and secular vocation.

Narrator Ghita Nørby sets the scene by describing how sisters Martine (Birgitte Federspiel) and Filippa (Bodil Kjer) devoted themselves to their pastor father, who founded his own Christian community on Denmark's remote Jutland coast in the early part of the 19th century. Since his death, however, the congregation has been declining and the siblings are left with memories of opportunities missed some five decades earlier.

The young Martine (Vibeke Hastrup) and Filippa (Hanne Stensgaard) were strikingly beautiful, but their father (Pouel Kern) dismissed all suitors and insisted they dedicate their lives to the service of God and himself. Yet each lost her heart to a visiting stranger, with Martine being smitten with dashing Swedish cavalry officer Lorens Löwenhielm (Gudmar Wivesson) when he came to stay with his aunt (Ebba With) and Filippa becoming starstruck by Parisian opera singer Achille Papin (Jean-Philippe Lafont), who was seeking solace away from the pressures of performing.

Ashamed of his reputation for intemperance and gambling, Lorens attends services in the tiny, windswept chapel and tells Martine how much better his life would be with a guardian angel to watch over him. But she is too timid to respond to his entreaties and he leaves feeling spurned. Achille also departs disappointed after trying to kiss Filippa during one of the singing lessons to which the minister had consented, as her fine voice could be used to praise the Lord.  With him went the chance of fame and riches, but Filippa consoles herself that she has responded to a higher calling and is repaid some 35 years later when Babette Hersant (Stéphane Audran) arrives on her doorstep having fled the 1871 Commune in Paris carrying a letter of recommendation from Achille Papin.

For the next 14 years, Babette works as housekeeper and cook to the sisters, serving them simple meals of split cod and ale-and-bread soup. However, she keeps in touch with a friend in the French capital, who renews her lottery ticket each year and writes one day to inform Babette that she has won 10,000 francs. With typical modesty, she asks Martine and Filippa if she can prepare them a special dinner on the occasion of their father's centenary to thank them for extended their hospitality. The pair agree and allow Babette to return to Paris to buy the ingredients she will need. However, they are uneasy that feasting so luxuriously might constitute a sin and summon their fellow guests to agree not to betray any pleasure they might derive from the repast.

Martine and Filippa's disquiet increases as Babette returns to take receipt of the foodstuffs she has ordered. She delights in laying down the fine wines and unpacking the exquisite china, crystal, linen and silverware that will transform the sisters' humble table. But her biggest surprise comes when Lorens (Jarl Kulle) arrives to reveal he is now a renowned general and introduce his wife (Tine Miehe-Renard), who is an important member of the queen's household. As Babette puts the finishing touches to her banquet, Filippa entertains the assembly before they take their places and say grace with due solemnity.

It soon becomes apparent, however, that Babette is an exceptional cook and the locals exchange anxious glances as they sample the first dish, a turtle soup served with an amontillado that reminds Lorens of a sumptuous meal he once enjoyed at the Café Anglais in Paris. Unbound by the pact of silence, he extols the blend of caviar and sour cream in the Blinis Demidoff and the subtlety of the use of foie gras and truffle sauce in the quail pastry parcels. The chicory and walnut salad and the selection of cheeses similarly bring Lorens to the point of ecstasy and even his companions are finally persuaded to marvel at the rum sponge dessert topped with figs and candied fruit.

Pleased with the reaction, Babette concedes that she used to be the chef at the Café Anglais and reveals that she spent her entire winnings on the meal, as this would have been the price of supper for 12 during the bistro's Second Empire heyday. Lorens takes his leave and coaxes the puritanical parishioners into agreeing they have been privileged to sample such divine fare. Reassuring her employees that she has no intention of abandoning them, Babette allays Martine's fear that she will eke out the rest of her existence in poverty by calmly replying that a true artist can never be poor.

In addition to criticising the menu for being pretentious and over-stuffed with conflicting flavours, many food critics have denounced Babette's Feast for stating that a woman could be head chef at such a prestigious restaurant as the Café Anglais in the mid-19th century. However, such culinary snobbery completely misses the point of this exquisite treatise on talent and the artist's choice to put their God-given gifts to the purpose they best see fit.

Martina and Philippa (who were named after the Protestant icons, Martin Luther and Philip Melancthon) were respectively blessed with beauty and a glorious singing voice, but each elected to spurn romance in order to support their father. Yet, neither believed that she had wasted her life and Babette feels the same way about dedicating her gastronomic genius to the service of the charitable sisters who gave her refuge after her husband and son were killed during the Commune - probably on the orders of the same General Gallifet who treated Lowenhielm to the dinner that he recalls with almost religious fervour during the feast.

Emphasising the simplicity of the Danish everyday, the repast and its preparation (which was lovingly photographed by Henning Kristiansen) has been taken by some as a contrast between Catholic and Protestant forms of worship. But, whatever its denominational symbolism, this is clearly a Last Supper, during which Babette sacrificially puts her soul into the food and drink and its consumption proves the salvation of a community whose puritanism has become a petty piety pursued more to earn the approbation of their hypocritical peers than to praise the Lord.

Seizing upon a role rejected by Catherine Deneuve, Stéphane Audran excels in the title role alongside Bodil Kjer and Birgitte Federspiel, who were respectively the leading light of Danish cinema and the star of such key Danish films as Dreyer's Ordet (1955) and Henning Carlsen's adaptation of Knut Hamsun's Hunger (1966). Fellow diners Lisbeth Movin, Preben Lerdorff Rye, Axel Strøbye, Bendt Rothe and Ebbe Rode were also known for their association with Dreyer, while Kulle and Bibi Andersson (who has a bit part as a lady-in-waiting) worked regularly with Ingmar Bergman. Sublime though the performances might be, the contributions of production designer Sven Wichmann, costumiers Annelise Hauberg, Pia Myrdal and Karl Lagerfeld (who created Audran's uniforms) and the splendidly billed `food stylist' Paulette Tavormina should not be overlooked. Nor should the direction of Gabriel Axel, whose other credits include the 1968 softcore documentary Danish Blue (which used to be a fixture of the Penultimate Picture Palace's X-rated seasons) and who continues to thrive at the age of 94.

We remain in Scandinavia for Kjell Sundvall's False Trail, which arrives in cinemas as its predecessor, The Hunters (1996), is released on DVD. It isn't strictly necessary to be au fait with the first film to follow the second. But it helps to make sense of a couple of flashbacks and explain why cop Rolf Lassgård is so determined to protect his nephew. So, let's recap the pertinent details.

Having fled to Stockholm years before to escape incessant domestic abuse, Rolf Lassgård returns to his hometown of Älvsbyn in the northern Swedish region of Norrbotten to join brother Lennart Jähkel in burying their brutish father. Still traumatised after killing a man in the line of duty, Lassgård accepts a post at the local police station run by Åke Lindman and is paired with veteran lawman, Roland Hedlund.

Delighting in hearing Jähkel's powerful baritone voice again and spending their weekends fishing in the spectacular countryside, Lassgård is clearly glad to be home. However, soon after he witnesses them harassing Filipino waitress Editha Domingo in Harry Nyman's bar, Lassgård comes to suspect that Jähkel's drinking buddies, Jarmo Mäkinen, Thomas Hedengran, Göran Forsmark and Rolf Degerlund, are part of a reindeer poaching gang. He impounds their rifles after discovering a secret butchering facility in the depths of the forest and brings in chic city prosecutor Helena Bergström when he realises that Lindman and Hedlund are reluctant to prosecute their neighbours.

Naturally, Jähkel is the leader of the cabal and he recommends that they lay low until Lassgård loses interest in the case. A pressing need to pay bills, however, prompts a resumption of the illegal activities and, when Mäkinen accidentally kills Russian blueberry picker Peter Perski, Jähkel is forced to murder his companion Petra Bylander to cover their tracks. But he is unaware that the crimes were witnessed by simpleton Tomas Norström, who breeds dogs on a remote farm with his doting mother, Sara Arnia.

Angry at Lassgård's refusal to drop the investigation, Jähkel exploits his burgeoning romance with Domingo and blackmails Hedlund into putting her on a plane home so she cannot report her gang rape. The search for Domingo doesn't deflect Lassgård, however, and, having found damning evidence in a secret room under Mäkinen's floorboards, he confronts Jähkel. He promises to hand himself in, but dies instead in an explosion that destroys the house in which he had endured so much torment

Such was the acclaim for this tough thriller that there was talk of an American remake set in a horse-ranching community in the Nevada desert. Yet, while Sundvall elected not to sell the rights, he clearly had a sequel of sorts in mind and False Trail catches up with Lassgård some 16 years after his brother's suicide, as he persuades his superiors in Stockholm to let him return to Norrbotten to lead the search for missing twentysomething Ellenor Lindgren.

Reporting to chief Johan Paulsen, Lassgård is introduced to cops Jesper Barkselius and Olov Häggmark and their immediate superior, Peter Stormare. He lives with Annika Nordin who was pregnant with Jähkel's son when he died and she bitterly resents the fact that Lassgård ignored her requests for help while raising Kim Tjernström. Stormare is more forgiving, however, and invites Lassgård to watch Tjernström's band play at the local bar. Indeed, he stresses the importance of family and hopes that everyone can forget the past and make the most of their fresh start.

However, the Lindgren case soon has Lassgård and Stormare at loggerheads, as the latter is keen to pin the crime on Eero Milonoff, a local dropout who once attacked him with a knife and was caught stealing from her car during the hunt that was taking place on the day she disappeared. But Lindgren's jilted boyfriend, Jonas Hedlund, insists she was having a fling with Stormare and recalls Nordin warning her to stay away from her man.

Having found a cartridge in the woods, Lassgård confiscates every hunting rifle in the district and has ballistic expert Lo Kauppi run tests on them. But the murder weapon cannot be found and Stormare is forced to release Milonoff from custody. He goes to the cop's house to gloat and is shot at by Nordin, who turns out to have a police record for grievous bodily harm. Stormare also tries to warn off Lassgård during a moose stalking expedition and takes Tjernström on a fishing trip to turn him against his uncle and reassure him that when he left his post during the recent hunt he was merely responding to a call from HQ.

But both Stormare and Nordin are becoming increasingly twitchy and, when a corpse is found, he arrests Milonoff once more and protests that the prisoner was trying to escape when he falls in front of a speeding logging truck on a remote mountain road. Lassgård is far from convinced, especially when Kauppi informs him that Lindgren had been gutted to disguise the fact she was pregnant when she perished. But the case is closed when Milonoff's hair is found near the scene, along with an incriminating cigarette butt.

Shortly afterwards, however, Nordin finds a pregnancy test in the lining of the jacket that Stormare has had dry cleaned for Lindgren's funeral. Moreover, Lassgård gets the keys to the flat she was borrowing from friend Tove Olsson and finds a previously been overlooked mobile phone that contains pictures of a cottage in the woods where she used to meet up with Stormare. In the cellar, Lassgård finds a nest of the insects that had infested Lindgren's cadaver.

But Stormare has been snooping on his adversary and arrests him for trespass, giving him sufficient time to clean up the cellar and half convince Tjernström that Lassgård had murdered his father. However, he makes a fatal mistake in reporting the theft of his rifle and Lassgård confronts Stormare on the riverbank after the badly beaten Nordin reports his intention to kill her son.

These are heady days for Scandi Crime and fans of the original Swedish versions of Henning Mankell's Wallander novels will recognise Rolf Lassgård from the initial series. Indeed, the producers of False Trail were also responsible for The Killing and The Bridge, which have proved so popular on BBC4. But, while this is a rattling good yarn, it feels much more like a small-screen outing than The Hunters, in spite of Jallo Faber's worthy efforts to convey a sense of scale with his handsome cinematography. Moreover, it shares its predecessor's fondness for melodramatics. Lassgård contents himself with reprising the urban unease with his country cousins that had characterised his earlier performance. But Stormare goes all out to surpass Jähkel's Nicholsonesque antics, as he struggles to hide his seething malevolence behind a façade of domestic responsibility and civic duty.

The screenplay also has its shaky moments, with the failure of Paulsen's force to locate Lindgren's last lodgings seeming particularly contrived. Indeed, the entire emphasis on the corruption and incompetence of provincial coppers feels reheated, even though Sundvall's point is presumably to reveal how little things have improved in the 15 years between Lassgård's visits. Nevertheless, for all its flaws, this is a muscularly efficient procedural and should keen aficionados happy while they await the next Stieg Larsson or Jo Nesbø adaptation.

Those seeking some additional festive thrills might want to try Alain Corneau's final feature, Love Crime, which is less of a whodunit than a howdunit, as it follows killer Ludivine Sagnier as she weaves a web of intrigue designed simultaneously to entrap herself and prove her innocence. Bearing a passing resemblance to Corneau's underrated office politics drama Fear and Trembling (2003), this demonstrates the storytelling certainty that made such diverse titles as Série noire (1979), Fort Saganne (1984) and Tout les matins du monde (1991) so compelling.

Indeed, such is its teasing allure of this murder masterclass that Brian De Palma was tempted to remake it earlier this year as Passion, with Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace. But, while the Swedish actress who essayed Lisbeth Salander in the screen adaptations of the Millennium trilogy stands a better than average chance of playing a passive underling provoked into revealing her vicious streak, the delightful Sagnier has already shown in François Ozon's Swimming Pool (2001) that she lacks the ruthless streak to be a wholly convincing femme fatale.

With her hair scraped back and some thick-framed glasses topping off her sensibly smart outfits, Sagnier certainly looks the part as high-flier Kristin Scott Thomas's trusted lieutenant. She also captures the aura of intimidated respect that prevents her from protesting when Scott Thomas takes the credit for her latest show of initiative. Co-worker Guillaume Marquet encourages her to be more assertive, but Sagnier is convinced that she can reach the top in her own way when Scott Thomas entrusts her with a major mission in Cairo.

In fact, Scott Thomas simply wants to distract financier lover Patrick Mille while she spends the weekend cavorting with handsome executive Jean-Marie Juan. So she send him to Egypt with Sagnier knowing that his charm will prove irresistible to a workaholic who doesn't have time for a social life. The ruse works perfectly and Scott Thomas enjoys being particularly sororal, as she gives Sagnier an expensive scarf, suggests a new shade of lipstick and pretends to open up emotionally to her en route to a posh soirée.

Unfortunately, just as Scott Thomas is teaching her protégée how to work a room, Juan sidles up and lets slip the truth about the Cairo assignment and a stunned Sagnier makes her excuses to leave. She is still feeling betrayed when Marquet gives her advanced warning of a potentially lucrative deal with a Washington-based company. But, rather than seizing the day, Sagnier opts to accept Scott Thomas's reassurance that she has complete faith in her and hopes that she can get over her disappointment.

However, when Scott Thomas receives notification from the financial regulator that a contract she tweaked to give Mille a much-needed windfall is under investigation, she orders him to pay back the money and break off his romance with Sagnier or she will ruin him. She then embarrasses the crestfallen Sagnier in a meeting and forges a threatening e-mail from her computer. But she really loses her composure when Sagnier trumps her over the Washington pitch and senior executives Mike Powers and Matthew Gonder inform her that the hoped for transfer to the New York branch has been put on hold. Determined to exact her revenge, Scott Thomas orders Mille to arrange a make-up date and answers his mobile when Sagnier calls to find out why he is so late. Distraught at being manipulated, Sagnier crashes into a pillar in the underground car park and has to endure the humiliation of her colleagues being shown CCTV footage of the incident by Scott Thomas at an office party.

But this proves to be the point at which the worm starts to turn and Sagnier begins planting the evidence that will enable cops Gérald Laroche and Jean-Pierre Leclerc to arrest her for stabbing Scott Thomas and convince judge Olivier Rabourdin of her guilt. However, after a short spell behind bars, she recovers from the effects of the medication she has been taking for her nerves and asks lawyer Julien Rochefort to change her plea and the once-damning facts relating to a torn scarf, a kitchen knife and a trip to the movies are gradually turned in her favour.

A final twist involving a doctored dossier mailed by sister Marie Guillard sees Sagnier shift the blame conclusively on to a scapegoat. But she has not been as clever as she thought and her bluff is called during the trip to the States that was supposed to seal her victory over the odds and the picture fades on a close-up of her face as she lies in the darkness of her hotel room searching for a solution to her latest predicament.

In promotional interviews, Sagnier has admitted to finding the shoot traumatic, as Corneau worked at such a relentless pace that both she and Scott Thomas felt a little bewildered by the experience. However, she has since realised that the 66 year-old director knew he was dying of lung cancer and had no time to waste. Sadly, this sense of hasty efficiency is often evident in the finished film, particularly during the sequences detailing the fiendishness of Sagnier's ingenuity.

Yet the briskness facilitated by Pharoah Sanders's jazz-inflected score and Thierry Derocles's clipped editing also maintains the momentum and prevents viewers from examining too closely the often contrived events concocted by Corneau and co-scenarist Natalie Carter. Yves Angelo's glossy visuals and Katia Wyszkop's knowingly modernist production design prove equally distracting. But nothing can quite hide the fact that Sagnier lacks the icy edginess that a young Catherine Deneuve or Isabelle Huppert might have brought to the role. It doesn't help that she is forced to compete with Scott Thomas in such imperiously bitchy form. But her transformation from vulnerable minion to Machiavellian vixen misses a persuasive epiphany. Thus, while this always feels a touch too dramatically and stylistically controlled, it always entertains, especially as its barbed depiction of capitalism recalls such late Claude Chabrol outings as The Flower of Evil (2002) and Comedy of Power (2006).

If Love Crime narrowly misses being memorable, Jeff Orlowski's Chasing Ice represents a massively missed opportunity to use the breathtaking time-lapse photography of James Balog to alert audiences to the very real dangers posed not just by global warming, but also by the drastic changes currently occurring in the basic science that governs our fragile planet. There have been countless eco-documentaries since Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth (2006) and it makes sense to find a new angle to entice viewers into cinemas. But, by opting to present Balog as a daredevil shutterbug who risks life and limb to capture irrefutable evidence of the decline of the world's great glaciers, Orlowski risks trivialising the serious message that the Extreme Ice Survey is trying to convey. Moreover, he leaves too little room for the unique photographic sequences that can only convert detractors to the cause of reducing greenhouse gases in the hope of averting an environmental disaster.

James Balog began taking photographs while studying geomorphology at the University of Colorado. For the first part of his career, he specialised in covering endangered species. But he gradually became more interested in glaciology and established the Extreme Ice Survey in 2007 to show how the dual processes of melting and erosion were irrevocably changing the landscape in some of the Earth's most crucial frozen wildernesses. As wife Suzanne and daughters Emily and Simone reveal, Balog strained himself to the limit as he sought to find the most effective way of using photography to record scenic change. Yet, despite needing frequent surgery on his damaged knees, Balog assembled a team that included Svavar Jónatansson, Jason Box, Tad Pfeffer and Adam Lewinter, who shared his reckless spirit and determination to make a difference.

After much trial and error to construct time-lapse camera rigs whose casing and computer chips could withstand the vicissitudes of the severest weather conditions, Balog was able to mount over 40 different systems in locations as distant as the Rockies and the Himalayas. Serving as his own cameraman, Orlowski joined the EIS crew on its missions to glaciers in Montana, Alaska, Iceland and Greenland and witnessed at first hand the risks taken to secure mountings in suitably immovable vantage points and take regular readings.

However, the thrill of the expeditions clearly convinced Orlowski to include excessive footage of his adventures, which might have been more profitably replaced by more in-depth discussion of Balog's findings by such experts as the Aspen Institute's Kitty Boone, National Geographic's Dennis Dimick, oceanographers Sylvia Earle and Synte Peacock, ecologists Gerald Meehl, Terry Root, Martin Nørgaard and Richard Ward, glaciologist Martin Sharp, dendrochronologist Thomas Swetnam, foreign policy analyst R. James Woolsey and geo risks advisor Peter Hoeppe.

Given the perils faced by the director and his subject, a degree of vanity and hagiography is excusable. But the gauche montage of news clips showing sceptics spouting hot air and the inclusion of Scarlett Johansson's rendition of J. Ralph's plaintiff cry `Before My Time' are less forgivable. Indeed, instead of asking director Louie Psihoyos to eulogise about Balog, the debuting Orlowski might have been wiser to follow the example of his Oscar-winning exposé of Japanese dolphin hunting, The Cove (2009), and focus on the issues rather than the personalities.

This may seem a harsh verdict on a film whose heart is entirely in the right place. But one only has to see the staggering images of glacial retreat that Balog amassed over a three-year period to realise their importance and the urgency of the need to have them seen minus the Boy's Own encumbrances. Yet Orlowski was fortunate enough to capture one sequence of extraordinary power and few will forget the sight of a 300ft chunk of ice shearing away from the Store Glacier in Greenland.

Another time-lapse master, Ron Fricke (who served as cinematographer on Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi, 1983), struck equally lucky on several occasions while shooting Baraka, which has been reissued to mark its 20th anniversary. It might have made more sense to show this treatise inspired by the Sufi word for `blessing' and `the essence of life' as a precursor to Fricke's most recent excursion into non-narrative cinema, Samsara, which was released in cinemas in August. Nonetheless, it remains a noble achievement and offers audiences a chance to reflect upon the world around them and the lifestyles of their fellow inhabitants at a time of year when contemplation invariably comes a poor second to consumption.

As in his 1986 IMAX picture, Chronos, Fricke focuses on natural landmarks and man-made monuments during his whistlestop tour of 24 countries. Thus, we see waterfalls, mountains and canyons, as well as soulless skyscrapers, ruined temples and abandoned death camps. There is even footage of a solar eclipse. But Fricke also ensures there is a wildlife and a human element, as he crosses all five continents in search of images that are spectacular and intimate, inspirational and provocative. Consequently, we are also shown children with painted faces peering out from behind the foliage in the depths of the South American rainforest, devotees swaying as they chant their praises during a religious ceremony in Bali, Aboriginal elders performing a requiem dance for a young girl and a Japanese snow monkey meditating as it relaxes in the waters of a hot spring.

Yet, as with any amalgamation of disparate images, the problem lies in shaping them around a coherent thesis. This has been achieved, with varying degrees of success, in such pictures as Godfrey Reggio's Qatsi trilogy (1983-2002), Michael Glawogger's Workingman's Death, Nikolaus Geyrhalter's Our Daily Bread (both 2005), Jennifer Baichwal's Manufacturing Landscapes (2006) and Victor Kossakovsky's ¡Vivan las Antipodas! (2011). But, while Fricke ably conveys humanity's quest for spiritual connection and the need to preserve the delicate balance between tradition and progress, he occasionally lapses into travelogue mode or simply becomes a 70mm portraitist. The visuals at these junctures are just as impressive, but their socio-political or cultural significance seems less readily apparent and it becomes easy to see why some have dismissed this as a magical mystical tour whose grandiosity is compounded by the aching sincerity of Michael Stearns's New Agey score.

It's impossible to justice to a film like Baraka, as it has to be experienced rather than described. Moreover, it will make a markedly different impression on each individual viewer. Suffice to say, therefore, that this is mostly as accomplished as it is ambitious and that Fricke has an unerring compositional eye. But, for every instance of beauty and poignancy here, there is something to shock or dismay and it is this readiness to show what needs changing as well as preserving that makes this such a necessary watch, as both reassuringly and depressingly, little has changed in the two decades since it was made.

Sadly, in the matter of months since Pip Piper completed Last Shop Standing: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of the Independent Record Shop, two of the contributors have been forced to close their doors for the final time. From an Oxford perspective, Truck Store continues to thrive and, doubtless, owner Gary Smith will put in an appearance at the special screenings of this affectionate documentary at the Phoenix Picturehouse on Monday 17 December and Fat Lil's in Witney two days later. Guaranteed to be present for Q&A sessions, however, are Piper and Graham Jones, the Liverpudlian whose book inspired the movie and who features prominently in a tour of the country's stalwart vinyl merchants.

During the 1980s, there were 2200 independent record shops in Britain. By 2009, that number had dwindled to just 269 and Hudson's Record & Tape Centre in Chesterfield (which had been in business since 1906) and Rounder Records in Brighton had ceased trading by the time Piper finished editing. Yet the mood of those interviewed here is doggedly optimistic, as owners seek out new ways of making themselves relevant to the record-buying community and sustaining a tradition that dates back to the 1950s.

As Graham Jones reveals, recordings were primarily available from music shops and department stores before the rock`n'roll boom ushered in the age of the independent. Diane Cain from The Musical Box in Liverpool remembers her mother ordering copies of `Heartbreak Hotel' by a young unknown named Elvis Presley, as she hoped it might appeal to her country-and-western customers. However, she was horrified when she heard the single and wondered who on earth would want to buy it.

Mrs Cain need not have worried, however, as the music scene in her native city was so dynamic that she soon found herself selling discs by local bands like The Beatles, whose manager, Brian Epstein, ran his own NEMS music-cum-record shop in nearby Whitechapel. As shellac was replaced by vinyl and the LP became an art form, small emporiums sprang up across the UK and they received a boost in the mid-1970s when punk prompted the formation of dozens of indie record labels who all needed reliable outlets for products that drastically democratised an industry previously dominated by the London-based majors.

But the heyday of the independent record shop came in the 1980s when their returns were registered by the compilers of the Top 20 and, suddenly, reps were giving away goodie bags and boxes of free albums in the hope of boosting their latest single up the charts. The somewhat shameful anecdotes about plugger largesse are thrown into relief, however, by the sombre discussion of the rapid decline that followed the introduction of CDs and the emergence of supermarkets as key players in the British music business.

Whether legal or pirated, downloads had an equally seismic impact and forced many shops to close and others to diversify into instruments, sound systems and gig ticketing. The dire situation has been alleviated to some extent by initiatives like Record Store Day, the increase in in-store performances and the canny use of social media sites. But, even though the various owners and celebrities interviewed here insist that the public still prefers to purchase its music from staff who know their stuff, the future looks pretty bleak for those atmospheric places where so many of us spent far too many teenage hours.

As befits its subject matter, this is very much an indie picture in the mould of Jeanie Finlay's companion piece on secondhand record shops, Sound It Out. Crowd-funded by 170 enthusiasts via the Indiegogo website, it was shot for £7000 in 28 days by a skeleton crew that cross-crossed the country meeting the doughty folk Jones had interviewed while compiling the source text that was itself a labour of love. Stylistically, therefore, this is pretty basic, with shots of talking heads on their own turf being interspersed with the odd snippet of archive footage. It might have been useful to include the views of some ordinary punters and show where the shops are situated and how their interiors vary. But the schedule and budget were obviously too tight to allow more than essential coverage and it's very much to Piper's credit that he manages to accommodate so many far-flung sellers.

Having worked in distribution for 25 years, Jones was ideally placed to front the study. But, while he provides the linking narrative, the bulk of the action is dominated by the trend-bucking owners, who speak with passion, eloquence and realism about an endangered species they are pretty powerless to protect unless kids stop feeling entitled to free music online and rediscover the thrill experienced by their grandparents of physically possessing the 12-inch artefacts that made the likes of Paul Weller, Johnny Marr, Norman Cook, Billy Bragg, Nerina Pallot, Richard Hawley and Clint Boon want to become musicians.

Along with Jones, 6 Music's Jo Good and Record Collector's reviews editor Jason Draper, Piper also seeks the views of such industry insiders as Paul Quirk (ERA), Martin Mills (Beggars Group), Nigel House (Rough Trade) and Tony Wadsworth, the former CEO of EMI who is now the chair of the British Phonographic Industry council. But the stars of the show are the die-hard vendors, who deserve a roll-call in full: Keith Hudson (CE Hudson,  Chesterfield); David Minns (Borderline Records, Brighton); Spencer Hickman (Rough Trade East, London); Diane Cain and Tony Quinn (The Musical Box, Liverpool); Phil Barton (Sister Ray, London); Ammo Talwar (Punch Records, Birmingham); Laurie Dale (Dales Music, Tenby); Ashli Todd (Spillers Records, Cardiff); Derry Watkins (Resident, Brighton); Mike Dillon (Apollo Music, Paisley); Mavis Slater and Chris Lowe (Acorn Music, Yeovil); Gary Smith (Truck Store, Oxford); Laurence Prangell (Soul Brother Records, London); Barry Everard (Record Collector, Sheffield); Alan Scholefield (Honest Jon's, London); Piers and Stephanie Garner (Bridport Music, Bridport); Paul Holman (Square Records, Wimborne); Johnny Hartford (Rounder Records, Brighton); Jimmy Shannon (The Diskery, Birmingham); Lawrence Montgomery (Rise, Bristol); Dep Downie (Monorail Music, Glasgow); Lornette Smith (Jumbo Records, Leeds); Christos Stylianou and Sian Jones (Derricks Music, Swansea); and Debbie Smith (Intoxica, London).