Parky at the Pictures (DVD 10/7/2014)

Bruce Springsteen avers that it is a long walk from the back of the stage to the front and, as Lou Reed's `Walk on the Wild Side' plays on the soundtrack, Janice Pendarvis says that this song might have aroused controversy with its use of the word `coloured', but it encapsulated the power that black back-up singers brought to R&B and rock music. Pendarvis is a longtime collaborator with Stevie Wonder, while Lynn Marby has been associated with Talking Heads for many years. As Neville shows a live performance of `Slippery People', Australian singer Jo Lawry (who works with Sting), Cindy Mizelle (an E Street Band regular), and ex-Harlette Charlotte Crossley opine that being part of a singing sisterhood is wonderful, as it enables artists to be chameleonic. But, as white male singer David Lasley states, backing vocalists are expected to be perfect first time and take no credit for their work.

Onetime Raelette Mable John is now a preacher and the founder of the Joy in Jesus ministries in Los Angeles. She says in a sermon that using a God-given gift is a duty and many of her fellow interviewees reveal how they were tutored in the call-and-response technique at their local church. Among them is Darlene Love, who recalls with Bette Midler that, until the mid-1950s, backing vocalists were usually white women who looked good alongside a white male crooner. They were known as `readers' by their black counterparts, as they simply followed the score and put little of themselves into their performance. But, as Stevie Wonder explains, this all changed in the 60s, when people wanted to hear some spirit in their music.

Darlene's sister, Edna Wright, revels in the rawness of the sound created by The Blossoms, a trio comprising Darlene, Fanita James and Jean King, who reunite for the first time in five decades to listen to their contribution to such hits as `The Monster Mash' by Bobby `Boris' Pickett and the Cryptkickers,  `That's Life' by Frank Sinatra and `The Shoop Shoop Song' by Betty Everett. We see monochrome footage of them belting out `I Do the Shimmy Shimmy' on TV and they do an impromptu run through of `Da Doo Ron Ron', which sounds superb.

The Blossoms were in demand from the moment producers heard them. But, if they couldn't make a gig or recording session, they were quick to pass the work to a friend and Merry Clayton was one of the beneficiaries. Producer Bill Maxwell says Clayton stood out from the crowd and was always the leader of any group she sang with. Edna and Darlene knew her at school and, as we see her ripping through `Nobody's Fault But Mine', she explains how her big break came when keyboard player Billy Preston called her to audition for Ray Charles. She was desperate to become a Raelette and learned how to tone herself down and be an entertainer, as much as an artist. Over colour footage of `What I'd Say', academic Todd Boyd claims that Charles was like an old-fashioned preacher who sang about sex and his vocalists were his choir. But he was a tough taskmaster and Clayton remembers how she missed a note during a show in front of 5000 people and Charles stopped the song and hammered the note on the piano to teach her a lesson she never forgot.

Having started out as a session singer for Quincy Jones, Patti Austin went on to win a Grammy as a soloist. But not everybody wants to come up front and she lauds Lisa Fischer for playing the game by her own rules. She does a scat number, as she confides in voice-over that she is content to put herself at the service of a melody and make people happy. But trumpeter-composer Chris Botti declares that her voice demands attention and Austin proclaims her the empress of vocalists. Yet Fischer is abashed by such praise and doesn't understand why so many back-ups clamour to go centre stage, as singing is about sharing not competing.

Sheryl Crow describes the voice as the most heavenly instrument and Lasley recalls hearing Darlene Love doing `Hallelujah I Love Him So' on a Phil Spector TV special and knowing what he wanted to do with his life. Darlene goes back to the studio and producer Bob Santos plays her `Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)' from the fabled Spector festive album and she is evidently proud to have been part of the `Wall of Sound' experiment. But she resents the fact that the sessions were always about Spector and that he tricked her into doing ghost vocals for other acts. A case in point is `He's a Rebel', which was recorded while The Crystals were on tour and yet became one of their biggest hits. Similarly, she believed `He's the Boy I Love' would be her first solo single, but he gave that to The Crystals, too, and Susaye Greene (who was the last official member of The Supremes) opines that there is nothing more dispiriting than watching someone lip-synching to your voice.

Springsteen says he strove for years to capture the Spector sound, only to realise it was the sound of youth. But Warren Zanes (from The Del Fuegos) regrets that Spector kept Darlene in a box and deprived her of her chance of the fame she deserved. Tata Vega and Gloria Jones also feel she was badly treated, but insist that she was hardly alone. Vega recollects running after Stevie Wonder to try and impress him and he smiles at how she blew him away. We see her recording with The Waters Family and Springsteen remarks that R&B was essentially the secularisation of gospel.

Many singers came to Los Angeles in search of their break, among them Claudia Lennear, who made her mark as one of The Ikettes backing Ike and Tina Turner in the mid-1960s. We see a colourful clip of the band playing and she jokes that they were R&Bs first action figures. Mabry and Stevvi Alexander tut that some of the outfits worn by backing girls in this period were far too revealing and Lennear agrees before admitting to having posed for Playboy. She also worked with several British acts, including Joe Cocker, who allowed his backing singers the freedom to express themselves. Linnear was also the inspiration for The Rolling Stones track `Brown Sugar'.

But it was Merry Clayton who delivered the powerhouse line `Rape. Murder. It's just a shot away' on `Gimme Shelter' and Mick Jagger remembers not knowing a thing about this pregnant black woman in pyjamas with her hair in curlers when she was roused in the middle of the night to join a session. Clayton smiles as she recalls Jagger not being particularly impressed with the first take, so she decided to go an octave higher and blitz the lyric, which is played without the musical track and Jagger laughs at how key her performance became to the song. Linnear toured with the band for many years and Fischer has kept the gig since 1989 and Jagger is happy to punctuate a Stones show with a strong female voice.

Fischer also teams with Sting on `The Hounds of Winter' and he claims he enjoys nothing more than his backing singers and band going off on their own during concerts. He considers Fischer a star, even if she is reluctant to accept the epithet and Lawry says few people put more of themselves into a song. In her own mind, Fischer feels she is a feather floating down to the ground when she performs and she shows Neville around a flat cluttered with gold discs and mementoes (including the Grammy she won for `How Can I Ease the Pain' in 1991). She harks back to her early days with Luther Vandross and jokes that she almost lost the chance to sing with him as her dance moves left a little to be desired. But, as Lasley points out, Vandross started out in the shadows, too, and only came into his own when David Bowie insisted on showcasing his singers on `Young Americans' in 1975.

Maxwell says that a voice is the purest way of making music and that is why so many singers are sensitive about how it is used. Mabry and Mizelle agree and take pride in the fact that backing vocals helped change modern music, with Pendarvis stating that the public often remember their contributions to a song because they often handled the hook. They also became a bigger part of the show from the 1970s and Linnear reflects on being part of the Concert for Bangladesh with George Harrison. A clip of `Wah Wah' (with Ringo Starr on drums) follows, as Linnear recalls the fun she had with Jagger and Bowie (although Austin snipes that some singers were too quick to make their crude plays for the stars). She says she learned much about the world from being on the road and Clayton and Greene concur that being in the studio was like being confined in a bubble and they only found out how people were reacting to Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement by meeting people on buses and at gigs.

Clayton knew enough not to want to sing on Lynard Skynard's `Sweet Home Alabama'. But her husband, who was 19 years her senior, urged her to do the session and sing the hell out of the lyrics to subvert them. She is now proud of her contribution and Neville cunningly intercuts her performing `Southern Man', which was written by Neil Young, who was the target of Skynard's Confederate apologia. Boyd proclaims that black women were changing the art of singing and white folks either didn't realise it or couldn't do a damn thing about it. Clayton's claim to be an activist through her music feels a bit retrospective, but Neville rather ducks the issue of race in the American music industry, as he overlooks the techniques that these remarkable women employed to move backing singing on from `la las' and `doo wops'.

He also opts against identifying the different members of the Waters Family, who assemble in a room filled with iconic signed photographs to reminisce about their work on with Donna Summer, Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson, as well as their contributions to such movies as The Lion King (1994) and Avatar (2009), for which they did `The Circle of Life' and the dino-creature noises respectively. They do an a cappella version of `Up Where We Belong' and take quiet satisfaction in their achievement. But Jagger wonders whether anyone can be entirely happy in the background and, as Neville shows a 1971 clip of Tom Jones doing `River Deep, Mountain High' with The Blossoms, Darlene Love explains how she finally escaped from Phil Spector's clutches and signed with producers Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff to launch her solo career. However, without her knowledge, they sold her contract back to Spector and she decided to quit rather than remain indentured.

Springsteen and Wonder agree that Darlene should have been a star. Merry Clayton also harboured ambitions to take the lead and did three albums with producer Lou Adler that neither think could be improved in any way. But, as Gloria Jones suggests, the business felt she sounded too much like Aretha Franklin and refused to get behind her. However, the public didn't take to her, either, and Clayton fights back the tears as she confesses that she thought all she had to do to become a star was give her heart and soul to the music. But Wonder suggests having luck with material and producers plays an even bigger role in why some people make it and those with considerably more talent do not. Lennear had a similar experience, as her Warner Bros album didn't sell and she quit to get a steady job as she had a daughter to support. Vega had her wings clipped, too, when her bid to fame foundered and she was informed by executives that she was too fat to become a star. Forty years on, she is grateful that she retreated to the back of the stage, as she thinks the pressures of sustaining stardom would have pushed her towards drugs and she would not be here today.

Sting regrets that music isn't a level playing field and Linnear concurs that there are no guarantees. Judith Hill has tried to learn from what befell her predecessors, but her chance to perform with Michael Jackson on the `This Is It' tour was snatched away by his death. Her profile was raised, however, when she sang `We Are the World' at the funeral and she admits that she has since started turning down backing work to prevent it impeding her tilt for the top. Yet, she also has expenses to meet and donned a wig to back Kylie Minogue, only to be bombarded on social media sites for selling out.

Mabel John says that African-American women have settled for less for too long and she insists that they need to start demanding what they are worth. Darlene Love admits it took her a long time to realises this, as she was working as a cleaner when she heard `Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)' on the radio and she decided to move to New York and reinvent herself at the age of 40. She became an annual fixture performing this number on David Letterman's chat show and took bit parts in pictures like Lethal Weapon (1987) to keep herself out there and Gloria Jones agrees that it takes dedication and courage to keep bringing yourself to the attention of people that matter.

Fischer enjoyed the success of her first album, but has no hard feelings that the second was cancelled for taking too long to complete. She is similarly sanguine about not insufficiently good at self-promotion to stay in the front rank. Austin claims it takes ego and energy to make a go of going solo and Alexander says many backing vocalists simply weren't prepared to play by rules they could not respect. Sting puts it differently, by suggesting that some people need to feel the music taking them on a spiritual journey and he questions whether contestants on today's talent shows want to sing or simply be celebrities. Maxwell also condemns these wannabes and mocks the `tuning' software that can help good-looking kids who can't hold a tune to sound like angels.

Judith Hill is finding it hard to break through, but Wonder is convinced she has what it takes. She keeps taking live work to get by, but Rosie Stone (from Sly and the Family Stone) says the jobs are drying up, as so many people record in home studios and the record companies don't have the budget for long or well-populated sessions. Fischer remains in demand and has no regrets about missing out on motherhood to sing, as she considers music a higher calling. She is also relieved that she retained her integrity, as is Clayton, although she sometimes wondered if she was doing the right thing. However, God has yet to give her a sign that she has make a mistake.

By contrast, Linnear recognised when her moment had passed and she has spent the last 15 years teaching Spanish. She sings occasionally, but has reconciled herself to her choice. Wonder says the industry is less about music than it was before. But Vega is still in there pitching and tours with Elton John and keeps faith with the mantra that all she can do is sing her heart out and hope it's what people want to hear. Darlene Love subscribes to this viewpoint and is glad she decided to pick herself up and go again. She was inducted into the Rock`n'Roll Hall of Fame in 2011 and keeps making music at the age of 72, with the film closing with her being backed by Lawry, Fischer and Hill on a studio version of `Lean on Me' and duetting live with Springsteen on `A Fine Fine Boy'. But it seems clear that, while backing singers still have a role to play, the golden age is over and we are unlikely to see again talents of the calibre of those we have witnessed here.

Given the peculiar selection made by the Academy, this probably deserved to pip Zachary Heinzerling's Cutie and the Boxer, Richard Rowley and Jeremy Scahill's Dirty Wars, Jehane Noujaim's The Square and Joshua Oppenheimer's wildly overrated The Act of Killing. But Neville often seems content to let big names relate anecdotes or gush fulsome praise when he might have done more to put back-up singing into a wider musical and socio-political context. He says nothing about the prejudice these women would have encountered singing with white bands in the Deep South and skirts a discussion of how they were utilised in the studio or on stage. Next to nothing is mentioned about remuneration or how the singers juggled engagements and their home lives.

Moreover, too little is said about any rivalries or jealousies or how those left behind felt about the taller poppies. Of course the music is fabulous and the personalities of Love, Clayton and Fischer come across in all their larger than lifeness. But this lacks the incisiveness and inquisitiveness of Greg 'Freddy' Camalier's Muscle Shoals (2013), which is strange, because Neville has such a fine track record in rockumentaries.

A very different insight into the music business is provided by Mistaken For Strangers, a  profile of Matt Berninger, the lead vocalist of the American indie band The National, who invites his nine-year younger brother Tom to work as a roadie on their upcoming world tour in order to earn a few dollars and do something useful with a life that Matt fears is careering off the tracks. As he has produced a couple of homemade horror shorts, Tom is also allowed to record the tour for a documentary. But the strain of being a rock star's sibling begins to take its toll in what seems less a fly-on-the-wall actuality than a semi-spoof in which everyone is in on the joke.

The National hail from Cincinnati, Ohio and have released six albums since 2001. However, Tom Berninger shows surprisingly little interest in the origins or evolution of brother Matt's band and leaves it to a clip from a TV chat show to reveal that the line-up is completed by two sets of brothers: Aaron (guitar and keyboard) and Bryce Dessner (guitar), and Scott (bass) and Bryan Devendorf (drums). Indeed, when Matt sits Tom down for a Q&A session in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, his questions are hootingly off-kilter and prompt Matt to question the wisdom of allowing Tom to film the year-long world tour.

Back in his bedroom, Tom plays scenes from his shoestring shorts, From the Dirt Under His Nails and Wages of Sin, to demonstrate his film-making prowess. But viewers should take note of the fact that each film centres on a rampaging maniac and it seems clear from the sequence in which Tom boasts about touring with The National to staff and customers at his local record shop that he is very likely to turn into a loose cannon or worse sooner rather than later.

Landing in Paris, Tom turns the camera on himself scarfing room service rather than on Matt doing a phone interview. He then tries to discover which of the Dessners can play guitar faster. However, tour manager-cum-sound engineer Brandon Reid wants to run Tom through his duties, which essentially involve keeping the combo stocked with towels, snacks and booze and making sure that they arrive on stage on time. But Tom gets off to a bad start when he tries to ask follow-up questions as Brandon is supervising a sound check and he drifts backstage with a mix of confusion and unconcern to joke about whether he could replace Matt in The National as Johnny Van Zant did his brother Ronnie in Lynyrd Skynyrd when he perished in a plane crash.

As the concert begins with `Bloodbuzz Ohio', Tom watches from the wings. He also catches a snippet of `Mr November'. But, for an official videographer, he doesn't seem that interested in the music and freely admits he is more of a metalhead. Matt chides him for getting in the way and filming when he should be doing his job, but Tom delights in being the naughty younger brother and enjoys the immunity that this affords him within the touring party.

On arriving in London, Tom fools around in phone boxes and points out a double-decker bus. He records Matt meeting some fans and persuades him to do an interview in his room, in which Matt insists the he doesn't think of himself as famous. Tom makes him smile by pointing out that he is better known than any of his friends and Scott is equally amused when Tom asks him where he sees The National in 50 years' time and whether he takes his ID card on stage with him. The following day, they drive to the coast for a photo shoot, where Tom kvetches about the difficulty of coping with the band's sweet tooth and snipes that Matt pretends to hate posing for the camera when he really loves being the centre of attention.

Having mooched around filming musicians Ben Lanz (trombone), Kyle Resnick (trumpet) and Padma Newsome (violin), Tom records the performance of `Afraid of Everyone' and comes backstage to ask sister-in-law Carin Besser why Matt is being so mean to him. She tries to explain that he has a job to do and fans to please and needs to go into a zone in order to give his best. But her answer sounds scripted and poses questions about the extent to which this is a parody of Robert Flaherty's patented brand of scripted reality rather than a genuine piece of vérité.

Tom is still feeling marginalised when they reach Berlin and is hurt when Matt rejects his idea for a boozy bonding session, because Tom has an allergy. He slinks away and tells Bryan that they are the only ones living the rock`n'roll dream and he admits that touring can seem a bit tame sometimes. The pair have a mini party and Tom winds up listening to Halford III: Winter Songs on his ipod before crashing out on the sofa. Brandon ticks him off for wasting funds on alcohol and Tom has to go hurtling through the corridors of a Warsaw theatre to find the towels and water bottles he was supposed to have ordered (a shot that has to be staged, as someone else is clearly holding the camera as Tom bolts into the distance).

He asks Matt if he's only on the tour because they are related and Tom proceeds to get cross with his sibling for backing Brandon's contention that he is shirking his responsibilities. Tom skulks off to find a quiet corner and confides to his camera that it feels weird not fitting in with people he has known for so long. At the show, he films Matt going wild on stage, but opts to use an acoustic accompaniment rather then a National tune over a sequence that ends with Tom getting a disappointed stare from his brother in the airport departure lounge.

Things seem more relaxed as Tom splashes in a hotel pool in Los Angeles. However, Matt scolds him when he calls out to Moby in his hillside mansion and he snatches a beer out of his hand before that night's show. Before he can protest, Tom is sent to find the missing guest list for the after party and the unforeseen problems continue when Scott's bass malfunctions during the gig. Unsurprisingly, Matt is tetchy backstage and pushes over a clothing rail when Tom ignores his polite requests and keeps shooting. Tom also breaks his promise by filming celebrities like Werner Herzog as they meet the band and manager Dawn Barger asks Tom if she can see a rough cut of his documentary because she is concerned about the way the group will be depicted.

After much grumbling about the questioning of his competence, Tom shows Dawn's assistant some clips from his slasher pictures and his horrified expression once more betrays the fact the scene has been staged scene. However, there seems nothing fake about the fact that Tom is prevented from filming as The National meet Barack Obama after playing a rally in Madison, Wisconsin. But Tom's protest to Matt and his promise that he can meet the president next time again feels pre-planned, as does the encounter with Scott, which begins with Tom conceding that Matt is a cool older brother (even though he doesn't understand him), continues with Scott trying to explain that becoming famous couldn't have been easy for Matt and culminates in the bassist lookng into the camera and asking why this interview isn't about him instead of the blasted Berninger brothers.

By this stage, however, Tom has pretty much lost interest in the band and can only focus on the state of his relationship with Matt. As they chat in Prospect Park, Matt tells Tom to pull himself together and lambastes him for spilling cereal over the bathroom floor and leaving his wet bathing suit lying around the tour bus. Tom wails that he is free falling and could do with a little support, but Matt merely warns him to start pulling the film together or ship out. Yet again, Tom seeks out a bandmate to bitch behind his brother's back and Bryce admits that Matt can be a bit of a bully, as he was during the recording of the overdubs on `Apartment Story' and Tom concurs when Bryce avers that Matt can get a little scary when he's angry. However, he wonders whether Tom and Matt are too set in their roles for the situation ever to change and footage from the post-concert reception seems to prove his point, as Matt berates Tom for filming actor Will Arnett when he had told him to keep a low profile.

Everything comes to a head en route to Brewster, New York when Tom misses the bus after Bryan and Scott leave him wassailing in a bar. He films from a distance as Matt and Brandon chat in a corridor and demands to know the real reason when his brother tells him he's been fired because things aren't working out. As The National perform `Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks', Tom sits alone in a bar before slinking off into the night. He films the band members sleeping by torchlight on the bus and heads to the station to return to Cincinnati.

Once home, he asks mother Nancy how he differs from Matt and she accuses him of being a difficult boy and teases him about consistently quitting sports at school. She compares their childhood artwork and praises Matt's minimalism, while raising a scarcely enthusiastic `what's not to like?' about a comic-strip that Tom drew about a man obsessed with legs. Father Paul is more reassuring and praises Tom for never letting things get him down, while Matt always had a tendency to be moody. Moreover, Nancy surprises Tom by confiding that he is her most talented child and that she is confident that he will be a success.

Six months later, Matt and Carin invite Tom to Brooklyn to edit the film. He asks young niece Isla if she thinks he will become a famous director and date a hot movie star and she answers swiftly and firmly in the negative. Matt also has his doubts, as Tom tries to explain the logic behind the colour-coded post-its stuck to the garage wall. He offers to provide truthful feedback, but urges Tom not to waste the opportunity the band has given him. But Tom is still searching for an ending and visits the Clubhouse Studio during a recording session for the new National album. He asks Bryce about the songwriting process and he reckons that waiting for ideas to come is the hardest part. Scott similarly finds it peculiar that it can take up to two years to produce 45 minutes of music.

Carin asks Tom if he has found a girl yet, but he says he isn't ready for romance as he has the wrong clothes and doesn't have his own dishes. Eventually, he has a rough cut ready and Matt invites the entourage to a preview screening. He is nervous when the big night comes, but the digital projector breaks down and Matt gives Tom hell for not checking the equipment beforehand. Nevertheless, he encourages him not to let the setback deflate him and offers a few notes to improve the film.

As they sit in the garden, Tom admits to being depressed and soiling himself the night before as he cried so hard. Matt laughs and Tom wishes he could see Matt weep just once. He films himself alone wishing the band the best before cutting away from a shot of the post-it wall to footage from the Paris hotel, in which he asks Matt what it feels like playing in front of 50,000 people. Matt admits it's unnerving and recalls when their gigs were deserted. As Tom intercuts footage of the early days, Matt opines that failure helped them connect with their audience.

Back at his desk (against a wall covered in the red post-its he is using to indicate SNAFUs), Tom ruminates upon the mistakes he has made during the shoot. He confides that it sucks having a rock star brother when he's a nobody and realises that it will always be this way. However, he remembers a dream he used to have in which Matt rescued him from a lunatic wielding an axe and he takes comfort from the fact that it suggests Matt sees enough in him to make him worth saving.

Such affection is easy to see in a throwaway sequence in which they brothers get the giggles when Tom asks Matt to wipe the steam off the bathroom mirror and say, `I am not The National; The National belongs to everybody now.' But Matt also keeps tabs on Tom to make sure he's sticking to his task, as it breaks his heart that he gets so down on himself and fritters away the talent and opportunities he's been given. However, Tom looks as though he's having a ball, as he follows Matt through the audience holding a long microphone lead while his brother performs `Terrible Love', and one is left wondering how close to real life the bearded schlub who scuttles across the stage and back into the wings is to the real Tom Berninger.

No matter what the picture would have you believe, this is far too slick to have been thrown together by an incompetent novice. Berninger's camerawork invariably alights upon the telling image, while the sound quality is far above anything that could be achieved with a little handheld camera. The editing (credited to Berninger and Besser) is also too assured to support the notion that these are the ad hoc rambling of a buffoon in thrall to and jealous of his famous brother. Consequently, it's surely no accident that this feels closer to Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap (1984) than DA Pennebaker's Don't Look Back (1967).

The various siblings and their support team play along sportingly and it's very much to Matt Berninger's credit that there are as many poignant moments as amusing ones. His willingness to play the brooding bully and allow Tom to appear the hard-luck case is admirable, although it would not be surprising if the odd home truth had slipped out during the shoot. Tom clearly has a gift for self-deprecation and myth-making (Wages of Sin is slated to form part of the DVD extras package, but From the Dirt Under His Nails seems a much elusive proposition). He also has splendid comic timing, although he might have tightened up the climactic Brooklyn sequences. But it will be interesting to see what he does next, as this is the kind of gimmicky project you can only get away with once.

Capturing the buzz around a much-anticipated homecoming concert, PULP: A Film About Life, Death and Supermarkets has been directed by New Zealander Florian Habicht, who forged his reputation with such actualities as Kaikohe Demolition (2004), Rubbings From a Live Man (2008) and Land of the Long White Cloud (2009) before scoring a festival hit with the brilliantly imaginative vox pop romcom, Love Story (2011). Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker is clearly familiar with the latter and probably hoped that this blend of band and fan recollections would prove equally enchanting. However, it comes nowhere near to matching the magic that Baillie Walsh and his talking heads generated in Springsteen & I (2013) and, as a consequence, this often feels a little precious and parochial.

The opening shot rather sets the tone, as a trendily dishevelled Jarvis Cocker ambles into view to change a tyre on an unflashy vehicle against the backdrop of some rundown tenements. It's an arch way of both establishing Cocker and Pulp's connection with the `common people' who first came to their gigs and bought their records and of indicating that the wheel (albeit a little deflated over time) has come full circle to the final show of a UK reunion tour that will be held at the Motorpoint Arena on 8 December 2012. Cocker claims the fans deserved a better ending to their own odyssey and keyboard player Candida Doyle and drummer Nick Banks agree. Yet, while she seems nervous about playing in front of so many familiar faces after such a long time away, he is more preoccupied with his daughter Jeannie's football team, whose shirts are sponsored by the band.

As Maria Ines Manchego's camera surveys the scene around the Castle Market, longtime fan Josephine Cooper claims Pulp are superior to Blur and Cocker recalls the social downside of having a Saturday job on a fish stall. Bassist Steve Mackey reckons it's hard to impress Steel City folk, while Cocker ponders the oddities of sharing intense emotional moments with thousands of strangers. News vendor Terry Hunter proudly proclaims that he'll be at the show, as will Melina Morris, a nurse and single mom who has come all the way from Atlanta, Georgia to be at the farewell show. She is queuing in the cold outside the venue with lots of other girls and, as if to prove that Pulp appeal to kids who weren't even born during their heyday, Habicht interviews youngsters Rio Brookes and Liberty Brown in their front garden and the members of the U-nique dance troupe in their rehearsal hall.

Doyle was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when she was not much older than these kids and she recalls spending much of her late teens in hospital and later fretted about whether a bona fide pop star could have an old people's disease. Bomar Faery has also had a tough time of it, whether being mugged in London or being confined to a mental institution. But he is grateful that he had Pulp to pull him through. Academic Owen Hatherly empathises with the band's ability to communicate with its core audience and eulogises Cocker's understanding of his own roots and those of his listeners. However, while noting that he still uses public transport, guitarist Mark Webber claims to be unsure whether the bookish and geekily chic Cocker is quite as common as he used to be.

Cutler Stan Shaw holds a terrifying blade up to the camera and expresses his pride in a profession that has seen him make knives for Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. He doesn't state if he is a Pulp fan and neither do the members of the Sheffield Harmony choir. But they perform a charming version of `Common People' in their blue spangly dresses, while Cherie Mattock props herself up at the end of a swimming pool to declare that she has Pulp knickers and has trained her husband to accept that Cocker is the third partner in their marriage. Some girls back at the arena start singing `Underwear' to pass the time and Habicht cross-cuts between their rendition and Cocker posturing on stage.

Local legend Richard Hawley used to share a house with Cocker and he complains that he never once saw him do the washing-up. But he flicks through the Pulp discs in his record collection and concedes they weren't a bad band (although he has little option, as he is guesting at the gig). Cocker opines that surroundings don't usually influence his imagination, but `Sheffield: Sex City' reflects the city of his adolescence and a gaggle of interviewees concur that few people write about sex and the everyday better than Cocker. Tour manager Liam Rippon reveals that the band need to be caged like lions in order to do a great show and Cocker harks back to the 1988 extravaganza `The Day That Never Happened' when anything that could go wrong with dry ice machines and back projections did and embarrassingly badly. But, now, Doyle is more worried whether her hands will get through a performance and Webber admits it has taken him a while to enjoy playing live again, as he found the pressures of fame very difficult.

Habict cuts to a rendition of `Babies' from Live at Brixton Academy (1995) before asking a couple of older ladies if they are going to the show and they speculate about whether Jarvis is related to another Sheffield rock icon, Joe Cocker. Bomar explains how he met Carina Duperouzel in an asylum and discovered a mutual love of serial killers. He recalls how he escaped and had to listen to Cocker's Sunday Service radio programme to calm down. Back on the steps outside the venue, Lowri Jones admits to loving Cocker and being turned on by him thrusting on stage. Yet, as he sits in his dressing-room, he seems to be anything but a sex god, as he explains about the need to have a cup of tea before he goes on and how he keeps a range of medical supplies in his trunk in case of emergencies. Mackey jokes that Cocker has become more of an exhibitionist as he has aged and Habicht asks if there is ever a time when he is not performing. But Cocker insists it's the reconnection with the music that excites him rather than fame or being somebody's fantasy.

Amusingly, a cut reveals Cocker thrusting on stage in a far from erotic manner during  `F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.'. But, rather unfortunately, Habicht cuts from this grotesque display to a close-up of Liberty Brown advising parents not to let their children grow up too fast, as she wants to remain a little girl as long as possible. The U-nique dancers also seem to be well grounded, as they consider themselves normal children and remind viewers that even famous people were kids once. But Habicht seems keen to emphasise how sour celebrity can go, as he takes Doyle and Mackey back to the This Is Hardcore era in the late 1990s, when Cocket was bent on exposing the darker side of an industry with which they had all become disillusioned. He compares becoming famous with being dumped in Portugal and avers that being a star agreed with him as much as a nut allergy.

A middle-aged librarian reads the lyrics to `Help the Aged' and Habicht cuts to the seasoned members of Victoria Live at Home performing the song while reading gossip and true crime magazines in a dingy café setting. Cocker says he wrote the track on realising that his generation didn't have anything like `My Old Man (Said Follow the Van)' and wanted them to have something better to hark back fondly upon than Real 2 Real's `I Like to Move It'. He also conceded that he doesn't enjoy getting old, as it's a road with only one destination. Josephine agrees life goes far too fast; but what counts is making the most of it and she feels she has after raising seven children alone after losing her husband 25 years ago.

Such reality will mean little to the fans arriving for the swan song in t-shirts emblazoned with iconic lyrics and one wonders how much they appreciate of the words of `This Is Hardcore', as they watch Cocker strut across the stage, or `Bar Italia', as they follow his instruction to sway from side to side. There is no wonder he feels like he is at the centre of the earth when he performs, as all eyes are on him and he is very much an idol to those to whom he dedicates `Common People' before leaving the stage in slo-mo. Shivering outside afterwards, Malina admits her dream is coming to an end, while others remain inside hoping to pick up some souvenirs. Cocker finishes changing his wheel and he declares his pleasure at cheating the randomness of life by having Pulp finish where it started. As the credits close, he reappears to thank the audience for taking the time to watch the film and urges them to get back to normality.

Given that so many documentaries have been made about the South Yorkshire music scene, including Eve Wood's Made in Sheffield (2001) and The Beat Is Law: Fanfare for the Common People (2011), Habicht is wise to avoid rehashing the band's history. The deceptively bashful Cocker's private life was also exposed in a 2007 South Bank Show. But, while Habicht never shies away from the obligatory gig clips and sneak peaks behind the scenes, this self-consciously idiosyncratic profile is always as much about the people the members of Pulp could have been as who they actually ended up being. Thus, as in Love Story, the public shares centre stage with the stars and the result is a mishmash of the personal, the poignant, the amusing and the inconsequential.

Inevitably, the spotlight is over-trained on Jarvis Cocker, although this may be because he is most comfortable in its glare. He is now in his fifties and seems very sorted, but it might have been instructive to know how his bandmates view presents and futures that will always be prismed through their past. As for the devotees and the liggers, Habicht never quite coaxes them into espousing undying devotion. But, as one unnamed woman states early on, `they're alright' is high praise indeed around these parts.

Actors seemingly have to work a bit harder to earn praise, as the critics who have forgiven Cocker his more precious utterances have come down like a ton of bricks on Kevin Spacey and his company for their perceived luvviness in Jeremy Whelehan's NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage. Granted, the smug quotient is high in places, but this record of the world tour undertaken by the Bridge Project production of Shakespeare's Richard III depicts the cast as both professionals who take their craft seriously and ordinary people who can be bowled over by tourist landmarks like anybody else. Indeed, rather than betraying self-satisfaction, this documentary offers a decent insight into both the creative process and the individual and logistical challenges involved in mounting an enterprise of this ambition.

The brainchild of Spacey and his American Beauty director Sam Mendes, the Bridge Project claims to be the first transatlantic theatre troupe. As Whelehan introduces the mix of seasoned thespians and younger hopefuls who swell its ranks, it quickly becomes clear that the pair have selected performers for their team ethic as much as their stage prowess, as several months are to elapse between the workshopping sessions at the Old Vic in London in May 2011 and the closing night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, 198 shows later. Yet, while everyone is getting to know each other, Mendes begins to impose his vision of the text, while Spacey concentrates on finding his inner and outer Richard, as the tone of the entire play will depend on his approach to the Duke of Gloucester's scheming and deportment.

As the cast is still very much in awe of their director, co-star and location, it's perhaps natural that there is a good deal of gushing at this juncture by supporting players like Andrew Long (Edward IV/Bishop of Ely) and Isaiah Johnson (Lord Rivers/Scrivener). But even veterans like Gemma Jones (Queen Margaret) and Haydn Gwynne (Queen Elizabeth) are inspired by the prospect of performing at the home of theatre, the Epidaurus Ampitheatre in Greece, where Julius Caesar once sat in the audience. Whelehan and cinematographer Aadel Nodeh-Farahani ably capture the atmosphere of this unique venue, while associate director Bruce Guthrie explains that this detour was designed to give the cast the feeling that they could excel anywhere if they could hold their own in such a hallowed place.

Oxford Drama School alumna Annabel Scholey (Lady Anne) evidently felt the gambit worked, as she describes how everyone returned for the Old Vic run with confidence and conviction. She also reveals how she palled up with Katherine Manners and Hannah Stokely, who played Richard and Edward (the princes in the Tower), although no further mention is made of casting actresses in these roles. Instead, Whelehan shifts the scene to the Harbiye Mushin Ertugrul Theatre in Istanbul, where the contrast between Europe and Asia and the impact of the Arab Spring adds a new subtext to the play. However, this brush with the real world is slightly compromised by the revelation that the actors blindly pick an `angel card' each evening and have to shape their performance around a buzz word like `truth'. But, even if this does feel a touch affected, it shows how company members try to keep things fresh for themselves and the audience.

Scholey describes how she decided to make Lady Anne tougher than usual and how difficult she initially found the sequence in which Spacey has to try and seduce her. As the tour progresses, however, she begins to enjoy making this encounter more physically daring, as she has recognised that it is crucial for Richard's evolution as a villain that he feels emboldened by his conquest. Gemma Jones and Maureen Anderman (Duchess of York) similarly reveal how Mendes shaped their characters to emphasise their loathing for a man so evidently revelling in his devilry and it is noticeable how Spacey starts to implicate the audience more openly in his crimes from this point on. But it is one of the great frustrations of the film that we only get to see snippets of what appears to be a tour de force performance. Maybe a record of the play itself will appear in due course, as there is a sense that this documentary would be more useful as a DVD extra.

The tour arrives at the Teatro Politeama in Naples and Whelehan eavesdrops on a dress rehearsal to show how the cast becomes accustomed to the space and acoustics of a new venue. Guthrie and assistant stage manager Samantha Watson explain how there are four versions of the set in transit and setting up each time presents unique problems, especially when language barriers are involved. But, while they toil, the rest of the company heads to Pompeii, where Jeremy Bobb (Second Murderer/Sir William Catesby) admits that he has never been out of the United States before. Like the piano-playing Chandler Williams (George, Duke of Clarence), he enjoys learning while being given the freedom to suggest ideas. Moreover, they are revelling in the chance to see the world and Spacey concurs that theatre comes alive when the cast is being enriched by new experiences. Consequently, after the 100th show (and the last in Europe), he hires a yacht to sail to Capri for a night of luxury.

Amusingly, Whelehan debunks this moment of unashamed smugness by cutting back to Mendes recalling how he struggled to make Spacey seem sufficiently vulnerable during his Oscar-winning performance in American Beauty (1999) and he reveals that he had to go through a similar process to help him discover Richard. But Spacey insists that the real challenge lay in doing something original with such a well-known work and, as a result, he embraces the sense of danger involved in each performance and encourages his cast to react in character to whatever happens on stage, whether it be corpsing or a prop malfunction (however, he appears to have recently forgotten this piece of advice when he snapped at an audience member whose phone rang during his one-man Old Vic swan song in Clarence Darrow).

While the Americans in the cast seem delighted to be back on home soil, Gemma Jones remembers the Curran Theatre in San Francisco from her time in Peter Brook's acclaimed 1970 Royal Shakespeare Company revision of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Bobb detects a rock star aura around the engagement and he lauds Spacey for following idol Henry Fonda in taking a decade out from cinema in order to commit to the stage. Jack Ellis (Hastings) is equally effusive, as he delights in the macabre comedy that Spacey invests in the sequence in which his head is delivered in a box and he knowingly plays on the moment in David Fincher's Seven (1995) when he sends a similar package to Brad Pitt. The use of a camcorder and a giant screen to record the moment Richard is offered the throne is even wittier and the cast speculates on how audiences at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing might react to such an edgy depiction of political paranoia and to the aggressive pageantry of the coronation, which is accompanied by 26 drummers.

However, this leg of the tour proves to be fraught with problems, as the hotel is undergoing major renovation and the cast members start to suffer from exhaustion and homesickness. Scholey concedes that it is impossible to be on top form every night and that the key to stage acting is not to let the audience notice. Spacey himself admits that touring is stressful, but appreciates the opportunity to experience the nomadic lifestyle of so many of his forebears. But trips to the Forbidden City, the Great Wall of China and a Buddhist temple revive spirits, with Stephen Lee Anderson (Sir Richard Ratcliffe) expressing particular gratitude after being diagnosed with breast cancer a year earlier to share such moments with new friends like Gavin Stenhouse (Marquess of Dorset), Chuk Iwuji (Buckingham), Michael Rudko (Stanley), Simon Lee Phillips (Sir James Tyrrel/Duke of Norfolk), Howard Overshown (Brackenbury/Mayor of London) and Gary Powell (First Murderer/Sir Francis Lovel).

The Libyan revolt against Colonel Gadaffi is making headlines as the troupe arrives at the Lyric Theatre in Sydney. Ironically, Spacey's costume as king is modelled on one of the dictator's excessive uniforms and he explains how the physical nature of his performance changes once Richard ascends the throne. He also hopes that audiences recognise the allusion to the corrupting nature of power and pick up on the fact that mischief is replaced by malevolence as he strives to retain control in the face of an invasion by Henry, Earl of Richmond (Nathan Darrow, who doubled as Lord Grey) and his mother's own hope that he will be overthrown.

Anderman recalls her own experiences of a war zone, when she performed in Vietnam in 1967, and she compares the camaraderie of troupes and troops. However, all have a sense of unease as they open in the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, as the region has recent first-hand knowledge of dictatorship. Spacey again confesses to feeling the pressure of having to hold the play together eight times a week and Mendes suggests the tour has been something close to a heart of darkness for him. Yet, he is not looking forward to the company disbanding because he needs his appointments with Dr Theatre to cleanse himself of the anxieties and insecurities that are so essential to the later part of his performance, as the curses of two mothers gnaw at Richard and he is stricken with conscience on the eve of his defeat at Bosworth Field. 

As a last hurrah, the cast drive into the desert and bounce around the dunes in all-terrain vehicles. Spacey rolls down a slope and Anderson treasures the sense of liberation and unity they all felt before they settled into the Bam Harvey Theatre at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the last leg. Mendes claims Spacey relishes the stage so much because he loves feeling the audience in the palm of his hand. But, as he presents the cast with little caricatures of themselves in costume (reciprocating a gift they gave him), it seems clear that he also takes pleasure from moulding actors and seeing them develop and, while the experience of performing and watching a play may be transient, the theatre exerts a powerful grip across the footlights and it is this sense of artistry, growth and togetherness that Whelehan captures so deftly.

Any backstage documentary is going to contain clichés and Spacey, Mendes and their cast succumb to them on a regular basis. There is also a surfeit of lyrical waxing about Spacey's genius and generosity. But, otherwise, Whelehan ably conveys the ordinariness of the actors as they gossip, reminisce and sightsee between shows. He also does well to capture some of the younger American actors rethinking their preconceptions about British thesps. The analysis of the play may not be as dense as it was in Al Pacino's Looking for Richard (1996), but that is not the primary purpose of this affectionate (if occasionally superficial) account of the mechanics of a global tour and the personal and professional effect it had on those taking part.

Born in New Orleans, Godfrey Reggio served as a Christian Brother between 1954-68, during which time he set up a charity to provide medical care for the poor of the New Mexico barrios and a community project to help street kids find a purpose. Since leaving the monastic life, he has co-founded an educational organisation specialising in media development and has acquired a reputation as an innovative and influential film-maker.

Twelve years have passed since he completed the trilogy of Koyaanisqatsi (1982), Powaqqatsi (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002) that made him famous and Reggio returns to cinema with a monochrome mood piece that was made in Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and seeks to show how the damage a disaster that might well have been exacerbated by global warming has left parts of New Orleans and its environs looking something like a latterday Pompeii. Accompanied by a Philip Glass score, the 74 meticulously composed `moving stills' that make up Visitors will bewitch some and bore others. No two interpretations will be the same, even over whether this is a legitimate feature film or simply a glorified gallery installation. But what is certain is that this cinematic Rorschach test will continue to provoke debate about its content and form long after the screen falls dark.

The opening shot is a lengthy close-up of a female lowland gorilla named Triska, who lives in the Bronx Zoo. She stares directly into the lens, as if challenging both the film-maker and the onlooker to justify their interest in her and the mess that humanity has made of the planet since the evolutionary process began. Regio then cuts to a roving shot across the lunar surface (which was created in an SFX lab using state-of-the-art maps from NASA) and thence into a time-lapse shot looking upwards into the scudding clouds past the facade of an unidentified Art Deco building in New Orleans that bears the Latin motto `Novus Ordo Seclorum' (`New Order of the Ages') and the carved `visitors' sign that implies we are only in temporary occupation of Earth and that the forces that may bring about our extinction are already in play.

A montage of faces follows. Young and old, male and female, black, white, Asian and Hispanic. They were seemingly recorded unawares while watching television or playing a computer game. Some of the faces are filmed in slow-motion from a static camera. But the last in this sequence closes in on the rapt expression of a middle-aged woman for a moment of intimacy that is immediately sacrificed to record a crowd of people walking anonymously along a street. The camera then seems to spin on a merry-go-round with a couple of intently staring children before a shot of a man yawning gives way to another view of the Deco edifice and its scurrying clouds and a curious blacked-out triptych of three faces that give the impression of having been squeezed into tight circular spaces in order to distort their grimaces.

Regio cuts from them to an establishing shot of the Six Flags Amusement Park and, as the camera glides through an entrance proclaiming `Games', the focus switches to several pairs of disembodied hands playing with keyboards and consoles that have been digitally removed from the frame. A statue points a finger towards the sky and a young girl delivers a message in sign language before more young faces run the gamut of emotions in much the same way as those filmed by Herz Frank for Ten Minutes Older back in 1978. Another trio concentrate hard on something in the near distance before Regio cuts to a distorted shot of the Deco facade that makes it look as though it is being viewed through rippling water.

Cutting away from more game players, Regio shows us the giant stone face of a jester and enjoys a little joke of his own, as the camera tracks slowly to the right past five quizzical faces until it stops at Triska, who is looking left, as though trying to work out who these people are and what they are doing. From here, Regio cuts to a small crowd of faces and picks them out one by one in much the same way that Abbas Kiarostami did in Shirin (2008). Suddenly, the spectators become more animated, as they anticipate something happening on the unseen screen before them and many jump up or punch the air as their team obviously scores.

This burst of activity prompts a fade to black and a large puppet with a plastic face and mechanical arms gyrates in the darkness. Another fade takes us back to Six Flags and then up to the Moon. A gliding tracking shot moves towards a tree whose foliage glows white before the camera floats serenely through a bayou, whose scene of tranquility and decay segues into a shot of monument blocks in a cemetery. Mist swirls around a mountain top, with the time-lapse footage, images of bulldozed landfill waste, the inside of an abandoned warehouse and some bare trees under a forbidding black sky suggesting a rapid change that is underway and can no longer be stopped.

A whiteout from the light in a doorway gives way to seagulls flocking in mid-air before a rolling shot across the Moon's surface culminates in a distant view of a blue Earth (the only colour in the entire film), which seems to small and vulnerable in the vast emptiness of space. The blackness morphs into a final shot of Triska, who stares down from a large cinema screen on to an audience returning a gaze that seems at this instance to reflect a wearily compassionate disappointment with the way humankind has turned out. As the last whiteout launches the credits, the puffs of thick smoke puffing up from what appears to be moiling mud provides another intimation that this could be the fate that awaits our overheating planet.

There is an unhurried grace to these images, which linger for around 70 seconds each deliberately to draw a comparison with the flash cutting in so many modern American movies. The lustre of the photography by Graham Berry, Trish Govoni and Tom Lowe is mesmerising, while the subject matter is frequently transfixing. Reggio had done something similar with his 1995 short, Evidence, and it is tempting to see here the influence of Andy Warhol and Yoko Ono's 1960s experiments in body part close-ups. But there is also something troubling about the faces and vistas, as, in spite of their interdependence, they have become detached from each other.

Few events in recent times have spawned as many films as the Arab Spring. The majority sought to capture a moment in time and were rush released to cash in on the popular fascination with the uprisings and present aspects that failed to make the news bulletins. However, in seeking immediacy, such pictures inevitably sacrificed perspective and Jehane Noujaim is at pains to point out that The Square is a work in progress because the Egyptian Revolution is very much ongoing. Indeed, having already premiered the documentary, she had to add a coda to include the removal of President Mohamed Morsi by the military in the summer of 2013. Things have, of course, moved on again since. But this remains an invaluable insider insight into the momentous happenings on Cairo's Tahrir Square from January 2011.

As the protests intensify against longtime president Hosni Mubarak, Noujaim's focus falls on a group of friends who congregate at the apartment of Pierre Haberer, which looks out on to downtown Cairo. The most familiar face belongs to Khalid Abdalla, an actor with a refined English accent who has taken key roles in such films as Marc Forster's The Kite Runner (2007) and Paul Greengrass's United 93 (2006) and Green Zone (2010). His father Hossam was jailed for opposing the government in the 1970s and he remains in exile to warn his son against trusting the army and being fooled by quick gains. Khalid helps set up the Popular Media network that receives camera phone footage to share online and prove to Egyptians and the wider world that their protests are being met with tear gas, violence and live ammunition.

If Khalid was happy to exploit his fame to further the cause, musician Ramy Essam found himself in the spotlight by accident after he became the Revolution's unofficial troubadour. Film-maker Aida El Kashef also achieved a sort of celebrity, as she set up the first tent on Tahrir and helped Khalid with his citizen journalism project. Human rights activist Ragia Omran also hit the headlines when she challenged the Military Council over the murder of protesters outside a television station.

But Noujaim seems most interested in Ahmed Hassan and Magdy Ashour. The former hails from the working-class Shobra district and revels in preaching revolution and making converts to the cause. Always arguing, but with a baby-faced geniality and enthusiasm that makes his zealotry so disarming, Ahmed played a key role in the 18-day stand-off and formed an unlikely friendship with Magdy, a father of five and committed member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Having been imprisoned for his allegiance to an outlawed organisation, Magdy is unswervingly loyal to leaders he trusts implicitly. However, he is persuaded by Ahmed's impassioned rhetoric and comes to recognise that ending Mubarak's 30-year tyranny is vital for all Egyptians and not just those longing for the unrest to have an Islamist outcome.

After what seemed an interminable delay, Mubarak finally resigned from office on 11 February. But, as fireworks light up the night sky, Hossem warns Khalid during a Channel Four News link-up not to trust the generals and Aida soon comes to worry that power will fall into the wrong hands. The misgivings proved well founded, as, by the spring, the country was still under Emergency Law and Mubarak was still in office. Army spokesman General Hamdy Bekheit is filmed making a phone call, during which he swears that the people will always be able to trust the armed forces. However, his driver, Major Haytham, is less well disposed towards the public and sneers that Tahrir is being occupied by glory-seekers rather than those intent on improving the nation and such sentiments cause Khalid to despair that those in uniform who benefited from Mubarak's patronage will bolster his regime to retain their own privileges.

The group are furious when Tahrir is evacuated by force and Ramy does a video to show off the bruises he received after being arrested and detained at the Egyptian Museum. Bekheit counters such claims by saying that the army has a duty to uphold law and order and that David Cameron would use strong-arm tactics if Downing Street was under siege However, the arrest and torture of thousands of opponents, many of whom were put on military trial, brought the revolutionaries back on to the streets in the summer to demand civilian rule. Khalid is pleased by the enduring solidarity of the people, but he is also concerned by the increased presence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had taken little or no part in the initial protests. Noujaim's cameras capture mass prayer sessions and hint at a change in the treatment of female protesters and even Magdy becomes concerned that the attempt to divide and rule the cities and provinces will reflect badly on the Brotherhood and Islam.

Newspaper editor Mona Anis compares the strategies of the Military Council with those used to police Nortthern Ireland in the 1970s and she accuses of Khalid of being naive when he avers that it is too early to have an election, as there is no constitution and no semblance of party democracy. Ahmed shares his concerns and decides that all politicians are useless, as the situation deteriorate into the autumn. The media has turned on the activists and, when lives are lost during a Christian protest at the headquarters of the Maspero network, Khalid posts footage of armoured vehicles ramming defenceless people and hails Mina Daniel a martyr of the revolution. Ahmed comes to pay his respects to his family, while Ragia tries to ensure that proper autopsies are carried out to confirm the role of the authorities in the murders.

Yet, while she shows Ahmed and Khalid arguing with die-hard army supporters, Noujaim plays down the tensions within the Tahrirists, as well as the enmity between the Brotherhood and the Coptic Christians. She also shies away from depicting the shifting attitudes to women on the square. But she conveys the mood of grim determination as Ahmed heads back to Tahrir to denounce the generals for their duplicity and timidity and comes away despairing that war is rapidly replacing revolution and, as the stones and Molotov cocktails fly against hails of bullets, Khalid concludes that the top brass has cut a deal with the Brotherhood that will rob them of their achievement.

Magdy feels increasingly conflicted, as the Brotherhood are steering clear of the square and he proclaims that he is a revolutionary before anything. Ahmed continues to go to Tahrir and is appalled by the opportunism of the Brotherhood and the treachery of the military. His dismay is compounded when he is wounded during a baton charge and Aida films the tear gassing of patients at the hospital. He goes home to see his mother and, for once, seems at a loss as to what to do next. Khalid rails against the elections in interviews for foreign news programmes and he is distraught that the Muslim Brotherhood plans to follow up its victory at the parliamentary elections in the winter of 2012 by backing Mohamed Morsi for the presidency and bribing the poor with oil and sugar to secure their votes.

As they eat at a communal street buffet, Magdy and Ahmed also feel that the revolution has been stolen and Haytham jokes on camera that it only got as far as it did because it suited the army's purpose. When a woman protests to Bekheit that troops are using live rounds on the people, he dismisses her with an arrogant shrug. However, Khalid refuses to allow his efforts to count for nothing and launches Cinema Tahrir by projecting footage of atrocities on a screen in the square and keeps broadcasting to the wider world via his website. He curses that the ballot boxes are for the traitor and the killer and mocks the legitimacy of a race between Morsi and Ahmed Shafik, who was Mubarak's last prime minister. When Morsi wins on May 2012, Magdy urges his friends to give the Brotherhood 100 days to see if it intends honouring it pledges, but Ramy declares the result a calamity and Ahmed vows that the people will seize back power if they are cheated.

As Noujaim records yet another mural being painted (a device she uses to preface the film's seasonal chapters), it has already become clear within 150 days that Morsi is more corrupt and dictatorial than Mubarak. Once again, Tahrir becomes the focus of the discontent, with Ramy singing about Morsi being a monster with ambitions to become the new pharaoh. Magdy is reluctant to accept this version of events, as he knows the Brotherhood are aware of his movements and that he depends on them to support his family. Ahmed frets that Egypt could go the way of Iran, while Khalid interprets Morsi's speech about maintaining order as being a signal for the Brotherhood to attack the Tahrirists. He is shocked when Magdy's son, Assem, admits to throwing stones at the protesters and Magdy chides him for not having the gumption to think for himself. But, even though he is saddened to see the Brotherhood using guns, he refuses to accept that Morsi is a religious fascist.

Noujaim visits Magdy's home as the unrest worsens during the summer of 2013. His wife is tired of the protests and an unidentified young woman taunts him for choosing the wrong side. His tweenage daughter cries at the thought that he might get into trouble and he hugs her. Yet, when the Brotherhood order him to patrol the streets during the nationwide strike on 30 June, he has no option. Morsi denounces the industrial resistance as the work of thugs during a televised speech. But Ahmed says he has misjudged the people, as they are now used to a culture of revolution and will rise up again if he continues to oppress and defraud them because they are now the owners of their freedom. He is proved right, as millions take to the streets and even children sing the slogans he has helped coin. His pride is tempered by the knowledge that the army will have to step in again, but he considers this a small price for the ousting of the Brotherhood.

As Morsi speaks about shedding his blood, Magdy hopes to avoid confrontation as he laments being at loggerheads with his new friends. On 3 July, however, General Abdel Fattah Al Sisi announces Morsi's departure and Ahmed insists he will be back on the barricades if this twist takes an unsatisfactory turn. But he admits he is exhausted and phones Magdy to plead with him to abandon the Brotherhood, as the common cause for which they stood shoulder to shoulder has triumphed. Noujaim films Magdy driving through Cairo in a car and he wishes things could be otherwise, but remains true to his faith. He opines that he would rather die than go back to prison and a closing caption reveals that he was among those violently removed from a pro-Morsi sit-in. But, while hundreds have perished, he remains safe and Ahmed concludes that what Egypt needs is a conscience rather than another leader.

Making more sense of an intractable situation than its competition, this is fortunate in its choice of characters, as Khalid, Ahmed and Magdy are all as charismatic as they are committed. However, Noujaim tends to marginalise the others, just as she overlooks the Coptic question and the treatment of women by men on all sides of the conflict. The most fascinating footage pitches the principals into the middle of the mayhem and has an immediacy that is sometimes missing from the more studied direct-to-camera pieces, particularly by Khalid and Ahmed, who are much more savvy than Magdy, who avoids polished sound bites or edgy slogans to speak from the heart in the midst of his confusion over whether his nation, his religion or his new comrades have the certainties he is searching for.

Dynamically and courageously photographed at the height of often dangerous chaos, the images are potently edited to convey the highs and lows of a campaign that has veered even further away from the aims of the Tahrirists since the revised edition was completed. Noujaim is less willing to question that naiveté of the public than the Machiavellian machinations of Moubarak, Moursi, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Army. But it is so sobering to witness the speed with which the optimism of January 2011 dissipated, with the touching trustfulness of Magdy Ashour serving as a symbol for an entire nation's misplaced faith.

Since moving into features from television, Luc Jacquet has won an Oscar for March of the Penguins (2005) and charmed with The Fox and the Child (2007). But he has never produced anything as visually audacious or accomplished as Once Upon a Forest, a fascinating insight into the secret life of trees that would rank alongside anything produced by the BBC or National Geographic were it not for the floridity of the voiceover and the persistence of a score that appears to be bent on precluding the kind of hushed awe that the imagery and the majesty of Nature would seem to demand. Notwithstanding the New Ageiness of the scattershot philosophising, this has much to say about the need to preserve the rainforests and the notion that the regeneration of depleted areas would probably proceed at a much faster pace without human interference. But, while it has a green agenda, this spectacular documentary is much more concerned with the mechanics of the ecosystems that operate in the Amazonian jungle of Peru and the Congo rainforest in Gabon.

Botanist Francis Hallé has devoted his life to studying the interaction of trees with their environment. Dismissing traditional ideas that they are simply immovable objects, he insists that they can not only coax flora and fauna into doing their bidding, but that they can also travel and embody time, as they stand guard over a fragile planet. Shown throughout sketching canopy and undergrowth alike, Hallé has his pensées spoken for him by Michel Papineschi and one wishes that he had persuaded Jacquet so dispense with the swooning poetics and stick to the science. However, the decision to complement Antoine Marteau and Jérôme Bouvier's stunning photography with digital animations by Eric Serre and Anne-Lise Koehler is inspired, as they help illuminate complex concepts that would otherwise be beyond the average imagination.

Starting with the depiction of a deforested area that resembles for its bare bleakness something from the rain-sodden Western Front in the Great War, Hallé seeks to show what witnesses could expect to see over the ensuing centuries as Nature replenishes its stocks. It's a bold aspiration and purists may consider the use of special effects to capture the sprouting of new shoots, the growth of saplings and the spreading of foliage to be a little excessive. But the combination of authentic and animated footage does make Hallé's theories more accessible and it can only be a good thing if younger viewers are inspired by what they see and hear about the way in which trees shape the world around them and enlist everything from insects and birds to vines and fungi to help them survive and perform the tasks vital to life on Earth.

A particularly compelling sequence shows how trees allow ants to burrow through their nascent trunks and make nests in order to ward off leave-chomping caterpillars. Equally intriguing is a segment on how trees and plants adapt their leaf shape and toxify their sap in order to repel or confuse predators like the Helliconius butterfly. But, such is the cycle of existence, that trees need to attract herbivores in order to pull in the creatures that feed on them, as mammals and reptiles have a vital role to play in the dissemination of seeds and pollen.

Steepling shots of Moabi trees reaching into the Congo sky are cross-cut with close-ups of ants and termites beavering away to carry soil and break up bark, as Hallé explains how trees use scents and taste sensations to reward those who help them procreate. Snakes, monkeys, elephants and big cats all have their role, as trees strive to have their seeds carried considerable distances so that they won't have to compete with their own offshoots for sunlight. The journey of a seed is followed from branch to germination, as Hallé extols the ingenuity that has seen species cross continents. He even explains how trees cajole clouds when they need watering. The intricacy of this network of mutual dependence makes for riveting viewing and Jacquet makes clever use of drone cameras to produce shots that leave the viewer wondering how on earth they were achieved, while also marvelling at the simplicity and efficacy of their content.

Yet, for all their intelligence and cunning, trees can be outmanoeuvred. The strangler fig, for example, hollows out trunks while exploiting their sturdiness to climb towards the canopy. But even trees that fail to grow to their full height still make a contribution to their locale, as they decompose to enrich the soil with essential minerals. Indeed, even after centuries of withstanding countless vicissitudes, a dying tree still falls selflessly to create a hole in the canopy that allows light to reach the undergrowth and kickstart a whole new cycle. It's an eye-opening process and its unassuming genius would have been all the more mesmerising had Jacquet had trimmed the tangents while organising Hallé's expert analysis and avoided compromising the evocative sound design of Samy Bardet and François Fayard with Eric Neveux's irksome score. Yet, even with these flaws, this remains a film of quiet passion and humbling beauty.