Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 24/7/2014)

Fifteen year-old Tye Sheridan endures a peripatetic existence with parents Gary Poulter and Brenda Isaacs Booth and his mute younger sister, Anna Niemtschk. Poulter is a vicious, workshy drunk who beats Sheridan at every opportunity. However, the boy is aware of his responsibilities as the breadwinner and lands a job with Nicolas Cage, who manages a gang detailed to poison trees by a lumber company keen to plant sturdier species in the cleared terrain. A short-fused loner who divides his time between bars and Sue Rock's cathouse, Cage dotes on his fierce female bulldog and has a soft spot for hooker Adriene Mishler. But he also has an enemy in Ronnie Gene Blevins, a sozzled wastrel whose face was badly scarred in a juvenile car accident and who picks fights to keep himself amused.

Cage has a good relationship with foreman Brian Mays and the other African-Americans on his crew, who cut grooves into tree trunks with hatchets before spraying them with poison from their backpacks. Sheridan fetches water on his first day and Elbert Hill III, Milton Fountain and Roderick L. Polk all make him feel welcome. However, Poulter dismisses his efforts with a scowl, as he is only interested in frittering his wages on hooch. Cage also has a night of oblivion planned with Rock, but he is terrified of her guard dog and beats a hasty retreat.

The following morning, Cage drops into blind Lico Reyes's store for provisions and skins a deer for neighbours Kay Epperson and Lazaro Solares. As he leaves their home, however, Cage is shot at by Blevins in revenge for a recent altercation in a bar. Blevins tosses his rifle off a bridge, but he is still in the mood for a barney and confronts Sheridan and Poulter as they head into town. He asks the youth if he has a sister and lunges at him when Sheridan tells him to show more respect. However, Sheridan is quite capable of looking after himself and he pulps Blevins before heading home with his father.

Having removed the bullet from his shoulder and spent a quiet weekend with Mishler, Cage returns to work and ignores the taunts that he is now hiring white trash when Poulter shows with Sheridan. He soon proves lazy, however, and Cage fires the pair after Poulter has a stand-up row with Mays. But, that night, Sheridan comes to beg Cage for his job back and Mishler chides him for not taking Poulter to task for beating his son. Cage feels sorry for Sheridan, but knows that he cannot intervene because his own temper has landed him in trouble in the past and he laments that frontier life isn't what is used to be.

Sheridan buys an alarm clock with the cash that Cage gives him and throws himself into his work. Indeed, when Aaron Spivey-Sorrells complains about the truck that transports them to the woods being old and cramped, Sheridan offers to buy it and Cage is impressed by his eagerness to make good. His father, however, is wandering the streets in a daze and follows wino Elbert Hill, Jr. when he sees him pass with a bottle. Poulter tries to sell the stranger a sob story about his wife being in hospital. But, when he isn't offered a drink, he grabs a metal bolt from the floor and crushes Hill's skull in a frenzied assault. Soothed by a deep swig of cheap wine, Poulter prays over his victim and kisses his forehead before staggering away.

The violence continues that night, when Blevins bumps into Cage in a bar and he smashes a bottle over his head as Blevins cautions him to stop embarrassing him in front of his friends. Livid at losing control of himself, Cage goes to see Rock, only to be chased away by her dog. So, he fetches his own pet and lets her loose in the brothel, while he joins the hostess upstairs. On his way home, however, Cage is pulled over by several pursuing cops and he challenges them to drop their guns and settle the matter with fists. At the station, Sheriff Aj Wilson McPhaul asks Cage why he is so keen to go back inside and warns him that he can't keep turning a blind eye to his antics.

Meanwhile, Poulter has returned home to the shack in which the family are squatting and orders Sheridan to hand over his pay. He refuses and tries to stop Poulter from rummaging in his haversack. But the old man lays him out with a single punch and gives him a kicking to remind him who is boss. Cage is appalled to see the cuts on Sheridan's face next morning and allows him to drive the truck as they go looking for his runaway dog. As they chug beer, Cage explains how he once did 29 months for attacking a cop who was trying to shoot him. He also teaches Sheridan how to smile through pain, as they clamber over some boats that look as though they have been deposited in the middle of nowhere by a flood.

Despite being tipsy, Sheridan realises that the dog will probably be waiting at the spot where Cage was arrested and he is so impressed with the lad's deduction that he gives him his lighter. As he drops him off, Cage promises Sheridan that he will deal with anyone who gives him trouble and threatens to knock Poulter's teeth out when stops to ask him for a light and the coot badmouths his kid. That night, Mishler tells the sleeping Cage that she would love to dress up for dinner with him and wishes that they could make things work. But she knows better than to talk of love or relationships when he is awake.

The next day, Cage asks Sheridan why he doesn't strike out on his own and he explains about the need to protect his sister. They go to the showroom for Cage to pick up his new truck and he tells Sheridan to keep the $900 they had agreed for the sale to cover his insurance. As he drives through town, Cage pulls up at the traffic lights alongside Mishler and a client and, so, when an overzealous cop pulls him over and tries to breathalyse him, he flips out and punches him for what he considers to be harassment. Arriving home, Cage finds McPhaul waiting on his driveway and, as they chat, he tells Cage that he has become a grandfather. He receives the news phlegmatically and promises McPhaul to try and keep himself in check.

However, Blevins has talked Wade into prostituting Niemtschk and they bundle her into the back of Sheridan's stolen truck. Desperate to rescue his sister, the badly beaten Sheridan asks Cage if he can borrow his vehicle. But he insists on accompanying the teen and takes a gun from a drawer. They find the truck parked at the side of a quiet road and Cage fires into the air to scare off the masked john. He tells Sheridan to help Niemtschk while he taunts Blevins with a few near misses before shooting him dead. However, Cage has been wounded in the stomach and can barely reach the bridge where Poulter is preparing to throw himself off. McPhaul drives up with his roof lights blurring in the darkness and Sheridan clings to Cage as he slips away. But, as the film ends, he has rescued his friend's dog and uses his name to make a fresh start in a nursery for saplings.

Making evocative use of his Texan locations and largely non-professional cast, Green generates a seething sense of debased masculinity and small-town ennui. He is superbly served by Cage, who reins in his tendency to excess in order to achieve a potent mix of wry geniality, pent-up rage and wounded vulnerability. He also displays a good deal of reckless courage, as he did the scene in which he grabs the venomous snake bothering his workforce without protection. But Green avoids anti-heroes and villains by giving the vituperative Poulter (a first-timer who would sadly die soon after shooting wrapped) the odd moment to suggest that he might have been a half-decent man before he succumbed to his addiction. Building on his solid displays in Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life (2011) and Jeff Nichols's Mud (2012), Tye Sheridan poignantly conveys pugnacity and innocence in trying to be the man of the house, but Green rather clutters the scenario with minor characters and fails to create any women who are not battleaxes or whores.

Gary Hawkins, who directed the 2002 documentary, The Rough South of Larry Brown, must share the blame here. But he still deserves great credit for a fine screenplay, while cinematographer Tim Orr and production designer Chris L. Spellman conspire unobtrusively to contrast the desolate landscape with the shabby interiors. The use of light in Cage's home and Rock's establishment is particularly striking, as is the way in which Jeff McIlwain and David Wingo's ominous score counterpoints the shifts in Cage's emotional equilibrium. Yet, for all the clues scattered around the scenario, we get no closer to understanding what makes Cage tick and what might have happened in his past to make each day such a struggle to stay on the rails

Although he is a disciple of the Malick School, Green resists the temptation to romanticise country living and, consequently, succeeds in his bid to cast Joe as Prince Avalanche's `dark, nasty, older brother'. The violence may not be as excruciating as it was in Jeremy Saulnier's Blue Ruin, but it still causes the odd flinch and one wonders how much more powerful John Ford and Howard Hawks's studies of men doing what they had to do might have been if the Production Code had allowed for more realistic brutality. Indeed, this feels as though it could have been made in the New Hollywood era when film-makers first had the freedom to present life as it was lived and it will be fascinating to see how Green fares with Al Pacino (who cut his screen teeth in the early 1970s) in Manglehorn, the forthcoming tale of a Texan ex-con striving to go straight.

Another teenager tries valiantly (if rarely wisely) to keep the family afloat in Northwest, Dane Michael Noer's slick, but inescapably formulaic follow-up to his acclaimed prison drama, R: Hit First, Hit Hardest (2010), which he co-directed with Tobias Lindholm. Had it been made in this country, there is every chance that this sophomore effort would have been dismissed as just another tepid exercise in BritCrime. But Noer is smart enough to ride on the Nordic Noir wave, while also slipping in enough tropes from Dogme95 and the Nicolas Winding Refn playbook to ensure that this will be spared the scorn our national press usually reserves for Mockney flicks

Eighteen year-old Casper (Gustav Dyekjær Giese) lives in the rough Nordvest area of Copenhagen with his mother Olivia (Lene Maria Christensen) and his younger siblings, Andy (Oscar Dyekjær Giese) and Freja (Annemieke Bredahl Peppink). He makes money burgling houses with his sidekick Robin (Nicholas Westwood Kidd) and fencing the goods through local gangsters, Jamal (Dulfi Al-Jabouri) and Ali (Ali Abdul Amir Najei). However, he is tired of them ripping him off and treating him like a chattel. So, when rival thug Bjørn (Roland Møller) offers to give Casper a bigger cut of the profits and show him a little more respect, he jumps at the opportunity, after the Arabs steal his watch and beat Andy while they are having a night out with girlfriends Sofia (Marina Vorobyeva) and Petra (Jelena Bundalovic).

Robin is convinced that Jamal will wreak revenge for their treachery, but Casper becomes a trusted member of Bjørn's operation after he makes good on his promise to deliver a valuable light fitting and steps up to the plate when muscleman Theis (Clement Black Petersen) proves too drunk to drive a couple of escorts (Irina V. Babenko and Monika Paula Fasula) to their appointments around the city. Indeed, Bjørn is so impressed with Casper's skills as both a thief and a pimp that he forgives him when Jamal and Ali smash the windscreen of his car as a warning that they are not going to take his defection lying down. Bjørn also takes a shine to Andy when he starts dealing drugs hidden in the handlebars of his scooter and teaches the fatherless boys how to box in his back garden.

Touched at being treated to a day at a luxury spa, Olivia is particularly pleased with the extra money coming in as she will be able to throw Freja a birthday party for her classmates. But Casper has misgivings about getting Andy too deeply involved, especially when Bjørn informs Casper that he wants him to eliminate his rivals. He takes him into the woods and teaches him how to shoot with a handgun and sends him off to await the call that Jamal's new hideout has been found. Inevitably, it comes during the birthday party and Casper has no option but to ask Andy to give him a ride on the back of his scooter to the hut tucked away behind an outskirts cemetery. He sees Jamal in the outdoor shower, but not only lacks the nerve to shoot him, but he also soils himself and Andy is so disgusted by his timidity that he takes the weapon himself and guns Jamal down at a drive-through McDonald's.

They burn their clothes and destroy the scooter before heading home. But, when Casper goes to a bar, Ali confronts him and he has to escape shirtless through the streets before begging a passing police patrol to arrest him. He denies all the accusations put by officer Kim Hansen (Peter Zandersen) and is freed without charge. However, he knows that he and Andy will have to lay low for a while and Olivia berates him for getting his brother into such a mess. Andy is hiding in Bjørn's basement and is so frustrated at seeing Casper take all the plaudits for the hit that he blurts out the truth and Casper has to flee when Bjørn finds a large sum of money in his holdall. As he runs to rendezvous with Sofia in the getaway car, Casper is pursued by Ali and his gang. He hurtles along a hedge-lined path in the park and disappears from view just as shots ring out and the screen falls dark.

Non-professional siblings Gustav and Oscar Dyekjær Giese acquit themselves admirably in this gutsy treatise on the difficulty of escaping one's surroundings, which laces its workaday crime elements with some acute observations on the recessional plight facing Danish youth and the tensions that exist between Copenhagen's lower classes and its immigrant communities. Essentially, this is a throwback to the kind of gangster saga that Warner Bros churned out in the 1930s, in which James Cagney tried to keep his kid brother out of lumber. But Noer is too aware of the need to pack the action with plenty of sex, drugs and shakicam and, as a result, this offers little to distinguish it from the kind of identikit crime pictures being produced across the continent.

Magnus Nordenhof Jønck's cinematography captures Casper's restlessness, while also picking out the pertinent details in Trine Padmo Olsen's telltale interiors. Editor Adam Nielsen also merits a mention. But Noer and co-scenarist Rasmus Heisterberg (whose CV includes Niels Arden Oplev's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, 2009 and Nikolaj Arcel's Oscar-nominted costumer, A Royal Affair, 2012) struggle for socio-political insights to match their authentic depiction of the various lock-ups, nightclubs and hotel rooms in which Bjørn conducts his sordid business. Moreover, they leave too many things unexplained, such as who supplies Casper with the drugs he hides in a flowerpot in the cemetery and where the second scooter comes from on the night of the killing. Thus, while this still has more Dardenne than Dyer about it, there is no escaping the enervating lack of originality in both the content and the approach.

A more sophisticated prostitution racket dominates the action in Kim Chapiron's La Crème de la Crème, which is showing at the Ciné Lumière in London under the less than salubrious title of Smart Ass. Purportedly based on true events, this often feels like a cross between Paul and Chris Weitz's American Pie (1999) and François Ozon's Jeune et Jolie (2013). Considereing that the Franco-Vietnamese Chapiron won the Best Newcomer prize at the Tribeca Film Festival for Dog Pound (2010) and that co-writer Noé Debré has been hailed as the next big thing because of his association with ace screenwriter Thomas Bidegain, this is a disappointing muddle that is short on wit and over-reliant upon superficial gloss and the flimsiest of premises, while also being riddled with numerous longueurs and non sequiturs.

Addressing the freshers at one of France's most exclusive business schools, principal Pierre-Ange Le Pogam urges them to take a good look round the lecture theatre, as they won't recognise each other at the end of three years of intensive study. He clearly has little idea what goes on in the dormitories, however, as Franco-Tunision sophomore Karim Ait M'Hand spends so much time masturbating to online pornography that roommate Thomas Blumenthal refuses to shake his hand. They hope to break their long barren streak by impressing new girls at the faculty welcome party. But Ait M'Hand is rejected by everyone he approaches, while the best Blumenthal can manage is to chat to lesbian Alice Isaaz, who shares his dismay at the seduction success enjoyed by the big noises in the student union and the rugby and yachting clubs.

Coming back to their room, Isaaz mocks the bright young things in their Polo leisure wear and concurs with Blumenthal's theory that nerds don't stand a chance with pretty women because the majority lack the looks and social status to make them a worthwhile investment. The following day, as they wander around the supermarket, Blumenthal explains to Isaaz that the college clique is like a self-protecting luxury market to which outsiders can only gain admittance if there is a sudden rise in their stock. Convinced by his reasoning, Isaaz suggests a little experiment and asks shelf-stacker Estelle Halimi if she would like to earn some decent money for sleeping with a virginal dweeb.

Much to Blumenthal's surprise, Halimi accepts the proposal and Ait M'Hand bursts into his room the next morning to sing with joy at having scored and they are amused to note how he now has the confidence to dance with some in-crowd girls at the next campus disco. Versailles-born Jean-Baptiste Lafarge is taken with Isaaz and relishes the assured way in which the newbie brushes off impertinent polo, Lucas Bravo. He is even more intrigued by her experiment with Ait M'Hand and bets that she can't bribe barista Mélissa Rojo into sleeping with him. The fact that he repeats his conquest dance in Blumenthal's room next morning suggests otherwise, however, and Lafarge proposes that they set up an agency that will find dates for dorks and simultaneously boost their social status and self-esteem.

Blumenthal is unconvinced. But, when he sees Ait M'Hand hanging out with the cool kids when they turn a corridor into a soap slide, he signs up and helps Lafarge promote the idea to his classmates, while Isaaz recruits girls in mundane jobs across town by dangling the prospect of earning good money and mixing with the crème de la crème. At the next student bash, several unprepossessing males have glamorous escorts on their arms and Blumenthal suggests that they call their enterprise the Cigar Aficionados Club to make it less embarrassing for clients to contact them.

Despite her claim to be a lesbian, Isaaz shows no interest in any of the `staff' and seems to resent Lafarge's close relationship with Dorcas Coppin, whom he has known since his well-heeled childhood. She is less than impressed, therefore, when Lafarge suggests a private party with four girls who have been left without dates. They play spin the bottle and Blumenthal shamefacedly scuttles off to his room with a playmate, leaving Isaaz to offer her guest Ait M'Hand's room for the night, as he is out with his latest conquest.

Isaaz is still smarting when Blumenthal takes her and Lafarge to meet his parents. En route, they go shopping and select a maroon Polo shirt as their business uniform and Blumenthal gets chatting to Marine Sainsily on the cologne counter, who tells him that it is possible to detect personality through fragrance. As father Bruno Abraham-Kremer cooks them supper and laments being awarded the Legion of Honour by a worthless government, Isaaz feels out of place and Lafarge discovers her humble roots when he snoops in her purse and sees her identity card.

Back at college, Ait M'Hand is shocked to learn that his friends are behind the Cigar club. But, rather than asking why he hasn't been invited to share the profits, he warns them that rumours are swirling and that they had better tread carefully. They go to a fancy dress party and Blumenthal is surprised to see Sainsily. She asks the DJ to put on a slow record and quietly sings along with the lyrics before she kisses the dumbstruck Blumenthal. He realises, however, that Isaaz has hired her for his birthday present and stalks back to his room feeling depressed that such a beautiful girl could be corrupted by money and that his only chance of being with her is for someone to buy her for him.

Isaaz feels equally low when Lafarge intimates that their families expect him to marry Coppin. But mother Marianne Denicourt, teases him that he is being naive if he thinks that Isaaz is gay. She flirts with him in Blumenthal's room using a remote controlled airship as they hold a crisis meeting because demand has started to plunge as so many regulars are now in steady relationships. Ait M'Hand enters to protest that someone has broken his television with a flying toy and he suggests that they follow the example of porn websites by offering women in different categories to appeal to the kinky and the curious alike.

The gambit pays off and the Cigar trio sing loudly as they bowl along in Blumenthal's car. However, the mood changes when he drops Sainsily and some other girls at a party and she asks if she can be excused. As they drive home, she inquires if Blumenthal would allow her to sleep with other men if they were dating and he isn't sure how to reply. He is even more confused when he dabbles in drugs with Lafarge and Isaaz and crashes out on his bed, as the former admires himself in the mirror and the latter freaks herself out with the deviant sexual activity she finds in a painting depicting Heaven and Hell. The trio end up cuddling and M'Hand stumbles in to announce that he has split up with his girlfriend because there are so many women left to sleep with, only to charge directly out again whe he realises he has genuine feelings for a woman who has taken the trouble to learn Arabic for him.

Blumenthal is still feeling frail the next day, but succumbs to his crush on Sainsily and goes to bed with her. He asks her if she has enjoyed initiating so many geeky guys and she laughs that the majority have been sweethearts like him, who are really looking for a mother not a lover. Enamoured, but aware that his passion is pointless, Blumenthal asks Isaaz not to use Sainsily anymore and she jokily offers to take her place. However, Lafarge accuses Blumenthal of unfairly restricting her earning potential and says he only has the right to do this if he plans to marry her as a long-term investment. Blumenthal shrugs and says she can keep working and Sainsily is hurt by his indifference.

Lafarge demands that they pay a visit to Isaaz's home and she catches him snooping around her bedroom after he slips away from her chain-smoking father, Michel Sapevisse. On the return bus, she asks why he had been so keen to see where she lives and he explains that it was crucial to understanding her character. But it's clear that he simply wanted to know if he could still commit to her knowing the poverty of her background. However, he has more to worry about when they get to college, as men in suits are searching their rooms and checking their computers. Fearful of being expelled, they hide the news from their families and Blumenthal asks Sainsily if she would go out with him. But she refuses, saying that he missed his opportunity the first time they met. However, she points out that being seen with her in a trendy bar has upped his ante, as a girl at the next table has been ogling him for some time and Sainsily recommends that he strikes while the iron is hot.

The night before the disciplinary hearing, Lafarge confides in Blumenthal that he wonders if Isaaz is the one or the final fling before he settles down with Coppin. He goes to check she is bearing up and tries to apologise for landing her in such a predicament. But Isaaz insists she is fine and allows him to leave, even though she now has deep feelings for him. The next morning, however, she wakes Blumenthal and Lafarge early and drags them to Le Pogam's office, where she tries to blackmail him into dropping the charges by threatening to go to the press. Undaunted, he offers her his phone and turns away, as she strives to persuade him to let them stay because they have proved themselves to be exceptional students by raking in such enormous profits. But even Isaaz is surprised when, as the clerk reads out the long preamble to the tribunal's verdict, Lafarge steps in front of her and gives her a long, passionate kiss and she reciprocates as Blumenthal and the panel look on in astonishment.

Full of loud party sequences - several of which involve the communal singing of anthemic ditties (including one by Carla Bruni-Sarkozy) - this is clearly a film aimed at younger audiences. Chapiron is to be commended for resisting the obvious softcore temptations, but the lack of sauciness does leave proceedings feeling flat, as there is no palpable sense of liberation or exploitation. Moreover, there is scarcely any evidence of the `sexual activity equals social acceptance' thesis actually panning out and, thus, the screenplay rapidly runs out of subversive energy and leaves Chapiron with nothing to focus on but the lacklustre romantic entanglements of the `trois maquereaux'.

In fairness, the leads work hard, but the depth of characterisation is woefully thin in the case of Lafarge and Blumenthal, while Isaaz is left to make the most of a clumsily woven skein of specious contradictions. The various jocks, goobers and good-time gals are little more than lazy caricatures who expose the limitations of Chapiron and Debré's satirical ambitions, as they dedicate themselves to Gallicising clichés from a hundred and one Hollywood campus comedies rather than ridiculing the hothouse elitism of the French higher education system or the extent to which avaricious egotists with business degrees have brought the world to its knees.

What's more, there is also a good deal of padding, with the parental visits being the most egregious narrative cul-de-sacs. Conversely, the decision to sideline the boisterous Ait M'Hand seems capriciously foolish, as his off-screen emotional journey sounds much more interesting than anything happening to the moping triumvirate holding centre stage. But what is most unforgiveable about this smug farrago is the glib misogyny of its attitude to prostitution, as Chapiron and Debré repellantly suggest that young working women with few prospects may as well sell their bodies while they are still desirable, as they are never going to amount to much anyway and they may as well enjoy a taste of the good life while helping some bashful future pillar of society feel better about himself.

Alice Isaaz may play more of a femme perfide than a femme fatale, but Rita Hayworth proves the real thing in Orson Welles's film noir, The Lady From Shanghai (1947), which is reissued this week alongside Seijun Suzuki's epochal yakuza drama, Branded to Kill (1967). When studio boss Harry Cohn first saw Welles's adaptation of Sherwood King's pulp thriller, If I Die Before I Wake, he offered a $1000 reward to anyone who could explain the story to him. However, it's markedly more straightforward than Suzuki's anarchic thriller.

The Columbia chief had been persuaded to produce the picture when Welles promised him a masterpiece while calling to request $50,000 to recover the impounded costumes for his touring musical version of Around the World in 80 Days. But, in fact, Welles had feigned excitement over the first book that had caught his eye from the payphone and he had only reluctantly agreed to the casting of Rita Hayworth (over Barbara Laage), as he knew she would try to use the project to patch up their failing marriage. Cohn similarly had misgivings over the decision to cut Hayworth's trademark red hair into a blonde feather bob. But greater problems were to lie ahead as filming commenced on Errol Flynn's yacht, Zaca, off the coast of Acapulco.

Having rescued Rita Hayworth from some thugs while she was riding in a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park, Irish sailor Orson Welles is hired by her disabled lawyer husband Everett Sloane to skipper a yacht bound for San Francisco via the Panama Canal. Smitten with Hayworth, even though he knows he should be concerned by her shady past in the Far East, Welles agrees and they set sail on the Circe with Gus Schilling as the mate. They are joined on the voyage by Sloane's practice partner, Glenn Anders, who knows that Welles killed a Francoist spy during the Spanish Civil War and offers him $5000 to help fake his death. As Anders plans to disappear (and use his share of the insurance money to hide away from the nuclear war he is convinced is imminent) and the law of corpus delicti means that Welles can't be charged with murder, the impecunious Irishman consents in the hope he can use the money to lure Hayworth away from Sloane.

Unbeknownst to Welles, Sloane has hired private eye Ted De Corsia to pose as his butler in order keep an eye on his wife and he reports his latest findings during a picnic in a Mexican forest. In Acapulco, Welles begins to have second thoughts about Hayworth after he witnesses her bickering with Sloane in a manner that reminds him of the sharks he once hunted off Brazil. Yet, he still

harbours the foolish notion that his love can save Hayworth from herself and, shortly after they dock in Sausalito, Welles signs a confession to Anders's murder and meets up with Hayworth at the San Francisco aquarium, where she overcomes her reluctance to his elopment plan and falls into his arms.

As Welles and Anders drive to the waterfront to stage the killing, Hayworth finds De Corsia dying from a bullet wound inflicted by Anders during a botched blackmail attempt at Sloane's San Rafael home. De Corsia had discovered that Anders intends to murder Sloane and use his own death as an alibi and he warns Hayworth to save her spouse. Unaware of this subplot, Welles gets into a car crash with Anders and is covered in his blood as Anders sails off in a motorboat, leaving Welles to draws attention to himself by firing a pistol into the air.

Welles calls Hayworth to inform her that the deed has been done, only for De Corsia to answer the phone and warn him of Anders's true intentions. Welles hurries across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sloane's office, but arrives to see Anders's corpse being wheeled away and he is charged with murder on the strength of his signed confession. Sloane agrees to defend Welles and urges him to plead justifiable homicide. However, Sloane knows that he has been cuckolded and almost turns the trial into a farce with his showboating against District Attorney Carl Frank and his efforts to persuade judge Erskine Sanford that he should be allowed to cross-examine himself as a witness on Welles's behalf.

The Irishman seems doomed as he awaits his verdict until Hayworth motions across the courtroom for him to feign suicide by swallowing a fistful of Sloane's painkillers. Taken to Sanford's chambers to recover, Welles fights his way to freedom and takes refuge in the Sunsing Theatre in Chinatown. As he begins to succumb to the effects of the pills, Hayworth summons servant Wong Chung to spirit Welles away. However, he finds the gun used to shoot Anders in Hayworth's handbag and just about manages to accuse her of murder before losing consciousness.

When he wakes, Welles finds himself in an amusement park that has closed for the season. The realisation dawns that Hayworth had conspired with Anders to kill Sloane and then pin the blame for his death on the lovesick Welles. Staggering around in the Crazy House, Welles trips a mechanism and plunges down a zig-zagging chute that deposits him in the Hall of Mirrors. Hayworth arrives to apologise for dragging him into such a sordid situation and assures him that she loves him. But their exchange is interrupted by Sloane, who is walking with the aid of a pair of gnarled sticks. He accuses his wife of treachery and reveals that he has sent a letter to Frank exonerating Welles of any crime. A gun battle erupts and Welles dives for cover amidst the flying bullets and shattered glass. As Sloane and Hayworth lie dying, he wanders out into the dawn and urges himself to concentrate on growing old, as that is the only way a fool like him is ever going to stay out of trouble.

Despite his desperation to make a picture, Welles did not enjoy the project that was known variously as Take This Woman and Black Irish during production. However, unimpressed with the work of the ailing Charles Lawton, Jr., he did talk cinematographer Rudolph Maté into shooting several uncredited sequences that reinforced the power of the visuals, in which the fore- and backgrounds teemed with compelling detail that were captured in intricate deep-focus. Reflective surfaces abounded in these segments (most notably in the aquarium and the famous Hall of Mirrors), while the Chinese exoticism of San Francisco's Union Square contrasted tellingly with Hayworth's guile and Welles's exploitability.

But Welles was prevented from editing the footage himself and loathed the soundtrack built around `Please Don't Kiss Me', which Cohn has insisted that Hayworth sang aboard the Circe in the hope of having another hit like `Put the Blame on Mame', which had appeared in Charles Vidor's Gilda (1946). Nevertheless, Viola Lawrence's first cut still ran for 155 minutes, until preview responses prompted Cohn to reduce it to 87 and withhold the picture for two years lest it damaged Hayworth's Love Goddess image. When it was finally released, as a supporting feature, this classic noir made few ripples But its narrative and visual complexity eventually established it among Welles's most challengingly satisfying outings and it is now compared favourably to Billy Wilder's masterly prototype, Double Indemnity (1944)..

Such is its convolution, penchant for exotic locations and surfeit of pastiche Hemingwayisms, Welles's screenplay almost feels like a joke at Cohn's expense. But his performance as the philosophising patsy is exceptional and he is ably abetted by the duplicitous Sloane, the cackling Anders and the creepy De Corsia. Considering she is the scheming Circe of the piece, Hayworth doesn't always appear to know what is going on. But she is often as luminous as the torch-bearing siren on the Columbia studio logo and it's a shame that her legion of fans didn't make this baroque nightmare a box-office hit, as its failure condemned Welles to a decade-long exile from Hollywood, during which time he would work as an actor for hire to finance personal projects like Macbeth (1948), Othello (1952) and the criminally underrated Confidential Report (1955).

Seizun Suzuki also paid a heavy price for the failure of Branded to Kill. He had worked his way through the ranks at the Nikkatsu studio and become something of a cult hero after he reinvented the Japanese crime drama, with his 40th feature, Tokyo Drifter (1964). However, he inherited Branded to Kill after the top brass disapproved of the original screenplay and Suzuki used the opportunity to produce a freewheeling satire that went entirely against studio policy. Indeed, production chief Kyusaku Hori complained that he had to read the scenario twice before it made even the slightest sense. Yet he allowed Suzuki to proceed and did nothing to stop him from improvising on the set and combining elements from Kabuki theatre, the nuberu bagu, Pop Art, film noir and the James Bond franchise.

Unsurprisingly, Hori was horrified with the finished article and released it as part of a double bill with Nishimura Shogoro's Burning Nature. When it failed to find an audience, Suzuki was fired. But his youth rebellion movies had made such an impression on the Cineclub Study Group led by Kazuko Kawakita that they backed his case for unfair dismissal and, during the three-year trial, it emerged that Nikkatsu was using Suzuki as a scapegoat to disguise its own dire financial straits. A compensation package of one million yen was finally agreed in 1971. But Suzuki found himself blacklisted and didn't direct another feature until A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness in 1977.

The story that caused all the trouble opens with Joe Shishido arriving at Tokyo airport with his wife, Mariko Ogawa. In the cab, driver Hiroshi Minami recognises Shishido as the third-ranked hitman in the underworld and begs him to help him regain his former status as a yakuza. Shishido agrees and Minami accompanies him to a club owned by gang boss Isao Tamagawa, who instructs them to escort a client to Nagano. When they pick up the vehicle, however, they find a corpse on the back seat. Undaunted, Shishido disposes of the body and collects passenger, Koji Nanbara. A short while into the journey, however, they are ambushed and Minami dies killing the fourth best assassin, Atsushi Yamatoya. Shishido goes to steal his car, but hears gunshots and is puzzled to return to his own vehicle to find Nanbara unharmed, but three other assailants lying on the floor with precision wounds in the middle of their foreheads.

Regaining his composure, Shishido drives on, only to be attacked for a second time. In the course of the ensuing skirmish, he sets the No.2 hitman alight and watches in amazement as he is gunned down by his mysterious client as he runs towards him in agonised panic. As he heads home alone, Shishido's car breaks down and he is offered sanctuary from the rain by Anne Mari, who has a thing about birds and dead butterflies. By the strangest coincidence, Shishido is also something of an aurelian necrophile, who requires the aroma of boiling rice to boost his sexual potency. On arriving home, he has turbulent sex with Ogawa, but remains unaware of the fact that she was seduced by Tamagawa in his absence.

Impressed that Shishido survived such a dangerous mission, Tamagawa contracts him to kill four men. He disposes of a customs officer while perched on a mechanical billboard and ingeniously bumps off an ocularist by firing up the drain pipe as he bends over the sink. However, while escaping by hot-air balloon from the office of a dispatched jeweller, Shishido runs into Mari, who hires him to rub out a foreigner. As he takes aim, however, a butterfly lands on the barrel of his gun and he kills an innocent bystander instead. Mari warns Shishido that he will be downgraded for his error and advises him to flee before Tamagawa sends his goons after him.

However, Shishido isn't even safe at home, as Ogawa takes a pot shot at him before torching their apartment. Having survived because the bullet hit his belt buckle, Shishido seeks refuge with Mari. But he quickly realises that she is as likely to kill him as canoodle with him and he is relieved to leave unscathed the next morning. However, Shishido has promised to eliminate Mari and gets himself into such a lather that he passes out after wandering the streets in a daze. He awakes to find Ogawa looking over him and she explains that the three men he had killed had stolen from Tamagawa's jewel-smuggling business. She also reveals that she had been instructed to purge him and, in begging for forgiveness, reveals that the foreigner Shishido had failed to liquidate is an investigator in the pay of the diamond firm that Tamagawa has been defrauding.

Ignoring Ogawa's pleas, Shishido shoots her down and gets drunk while waiting for a showdown with Tamagawa. However, he turns up dead on arrival and Shishido hot foots to Mari's apartment, where he learns from a film being projected on the wall that she has been abducted and is being tortured by her kidnappers. The following day, Shishido arrives at the breakwater to meet his fate. But he succeeds in eradicating his assassins and finds himself confronted with Nanbara, who turns out to be the hottest hitman in Japan.

Much to his surprise, he allows Shishido to go free for services rendered. However, Nanbara begins taunting him and barricades Shishido in Mari's apartment, while bombarding him with threatening phone calls. Eventually, he coerces the weary Shishido into letting him inside and they agree to a temporary truce while Nanbara works out how to kill his rival. But, when they go out for food together, Nanbara disappears and Shishido returns home to find a note ordering him to come to the Etsuraku-en boxing gym if he wants to be reunited with Mari.

The next day, however, Nanbara fails to turn up and Shishido is about to leave when a tape recording informs him that Nanbara likes to taunt his victims and drive them into a state of exhausted paranoia before finishing them off. Fed up with being messed around, Shishido climbs into the boxing ring and ties on a headband. This proves to be a fortuitous decision, as Nanbara takes a shot at him and the headgear deflects the bullet. A gun battle ensues, which culminates in Nanbara dropping down dead. The wounded Shisido staggers to his feet and proclaims himself the new No.1 hitman. But his triumph is short-lived, as Mari bursts into the gym and, instinctively, he turns round and shoots her.

As this cursory summary suggests, this is not an easy film to follow. Given just a week to prepare and 25 days to shoot, Suzuki summoned an eight-strong cabal that included trusted associate Takeo Kimura and assistant director Atsushi Yamatoya to churn out a script under the pseudonym Hachiro Guryu (which translates as `Group of Eight'). He then proceeded to fill in the gaps as he went along and edited the resulting footage in a single day. Bearing in mind that he didn't use storyboards, this is a remarkable achievement and editor Mutsuo Tanji deserves as much credit as production designer Sukezo Kawahara and cinematographer Kazue Nagatsuka for ensuring that this surreal, obtuse, cruel, hilarious and audaciously satirical saga is so utterly unforgettable.

Frequently dispensing with continuity logic, Suzuki also broke with compositional convention by filling the monochrome Nikkatsuscope frame with disconcerting images that are often made all the more disorientating by the sound mix, Yamamoto Naozumi's score and the unexpected use of animation during Shishido's bemused night on the street. But, while this is often stylistically breathtaking, it's Suzuki's fearless deconstruction of the crime genre that is even more significant, as it debunks established tropes to the point of abstraction. Where else, for example, would an assassin use a balloon to make his getaway?

But the gleeful iconoclasm would have descended into chaotic nonsense without the commitment of the cast. Shishido excels as the anti-hero being slowly driven out of his mind, but he is magnificently supported by Nanbara, Mari and Ogawa, in her one and only screen role. In 2001, Shishido and Suzuki reunited on a belated sequel entitled Pistol Opera. It was nowhere near as good, but the director would redeem himself with the beguiling operetta, Princess Raccoon (2005), which remains the now 91 year-old Suzuki's 53rd and final film to date.

A few weeks after Nikkatsu fired Suzuki on 25 April 1968, Sir Matt Busby fulfilled his dream of winning the European Cup for Manchester United. He had been close to conquering the continent a decade earlier, but eight of the side known affectionately as the Busby Babes were killed in the Munich air disaster in February 1958 and the guilt that the Roman Catholic Scotsman felt at surviving when so many young men lost their lives remained with him for the rest of his life. The trauma is somewhat romanticised, however, in David Scheinmann's Believe, which draws on true events to show how the long-retired Busby instilled the spirit of ’58 into a team of no-hopers in a tournament for Under-12s.

Ironically, Busby had enlisted the help of star players Bobby Charlton, Denis Law, Nobby Stiles and George Best to help junior team Barton United triumph over nasty city councillor David Lodge in David Bracknell's Children's Film Foundation outing, Cup Fever (1965). And, to be honest, there's not much to choose between that low-budget romp and this whimsical variation, which is so stuffed with clichés, contrivances and caricatures that it's a wonder it has managed to secure a general release. However, there are worse ways to treat a football-mad kid during the school holidays and they don't have to support the Salford Devils to enjoy it.

It's 1984 and Georgie Gallagher (Jack Smith) has been raised alone by his mother Erica (Natasha McElhone) since his father was killed in a car crash. However, while she is keen for Georgie to obtain a scholarhsip to Lancashire Grammar School, he is more interested in football and takes a flyer advertising the Manchester Cup from the school noticeboard during an open day. On his way home, Georgie sees an elderly man paying for a taxi outside the church where he is about to attend a funeral and dashes past to steal his wallet in the hope it contains the £21 entrance fee needed to enter his team in the seven-a-side tournament.

Making his excuses to his wife Jean (Anne Reid), Sir Matt Busby (Brian Cox) orders betting buddy Bob (Philip Jackson) to follow the scarpering scamp in his car and a chase ensues through the streets of working-class Manchester and a shopping mall. However, Georgie manages to give them the slip and joins pals Steve (Joshua Dunne), Harry (Harry Armes), Barry (Jack Armes), Paul (Sam Wisniewski) and Frankie (Finlay Preston) as they dance in Nutty Boy formation to the Madness song, `Baggy Trousers'. They are watched by Frankie's seven year-old brother, Spencer (Spencer Jack Phillips), who is riding his bike while wearing a large overcoat and a policeman's helmet. He longs to be one of the gang, but is kept on the periphery, as Georgie announces that they are going to go up for the cup.

Despairing of catching up with the thief, Bob cajoles Matt into having a pint in a Man United supporters club, where barmaid Helen (Kate Ashfield) thinks the older man looks familiar, but can't quite place him. However, she refuses to serve them a pint on tick and Matt dashes off when he sees Georgie wander past the open door. He follows him back to his street, where he notes his skill as he plays keepy-uppy. However, Matt threatens to call the police unless Georgie returns the wallet and explains why he took it. The boy tells him about the upcoming tournament and Matt agrees to forget the theft if Georgie allows him to coach his team to victory. Not having a clue who the old fellow is, Georgie reluctantly agrees and Bob wonders what his friend is up to. But, having been daydreaming earlier in the day about Duncan Edwards and his fellow air crash victims, Matt wonders whether this is the answer to his perennial question about why he was spared.

Georgie is forced to miss the first training session, however, as Erica has asked LGS teacher Dr Farquar (Toby Stephens) if he will give her son some private tuition before the entrance exam. He disapproves of sport and prefers brass band music and has taken a dim view of Georgie since he had to break up a scuffle between him and first-year student Bailey (Raif Clarke) in the corridor outside his office. However, Matt puts the other six youngsters through their paces and is amused to notice that both Spencer and Steve's sister Sinead (Aine O'Duffy) are keen to join in. As she passes on her way home, Helen finally recognises Matt and he makes her promise to say nothing about his true identity to the boys.

Bob talks Matt into going to the local greyhound track and Georgie overhears them discussing a surefire favourite. So, he steals some money from Erica cash tin and puts it all on the dog. Unfortunately, it loses and he is still in a funk when he comes across Matt conducting a training session in the street. He has brought along some grapefruit and tells the players to dribble them through a series of cones because that was how the great Brazilian Pelé developed his skills. Georgie thinks he's bonkers and refuses to co-operate. But Matt plays on his ego and he is showing the others how it should be done when Erica comes out in a fury to ban him from all football for taking her savings.

More desperate than ever to get some money to pay back his mother and find the entrance fee, Georgie decides to break into Farquar's house and take back the cash he had handed over for his lessons. However, he succeeds only in getting himself arrested and Matt has to go to the police station to bail him out. They agree not to tell Erica what has happened and Georgie allows Matt to pay the team's dues. But Matt insists that Georgie has to apologise to Farquar before he speaks to Erica about letting him play.

As they reach Matt's car, he is surprised by Georgie's reluctance to accept a lift home and the boy weeps when he recalls how his father was killed and how his mother tried to hide the truth from him and he found it out from some classmates. Having had his own brush with tragedy, Matt can emphathise with Georgie and is disappointed when Farquar informs him that he has no intention of allowing him to play football, as getting a decent education is much more important.

Still unaware of her son's misdemeanour, Erica drops him off to study at the Rylands Library in Manchester city centre. But, no sooner has she turned the corner than Georgie dashes to the field where Kersal Reds are playing St Bart's in the first of two group games. Fearing that Georgie won't make it, Matt puts Spencer in the team, only to substitute him when Georgie arrives. He is easily the star player. But the others refuse to pass to him and Matt tears them off a strip in the changing-room at half-time. They explain that they thought he had betrayed them, but Matt puts them straight and has to apologise to them for losing his temper after Jean reminds him that he is talking to children not professional footballers.

During the first half, however, Erica learns about the break-in from Farquar and she is furious to find that Georgie has absconded from the library. Consequently, she drags him away before the kick-off and tells his teammates to sling their hook when they come round in their kit to celebrate their 1-0 win. Matt and Bob share a drink on a park bench as darkness falls and wonder what they've got themselves into. But they are back for the tie against Ancoats Blues and are happier than anyone when little Spencer scores a vital equaliser. He is hauled off when Georgie arrives from a tutorial with minutes to go and rushes on to take a direct free-kick on the edge of the penalty area. Dismayed to see Erica leaving without waiting to see if he scores, Georgie muffs his shot and it sails over the bar. But the draw is enough to see the Reds into the semi-finals and Matt reassures Georgie that next time he takes a vital kick, he will know to visualise what he is trying to do and will believe sufficiently in his ability to score with his eyes closed.

As he drops Georgie home, Matt tells Erica that it would mean a lot to the boy if she would watch him play. His own father died during the Great War when he was six and he never saw Matt in action. But, when Erica snaps that she has to be a mum and a dad to her son, Helen coaxes her into realising that Georgie has a dream and that she will never forgive herself if she crushes it. As a consequence, Erica stands on the touchline as Georgie thrashes in the winner against Rusholme Rovers in the semi and Helen's son Stevie makes a couple of wonder saves to keep the score at 2-1.

But, as bad luck would have it, the final against LGS just happens to coincide with the entrance exam and Georgie accuses Erica of lying to him again so that he will have to miss the match. Farquar is unimpressed by the tantrum and wonders if Georgie is the sort of lad they want at the grammar school. Matt has no doubts that he has the right stuff and he goes home to look through the keepsakes he has stored in a trunk. He thinks back to the anxious looks that the players shot him as it dawned on them that something was wrong with the plane back in 1958 and he shudders at the weight he feels at having outlived them.

By now, the rest of the team have found out who Matt is and, at the next training session, they squint through the mist as he points towards Tommy Taylor, Roger Byrne and Duncan Edwards emerging from the glow of the floodlights. He tells the players that the Babes came from humble beginnings and urges them to attain the dream that his lost boys could never reach. But the news that Matt is famous only confirms Georgie's contention that all grown-ups are liars and, even though Frankie informs him that the final will be played on Matt's 75th birthday, he vows to have nothing more to do with the Kersal Reds. Indeed, even when Matt tries unsuccessfully to persuade Farquar to move the exam, Georgie comes to the door and tells Matt that he no longer cares about football or people who let him down.

On the morning of the examination, Georgie receives a good luck message from Matt containing one of his old medals. He asks Erica to go to the game and she sits nervously in the stands at Salford City as Matt is interviewed by the local television news and he confides that this is a glory day he will never forget. As the 110-minute paper begins, Georgie looks up to see Farquar give him a reassuring nod from the balcony and he starts to write.

Back at the final, Matt gives his pep talk about playing as a team and sends his charges out to face LGS. As Steve makes a string of fine saves, Farquar gulps back a drink in his study and quotes Horace's famous maxim about daring to be wise. Rousing himself, he marches the LGS brass band on to the pitch as the teams go off at half-time with Kersal trailing 0-1 and he keeps on playing as the tannoy announcer (who sounds an awful lot like Angus Deayton) passes smarmy remarks about Farquar's refusal to leave as the teams come out for the second period.

Realising that Farquar is trying to delay proceedings until Georgie has finished his exam, Matt sends Erica to fetch him and they make it back to the ground just in time, even though the car breaks down and they have to run the last mile. Once again, Spencer is substituted, as Farquar and the band collapse in an exhausted heap at the side of the pitch. But the change has a detrimental effect, as LGS score a second goal and Sinead has to separate her squabbling teammates as Matt tries to bark instructions.

Georgie pulls one back at the end of a mazy dribble and Steve has to make another crucial parry before Sinead and Frankie set up the equaliser. Bailey and the bullies in laser blue look on askance as Georgie bellows out encouragement in slow-motion. But they are even more aghast when the referee awards Kersal a free-kick in the dying seconds and Georgie recalls Matt's advice about picturing the scene and believing as he slots the winner with his eyes closed. Matt leaps off the bench with joy and looks into the sun to see the Babes lined up in a last tribute to their old gaffer. Duncan Edwards salutes him before the turn and walk away and Jean comes to stand beside him, as he smiles proudly.

Erica is so overcome that she rushes out of the stands and grabs the cup to present to Georgie herself and Matt helps her lift the boy on to their shoulders so he can hold the trophy aloft. As they walk home, Bob tells Matt he has a tip for a horse and the Scot asks to borrow a fiver. They stroll through the terraced streets and Bob comments that he has heard a boy with real talent lives somewhere round here. A David B. Or something.

As the closing caption reveals that Matt Busby died at the age of 84 in 1994, we are left to wonder if the kids gathered around him in the photograph are the real Kersal Reds or just some random fans posing with their hero. It doesn't really matter, but it reinforces the feeling that this is a film that makes too few careless misjudgements. The most egregious is the lazy Beckham joke that falls horribly flat because he was born and raised in East London. But moments like the kids turning up at Georgie's house in their kit hours after the game has ended and Erica hijacking the presentation ceremony are annoyingly trite and raise the hackles of Koppite critics on the look out for anything with which to beat a movie about the Mancs.

Parochial rivalry aside, Scheinmann and fellow scribes Massimiliano Durante and Carmelo Pennisi are guilty of dwelling overlong and over mawkishly on the Munich Babes, especially in a story so slight and predictable that it would have been rejected for the old comic strip, Billy's Boots. However, the juvenile cast members are splendidly sprightly, although Jack Smith doesn't quite have the range to convince entirely in the lead. But, with McElhone and Stephens coasting and Brian Cox doing a pretty poor impersonation of Sir Matt, the adults hardly set him the best example and they are frequently upstaged by the marvellous Spencer Jack Phillips.

Yet, for all its shortcomings, sentimentality and philosophical superficiality, this is a perfectly amiable picture for adolescents, as it not only teaches them something about learning how to prioritise, but it also has much to say about parent-child relationships, teamwork, the class divide and how sometimes raw talent isn't quite enough. Moreover, the match sequences are better choreographed than they have been in several recent football films. But, while Scheinmann can't be blamed for sticking to the Boy's Own formula, he might have followed Mark Herman and John Hay's respective leads in Purely Belter and There's Only One Jimmy Grimble (both 2000) and opted for a little more northern grit and a lot less cornball feelgood.

Matt Busby was a Manchester City player when Friedrich Ritter and Dore Strauch decided to quit Berlin in 1929 and take up residence on the uninhabited island of Floreana in the Pacific Ocean. They were less intent on finding paradise than leaving behind a society whose goal was the enslavement of the greedy and the exploitation of the weak. But, as Daniel Geller and Dayne Goldfine reveal in The Galápagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, the 43 year-old medic and his MS-stricken paramour were not alone for long and the resulting tensions within their tiny community sparked a murder mystery that was worthy of Agatha Christie.

Writing in December 1934, Dore (who is voiced here by Cate Blanchett) deeply regretted that things had gone so horribly wrong. But, as a flurry of lurid newspaper headlines from across the world fills the screen (along with the caption `Part I: To the Promised Land'), local historian Octavio Latorre suggests that there may be some merit in the myth that the giant tortoises that populate the Galápagos Islands can read human minds and put a curse upon them for their impure intentions. Ritter's nephew, Fritz Hieber, concedes that his uncle (Thomas Kretschmann) had little love for his fellow men and, in placing too much faith in Nietzsche's theories of the Superman, he forgot Goethe's warning that one can't leave civilisation without being punished.

While Ritter was a bright fellow with a dark side, Dore was keen to escape her hausfrau shackles and readily ignored naturalist William Beebe's contention that the Galápagos were the end of the world. Thus, on 4 July 1929, she and Ritter sailed from Amsterdam and endured a four-week passage to Ecuador, where they spent a further month awaiting a boat to Floreana. This remote island was 60 miles from its nearest neighbour and the newcomers embarked upon their new life on 19 September by dubbing the valley they chose to inhabit, Friedo. Ritter had brought cameras to record their Adam and Eve existence and Dore recalled in her diary the joy they experienced as they cleared away dense scrub to plant the seeds that the vegetarian Ritter had carefully selected to provide food.

Despite her pluck, Dore occasionally succumbed to the symptoms of her illness. But she was forced to struggle on as Ritter quoted Nietzsche's maxim about meaning emerging through suffering. The footage of them working and relaxing makes for compelling viewing and Geller and Goldfine might have been advised to focus solely on the past. But they are keen to explore how other exiles have managed to live in a harmony that stood in stark contrast to the seething turmoil that decimated the community on Floreana. Consequently, they cross to Santa Cruz to meet Jacqueline De Roy, who emigrated from Belgium with her late husband André to raise their children, Tui and Gil. We are also introduced to Teppy Angermeyer, whose father sold his farm in order to escape the Third Reich and raise the boy in peace and plenty alongside siblings Karl, Fritz and Hans.

A similar dream inspired Bud and Dorsi Divine. But their son Steve points out that, for all their intrepidity, these runaways were loners and it was hardly surprising that they found it so difficult to get along with strangers. His misgivings are not shared by Carmen Kubler Angermeyer, however, who arrived with parents Carlos and Marga Kubler in 1934, when she was just six years old. She admits that they were cut off from the world, but she has spent 80 happy years on Santa Cruz and is grateful to Ritter for writing the newspaper articles that enticed her father.

Indeed, Ritter was keen to publicise his achievement and used a mail box at Post Office Bay to send reports back to Germany, along with letters to his remaining family. But the tone was often morose, as he complained about the need for constant labour preventing him from enjoying the spiritual benefits of solitude. He also bemoaned Dore's illness and her sentimental attachment to the animals on the island and he sometimes wished that she and her donkey would be captured by cannibals or buccaneers. For her part, Dore was disappointed that their endeavours had been held up to ridicule by ignorant journalists. But the reports did persuade American industrialist-cum-explorer Allan Hancock to visit Floreana on 3 January 1932 and among his crew was entomologist John Garth (Josh Radnor), who confided in his journal that he was relieved to discover that Ritter and Dore had not become nudist cave dwellers.

Hancock was sufficiently impressed with Friedo to invites its occupants to the Velero. But Ritter was embarrassed by Dore's enthusiastic enjoyment of the music that Hancock had ordered to be be played in their honour and tried to keep the conversational focus on his own ingenuity. Footage of him demonstrating his shower bath is intercut with shots of Dore relishing shipboard luxury and it is amusing to note that, while Ritter accepted a hamper of goodies from his visitors, he warned Dore that they would not be so hospitable in the future. Eight decades later, Jacqueline De Roy echoes his sentiments, as she regrets the fact that so many tourists now come to Santa Cruz and she hopes that Paradise will eventually prove to be much nicer than this earthly mirage

As the second chapter is entitled `Intruders', it's clear that Ritter and Dore did not remain in glorious isolation for much longer. Indeed, Heinz and Margret Wittmer (Sebastian Koch and Diane Kruger) arrived in August 1932, soon after Dore had a premonition that an ill wind was about to blow over Floreana. Margret resented the fact that Heinz had decided to sell up and try to give his sickly son Harry (from his first marriage) a taste of Swiss Family Robinson adventure. However, Heinz was disenchanted from the outset by the forbidding terrain and was frustrated when Ritter insisted that they moved into the Pirate Caves rather than try to settle alongside them in Friedo, as Margret was five months pregnant and they had chosen the island because they knew they would be able to rely on Ritter's medical expertise.

Having taken an instant dislike to Dore, Margret wondered what kind of doctor could loathe people so intently and Geller and Goldfine head to Wollbach to find out. Over photographs of his uncle's childhood, Hieber reveals that Ritter was born into a deeply patriotic family and that he never got over his experiences in the trenches. But his suppressed bellicosity resurfaced when Austrian baroness Eloise Wehrborn de Wagner-Bosquet (Connie Nielsen) arrived on Floreana on 15 October 1932 and announced that she had come to build a retreat for world-weary millionaires with the aid of architect Robert Philippson and engineer Rudolf Lorenz.

However, Heinz quickly deduced that her cohorts were actually her gigolos and that the Baroness intended to establish herself as a feudal ruler over a tropical realm. Ritter also took against her instantly, but Dore was starstruck and found her much more dynamic than the ultra-traditional Margret, who considered her arrogant and vulgar. Local Jacob Lundh recalls that his father, Captain Herman Lundh, had a good impression of the Baroness and felt she had education and breeding. But, on 15 November, she also proved that she was not to be crossed, as she drove Norwegian Christian Stampa off the island after he shot one of her calves. But Ritter was furious that she had drawn attention to their settlement, as a report was submitted to the Galápagos governor on San Cristobel and he refused to have anything more to do with the interlopers.

Looking back, Daniel Angermeyer concurs with Carmen and Gil in stressing how easily feuds erupt within small congregations, as people become used to fending for themselves and quickly come to resent intrusion or competition. However, the truculent Ritter realised that he had a duty to operate on Margret when she gave birth on 1 January 1933 and it seemed for a fleeting moment that baby Rolf had brought everyone together. Now in his 80s, he shows grandson Jorge Antonio his bed in the cave and four-year younger sister Floreanita smiles as he complains that comfortable beds make people lazy. Clearly, the siblings have flourished and Friedel Horneman, who was the first baby born in the Santa Cruz highlands, joins with the De Roys in extolling the virtues of growing up in total freedom.

But the Rolf effect proved short-lived. Garth sensed the unease when the Velero returned in January 1933 and he stepped ashore to see a sign bearing the words, `Hacienda Paradise', in red lipstick. According to the smitten Hancock, the Baroness spoke eight languages and he was dismayed that such a beautiful woman should be forced to endure such insanitary living conditions. However, he saw another side of her character when she had to be kept apart from Dore after a slanging match aboard the ship and the Baroness demanded that the luxury goods that Hancock had brought for Ritter and Dore had to be shared equally among the three households.

As the visiting party departed on 6 February, Garth noted that the Baroness had both charm and the capacity to sew discord. But Hancock was devoted to her and promised to return and star her in a film about the Empress of Floreana. Unsurprisingly, however, her boastful excitement ruffled feathers and Teppy Angermeyer recalls how his mother Lucretia had caused similar problems after she arrived from Ecuador to marry his father, Gus. She thought she was going to be swept off to Europe, but found herself having to sail out in rags to beg from wealthy tourists docked off Santa Cruz.

The Baroness was much more self-assured, however, and, when the governor came to examine Stampa's complaint on 30 May, she charmed him into granting her four square miles of land for her hotel and Dore informed in her diary how sorry she felt for the Wittmers, as they had virtually become the Baroness's servants overnight. Margret recorded her own anger when Hancock returned bearing newspapers hailing Eloise the Empress and she shared Ritter's frustration that the American appeared to willing to do the Baroness's bidding, even if it meant planting wholly untrue stories about her past and present in the press.

Hancock clearly hoped to turn the Baroness into a celebrity and filming began on 21 January 1934 of a desert island scenario that opens with Philippson playing a honeymooner leaving his new bride on the beach to investigate possible intruders into their idyll. However, Geller and Goldfine burn out the 16mm monochrome celluloid at this juncture to emphasise the shock value of the revelation that the supplanted Lorenz chose to share with his neighbours during the shoot. He informs them that Eloise is not a baroness, but the wife of a Frenchman whom she had met after fleeing Turkey, where she had possibly been a dancer-spy during the war. The blonde Lorenz had first encountered Eloise in Paris and they had opened a boutique together and hired Philippson as a salesman. But he had slowly turned Eloise against Lorenz and he was now little more than a slave looking after the livestock while Eloise and Philippson indulged their sordid passion.

Clips from Hancock's movie show Eloise playing a pirate queen, who shoots the bride and coerces the groom into killing her companion (played by Lorenz) so that they can be happy together. The film ends with Eloise and Philippson embracing. But Galápagos historian José Enrique Machuca Mestanza suggests that there was more than one ménage going on and produces a photograph of a beaming Ritter with his arm around Eloise. However, such couplings appear common on the islands, as, over on Santa Cruz, Carmen reveals that Marga left Carlos in order to marry Karl Angermeyer and, when Carmen married Fritz, Karl became both her father- and her brother-in-law.

As Claudio Cruz returns to Floreana to see the Ritter-Strauch shack where he was raised with his 11 siblings, he explains that the island can be a harsh place to live. A feeling of foreboding, therefore, greets both the caption, `Part III - The Drought', and Dore's diary remark in March 1934 that they are beginning to suffer the ill-effects of the fierce heat (120° in the shade) and the lack of rain. But, as the Friedo spring dries to a trickle and plants and animals start to die, Eloise begins arguing more ferociously with Lorenz and he asks the Wittmers for sanctuary after he is badly beaten. Heinz is aware that Eloise and Philippson have few supplies and urges Ritter to intervene in the feud. But he refuses and Margret becomes concerned that Lorenz is on the verge of a breakdown, as he is unable to stay away from his lover, but suffers grievously each time he sees her.

On 19 March, Dore writes that an evil mood appears to have the island in its clutches. Ten days earlier, she had heard a scream from the interior and had been surprised when, the following morning, Margret and Lorenz had come to inform Ritter that Eloise and Philippson had hitched a lift on a passing yacht and had gone to Tahiti to see if it would make a better location for their hotel. Given that no one else had seen the vessel, Dore felt that the explanation sounded rehearsed and recorded how she had paid a visit to the Wittmer compound and found a pink tablecloth belonging to Eloise in their kitchen. She was also suspicious about the fact that Lorenz had left notes at Post Office Bay offering Eloise's remaining possessions for sale

On entering the Hacienda, Dore became convinced of foul play when she found the copy of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray that Eloise took with her everywhere. Yet, while she pondered whether Lorenz and Margret had murdered Eloise and Philippson, Margret noted in her diary that Ritter seemed strangely adamant that they would not be returning and she speculated about whether it was he and Lorenz who shared an awful secret. But no one discussed their suspicions openly for fear of becoming the next victim and, as a result, everyone became (and remains) a suspect in a case that has yet to be solved. The residents of Santa Cruz point their own fingers, with suicide even being mooted as a possible reason for the unexplained disappearance. But nobody mourned the couple's passing and Ritter proclaimed that the island could finally come back to life when the heavens opened on 21 April.

Desperate to return to Germany, Lorenz leaves a message in the box at Post Office Bay for any passing ship to collect him. On 10 July, a Norwegian trawler skipper named Nuggerud offered to take him to Santa Cruz. Aboard his craft was Swedish journalist Rolf Blomberg (Gustaf Skarsgård), who was alarmed by the fact that nobody seemed concerned that Eloise and Philippson had vanished. He wired his story back to Europe, where it made salacious headlines. However, he remained in the area and wrote to Margret on 21 August to inform her that Lorenz had been in a tearing hurry to leave the Galápagos and had offered Nuggerud a sizeable sum to take him to San Cristobel as soon as possible. Disregarding the fact it was Friday the 13th, Nuggerud set sail. But the boat was lost at sea and Margret wrote without irony in her diary how peculiar it was that people seemed to keep disappearing without a trace.

Teppy can understand Lorenz's desire to leave the islands, as he could hardly wait to go after his older brother left with a girl on a passing yacht. Friedel also sympathises with his plight and recalls how she left with a sailor named Forrest Nelson to avoid being married off to neighbour's son, Alf Kastdalen. She was young and longed for adventure and hoped Nelson would show her the world. But he sold his boat and opened a hotel on the Galápagos in 1960 and she felt frustrated that the wheel had turned full circle so quickly.

Friedrick Ritter would never leave Floreana, however. In November 1934, Dore recorded how he had become more considerate towards her. But Margret made no mention of such tenderness in reports that they were forever bickering and that things came to a head on 24 November when their dwindling provisions forced them to kill and boil some of their chickens. Dore claimed to have eaten more of the meat than Ritter. But he was the one to wake in the night with excruciating stomach pains, which Dore tried to soothe by reading Nietzsche and it was only after a couple of days that she sought help from the Wittmers. However, they realised that Ritter had been poisoned by the poultry and were puzzled that Dore appeared to be suffering no after effects in spite of consuming more fowl.

According to Dore, Ritter say up at dawn and died with a peaceful expression on his face. But Margret averred that he spent his last moments writhing in agony before glaring at Dore and shouting, `I curse you with my dying breath', as she tried to administer a morphine shot. Latorre jokes that Sherlock Holmes couldn't crack the Floreana cases and Cruz reveals that neighbours used to talk about the ghosts they had seen wandering aound the island. Dore certainly felt haunted and wrote to Hancock to rescue her at the earliest opportunity. However, when he anchored off Marchena on 2 November, Hancock found a wrecked boat and the mummified corpses of Lorenz and Nuggerud. Latorre suggests that the treacherous currents had taken them off course and that they must have died horribly when their food and water supplies ran out.

On 4 December, Hancock landed on Floreana and Dore told him about the screams she had heard coming from the Hacienda in early spring. They paid a call on the Wittmers, only for them to stick to the Tahiti story. Dore noticed that they have taken the tin roof from Eloise's dwelling, but resisted the temptation to make trouble. Instead, she paid her respects at Ritter's grave and left on 7 December with his writings, in the hope of getting them published as the pensées of a genius. Carmen recalls meeting Dore when she stopped off on Santa Cruz and remembers the air of melancholy that hung over her, as she secured Ritter's death certificate. On arriving in Europe, she accused the Wittmers of killing Eloise and Philippson and Margret felt betrayed when she read the coverage several months later. But she confided to her journal that she felt a deep pride in what her family had achieved and that they had shown great prescience in naming their home, Asilo de la Paz (`Haven of Peace').

Carmen and Jacqueline lament that much of the younger generation has opted to leave the islands and insist that they cannot possibly develop the backbone or sense of reality that life on Santa Cruz once gave to them. By contrast, Friedel declares paradise to be a condition and not a place and pities those who have been fooled. But, as Hieber concludes, it will always be impossible to escape one's problems, if they come from within.

As the giant tortoise gives the camera a last inscrutable look, a caption reveals that Dore failed to find a publisher for Ritter's manuscript, but her own Floreana, Satan Comes to Eden came out in 1935. She died of complications from multiple sclerosis in Berlin in 1943. The Wittmers eventually moved to Black Beach and built a small hotel for passing trade. Harry drowned in a boating accident in 1952, while Heinz died of natural causes a decade later. Rolf founded the boat tour company, Wittmer Tourismo, while Floreanita continues to run the family hotel. Margret published her own account of events in Floreana (1959), but never discussed them again until she died at the age of 95 in 2000. When the film-makers approached her in 1998, she told them, `A closed mouth admits no flies.' As for Eloise and Philippson, they were never heard from again.

Following on from their impeccable history, Ballet Russes (2005), Geller and Goldfine have made an equally solid job of piecing together a scandal that has long fascinated novelists and historians. They are splendidly served by a strong vocal cast and editor Bill Weber, who ably flits between stills and home movies to provide a tantalising glimpse into life on Floreana in the early 1930s. But, while the latterday talking heads offer tangential insights into the geographical and psychological aspects of the mystery, they are in no better position to make informed judgements than the film-makers and their contributions clutter a tale whose pace is severely retarded by their inclusion.

Moreover, the locals fail to pick up on the Darwinian irony of Margret being the fittest survivor, as without Ritter's reluctant intervention, she would have been the first to die and the Baroness's stay on Floreana might have taken a very different course. Yet, Geller and Goldfine are extremely coy about reaching any concrete conclusions and seem content to be observers rather than sleuths. As a consequence, this rather melodramatic actuality never quite enthrals as it should and one is left fearing that a heritage reconstruction will soon come hoving into view.

Finally, a worthy idea is rather curiously handled in Marc Silver's Who Is Dayani Cristal?, a blend of investigation and reconstruction that awkwardly seeks to offer a real-life insight into the perils and travails exposed in such fictional migration sagas as Cary Joji Fukunaga's Sin Nombre (2009) and Diego Quemada-Diez's The Golden Dream (2013). The purely factual aspects are soberly presented and raise plenty of pertinent issues. But the segments involving Mexican actor Gael García Bernal following the route to El Norte from Honduras feels studied, didactic and self-conscious and distracts from the central storyline and the lessons it has to impart.

Dismayed by the numbers of migrants found dead in the Sonora Desert, documentarist Marc Silver travelled to Pima County in Arizona and was given unprecedented access to the US agencies charged with recovering and identifying corpses, as well as the Latin American delegations responsible for tracing and informing expectant relations. The discovery of a man with no papers, but the words `Dayani' and `Cristal' tattooed on his torso prompted Silver to focus on his case. But such was the lack of clues that forensic scientists were forced to sever his hands and rehydrate them in the hope of obtaining workable fingerprints.

Eventually, the deceased was identified as 29 year-old Honduran Dilcy Yohan Sandros Martínez and Silver interviews his widow, father mother, brother and friends in a bid to understand what drove him to leave such loving support in the hope of finding a better life in the United States. Unfortunately, Silver and screenwriter Mark Monroe keep asking the wrong questions, as they strive to string out the mystery by inter-cutting the revelations with footage of a scruffily attired Bernal heading through Honduras and Guatemala to Mexico in order to experience Yohan's last days.

Bernal mingles with men, women and children travelling more in desperation than expectation and shares their tales and rations with a humility that never quite disguises the fact that this is as much a job as a crusade and that he will be able to return to his luxurious lifestyle once the cameras stop rolling. There is something despicably patronising about this approach, especially when Bernal mounts the roof of La Bestia, as his doubtlessly well-intentioned action unthinkingly reduces the train that crawls through Mexico bringing hopefuls inchingly closer to the Promised Land to something akin to a theme park ride.

Colluding with co-cinematographer Pau Esteve Birba to put a disarming gloss on the visuals, Silver further enervates what should have been a deeply moving study by swathing it in Leonardo Heiblum and Jacobo Lieberman's mawkish score. The moment we learn that Yohan risked his life to help his two-year old son fight leukaemia should have been unbearable. But our senses have been blunted to the point that even the hideous statistic that over 200 bodies were found in this so-called `Corridor of Death' in 2010 doesn't crush us in the way it should.

The anguish on the faces of the cops, civil servants, doctors and diplomats earnestly trying to stem the tide of a catastrophe also fails to resonate sufficiently. Perhaps Silver might have been better advised to make three films instead of trying to weave the strands into a single thread. His and Bernal's sincerity can not be doubted. But their cumbersome methodology and muddled moralising leaves too many questions unanswered.