Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 11/9/2014)

Supply teacher Pierre Rochefort is good at his job, but values his freedom too much to accept a permanent post. While working in the south of France, he befriends fifth grader Mathias Brezot after his estranged parents fail to make adequate plans for his weekend care. Father Olivier Loustau is about to go away with new partner Vanessa Liautey, while mother Louise Bourgoin is too busy waitressing at a Montpellier restaurant to accommodate her son.

So, Rochefort agrees to keep an eye on Brezot and accedes to his desire to go to the beach. In fact, the boy is intent on getting Rochefort to Bourgoin's café, where she reveals that she takes such long shifts because she is trying to save enough to pay off a debt incurred during a reckless business venture. Bourgoin is smitten with Rochefort and invites him to go clubbing. Moreover, she takes it in her stride when he drinks too much and becomes aggressive, as she needs protecting from the thugs who have been sent by her creditors to intimidate her.

Rochefort wishes he could help Bourgoin, but knows the only way he can get hold of the sum she requires is to renew contact with the family he has striven so hard to avoid. On realising that the henchmen mean business, however, he bundles Bourgoin and Brezot into a car and heads for the gated country estate where mother Dominique Sanda lives with his brothers Eric Ruf and Benjamin Lavernhe and his sister, Déborah François.

In between endless games of tennis and dinners of crayfish and consommé, Rochefort endures the taunting of the overbearing Sanda, who insists that love across the class barrier is an impossibility. Yet, even though she learns about a grim moment in Rochefort's past, Bourgoin slowly realises that they stand a better chance of making a fresh start together than apart.

Scripted in conjunction with Jacques Fieschi, this is clearly a project that Garcia developed as a showcase for her son with the great French character actor, Jean Rochefort. In fairness, Rochefort fils acquits himself admirably, as the taciturn primary teacher who is better at relating to kids than adults. Bourgoin also enhances her burgeoning reputation, as a scatty single mother who refuses to settle for second best. But, for all the pantomimic elitism of Sanda's callous matriarch, the haute bourgeois caricatures are feebly written and lazily acted. Garcia and Fieschi attempt some Chabrolian invective, but their lax grasp of the have and have-not milieux robs their social and domestic analysis of any trenchant resonance.

Véronique Barneoud's production design and Pierre Milon's photography expertly reinforce the chasm between Rochefort's past and present, to which Garcia alludes deftly during early scenes that simmer with latent angst. She also paces proceedings nicely and offers some thoughtful insights into the frisson of embarking upon a new relationship and coming to accept a lover's emotional baggage. But she fails to build upon a promising, if formulaic, premise and allows the action to become increasingly detached from reality as it transforms into a latterday fairytale.

If Going Away couldn't be any more French, Norwegian Hans Petter Moland's In Order of Disappearance feels more like a Hollywood thriller than a typical work of ScandiCrime. It could also be mistaken for something scripted by the McDonagh brothers responsible for In Bruges (Martin, 2008) and The Guard (John Michael, 2011). But the snowy setting and body count vigilantism suggest that this is what might have happened if Charles Bronson had wandered into Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo (1996) with his customary death wish.

Swede Stellan Skarsgård drives a snowplough in a Norwegian backwater that seems to be permanently under a thick blanket of deceptively pure white. His neighbours have just voted him Citizen of the Year and are keen for him to run for office on the Farmers's Party ticket. But, then, Skarsgård's twentysomething son dies from a massive heroin overdose and he is distraught when cops Stig Henrik Hoff and Arthur Berning dismiss him as just another wastrel getting his just desserts. Moreover, when wife Hildegun Riise shrugs off the loss of a son she barely knew following the funeral, Skarsgård goes to the garage to end it all

Just as he is placing a shotgun in his mouth, however, Tobias Santelmann creeps out of a corner to inform Skarsgård that his pal was mistakenly bumped off because Santelmann stole a bag of cocaine from a consignment being delivered to the nearby airport. Skarsgård demands to know the contact's name and goes to the big city in search of Jan Gunnar Røise. The gangster is amused to see a Swedish bumpkin confronting him and flashes the gun at his hip. But Skarsgård isn't easily intimidated and he not only slams Røise's face into the pavement, but also finishes him off with his own gun.

As the first of many black memorial cards to the fallen appears on the screen (listing their name, criminal alias and religious denomination), Skarsgård tracks down the next two in the chain of command, Kåre Conradi and Kristofer Hivju. The latter refuses to squeal, however. So, Skarsgård contacts crooked brother Peter Andersson, who warns him not to mess with kingpin Pål Sverre Hagen, who inherited his outfit from his brutal father and is used to being obeyed.

However, Hagen is already furious that somebody has been rubbing out his henchmen and he convinces himself that Serbian gang boss Bruno Ganz is trying to provoke a turf war. A vegan who makes juices and coffees for his sidekicks when they are brutalising his foes, Hagen is also conducting an acrimonious custody battle for their son with ex-wife, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen. Thus, when Danish hitman David Sakurai is caught in the act of trying to assassinate him, Hagen's patience snaps and he kills Sakurai for betraying the fact that he had been hired by Skarsgård. However, he promptly mixes him up with Andersson, who selflessly takes a bullet for his sibling.

Determined to impose himself, Hagen kills one of Ganz's gang and displays his corpse as a warning to others. Unfortunately, the victim turns out to be Ganz's son and he plots to exact his revenge by abducting Hagen's boy. But he is beaten to the punch by Skarsgård, who takes his hostage to a ski resort in the mountains, where he hopes to lure Hagen into a showdown. However, things don't go quite according to plan.

Sweeping through the frozen landscape in his yellow plough like a Nordic variation on Robert De Niro in his New York cab in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), Skarsgård makes a splendidly tragicomic anti-hero in his fourth collaboration with Moland. His outbursts of righteous anger contrast amusingly with the pony-tailed Hagen's foppish pomposity and Ganz's Balkan Corleone routine, although the despair Skarsgård feels at Riise's lack of remorse is much more deftly conveyed. Indeed, finding the right tone proves a problem throughout the picture, as Moland and screenwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson rely too heavily on a Tarantinoesque brand of dialogue that feels as self-conscious as the repeated in memoriam gag.

Jørgen Stangebye Larsen's production design, Philip Øgaard's cinematography and Jens Christian Fodstad's editing are all first rate, as is Brian Batz, Kaspar Kaae and Kåre Vestrheim's electric guitar score. But the symbolism involved in Skarsgård's crusade is hardly subtle (admirable though the images of flying white powder are), nor is the fact that the cops cannot stand the sight of blood. Neither, for that matter, are the jokes about Serbians being mistaken for Albanians and Dano-Japanese killers being nicknamed, The Chinaman. Moreover, there's perhaps a touch too much chauvinism in the depiction of the female characters, while the mockery of the gay gangsters is also a bit puerile. Yet this still feels like the kind of playful picture that Hollywood might be tempted into remaking, even though it has already made it (with varying results) several times before.

The action also turns around the pursuit of some suspects on a list in Iranian writer-director Mohammad Rasoulof's Manuscripts Don't Burn. Having incurred the ire of the authorities with Iron Island (2005) and The White Meadows (2009), Rasoulof was arrested by the security police for filming without a permit and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. Unlike his friend and onetime collaborator Jafar Panahi, however, he was released after a year and completed Goodbye (2011) before going into exile.

But this latest insight into life in the Islamic Republic resulted in the 42 year-old having his passport confiscated on his return to Tehran. Indeed, such were the risks taken during the making of this overtly political drama, which takes its inspiration from an actual attempt to assassinate 21 dissidents in 1995, that none of the cast or crew was willing to be credited. Consequently, only the names of the characters can be used in this review.

Thirtysomething Khosrow rushes to a waiting car in some distress. He is so worried about finding the money to pay son Amir-Ali's medical bills that he can scarcely concentrate on his work as a police enforcer. Driver Morteza chides him for making himself conspicuous as they make their getaway. Across the capital, the wheelchair-bound Fourazandeh confides in fellow writer Kian that he has finished a new book and is keen to find an underground publisher, as the manuscript has been rejected by the state censor. His wife, Roshanak, fusses over him. But Fourazandeh is delighted when Kian produces a smuggled bottle of alcohol and they complain about the younger generation lacking their political zeal.

As they debate the merits of the Internet, the friends are unaware that their conversation is being bugged by an agent who snacks incessantly to stave off boredom. They are being monitored by Haj Agha, a former firebrand who was recruited by the state in return for the editorship of a prestigious newspaper. He is desperate to suppress an account of a 1995 bid to murder 21 opponents of the regime by driving them off a precipice while en route to an academic conference in Armenia. Haj Agha has already pressurised Kasra into swapping his original manuscript for a promise to be allowed to leave the country and reunite with his daughter. But two other copies are still missing and Khosrow is detailed to find them.

Grateful to Morteza for using his influence to get Amir-Ali admitted to a renowned hospital, Khosrow confesses that he was the driver of the bus back in the mid-90s. He admits that he failed in his mission because he lost his nerve and jumped clear of the vehicle too early and gave the passengers a chance to apply the brakes. They stop for lunch and rest on the boot of the car, even though it contains a cramped and frozen hostage. When they finally reach a northern village, they take the hooded man to his house and he is revealed as Kian. He expects them to kill him, but still warns his assailants about the rotting floorboards upstairs.

The pair find the manuscript in the loft and, while heading to a remote spot to dispose of Kian, they stop off at a teahouse so that Khosrow can phone home. His wife blames him for their son's illness and scoffs when he insists that he works for the greater glory of God. Stung by her disdain, Khosrow smokes a hookah and wonders if he really has harmed his own child. But Morteza is keen to finish the job and they drive into the wilderness to hang Kian from a tree so that his death looks like suicide. However, Khosrow gets a call to spare Kian and Morteza ends up having to murder a youth who happened to witness him preparing the noose.

Alone and frightened, Kasra keeps trying to contact Haj Agha to finalise the details of his departure. He listens to mournful music and keeps himself occupied by washing the dishes. But the strain tells on him and he shouts into the microphones that he knows are recording his every word imploring Haj Agha to honour his bargain. The following morning, he receives a phone call from his daughter, who urges him not to give up hope. But Kasra dresses in his best suit and walks out of the window of his apartment and falls to his death on the street below.

Meanwhile, Khosrow and Morteza deliver Kian to Haj Agha's office. The editor flatters his prisoner by calling him a great poet and hopes to be able to read his work long into the future. But his fate very much depends on the recovery of the final manuscript and Kian agrees to retrieve the copy in Fourazandeh's keeping, on the proviso that he is allowed to speak to him alone to avoid aggravating his heart condition. However, no sooner has Roshanak left the apartment than Khosrow, Morteza and Haj Agha burst in behind Kian and make it look as though he had willingly betrayed his friend in order to protect himself.

Fourazandeh refuses to co-operate and looks on as Morteza blindfolds Kian and gets him drunk on illicit vodka. A search quickly reveals the manuscript and Haj Agha leaves Khosrow to tip Fourazandeh out of his chair and force a powerful suppository up his backside. As he suffers excruciating agony, Khosrow raids the fridge to make a couple of sandwiches and is watching the television when Haj Agha returns to find Fourazandeh has passed away. He puts the author's glasses back on his nose and walks away unruffled.

Khosrow hands the spare sandwich to Morteza and they drive to a cash point to check if the money that Khosrow has been promised has been paid into his account. They proceed to an abandoned building and Khosrow drags the gagged and hooded Kian to a secluded spot. He lights a cigarette and casually places a peg on the writer's nose so that he starts to suffocate. As he watches Kian struggle, Khosrow thinks about his son and the likelihood that his ailment is divine retribution for his own crimes. Suddenly filled with self-loathing, he takes out his frustration on Kian's lifeless body by stabbing it in a frenzy that is only ended when he looks up to see someone watching him. Coming to his senses, he runs to the waiting car (in a repeat of the opening scene) and urges Morteza to drive away.

A closing coda shows Khosrow walking along a busy street. No one would know what he does or what he has done in the name of the Iranian government and this glimpse at the banality of evil makes this rare denunciation of the republic's all-seeing security network all the more chilling. Shooting exteriors at home and interiors at his base in Hamburg, Rasoulof succeeds in drawing grisly comparisons between the Savak and the Gestapo and it is hardly surprising that his cast (many of whom are in exile) wished to remain anonymous.

Taking its title from a line in Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, the action slips achronologically between conversations of such striking contrasts that it would appear as though the intellectuals and their predators inhabited different countries. But Fourazandeh's disability and Kasra's separation from his daughter are every bit as painful to them as Khosrow's fears for his son. Yet, Khosrow can casually prepare a snack as a man dies in front of him and Haj Agha can betray former comrades with ruthless insouciance.

The performances are adequate, as are the production values, although the ominous sound design is notably disconcerting, as it heightens the notion of enforced silence. In the circumstances, however, allowances have to be made - just as they were for Panahi's This Is Not a Film (2011) and Closed Curtain (2013). But credit must go to Rasoulof, who courageously rakes up the so-called `Chain Murders' - which claimed over 80 lives between 1988 and 1998 - in order to remind audiences that suspected perpetrators Mostafa Pour Mohammadi and Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ezhei ran the interior and intelligence ministries for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Furthermore, he reduces heroic ideas and diabolical deeds to the stuff of everyday life, even if his bid to produce a Costa-Gavras-style political thriller falls a bit flat, particularly during the sluggish and over-egged opening exchanges between the imperilled writers. More significantly, though, Rasoulof succeeds in suggesting that opposition to authoritarian rule within Iran remains active, undaunted and vocal.

Although another body crops up in a car boot, the criminality is markedly more comic in Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law (1986), which is being re-released this week. Coming after Permanent Vacation (1980) and Stranger Than Paradise (1984), this is the picture that enabled Jarmusch to make the transition from No Wave hopeful to indie icon. Like its immediate predecessor, it's essentially a slowed-down variation on a Marx Brothers movie. But this draws on so many tropes from the Golden Age of Hollywood that it's like an achingly hip fanboy collage that has acquired extra layers of knowing chic with the passage of time.

Reeling from being fired by his radio station, DJ Tom Waits wanders home to receive his marching orders from girlfriend Ellen Barkin. Hitting the street, he downs a bottle of bourbon and is crashed out on a pile of rubbish when con man Vernel Bagneris approaches to ask if he would like to earn $1000. Deciding not to ask any questions, Waits agrees to drive a car across New Orleans. But he is quickly pulled over by the cops, who not only reveal that the vehicle is stolen, but also that there is a dead man in the trunk.

Naturally, Waits protests his innocence. And so does small-time pimp John Lurie, who is so frustrated by the taunting of African-American girlfriend Billie Neal that he allows himself to be sweet-talked by Rockets Redglare into believing that a finagling rival has offered to let him have a `Cajun goddess' for his operation to make amends for past bad blood. But, the moment Lurie steps foot inside Carrie Lindsoe's room, he is busted by the vice squad for molesting a minor.

Finding themselves in the same cell, Waits and Lurie are daggers drawn from the outset. But they soon unite in their loathing of Italian tourist Roberto Benigni, who has no hard luck story to tell, as he gleefully admits that he used a pool ball to kill the man who had just accused him of cheating at cards. Speaking little English, but rarely silent and utterly full of himself, Benigni quotes Walt Whitman in Italian and unites the inmates in a chanting the 1920s jazz standard, `I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream'

However, Benigni is not as daft as he's cabbage looking and he convinces Waits and Lurie that he knows how to bust them out of jail. Having nothing to lose, the pair throw in their lot with the garrulous foreigner and he leads them through the sewers and out into the bayou as though they were out for a stroll. Once in the forest, however, Benigni's sense of direction lets him down and Waits and Lurie can't decide whether to ditch him or kill him, as he declaims Robert Frost's poem, `The Road Not Taken'. But Benigni guides them to the remote home of Nicoletta Braschi, who takes an instant shine to her compatriot and invites him to stay, as Waits and Lurie wander off to take their chances with a wry smile of baffled companionship.

Miraculously photographed in shimmering, moody monochrome by Robby Müller, this is one of the most visually striking American films of the 1980s. Janet Densmore's production design is also exemplary, most notably in contrasting the urban abodes that Waits and Lurie leave behind with the cell they cohabit and the rural idyll where Benigni finds the warmest of welcomes. But there are also plenty of audio pleasures to be had, thanks to Lurie's lounge-jazz score and the bookend tracks `Jockey Full of Bourbon' and `Tango Till They're Sore' from Waits's 1985 album, Rain Dogs.

Given that this marked his acting debut, Waits more than holds his own against Lurie, whether they are bickering, trading blows or sulking on their bunks. But neither stands a chance against Benigni, who is at his verbose best as the force of nature who drives the antagonists into an uneasy alliance that culminates in them swopping the hand-me-down jackets Braschi gives them to replace their prison duds. But the performances are so eye-catching that it's easy to overlook the self-effacing excellence of Jarmusch's direction, which ensures that the precision of his camera placement is matched by the leisurely particularity of his wit, which draws heavily on the social realist and crime traditions that were honed at Warner Bros during the Great Depression.

In many ways, Down By Law is a triptych and the action of the week's second reissue, Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (1939), is also staged in or on three main locales: the farmstead in Kansas; the Yellow Brick Road; and the Emerald City. The pictures also share a theme of there being no place like home (even though none of Jarmusch's triumvirate is exactly sure where it lies). But, while each film starts off in a black-and-white world, Jarmusch resists the temptation to switch to Technicolor as the jailbirds embark upon the fairytale leg of their journey.

Few films have attracted as many rumours, anecdotes and statistics as The Wizard of Oz. Prime among them is the contention that MGM chief Louis B. Mayer was so keen to secure Shirley Temple for the role of Dorothy Gale that he was prepared to lend Clark Gable and Jean Harlow to 20th Century-Fox in return. Yet, this is pure Hollywood myth, as associate producer Arthur Freed always viewed the project as a star-making vehicle for Judy Garland and even over-ruled senior producer Mervyn LeRoy's preference for Deanna Durbin.

More reliable, however, are other casting stories, regarding W.C. Fields, Wallace Beery and Ed Wynn as The Wizard, Edna May Oliver, Fanny Brice and Gale Sondergaard as the witches, and May Robson and Janet Beecher as Aunt Em. It's also true that Buddy Ebsen swapped roles with Ray Bolger, only to prove allergic to his Tin Man make-up. Equally accurate are assertions that Ogden Nash and Herman J. Mankiewicz were among the gaggle of writers who took a crack at the script, while Norman Taurog, Richard Thorpe, George Cukor, Victor Fleming and King Vidor all took turns of varying duration in the director's chair.

At one point, Freed considered Jerome Kern for the score. But Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg produced a magnificent string of integrated songs, with `Over the Rainbow' winning an Oscar, along with Herbert Stothart's score. LeRoy similarly mooted Busby Berkeley for the choreography. But dance was never among the film's priorities and Bobby Connolly's production number, `The Jitterbug', wound up on the cutting-room floor after test screenings - where Garland's timeless theme tune would have joined it, but for Freed's insistence.

Despite consigning a budget of $2,777,000, MGM always considered Oz a commercial risk that compensated by allowing Technicolor to conduct some vital visual experiments before shooting began on Gone With the Wind (1939). However, the success of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) had alerted the studio to the potential of the juvenile market and L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel was frequently mentioned by fans suggesting future projects.

Baum himself had produced the first Oz shorts in 1908 and a further seven silent variations had appeared by the time his son co-scripted Larry Semon's 1925 feature adaptation, which included Oliver Hardy as the Tin Woodsman. However, no one had managed to improve upon the 1902 stage musical version until MGM acquired the rights from Samuel Goldwyn, who had planned to rework the story in 1933, with Eddie Cantor as the Scarecrow.

Like Snow White, the picture had its genuinely scary moments, with the attack on Munchkinland, the talking trees and the flying monkeys resulting in it being restricted to `adults only' by the British censor. But while the technical ingenuity exhibited by Buddy Gillespie's SFX unit - in these sequences and those involving the tornado, the skywriting and the Wicked Witch's melting flesh - was exemplary, the key to the film's enduring appeal was the colour that transformed the sepia Kansas countryside into a land over the rainbow, with its Yellow Brick Road, Ruby Slippers, Emerald City and Horse of Another Colour.

It took 150 painters to apply the 62 different shades to the 2000ft x 40ft backdrop, while months of work went into the 65 sets and 4000 costumes for the 1000-strong cast (that included 350 midgets). The principals rehearsed for 12 weeks before shooting for 136 days and Victor Fleming spent countless nights shuttling back from the Gone With the Wind set for nocturnal editing sessions with Blanche Sewell.

Yet, despite the care lavished upon it, The Wizard of Oz drew a mixed critical response and grossed only $3,017,000 on its first release. Indeed, it took reissues in 1948 and 1954 and its sale to television in 1956 for it to turn a sizeable profit ($3,529,000) and become a firm family favourite. But it now stands as a summation of the 1930s musical and a celebration of the magic of childhood and the vitality of the imagination - treasures that the makers of contemporary kidpix seem to have forgotten.

The enchantment is of a more dubious kind in A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness, a collaboration between artists Ben Rivers and Ben Russell that comes off the back of their touring gallery project, We Can Not Exist in This World Alone, and the various music and video presentations on which they have worked between such respective solo projects as Two Years At Sea (2011) and Let Each One Go Where He May (2009). Defiantly challenging in its blend of sound and image, but not without its moments of wit, beauty and insight, this will frustrate some and fascinate others. The likeliest bone of contention will be the final part of a triptych that features (to a greater or lesser degree) Brooklyn-based musician Robert AA Lowe. But even dedicated avant-garde aficionados will struggle to argue that this melange of the primeval, the spiritual and the postmodern contains more cogency than ambiguity.

Opening with a sublime seven-minute series of slow pans that provide a 360° view around an Estonian island in the gathering gloom, the action cuts abruptly from the sound of intoning voices to a bonfire crackling and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe smoking while in deep contemplation of the dancing flames and sparks. Although he will be seen strumming his guitar and cooking pancakes, he retreats into the background, as the sole black face dwelling in a commune populated by English speakers from around the world.

Rivers and Russell wander around the compound eavesdropping on conversations and spectating as men work on a wooden structure, women prepare lunch and kids scurry around with painted faces. After the meal, some read, while others pore over laptops. One sauna devotee reclines naked in an open-air bathtub, while another pair of males trade anecdotes, including one about a party at which people put their fingers up each other's bottoms. In summation, the speaker claims to have experienced such a sense of unity and peace that he felt sorry for the one person at the gathering who didn't have a digit partner.

Lowe joins a woman who is explaining logorithmic spirals. She also expounds her ideas of a utopia in which everyone dances in perfect synchronisation, like the revellers at a rave. Another bespectacled woman holds forth on her concept of `happy pessimism', as she breastfeeds her child. She opines that there would be greater happiness in the world if there were more parties, but her male companion dismisses such festivities as `temporary autonomous zones' (It will come as little surprise to some to learn that these highlighted phrases were coined by Nick Turvey, who is the artist spouse of director Joanna Hogg).

The grown-ups watch the children playing in an expanse of water, while Lowe retreats inside the wooden edifice (which seems to be some sort of meditative space) and gazes into the sky as he smokes. The screen goes black before a cut places Lowe in a rowing boat off the Finnish coast. He has moved into a remote shack, where he reads and thinks, as insects bustle through undergrowth that is home to a species of brown mushroom. When he is not fishing on the water, Lowe marvels at magic hour sunsets and wonders about the gunshots that reverberate from the far distance. The camera lingers on the fronds of a fern and some lichen on a tree trunk (fittingly, as Lowe records under the name Lichens), as he explores his surroundings. Back in his shack, Lowe applies white make-up to his face by candlelight and we see his sad eyes in extreme close-up before a dramatic cut reveals his abode is ablaze.

The scene fades and a Death Metal guitar riff rips through the blackness, as an image of a Norwegian club slowly materialises as the rhythm section kicks in. Lowe is on stage with members of Krallice, Liturgy and The Flying Luttenbachers. He is still wearing his face paint, as he unleashes primal screams into the microphone. Around halfway through the 30-minute single take, a quiet coda allows the camera to drift on to the onlookers, who seem to be communing with the music as though the shrieks were devotional exhortations at a pagan rite. As the driving beat picks up momentum and the strobe lights begin to pulsate once more, the number builds to a crescendo before Lowe walks off stage and out of the venue. Tagging along behind him, the camera picks out a harbour in the distance and the lights of a castle on the opposite shore. As the cacophonous music returns, the screen blurs and a deafening silence descends. A few flecks dot the twilight. But, as they also disappear, it would seem as though the spell has failed to ward off the darkness after all.

As is often the case with experimental films, a lot of highfalutin obscurantist prose has been written about this determinedly difficult work. While some have described the sensations experienced while watching the action, others have demonstrated how this mix of ethnography and Surrealism is an extension of earlier works produced by the two Bens, either in partnership or in isolation. What is clear, however, is that this is very much a piece that wears its influences on its sleeve, whether it's the vérité chronicles of Jean Rouch in the opening segment (which also owes debts to Robert Cannan and Corinna Villari-McFarlane's Three Miles North of Molkom, 2008), the variation on Two Years At Sea that occupies the central strand or the concluding mash-up between the visual style of Russell's 2007 short, Black and White Trypps Number Three, and the boldly uncommercial music made by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in conjunction with The Plastic Ono Band and The Mothers of Invention.

Unkinder commentators might claim that the concluding episode sounds more like a collision between the tour buses of Motorhead and Sigúr Ros. But, while the music may not be to everyone's taste, the sound mix recorded by Chu-Li Shewring and edited by Nicolas Becker and Philippe Ciompi is often intoxicating. The 16mm footage captured by Russell and Rivers is also studded with memorable images. But this is never quite the immersive experience that they clearly envisaged it would be. Perhaps it would find a happier home in a gallery rather than a cinema, although it's doubtful it would ever be shown at the august repository profiled by Margy Kinmonth in Hermitage Revealed.

Similar in many ways to the entries in Phil Grabsky's admirable Exhibition on Screen series, this is a guided tour of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg that celebrates its 250th anniversary this year. As the clips from Sergei Eisenstein's October (1917) remind us, this is also the site of the Winter Palace that was once home to the Romanov dynasty. However, the roost is ruled today by curators rather than tsars and Kinmonth allows the more senior figures plenty of time to ruminate on the principal treasures among the three million items housed in the Hermitage's two thousand rooms.

The museum was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great, who acquired three private collections that formed the basis of the Hermitage horde. Among the 600 paintings bought from Count Heinrich von Bruhl of Dresden were Titian's first masterpiece, `The Flight into Egypt', while the miscellany purchased in 1771 from Baron Louis Antoine Crozat yielded Raphael's `St George and the Dragon', Giorgione's `Judith' and the Rembrandt trio of `The Return of the Prodigal Son', `Danaë' and `The Holy Family'.

More significant, however, was the 198-strong selection procured in 1779 from the family of the former British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, as it contained such gems as Snyders's `Concert of Birds', Rubens's `Friar's Head', Velazquez's `Pope Innocent X' and Van Dyck's `Philip, Lord Wharton' and `Portrait of Elizabeth and Philadelphia Wharton' Walpole's descendent, Lord Cholmondeley, wryly notes that Catherine sent the Walpoles a portrait of herself in gratitude, as the pictures became the keystone of a collection of 4000 Old Masters. But Catherine was also keen to amass a wealth of classical sculpture and she was amazed to find, in 1787, that among the 250 pieces bought from John Lyde-Brown was Michelangelo's forgotten statue, `Crouching Boy'.

At various points in the documentary, a slightly smaller youth (played by Semion Ivanov) is seen clambering up the majestic staircases and gazing at the exhibits. He represents the young Mikhail Piotrovsky, the director of the Hermitage who grew up in the museum while his father held his current post. Enjoying the fact that he gives his orders from a desk that used to belong to Alexander III, Piotrovsky shows off Catherine's peerless collection of engraved gemstones and praises her taste and tenacity in ensuring that the Hermitage could boast of the quality of its artefacts, as well as their quantity.

Following her lead, each of her successors added something meaningful to the collection. Alexander I, for example, relieved Joséphine de Beauharnais of Canova's `The Three Graces', while Caravaggio's `The Lute Player' and Rembrandt's `Descent From the Cross' were also trophies of his victory over Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1827, Nicholas I commissioned the General Staff Arch and its Chariot of Glory and ordered the rebuilding of the Winter Palace when it was destroyed by fire in 1837. Fortunately, the quick thinking of the curators saved the museum, which was supplemented by the magnificent New Hermitage in 1851, although countless serfs perished during its construction.

Piotrovsky shows Kinmonth the giant waxwork of Peter the Great and the throne room it occupies. She recalls how the founder of St Petersburg duped Pope Clement XI into parting with the `Tauride Venus' in exchange for some relics (which were never delivered). Tom Conti reads a passage from Pliny the Elder explaining how a man once stained the statue with his lust, but we quickly move on to the arsenal and the armoury, where Piotrovsky spent much time as a child.

Nicholas II was the least cultivated of the later Romanovs and had little interest in the Hermitage. Nonetheless, he helped secure Leonardo da Vinci's `Madonna Benois', which is one of the most visited paintings in the museum, alongside the same artist's exquisite `Madonna Litta'. In 1914, however, Nicholas led his empire into the Great War and the palace on the River Neva became a hospital and an orphanage. At one point, plans were made to move the most precious items from the newly named Petrograd to Moscow. But the trains were sent back when the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917 and Nicholas and his family were murdered in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg on 17 July 1918.

Once again, the curators combined courage and ingenuity to protect the Hermitage and ensure that no looting took place by pouring away the wine supply from the cellars. However, a clock in the White Dining Room did stop at the precise moment (2.10pm) when a meeting of the Provisional Government was interrupted by the invading Bolsheviks. Five days later, the new Minister of Enlightenment guaranteed the integrity of the Winter Palace and the Hermitage, which remained open to the public to reveal the lap of luxury in which their former rulers had lived. Moreover, rooms that had once housed courtiers were turned into storerooms, while the royal porcelain works across the river started producing items bearing propaganda messages rather than purely artistic designs.

The regime change also prompted a new order in painting, with Malevich's `Black Square' and Kandinsky's `Composition VI' capturing the revolutionary spirit of an age in which private ownership of art was outlawed. As a consequence, the museum took possession of the impressive collection of Moscow merchant Sergei Shchukin that included Gauguin's `Pastorales Tahitiennes', Van Gogh's `Thatched Colttages and Houses', Matisse's `Dance' and `Music' and Picasso's `Composition With Skull'. However, such decadent Western art was locked away in case it corrupted the minds of decent Communists.

But at least this collection remained intact. The same could not be said of Catherine II's bequest, as Stalin sold some if its jewels in order to buy tractors and machine tools to bankroll the Five Year Plan. Twenty-one Old Masters were snapped up for $6,600,000 by Andrew Mellon for the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Director Joseph Orbeli wrote to Stalin pleading with him to stop the sale, but he succeeded only in provoking the arrest of 45 curators, who were dispatched to the gulags during the Great Purge. Worse was to follow during the Second World War, when Leningrad was besieged by the Nazis. Natalia Georgievna Prokofieva recalls Hitler vowing to reduce the city to rubble. But, once again, Orbeli rose to the occasion and succeeded in smuggling two trains full of artefacts to the Urals, with some of them being stored in the very room in which the Romanov family had been butchered in 1918.

Alexandr Nikolski's `Bomb Shelter Drawings' and Irina Novoselskaya's `The Bread Queue' caught the mood, as staff members sheltered in the cellars to protect the collection. Food was so scarce that Larissa Haskell recalls her father boiling his leather belts, while the cats who kept the museum free of vermin were also devoured. Ultimately, over 100 staff members died during the siege, which claimed one third of the civic population. But the Hermitage ended up benefiting from the conflict, as it took receipt of the confiscated contents of the Indische Kunst Museum in Berlin. Among the spoils were Degas's `Place de la Concorde', Renoir's `In the Garden', Daumier's `Burden' and Monet's `The Seine at Rouen'. However, they were not put on pubic display until 1995, as it was feared that hanging them would lead to German demands for their restoration.

There was a thaw following Stalin's death, however, as new director Mikhail Artamonov put Picasso's `Brick Factory at Tortosa' and Matisse's `The Dessert - Harmony in Red (The Red Room)' on display. Yet, it was only after Boris Piotrovsky took over in the 1960s that the practice of giving items to visiting dignitaries was halted. Just as his father faced the problems of falling visitor numbers during the Cold War, so Mikhail Piotrovsky had to cope with the loss of state subsidies after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But he helped found the Friends of the Hermitage charity and it has since proved successful in lobbying the Russian government for funding.

In 2006, Piotrovsky survived a scandal when over 2000 items of jewellery and precious metal vanished without a trace. Some pieces have since been returned, but no one was caught for the crime (and it's a shame that Kinmonth glosses over it so quickly). But Piotrovsky has also joined forces with Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas to supervise the installation of 1km of glass storage corridors in the Winter Palace. Moreover, he has ensured that Vladimir Putin (himself a St Petersburgian) has looked favourably on the Hermitage and has personally accompanied the likes of Tony Blair, Angela Merkel and George W. Bush on their tours.

Piotrovsky has also been active in supporting outposts like Hermitage Amsterdam and in allowing artefacts to be loaned to other venues. One such deal saw 17 pictures from the Walpole collection return to Houghton Hall in Norfolk for the first time in two centuries. He has also brought Western artists to Russia and was much lauded for allowing Antony Gormley to remove statues like the `Tauride Venus' from their plinths so that visitors could get a closer look at them, alongside the newly commissioned works in the 2011 `Standing Still' exhibition.

The modern undoubtedly has its place at the Hermitage, as Erik van Lieshout's installation `Basement' included a film about the cats who still guard the premises. Moreover, new purposes are constantly being found for old edifices, such as the General Staff Building and the Palace Square. Koolhaas praises Piotrovsky for adopting a policy of evolution not revolution in turning the complex into a communal space. But he clearly hopes to make this palace museum more democratic than ever in ensuring that it contains something for everyone.

Several curators and outside experts offer insights into the calibre of the collection and the daily working of the Hermitage, among them Lisa Renne, Nina Tarasova, Alexei Leporc, Irina Artemyeva, Marina Lopato, Sergei Androsov, Juri G. Yefimov, Albert Kostenevich, Natalia Murray, Earl A. Powell III , Arthur Wheelock, Marina Kozyreva, Tatiana Tarayeva, Nikolai Pchelin, Thierry Morel and Dmitri Ozerkov. But Kinmonth makes it clear that Piotrovsky is the hero of her story and he comes across as a genial, mischievous, passionate and entirely committed individual.

She largely prevents the chronicle of the buildings and their contents from seeming like a history lesson, but more might have been made of the artistic importance of some of the major works. The camera might also have lingered longer over these paintings and made more imaginative use of close-ups. It's also disappointing that Gauguin's name is misspelt in a caption. But this is primarily a work of celebration and it fulfils its remit with just about the right blend of reverence and re-appraisal.

Timing is everything where documentary making is concerned. Kinmonth secured greater access than she could probably have ever hoped for because the Hermitage was keen to appear in a good light to mark its major anniversary. Similarly, Frederick Wiseman would have had a very different film on his hands if he had been on the campus of the University of California in the autumn of 2011 instead of 2010. But, while watching At Berekeley, it soon becomes apparent that Wiseman was probably mighty relieved that he missed the Occupy Cal demonstrations that were quelled with such severity by the police that their tactics made national headlines and drew widespread condemnation. Harking back to the infamous sit-ins of the 1960s, this incident would have been a godsend to most film-makers. But Wiseman is a student of the day-to-day working of institutions and such a fracas would have been so atypical as to tilt the balance of his entire thesis.

Yes, Frederick Wiseman has a controlling thesis when he makes a film. He may avoid narration, captions or speeches to camera, but while he adopts a Direct Cinema approach while shooting, Wiseman edits with meticulous care to highlight issues that emerge during his time on site and to emphasise the inconsistencies and ironies that they throw up. Thus, while his three-strong crew was only in northern California for 12 weeks, Wiseman took some three years to assemble his epic account, which runs for just over four hours. It should prove fascinating viewing to Oxford academics, students and administrators alike. But, at the risk of sounding divisive, one suspects this is more of a Gown than a Town picture.

There would be little point in providing a scene-by-scene account of this sprawling actuality (especially as the notes taken during the screening ran to eight sides of typed A4). As no one is identified by name, it would be impossible to keep track of who is who. Moreover, the content of the lectures, seminars, meetings and briefings that Wiseman records hardly makes for riveting reading out of context. So, we shall content ourselves with noting that the classes shown cover a variety of subjects, from politics, literature, history and business studies to zoology, cosmology and engineering. Among the more unusual sections are a demonstration of a robot folding a napkin and a test fitting for a man trying out a new style of artificial leg. Equally revealing is the session in which war veterans explain why they decided to study after undertaking their tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Wily as ever, Wiseman ensures that footage of the square-bashing campus corps appears alongside the segments depicting sporting, musical and amateur dramatic endeavour. But, while one or two undergraduates get to express their opinions in classroom situations, Wiseman seems less interested in the student body than in the faculty and the administrative team. He is particularly intrigued by the steps being taken to maintain academic standards in the face of budget cutbacks. Canadian chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau is very much at the centre of these discussions, as not only is he keen to ensure that tertiary education remains a stepping stone to social advancement, but he also wishes to maintain the close links that Berkeley has with the local community and fears that students will be less willing to participate in activities that strengthen this bond if they are forever worrying about fees and living expenses.

While the majority of his tutors support his aims, there is a degree of dissent about his tactics and the meetings in which egos clash over ideology are often unexpectedly arresting. Oddly, the scenes of janitorial staff going about their duties to keep the campus looking spick and span also exert a certain fascination, as does the prolonged sequence in which the senior officers in the UC Berkeley Police Department consider their strategy for handling a forthcoming library occupation. This protest against budgetary cuts also taxes Birgeneau and his team and Wiseman slyly cuts between the demands being issued by the erudite, but hardly fire-breathing student leaders and the governing body contemplating them with a scorn that is as much rooted in nostalgia for their own infinitely more radical and enraged activism during the 1960s and their frustration that the students fail to recognise that their tutors are as much against the cuts as they are and have done everything feasible to persuade the powers in Sacramento to rethink their policies.

Amusingly, after all the police planning, the occupiers leave the library at its usual closing time and file away in an orderly manner. And Wiseman departs with them after sitting in on a seminar about the possibility of life on other planets and what such life-forms might make of human society. At one point, he eavesdrops on a discussion about time capsules and Wiseman seems to appreciate the fact that he has devoted his life to recording insights into a variety of institutions in the United States and France since he felt compelled to make Titicut Follies (1967) after taking his Boston University law class to the Bridgewater State Hospital. Indeed, this 38th offering could easily be taken as a summation of his core methods and themes. But, while it rarely drags (in spite of some of its ostensibly dry material), this is never as compelling as such other mammoth Wiseman studies as Public Housing (1997) and State Legislature (2006).

It would seem as though Marc Evans admires certain aspects of Wiseman's approach, as there is a marked absence of name captions in Jack to a King: The Swansea Story. But, on the whole, Evans sticks to the tried and trusted `talking head' technique in this account of Swansea City's rise from the Football League basement to the Premiership. Although he is better known for fictional offerings like My Little Eye (2002) and Hunky Dory (2011), Evans proved himself to be adept at the documentary form with In Prison My Whole Life, his 2007 profile of Death Row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal. This is a much lighter topic, however, and Evans keeps the story rattling along. Yet, there are some dubious moments along the way, while the omission of some high-profile figures leaves one wondering whether they refused to co-operate or whether this is a sanitised version of events that best suits the current club hierarchy.

Following an opening view of the Swansea landscape that is accompanied by Richard Burton reading from Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, Evans shows Swans fans descending on Wembley for the 2011 Championship Play-Off Final against Reading. As coaches drive in convoy along the motorway, Cyril the mascot chats to young fans at the stadium and a vox pop montage gauges the mood prior to the biggest game in the history of Swansea City. Yet, just eight years earlier, the club had lined up against Hull City in a match that was of even greater significance, because, had they been beaten, Swansea would have lost their league status and may well have gone out of existence altogether.

That game was played at the Vetch Field, which had been Swansea's home since 1912. It has since been knocked down and Evans contrasts its remnants with the gleaming Liberty Stadium in the Landore area of the city. Many recall with affection the Harry Griffiths Bar and the roar generated by the North Bank. Kit woman Suzan Eames remembers seeing George Best play at the Vetch, while Evans cuts in newsreel footage of Ivor Allchurch playing for what was then Swansea Town. Legendary players Mel Nurse and Alan Curtis also look back on their heydays and we see the latter's famous goal against Leeds United during the 5-1 opening day thrashing that announced Swansea's elevation to Division One in 1981 under the managership of John Toshack.

But, while such heady occasions gave Swansea a romantic allure that seduced the likes of Dutch teenager John van Zweden, they became increasingly rare as the club tumbled down the league ladder. Moreover, a lack of investment left City £4 million in debt by 2001 and, with supporters staying away in their droves, the owners felt compelled to accept managing director Mike Lewis's takeover bid of £1. However, he didn't remain in charge for long, as Londoner Tony Petty became the preferred bidder over New Yorker Brian Katzen, as the consortium he fronted had experience of running a sporting franchise through its stake in the Australian Rules outfit, the Brisbane Lions.

Petty's partners quickly withdrew their support, however, leaving the businessman with some difficult choices to make in order to keep the club afloat. Fans were appalled, however, when Petty ordered manager Colin Addison to identify his seven biggest earners and fired them on the spot. But Petty stood up to PFA representative Brendon Batson when more contracts were cancelled and announced that he had a right to do what he wanted with his own property. Such high-handedness riled the fans, as did the fact that Petty's second-in-command, John Shuttleworth, had links to the porn industry.

A supporters' trust was formed to oppose Petty's policies, which received the backing of old pros like Nurse and Curtis. Eames recalls how staff resorted to hiding cash taken at the turnstiles and the club shop to prevent Petty from seizing it, while Marilyn Croft reflects on the willingness of fans to contribute to the bucket collections that sustained the struggle. More militant action was taken by the North Bank Alliance, however, as they glued the locks of the shop and barred gates in order to try and prevent money from coming into the club. A couple of members appear in balaclavas and joke about the abuse they used to hurl at Petty during matches. But, while their passion is admirable, their intimidatory antics were highly reprehensible and the decision to depict the pair as laddish heroes is troublingly flawed.

Assessing his time in charge, Petty remains unrepentent and insists that he had the club's best interests at heart. In some ways, he showed considerable courage in standing up to the protests, pitch invasions and threats, and he did succeed in keeping Swansea going when no one else was willing to take the helm. However, following a 4-1 defeat at Macclesfield Town in the FA Cup, Petty decided to sell up in January 2002 and negotiations began with a cabal comprising Mel Nurse, Martin Morgan, Huw Jenkins, John van Zweden, Brian Katzen, David Morgan, Steve Penny and Leigh Dineen. Petty agreed to a meeting in Cardiff and, as rumours circulated that Customs and Excise were about to close Swansea City down, David Morgan and Steve Penny handed over the £20,000 that Petty wanted for his shares in a Tesco carrier bag.

The transaction is rather cornily recreated in the style of an undercover press sting, but Evans ably conveys how Petty lived down to his name when he demanded the return of his initial £1 outlay and threw the loose change that Morgan and Penny proferred on to the floor. However, Evans opts not to mention the role played in brokering the deal by Jim Moore and Mel Griffin and this selectivity recurs with disappointing frequency throughout the documentary. There's no question that Swansea was better off without Petty. But there is every likelihood that the club would have gone the way of Scarborough, Maidstone United and Newport County had he not taken a gamble, albeit one that never looked likely to pay off.

Despite the optimism among the returning crowds, the new brooms failed to improve matters on the pitch and Swansea faced relegation to the Conference for the first time in its 91-year history. Things got so bad that the players were kept in the changing-room after a home defeat by Kidderminster Harriers in order to protect them from furious fans. But new manager Brian Flynn began to organise a squad that now included local boy James Thomas (who had enjoyed an indifferent spell at Blackburn Rovers), West Ham loanee Leon Britton and journeyman Spaniard Roberto Martinez, who had joined from Walsall. Consequently, Swansea went into the final game of the season knowing that a victory against Hull would keep them up.

The heavens opened on the morning of the match. But stadium announcer Ken Johns raised spirits with the Welsh national anthem, while Curtis gave the players an inspirational pep talk priot to kick-off. His words seemed to have paid off when Thomas converted a penalty to give the Swans the lead. But he had to equalise before half-time after errors by full-backs Lee Jenkins and Michael Howard had handed the initiative to Hull. Thomas freely admits that the second spot-kick should never have been given for handball, but the decision turned the tide and, following a Lenny Johnrose effort, Thomas completed his hat-trick to ensure a 4-2 win.

This proved to be the high point of Thomas's career, as he was forced to retire with a knee injury and now works as an ambulance driver. But Britton would land a full-time deal, while Martinez spent another two years as captain before being appointed manager in 2007. All speculate about how different their lives might have been if fate had conspired against them. But no mention is made of the fact that Flynn was sacked the following season and that it was Kenny Jackett who earned promotion to Division Two in 2005 and won the Football League Trophy in the same 2005-06 season that saw the Swans lose in the Play-Off final at the Millennium Stadium.

Instead, the focus falls on star striker Lee Trundle, whose showboating won the hearts of new fans like Abigail Davies, who admits that Swansea gave her a new passion to counter bouts of anorexia and depression. Trundle's arrival also coincided with the move to the Liberty, which was built on a copper works slag heap, and Evans uses split screens to show the Vetch being demolished as the Liberty was opened with a performance by Bonnie Tyler and the release of hundreds of black-and-white balloons.

But the crucial factor in reinvigorating Swansea City was the partnership between manager Roberto Martinez and chairman Huw Jenkins. Rather curiously, Evans makes a detour at this juncture to meet proud parents Roberto Martinez, Sr. and Amor Montoliu and Gordon and Morfydd Jenkins. They offer insights into their sons' personalities, but we learn little about Martinez's footballing pedigree (other than the fact that he admired the Barcelona philosophy) and nothing whatsoever about how Jenkins made his money after his hopes of becoming a goalkeeper were dashed. Eames and Britton joke about the transition involved in a buddy becoming their boss. But, no sooner has Evans shown us footage of Garry Monk recording a club song and holding up the League Two trophy than we see Martinez decamping to Wigan Athletic in June 2009.

No mention is made of his Portuguese successor, Paulo Souza, as Evans sweeps us through the appointment of Ulsterman Brendan Rogers, who was viewed with some suspicion after undistinguished spells at Watford and Reading. This dig seems deliberate, as Rodgers does not contribute directly to the documentary, even though he led Swansea into the Premier League and won them many friends with their slick passing style. But his successor, Michael Laudrup, is also omitted, even though he guided the club to the League Cup in 2013. Perhaps both men declined invitations to appear. But, even though the film story ends at Wembley in 2011, it does feel as though Rodgers's role has been downplayed and Laudrup has been airbrushed out completely at the behest of club officials who have not forgiven them for their respective treachery and failure.

Moving on seems to be an unpardonable sin at Swansea City. Although Martinez features prominently, Martin Morgan still takes a swipe at him for thinking he could do better at Wigan, while Scott Sinclair is not afforded the same adulation as James Thomas, even though he also scored two penalties in the hat-trick that helped secure a 4-2 victory at Wembley after Reading had staged a sterling fight-back after falling 0-3 behind. Indeed, Leon Britton and current boss Garry Monk are the only players from this side to be interviewed and more time is devoted to the `Braveheart' speech that Kev Johns gave to the fans from the pitch before the game than Sinclair's vital feat during it. There's nothing wrong with a bit of mythologising, but credit should be paid where it's due and one would not like to think that the content of the film has been affected by the deal to sell the DVD in the club shop.

The members of the Nurse consortium have every right to feel pride and satisfaction on looking back at a phenomenal period in the club's history. It is also worth noting in the final caption that 20% of Swansea City is still owned by the supporters. But a better balance might have been struck between the business and footballing aspects of the journey, as they are entirely inter-dependent - as the long-suffering followers of Oxford United will know all too well. This picture may not be coming to a screen near you soon (as it's only showing in one venue outside Wales and that's in London). But it does offer hope to Us fans, as Oxford and Swansea have taken pretty similar paths since the 1980s.

The speed with which close friendships can sour is also apparent in Kenneth Elvebakk's documentary, Ballet Boys. This is the latest in a lengthening line of films about aspiring classical dancers that includes Beadie Finzi's Only When I Dance (2009), Anne Bass's Dancing Across Borders (2010) and Bess Kargman's First Position (2011). In focusing on Norwegian pals Lukas Bjørneboe Brændsrød, Syvert Lorenz Garcia and Torgeir Lund, Elvebakk says nothing new about the sacrifices and physical stresses involved in making the leap from promising aspirant to ballet student. However, he does capture the strain that success places on the friendship between three teenagers who have grown up together and now face the very real prospect of growing apart forever.

Echoing Gene Kelly, Lukas, Syvert and Torgeir are all convinced that dancing is a man's game. They enjoy the gym work involved in toning their bodies. But they get much more pleasure out of dancing with girls, as there is always the chance that one of them might fall in love. As the son of Philippine migrants, Syvert feels that cultural chasms have prevented him from finding a girlfriend. But he is firm friends with Lukas and Torgeir, who are very much strapping Nordic blondes, and this camaraderie is as important to the trio as their love of the dance and any artistic ambitions they may harbour.

However, Torgeir is less talented than Lukas and Syvert and he has to remain in Oslo as they fly to Grasse in France for the Euopean Championships. The pair vow not to get too depondent if they fail, as they know the competition is stiff and that their rivals are keen to secure scholarships with prestigious companies across the continent. However, Syvert goes blank during the latter stages of his routine and has to shuffle off the stage in embarrassment, while Lukas is also eliminated in the first round, despite giving it his best shot.

This setback coincides with the pals being grilled at school by a teacher urging them to devote more time to their studies, as there is a very real chance that they might not make it as dancers. The Lund family fails to put in an appearance, but Ria and Jon Garcia are keen for Syvert to get some qualifications in case he doesn't make the grade, while Esther and Espen Brændsrød wish Lukas has a back-up plan in the event of an injury. But they continue to encourage their boys to make the most of the Norwegian Ballet School and all three seem to revel in the rehearsals for an end of term show.

However, a surprise caption informs us that Syvert has decided to drop out over the summer and both Lukas and Torgeir admit that they had been expecting him to quit, as he was no longer enjoying the early starts and the demands of constant practice. By contrast, Lukas appears to thrive on the rigorous schedule and he wins a prize at the Nordic Ballet Competition in the Swedish city of Falun. Torgeir commends his tenacity and, as winter snows fall, he tips Lukas for big things, especially as he has started applying to schools in London and Zurich, as well as the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO).

As he celebrates his 15th birthday, Lukas is happy to welcome Syvert back to class, as they have known each other since they enrolled and he has missed joking around with him behind the scenes. They agree that friendships are forged in the locker-room and we see the triumvirate dressing in suits for a school party. But things are about to get very serious, as the KHiO auditions are coming up and Lukas, Syvert and Torgeir have all applied for the elite boys' class.

Unsurprisingly, they are nervous on the big day and Elvebakk devotes much time to them undergoing strenuous physical tests to gauge whether they can withstand the pressures of full-time dancing. It seems odd not to show any footage of the actual auditions and one is left to presume that the crew was prevented from filming in the auditorium. Lukas tries to make light of Schlatter disease in his left knee, while Syvert laughs off a few wobbles during a balance test. But Torgeir proves as strong as an ox and he is delighted to receive the news that he has been offered a place alongside his mates.

But Lukas has also been invited to London to try out for the Royal Ballet School and he frets whether his parents will have the money for him to study abroad. He is also anxious about the prospect of leaving home and worries that Syvert and Torgeir will feel betrayed if he gets in, as KHiO needs five males in a class and might withdraw their offer if they cannot make up the numbers. Lukas travels with his father and immediately notices that the standard is much higher than in Norway and recognises that the competition will be beneficial. Thus, even though he feels a long way from home, he sets his heart on being chosen and puts in extra work in the barre room.

Back in Oslo, Lukas joins Syvert and Torgeir in rehearsing a modern dance routine that will be their swan song at the Norwegian Ballet School. However, his mother informs Lukas that an email has arrived from London and the pals romp through the streets singing `The Bare Necessities' in their native tongue. On arriving home, Lukas discovers that he has been accepted by the Royal and he upsets Syvert by letting slip that he had only called to give him the news after Torgeir's phone had gone to voicemail. Syvert wishes him well, but Lukas is distracted by his father coming home and his mother opening a bottle of champagne. Yet he still detects the strain in his friend's congratulations and his parents remind him that Syvert will be disappointed at the gang splitting up and the possibility that his own course may be cancelled.

It's all smiles on high school graduation day, however, as the trio form part of a choir singing about treasuring the moments they have shared as classmates. But, as they prepare for their final dance performance together, Lukas confides to camera that he feels slightly ostracised by Syvert and Torgeir and notices that they have become much tighter since he let them down to follow his own dream. Elvebakk rather archly cross-cuts between footage of Lukas stretching alone and Syvert and Torgeir goofing off in the locker room. But there are plenty of tearful handshakes and hugs following the last curtain call.

By the time autumn comes, Syvert has settled into KHiO and happily accepts such Hell Week ordeals as having his face drawn on in pen. He wonders if Lukas is enduring similar hazing in London or whether he will turn into a Royal Ballet clone. His sneering remark is perhaps understandable, but it is also sad, as neither Syvert nor Torgeir is convinced that he wants to dance for a living and, yet, he deeply resents Lukas for making a positive choice in advancing himself.

Lukas arrives in London with his parents and is shown around his lodgings by a pair of den mothers, who make him take a good behaviour pledge. Esther clearly feels emotional at handing her boy over to surrogates, but Lukas reassures her that he will be fine and his English roommate concurs. Indeed, he responds well to the challenge of learning to stand on his own two feet in classes built upon discipline and tough love. He also realises that he would not have improved so dramatically at KHiO, as he would not have been pushed so hard and would always have been tempted to slacken off with Syvert and Torgeir. It's clear as he dances a duet with his new partner that he very much looks the part and, while he regrets that he doesn't hear much from his friends, Lukas knows that he has made the correct call for himself.

Made over four years, this documentary could be accused of exacerbating the growing gulf between the boys, as Elvebakk is clearly aware that Lukas is the most talented dancer and seems to spend a good deal more time in his company in the expectation that he will provide the best storyline. But he rarely goes into sufficient depth, whether exploring the trio's commitment to their cause or such side issues as school grades, the expense of their training and the toll their exertions are taking on their still-growing bodies.

Elvebakk also seems to skirt matters like Syvert's cultural identity crisis and what KHiO alumni can genuinely expect to achieve once they have graduated. Most peculiarly, though, he shows surprisingly little dance and, thus, Lukas, Syvert and Torgeir may as well have been wannabe footballers or bricklayers, as the tension between fellowship and rivalry would have been pretty much the same.