Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 6/6/2019)

Among the other major names to indulge in a little retooling are Frank Capra (Lady For a Day, 1933) & Pocketful of Miracles, 1961), Alfred Hitchcock (The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1934/1956), Yasujiro Ozu (A Story of Floating Weeds, 1934 & Floating Weeds, 1959), William Wyler (These Three, 1936 & The Children's Hour, 1961), Leo McCarey (Love Affair, 1939 & An Affair to Remember, 1957), and Raoul Walsh (High Sierra, 1941 & Colorado Territory, 1949), Alan Clarke (Scum, 1977/1979), and Michael Mann (LA Takedown, 1989) & Heat, 1995). 

The latter is one of the few remakes that has been universally hailed as superior to its predecessor, with the conversion rate perhaps being understandably lower in the case of second language remakes like those by Roger Vadim (And God Created Woman, 1956/1988), Ole Bornedal (Nightwatch, 1994/1997), George Sluizer (The Vanishing, 1988/1993), John Woo (Once a Thief, 1991/1996), Michael Haneke (Funny Games, 1997/2007), Danny and Oxide Pang (Bangkok Dangerous, 1999/2008), Takashi Shimizu (Ju-on: The Grudge, 2002 & The Grudge, 2004), Gela Babluani (13 Tzameti, 2005 & 13, 2010), Erik Van Looy (The Loft, 2008/2014), and Ken Scott (Starbuck, 2011 & Delivery Man, 2013). 

In 2013, this column suggested that Hollywood actresses would be begging their agents to get hold of the rights to Chilean Sebastián Lelio's Gloria, which had earned Paulina García the Best Actress prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Well, Julianne Moore clearly prevailed in the bidding war and she persuaded Lelio to return to the director's chair for their American variation, Gloria Bell, which is so deftly different from the original that it stands up to comparison and deserves to be hailed as a disarming charmer in its own right. 

Bespectacled divorcée Gloria Bell (Julianne Moore) lives in Los Angeles and works in insurance. She tries to keep in touch with her children, Peter (Michael Sera), and Anne (Caren Pistorius), as well as her own mother, Hillary (Holland Taylor). When not working, Gloria likes to hit the dance floor at retro discos and invariably gets home to discover that a hairless Sphinx cat has managed to find its way into her living room. Her upstairs neighbour is the landlady's son and appears to be having some sort of breakdown, as does Gloria's workmate, Melinda (Barbara Sukowa), who dreads losing the job on which she relies for income and self-esteem. 

One night at the disco, Gloria catches the eye of Arnold (John Turturro), who tries to make small talk at the bar. He asks if she is always so happy and she claims she's the same as everybody else. Arnold explains that he is trying new things, as he has only been divorced for a year. They dance together and tumble into bed, after Gloria removes the Velcro girdle that Arnold uses to hold in his tummy. She enjoys the experience, but is surprised when he invites her to lunch and questions how divorced he really is when he takes a call from his daughter during the meal. Apologising for being a soft touch where his girls are concerned, Arnold shows Gloria a photograph of how he looked before he had gastric band surgery. 

Forever, singing in her car, Gloria even hums along to Paul McCartney's `No More Lonely Nights' as she tweezers a hair from her chin. She returns to the disco with Arnold, who owns a paintball park and they kiss after he shows her around. She introduces him to her friend, Vicky (Rita Wilson), and her husband, Charlie (Chris Mulkey), and they chat about gun control, Arnold's career in the Marines and the end of days. Gloria hopes she goes down dancing and begins to enjoy having Arnold around for dates, discussions and leisurely moments of intimacy, especially when he reads her a romantic poem by Claudio Bertoni. But the moment is ruined by yet another phone call from his needy kids and Gloria is unconvinced when Arnold insists that he doesn't want to tell them about her because they are too emotionally immature to accept that he needs to move on with his life. 

Eager to have him involved in every aspect of her life, Gloria takes Arnold to Peter's birthday party. He is taking care of his infant son, Hugo, while his wife is out in the desert getting in touch with her inner self and he is not particularly enjoying the experience. Gloria introduces Arnold to her ex-husband of 12 years, Dustin (Brad Garrett), whom she hasn't seen since he married Fiona (Jeanne Tripplehorn). However, she puts her foot in it when she asks Anne about her pregnancy and Dustin is dismayed that his daughter is planning to move to Sweden with her surfer beau, Theo (Jesse Irwin). 

The mood lightens, as Fiona vapes dope and Peter plays some Bach on his electronic keyboard. As photographs are handed round, however, Arnold begins to feel uncomfortable and slips away without a word. Gloria makes excuses for him, but Peter is worried that she has saddled herself with an oddball. When he waits by her car at the office and tries to explain that he felt threatened by her easy relationship with Dustin, Gloria tells him to grow up and drives away. However, when someone sings Gilbert O'Sullivan's `Alone Again (Naturally)', Gloria mumbles the last word of the title with a mix of disappointment and hurt. 

A diagnosis of deteriorating sight and the need to take daily eyedrops also saps her spirits. Worse follows when Miranda is fired and Anne flies out to Sweden. So, Gloria seeks solace in a bag of drugs that someone had left on her doorstep by mistake. Arnold keeps phoning and she ignores the calls. But, while watching a dancing puppet skeleton in the street, a sense of how quickly time passes hits her and she picks up and agrees to take a trip to Las Vegas. No sooner have they arrived, however, than he gets news that his ex-wife, Suzanne, has walked through a plate glass door. He promises Gloria that he wants to stay with her. But, when she drops his phone in his soup when it keeps ringing over dinner, he does another disappearing act and Gloria parties hard with Jeremy (Sean Astin), a stranger she met in the casino. 

Waking next morning, with a missing shoe and her valuables missing, Gloria walks barefoot back to Caesar's Palace and uses the reception desk phone to call Hillary to come and collect her. She arrives home to find the cat waiting for her and it becomes her constant companion, as she ignores her landline before pulling the connection out of the wall. But she decides to act when she finds a bag of paintball guns in her boot and peppers Arnold and his house with red splotches. His ex-wife (Jennie Fahn) and daughters (Abby Gershuny and Lauren Brickman) rush out of the house to check he's okay and hurl abuse at Gloria as she drives away. However, she feels good as Bonnie Tyler's `Total Eclipse of the Heart' blares out of the car stereo. Having smoked a joint to compose herself, Gloria goes to the reception for Vicky's daughter's wedding and takes to the dance floor to bop along to Laura Branigan's `Gloria'. 

One of the problems of a transferring remake action to a new country is that the socio-political nuances that made the original so unique tend to fall through the cracks. This is clearly the case here, as while Lelio is forced to ditch the references to Chile in the post-Pinochet era, he and co-writer Alice Johnson Boher fail to replace them with commensurate insights into California under President Donald Trump. Indeed, there is virtually no political undercurrent to action that should be moiling with it, with the attempts to shift the emphasis on to the misogyny of a culture that considers women of a certain age to be less valuable than their male counterparts often feeling slightly tokenistic. 

Nevertheless, this is a fascinating film in the Douglas Sirk-cum-Rainer Werner Fassbinder tradition, particularly for those with fond memories of Gloria. There's little point in comparing Moore and García's performances, as they are both exceptional in their own ways. But, while Garcia had to scrap for what she gets, Moore brings a dignified elegance to her rite of bourgeois passage. Similarly, it's intriguing to note how Arnold is a much more vulnerable character than Rodolfo (Sergio Hernández) and it's much easier to forgive his inability to sever his ties with loved ones his world still revolves around. Of course, his pusillanimity and immature need to be the centre of attention are unappealing and Gloria has every right to expect greater commitment. But he would be far more reprehensible if he abandoned his daughters to pursue a new relationship. After all, Dustin is hardly a model father.

John Turturro excels at this kind of character and the looks he keeps shooting Moore during Michael Cera's birthday party go from desperate to intemperate, as she fails to provide the little smile of reassurance he needs to feel he has not been entirely excluded from the family circle. Such is the emphasis on Moore and Turturro that few of the supporting cast get much chance to shine, although the Sphinx cat is a real scene stealer. 

The songtrack is also memorable, although it's complemented by Matthew Herbert's score with a harmoniousness that extends to cinematographer Natasha Braier's lighting of Dan Bishop's production design and Stacey Battat's costumes. But, while he taps into the seedy grandeur of Vegas, Lelio seems less at home in LA than he did in the London of Disobedience. It will be interesting to see whether he will remain abroad for his next assignment or will return to the Santiago of A Fantastic Woman (both 2017), Either way, Lelio is now as vital a talent as compatriot Pablo Larrain, who serves as his co-producer. 

Since debuting with the TV short, Greek Lover (1999), Jon Jones has built a reputation as a small-screen stalwart. Among his credits are mini-series like The Alan Clarke Diaries (2004), The Diary of Anne Frank (2009) and Titanic (2012), as well as such teleplays as A Very Social Secretary (2005), The Secret Life of Mrs Beaton (2006) and Northanger Abbey (2007). Yet, he has never attempted a cinematic feature until now and, while there is much to commend about Last Summer, it's hard to escape the fact that it feels like something that might have been made some time in the 1970s by the Children's Film Foundation for BBC Cymru. 

Ten year-old Davy Davies (Noa Thomas) hero worships 19 year-old Kevin Morris (Steffan Cennydd), and is prepared to put up with the teasing of his older brother, Iwan (Gruffydd Weston), and Kevin's younger siblings, Rhys (Rowan Jones) and Robbie (Christopher Benning), in order to spend time with him during a long hot 1970s summer. He flinches while watching Kevin kill and cook the fish they catch in the river near their rural home in South Wales and endures being mocked for carrying around a tin of corned beef in his duffel bag. Moreover, he is even prepared to tolerate the fact that Kevin is conducting a secret romance with Yvonne (Ruth Ollman), who works at the local police station with Sergeant Morgan (Steffan Rhodri).

Sensitive to the constant bickering between his doctor father, Glyn (Robert Wilfort), and housewife mother, Sandra (Nia Roberts), Davy becomes worried when he sees Anne Morris (Catherine Ayers) packing a bag to leave farmer husband Hywell (Nathan Sussex) for shepherd Dai Hop (Richard Harrington), who has threatened to kill the Morris family dog, Rex, for attacking his flock. However, he is horrified when Hywell shoots his wife in the back and points the shotgun at Davy hiding behind the sofa before killing himself. Furious with himself for running away when Hywell took aim at him, Kevin tries to protect his siblings from the carnage by taking them to the next field. But he vows to get even with Dai for seducing his mother and has to be calmed down by Morgan and Dr Davies. 

Davy asks if Rhys and Robbie can spend the night at their house, but Angela (Rachel Isaac) from social services thinks it would be better if they went to a halfway house while arrangements were made for their future. Aware he's in no state to take care of them, Kevin reluctantly agrees to them going to Swansea. But Davy (who has a habit of eavesdropping on conversations) runs after the car and promises Rhys and Robbie that they will come and see them as soon as they can. He also sees Morgan load Rex into his police car and Yvonne push Kevin away when he tries to  kiss her and is hurt when his hero shoots him a glare, as he stalks away. 

The next morning, Davy and Iwan go to see Kevin, just as Morgan and Yvonne arrive with Rex. They ask him to take the dog, but it runs away when Kevin strides off to find Dai. Davy chases after Rex, as it charges off in the direction of Dai's fields, and he detours by the house to warn him that Kevin is on the warpath. He stands his ground, however, and gets punched in the face before Kevin is bundled into the back of Morgan's Panda car, with Rex. Unable to comprehend what is going on, Davy asks Dai why he wanted to take Anne away from her family and he explains that he had promised to let Rhys and Robbie live with them. Dai asks Davy to bring him news of how they are getting on, as he had never wanted to cause them such misery. 

Having seen the barn owl that haunts an abandoned farmhouse, Davy and Iwan get told off by their mother for going out without permission. She tells them that it's too dangerous to play in the woods and fields because everything has changed and can never be the same again. However, she agrees to let them visit Rhys and Robbie and they drive to the safe house as a family. Eager to show how much he's missing them, Davy shows them the owl pellets he found at the house and asks if he can keep Rex until them come home. However, he pushes too hard and upsets his pals, who seek refuge in their room and Davy gets a stern look of reproach from Angela. 

In the car, Davy overhears his father say something about a care home in Swansea and Kevin being kept in the dark. Moreover, Glyn telling Sandra about the nasty rumours he has heard about such institutions and how nobody ever benefits from living in them. Consequently, when Morgan brings Kevin to the house for a check-up after the fight with Dai, Davy blurts out the news about Swansea and Kevin accuses Yvonne of being a traitor. With Sandra keen to get her sons away from the fallout, she starts packing a suitcase. But Davy has no intention of going to stay with his granny and climbs out of the bungalow window and unties Rex to prevent him from being put down. He tethers him in the abandoned house and heads to the halfway house, where mean girls Shona (Maise Thornton) and Mimi (Byddia Lewis) hide his bike. 

However, he persuades Rhys and Robbie to come to the woods with him and Iwan finds them to warn Davy that their mum is furious with him for running away. To the accompaniment of The Who's `Join Together' on the soundtrack, they play in the river and go to the owl house, where they marvel at the majestic white bird in flight. But Rex has run away and Davy upsets Robbie when he swears on his mother's life that he had rescued him. The pair tussle and Davy hits Iwan on the head with one of their wooden fishing poles. As he lands on a cow pat, the boys all laugh and the tension between them is forgotten. However, they hear Rex barking and see him kill one of Dai's sheep and Iwan has to stop Davy from hitting the dog with his stick because Rex is merely hungry and following his instincts. 

Davy decides to tell Dai that it was his fault that Rex escaped. But, when they reach his house, they find Kevin inside smashing the windows. When Yvonne shows up, Kevin agrees to shelter the boys for the night in a hut beside the railway line. They start a fire and Davy shares out the corned beef. He recalls how Hywell had calmed down when Rex had come back and ignores Iwan's efforts to shut him up by claiming he had tried to say he was sorry. Robbie takes comfort in Davy's assertion that his father wasn't a monster, but had been so upset that he snapped. Kevin shuts him up when he mentions Dai feeling guilty and swears that he won't be allowed to get away with causing al the chaos. But he also promises to look after his siblings and take them somewhere they can start afresh. 

Waking next morning, Davy heads towards Dai's place with Rex and Kevin's shotgun. Robbie rushes after him and they have to jump into the waterfall pool to avoid being found by the search party being led by Morgan and Dr Davies. They hide behind a tree but Yvonne spots Davy when he treads on a twig. He pleads with her not to blow her whistle and tells her to trust Kevin to do the right thing. She tries to restrain him, but Robbie fires the gun and Davy is able to wriggle away. He is surprised that Robbie intends giving himself up and Kevin is equally frustrated when Iwan and Rhys surrender to a couple of cops. But Davy ploughs on to see Dai and holds him at gunpoint while daring him to shoot Rex for mauling his sheep. Dai tries to explain that Alice was unhappy, but Davy can only understand simple morality and chides him for loving her. However, he hands over the weapon when Dai asks him to take care of Rex and Davy returns home across the fields. 

He bumps into Kevin and informs him that Yvonne is looking for him and they reach the main road just as Davy lets loose some cows to prevent Angela from driving away. Spotting their brother, Rhys and Robbie jump out of the car and the family is reunited, as Davy watches from atop a field gate. His mother wanders up to ask if he is coming home, but he needs a little time to himself and pauses on the stepping stones over the river to lean on his stick and survey his surroundings, like an ancient Welsh king who has restored order to his troubled domain. 

Writer-director Jones has acknowledged the influence of Ken Loach's Kes (1969), Rob Reiner's Stand By Me (1986) and Debra Granik's Winter's Bone (2010). However, the spirit of Enid Blyton hovers over a story that shares themes with Daniel Patrick Carbone's Hide Your Smiling Faces (2013), in which a couple of tweenage lads have to come to terms with a shockingly sudden death. Perhaps this explains why Jones opted for a 70s setting, although the period rarely feels integral to the concept, especially as so many of the themes he raises retain their relevance. This makes it all the more frustrating, therefore, when he fails to examine the mental health of farmers, the insularity of rural communities, the breakdown of traditional ways of life  and the adult assumption that they always know best in any depth. 

To an extent, this choice can be justified by the fact that events are viewed from the perspective of a 10 year-old with only a basic understanding of his world. But the grown-ups keep making eccentric decisions that owe more to the needs of the often disjointed narrative than common sense. Similarly, much of their dialogue is conspicuously arch, particularly when the impressionable Davy is in earshot. He is played with admirable earnestness by newcomer Noa Thomas, although the focus falls so heavily upon him that his peers fail to register. 

Cinematographer Mark Wolf makes solid use of the rolling hills, while keeping the camera moving to convey Davy's restless energy. However, he seems to forget that if it's dark inside the railway hut when the boys first enter it in broad daylight, it will be just as gloomy when Davy wakes early the next morning, as there are no windows for the light to penetrate. Jones also allows Mark Thomas's occasionally overly insistent score to play in the background of scenes that would have benefited from silence. But there's no doubting the sincerity of the picture or the canniness of its insights into the juvenile mind.

Screening at The ICA in London this week is João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora's The Dead and the Others, a fictionalised account of life among the Krahô people dwelling in Tocantins, a state in north-central Brazil. The directors spent nine months in the region and their ethnographical approach recalls that of Gwaii Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown, who made screen history by making SGaawaay K'uuna/Edge of the Knife in the Haida dialect spoken by only a handful of people occupying the Haida Gwaii archipelago off the coast of Canada. With its focus on tribal tradition, however, this sincere, if sometimes sluggish rite of passage recalls Juan Antin's Pachamama, a charming animation set in a village in the Peruvian Andes and centring on a young boy whose desire to become a shaman brings him into contact with the ruling Inca hierarchy and the invading Spanish Conquistadores. 

Fifteen year-old Ihjãc (Henrique Ihjãc Krahô) is woken from a dream and creeps through the jungle to a waterfall to commune with the spirit of his late father. He urges him to complete his funeral rites so that he can rest in peace and a log that Ihjãc tosses into the water bursts into flames. As he needs to find material to repair his thatched roof before the rainy season, Ihjãc ventures outside his village of Pedra Branca with his wife, Kôtô (Raene Kôtô Krahô), and their infant son Tepto. When she asks him where he had gone during the night, he claims he had followed the trail of an anteater and she suspects he is lying to her. 

Kôtô mentions her fears to Amxi while they are swimming in the river and, that night, seeks out grandfather-in-law, Old Crate, at the campfire to ask if he knows a way to help Tepto sleep. He suggests finding a shaman, although his uncle warns against those who kill rather than cure. With his conscience troubling him, Ihjãc tells Kôtô about his encounter with his father's spirit and the fact he refused to follow him to the village of the dead. She is glad he has told her the truth and agrees to say nothing about the incident, as she knows her husband doesn't want the others to think he has the potential to become a shaman. 

While painting her toenails, Kôtô tells her mother that they are going to stay in the swidden for a while so that Ihjãc can complete the preparations for his father's funerary feast. Having consulted with his own mother, Ihjãc leads the family to the clearing so they can make a start on the ritual. It's hard work and grandfather is concerned that the place is so full of baleful mecarõ spirits that it will be difficult to hunt for food. However, they make a kill and spend the night in the ruins of a stone house that had been built after the 1940s massacre to protect the tribe after farmers had tried to drive them from their land. Grandfather recalls the stories he had been told by his mother about these turbulent times. 

The next day, they set fire to the manioc crop that Ihjãc's father had planted to purify the soil. However, he feels tired and is visited by a blue and yellow macaw. Old Crate informs him that the bird is calling him to become a shaman and that he will be powerless to resist. The old man performs a ritual chant to cure Ihjãc of his malaise, but he announces that he intends leaving for the nearest town to escape the macaw's attentions, as he doesn't want the responsibility of being a shaman. 

Hitching a ride across country, Ihjãc reports to the hospital in Itacajá, where his lack of ID and an extensive knowledge of Portuguese makes things difficult. After undergoing tests, he is told by the doctor that he is a hypochondriac and sent to stay in the Support House, where Kôtô had delivered her baby. Although there's plenty going on in the town, including a rodeo parade, Ihjãc soon feels homesick and calls his mother so ask Old Crate to come to town with news that the macaw has forgotten him. Shortly afterwards, however, he is ejected from the Support House after the doctors declare him fit and he has to find alternative accommodation after refusing to return home. 

Mooching around town, Ihjãc plays Street Fighter and sings along to a popular forró song. But, when Kôtô brings Tepto to see him, she reminds him that they don't belong here. He remains scared about going back to the village, however, in case the macaw claims him, So, Kôtô returns home alone. Sleeping rough, Ihjãc is caught in the rain and he calls his mother to ask her to send his grandfather. On a TV screen, we see Palmeiras beating Chapecoense to win the 2016 Campeonata (a result that would take on tragic significance the next day when all but three of the defeated team were killed in a plane crash taking them to Medellin in Colombia to play in the Copa Sudamericana tournament). 

While dozing on a bench, Ihjãc has a dream about a figure (maybe his father?) in traditional tribal dress walking through the empty streets carrying a burning torch. He takes this to be a signal that the time has come to leave. Back in Pedra Branca, while Kôtô and the other women spread manioc and meat on leaves, Ihjãc and his mother work on a memorial log for his father. He confides that he had often felt a paternal presence during his stay in the town and wants the log to do his family proud in front of the kinfolk who have arrived from other villages for the funerary feast. The chief mourners have a line cut into their hair halfway up their heads before Old Crate and the older women paint their bodies to chant through the night. 

When morning comes, there is a log race through the village before the family gathers around the painted log to weep for the departed. Ihjãc looks on solemnly, as the heavens open and his uncle declares that the time of remembrance is over and that everyone should now focus on the future. But Ihjãc tells Kôtô that he will never stop thinking about his father. He also feels as though things have changed because he is now aware of the mecarõ. She reassures him that everything will be okay, but he goes to the waterfall and walks slowly into the deep pool and vanishes from sight. 

Having already won the Palme d'or at Cannes for his 2009 short, Arena, the Lisboan Salaviza took the Jury Prize at Un Certain Regard for this fascinating, if frequently frustrating feature. In many ways, it shares themes with his 2015 debut, Montanha (2015), which explored the dread a teenage boy feels at the approaching death of his beloved grandfather. But in venturing into the Tocantins, Salaviza and Brazilian cinematographer Nader Messora seem to forget that most audiences won't be as well versed in Krahô culture as they obviously are. Consequently, their decision not to explain the significance of the various aspects of the mourning ritual keeps the viewer at an almost touristic remove that will leave many feeling uncomfortable.  

This is partly the point, however, as Salaviza and Nader Messora are keen to contrast the brutal colonial incursions of the 1940s with the subtler encroachment being made by modern technology and consumer goods. Yet, while he clearly isn't at home in both worlds, Ihjãc does seem familiar with phones and video games, while Kôtô paints her toenails with a polish named `Hot Kiss'. But it's the weight of tradition that gets him down and, thus, the co-directors need to be more inclusive in revealing why this is the case. 

Shooting on 16mm, Nader Messora not only captures the ambience of the village, but also the rhythms of daily life. She is ably abetted by Pablo Lamar's immersive sound design and the earnest performances of Henrique Ihjãc Krahô and Raene Kôtô Krahô and an ensemble that helps reinforce a feel of docurealism. It would be a mistake, therefore, to see this simply as an exercise in so-called Slow Cinema. But it's not an easy watch.

With all the talk of chlorinated chicken during Donald Trump's state visit, there couldn't be a better time to screen a film about American farming methods. There have been numerous documentaries over the last decade or so about the ways in which food is produced, packaged and consumed. Among the best are Nikolaus Geyrhalter's Our Daily Bread (2005), Robert Kenner's Food Inc. (2008), Katja Gauriloff's Canned Dreams (2012), Valentin Thurn's Taste the Waste (2011) and 10 Billion: What Will We Eat Tomorrow? (2015), Andreas Pichler's The Milk System (2017) and Stefano Liberti and Enrico Parenti's Soyalism (2018). 

A couple more have examined the extent to which meat impacts upon the human body: Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me (2004) and Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation (2006). Joining that list is Christopher Quinn's Eating Animals, an adaptation of a 2009 book by Jonathan Safran Foer, who has co-produced this thought-provoking and laudably restrained study with narrator Natalie Portman, 

In the opening statement, Portman claims that animals have little sense of past and future. So, if they live primarily in the present and experience nothing but torment, then this will be their sole reality. Ensuing captions explain how industrial farming started in the 1970s and now commands 90% of the American market. The remaining one per-cent is run by independents like Frank Reese at the Good Shepherd Poultrey  Ranch in Lindsborg, Kansas, who knows his farming history and is keen to nurture rare and classic breeds in total freedom to honour the country's agricultural heritage and avoid inflicting the cruelty that is built into the battery system. 

Portman relates how a shipping error in 1923 led to Cecile Long Steele receiving 500 chickens instead of 50 and her decision to keep them indoors for the winter has been credited with turning the Delmarva Peninsula in Delaware into America's poultry capital and with launching the idea of industrial farming. Almost a century later, Larry Baldwin and Rick Dove from the Waterkeeper Alliance are monitoring the pollution poured into the Trent River in Duplin County, North Carolina by the vast pig and poultry farms on their doorstep. An aerial view shows the pink `hog lagoons' abutting the enormous sheds and Dove describes how they are full of antibiotic-filled effluence. 

Dale Jamieson, a professor of environmental studies and philosophy, reveals that the Earth is 5.3 billion years old and that mammals have been around for 60 million years. Anatomically modern humans emerged about 200,000 years ago, while recognisable civilisation began some 10,000 years ago. However, since the Great Acceleration started in the postwar Anthropocene period, increased strain has been placed on the planet's eco-system. Yet, as more people gained access to decent lifestyles, more became disenfranchised and individuals have less say and power over their existence than at any time in human history. 

Jamieson believes that we have no idea where we are heading or who we are as a species. Part of the problem seemingly lies in the life of Colonel Harland Sanders, who began frying chicken to make extra money at his gas station. We see clips of him lamenting the fact that the corporations who acquired his empire in the mid-1960s haven't always stuck to his standards of quality control. This brings us to Fairmont, North Carolina to meet Craig Watts, who raises chickens for Perdue Farms. He concedes he should have listened to his wife, Amelia, when she questioned the wisdom of becoming a contract farmer and admits he is up to his eyes in debt and has to keep on signing increasingly unfavourable deals simply to stay in business. 

According to Jamieson, there was no master plan to implement industrial-scale farming and the incremental nature of the shift prevented people from realising the animal cruelty and environmental depletion involved until the food chain had become dependent upon the so-called `efficient' methods that Bruce Friedrich of the Good Food Institute claims are responsible for the spikes in climate change and water and air pollution. Paul Willis disapproved of this approach and we travel to Thornton, Iowa to hear how he started the trend for `free range pigs' in the 1970s. He claims one San Francisco restaurateur confided that he produced the best-tasting pork in America. 

As he herds his cattle into a field, Bill Niman regrets that the public has ceased to associate the meat they're eating with the `murder' of an innocent animal. He feels a pang when he sells creatures he has often hand-reared and believes that consumers would turn against Big Agriculture if they knew the truth about `confinement farming'. Back on his farm, Frank Reese describes how the corporations have been breeding the intelligence out of turkeys so that they now have to be artificially inseminated because they have lost an understanding of the need to breed. Diagrams accompany Portman's narration, as she reveals how the birds have been genetically modified to produce more meat, while Chris Leonard of the New America Association avers that corporate food production is run by a Soviet-style Politburo, with a supercomputer in Springdale, Arkansas gauging the numbers of chickens required to meet demand. 

A flashback introduces us to John Tyson and his son, Don, who started from nothing in Arkansas and made it big by inventing what became known as the Chicken McNugget. Don Tyson also devised the `tournament system' that paid by results and pitted neighbours against each other, as low-rating farmers would lose money that would go in bonuses to the most efficient contractees. Leonard reveals that Tyson farmers can be sued if they share information and rival companies latched on to this operational procedure, as it guaranteed a consistency of quality and penalised the farmers for any failure. Craig Watts prays that none of his children follow him into this spirit-sapping business, which has reduced him to envying indentured serfs, as they weren't saddled with the debts he has to manage. 

As we head to Central Valley, California, Portman describes how Tulare Lake dried out after the Yokut Indian Nation had been brutally removed in the 1850s so that the water could be diverted to irrigate the new state's farms. These have since been taken over by the Big Ag and Friedrich accused those who eat meat of being complicit in the misery that is inflicted upon the nine billion farm animals in the United States. He claims that abattoir jobs are among the worst in the county and that every carnivore morally accepts that these people slaughter on a vast scale so that they don't have to get blood on their hands. 

Back in Lindsborg, the turkeys are being shipped out ahead of Thanksgiving and Frank Reese, Sr. insists that his son does things the humane way and that he is protecting species that would otherwise have died out. But Reese also admits that he has to sell to remain in business, although sustainability is  becoming increasingly difficult because the conglomerates lean on the slaughterhouses to prevent them working with the independent farmers. However, his situation is jeopardised when the abattoir to which he sent his 2600 turkeys failed a safety inspection, as standards were allowed to drop in the face of a bank foreclosure, and Reese wasn't paid for the birds he had supplied.

Moving on to Hastings, Nebraska, Jim Kean, professor of veterinary epidemiology, and his wife Connie take us to the US Meat Animal Research Centre, which took over premises that had manufactured munitions during the Second World War. Kean had become so appalled by the abuses he witnessed while working at the facility that he had handed files to Michael Moss of the New York Times. The pair are followed by a security vehicle while driving along a public road close to the centre and, the night he filmed his interview, he was visited by the FBI, which sought to intimidate him by presenting him with his dossier, even though he has no criminal record. 

Craig Watts also hit his limit while watching a Perdue advert that he felt gave a false impression of how their chickens were kept. He takes the crew to his shed to show the various health problems the birds were experiencing and reveals his dismay at the company's lack of interest. So, he sought out Amanda Hitt, an attorney with the Government Accountability Project, who warned him that whistleblowers are often subjected to merciless reprisals. But he posted a video that caught the attention of Leah Garces, from Compassion in World Farming USA. However, it also made headline news and Watts was targeted by Perdue welfare inspectors in a bid to discredit him. 

But the corporations are very careful to prevent people from seeing inside their farm buildings and the so-called `Ag-Gag' law was passed to make it an offence to take any sort of image on their premises. Lindsay Wolf, from Mercy for Animals, recruits workers to film secretly and processes their footage. Professor of Animal Science Temple Grandin believes Ag-Gag was the stupidest thing the industry could have done, as it gave the impression it had something to hide. She believes Big Ag's size makes it vulnerable and was delighted that the leaked videos forced the authorities into changing their animal handling practices. 

Gene Baur, the founder of Farm Sanctuary, takes us to the site of the former Hallmark/Westland facility in Chino, California, which was closed down after the Humane Society received footage of malpractice in 2008. We see forklift trucks harassing dairy cows that had been sent down for slaughter and learn that the meat was earmarked for the school lunch programme. Portman launches an attack on the United States Department of Agriculture for using celebrities with milk moustaches to promote dairy products while doing next to nothing about cases of food poisoning. She accuses the USDA of protecting corporations rather than the population by ignoring advice on chemicals in animal feed and silencing the whistleblowers who are now doing the job it was created to do by Abraham Lincoln. 

Dr Neal Barnard, from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, claims that politicians suffer at the ballot box if subsidies dry up or if active steps are not taken by Washington to keep their products on lists of healthy dietary items. Portman describes some of the hideous conditions suffered by intensely farmed dairy cows and even reveals that udder pus winds up in the milk supply. The accompanying images are the most graphic and shocking of the film so far and would not have been out of place in Victor Schonfeld and Myriam Alaux's The Animals Film (1981), which was narrated by another Oscar-winning actress, Julie Christie. 

As we hear about the family issues that had afflicted Jim Kean since he took his stand, we learn that Paul Willis has decided to sell up after 40 years because a neighbour sold some land to a company that built a confined animal feeding operation and this convinced him that his uphill struggle was no longer worthwhile and Portman notes that his expertise will be lost to an industry that no longer cares about the old ways. Reese mourns the passing of a genuine passion for the vocation of rearing livestock and says it's impossible to form an attachment to an animal that has been genetically engineered to gain weight and die after six weeks. 

Portman reveals that nearly 80% of all antibiotics produced by the pharmaceutical industry are used in factory farming. However, this has led to the mutation of superbugs that have an immunity to the chemicals ingested through foodstuffs. Bob Martin, from the Centre for a Livable Future, and Dr Peter Kaiser, from the Roslin Institute for Infectious Diseases, are concerned that the spread of American industrialised poultry methods to places like Namakkal in India, will expose humans to potential pandemics like the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak, which claimed 25 million lives in a 25-week period, as an estimated one-third of the planet fell ill. 

Several of the talking-heads concur that another pandemic is inevitable and Jian Yi and Eva Song from Suzhou in China recall the avian flu crisis and suggest that the increase in meat consumption was a major contributing factor. They have become vegetarians and Portman claims that the future of the planet will depend upon the dietary choices taken by the combined populations of China and India. 

Hoping to help them find tasty alternatives are Ethan Brown, who runs Beyond Meat at Savage River Farms in Garrett County, Maryland, and Josh Tetrick, whose Just company is based in San Francisco. They are looking at how plant proteins can be used to produce non-meat burgers and cookies. Tetrick reveals that Thomas Edison's electric light was considered a `gaslight substitute' and it took over because it was easy and affordable and this has to be the lesson if Big Ag's monopoly is to be challenged. 

Economising enables Reese to stay in business and turn an unexpected profit for the first time in years. But he continues to struggle to protect species he knows will die out without his dedication. Now separated from Connie, Jim Kean has moved to Lincoln, Nebraska to find a job. However, he has no regrets and has channelled his emotions into activism. Baldwin and Dove similarly refuse to go quietly, as they battle laws that protect the profit-making few rather than the imperilled many. 

By contrast, Craig Watts has given up bird farming and battles to feed his wife and three children while managing his debts. He hopes diversification can solve the problem of having all one's eggs in a single basket, but he has a hard road to hoe. Perhaps he could learn a lesson from Phil Willis, who has given over part of his property to traditional prairie grasses and flowers and is enjoying the resulting wildlife dividend. Indeed, Reese advocates re-educating farmers in the traditional ways to bypass the agricultural colleges run by Big Ag and has founded the Good Shepherd Poultry Institute. 

The final shot of Reese walking at the front of his waddling flock recalls Ian Holm leading his geese in Richard Eyre's Singleton's Pluck (1984) and one can only hope that enough people see this important documentary for it to make a difference. Sadly, it stands a better chance of this on television than in cinemas and one fears that squeamish programme schedulers will be put off by some of the unflinching footage that Quinn has amassed to bolster the points made in the script co-written with Foer, who is renowned for such novels as Everything Is Illuminated (2002) and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005).

As is often the case in films about the food industry and its economic and environmental ramifications, it's easier to highlight problems than suggest solutions. Quinn gives a couple of veggie burger companies a namecheck, while applauding the efforts of his contributors to find alternatives to factory farming. But anyone familiar with the aforementioned titles will find a lot of overlap. Of course, those newer to the subject will be more impressed and if they act on what they've seen, this often visually poetic picture will have done its job.

The vogue for fashion documentaries shows no sign of abating, as Frédéric Tcheng pays tribute to Roy Halston Frowick in Halston. Having edited Matt Tyrnauer's Valentino: The Last Emperor (2008), joined Lisa Immordino Vreeland and Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt in directing Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011) and gone solo to chronicle Raf Simons's first year at an iconic atelier in Dior and I (2014), Tcheng is clearly the man for the job. Yet, while he improves upon Whitney Sudler-Smith's self-aggrandising efforts in Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston (2010), not everyone will be sold on the framing detective conceit that gives Tcheng the opportunity to focus on anecdotal gossip as much as aesthetic achievement. 

Our sleuth is an anonymous drone in the Halston archive (actually. fashion writer Tavi Gevinson), who takes 1984 as a starting point to ask where it all went wrong for the king of American couture. First, however, we have to hark back to the heyday and Tom Fallon, Halston's assistant in the millinery department at the Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan, recalls how he developed a persona for dealing with his A-list clientele. He had no idea, therefore, that he hailed from Des Moines, Iowa, as Halston was the man who had dressed Jacqueline Kennedy for the 1961 Presidential Inauguration. He also designed the masks worn by hundreds of guests at Truman Capote's famous 1966 Black-and-White Ball. But Halston was not invited to the do, even though rumours persist that he somehow snuck in. 

Despite bearing a resemblance to Peter Fonda, being gay impacted upon Halston's status and film-maker friend Joel Schumacher recalls the joy of being free to express one's identity at Fire Island. He went to work for Halston when he left Bergdorf's in 1968 and set up a studio on 68th Street and Madison Avenue. Columnist R. Couri Hay, actress-model Marisa Berenson and jewellery designer Elsa Peretti recall the eclectic décor with fondness, while models Pat Cleveland, Nancy North and Karen Bjornson eulogise about his first collection. We see Halston as a guest on What's My Line after he invented Hot Pants and writer Bob Colacello name drops Andy Warhol as one of his oldest friends from the 1950s in considering the closeness of his relationship with fashion illustrator Joe Eula. 

Historian Patricia Mears notes the influence of controversial designer Charles James and describes how they fell out when Halston hired him to work on a collection. James bitterly accused him of plagiarism, a charge that workroom supervisor Fred Rottman refutes, while admitting that he relaxed rigorous James concepts to make them wearable for modern women. Models Alva Chinn and Chris Royer reflect on how freeing his clothing was and tailor Gino Balsamo remembers how tricky it was to cut and sew fabric across the bias to ensure that it flowed. Fred Dennis at the Fashion Institute of Technology compares his patterns to pieces of modern art. Yet Halston could also be irreverent, however, and used Warhol alumna Pat Ast as a greeter at his studio and had her pop out of a birthday cake at the Coty Awards, for which he and Warhol had created a fashion talent show, complete with Bjornson playing the clarinet. 

Our detective declares that Halston was a man with little interest in the past and we see him avoiding discussing his peripatetic childhood in an interview. Sassy Johnson, the director of Made-to-Order, remembers his mother coming to the studio and insisting that his name was pronounced with a short `a' (as in Hal). But he only ever looked forward and revelled in having famous friends like Liza Minnelli, who claims that his clothes danced with her. However, his fondness for David Mahoney of Norton Simon would backfire after the company bought Halston out in 1973 and made him an employee of his own label. 

At the outset, however, he scored a triumph at a Franco-American fashion show at Versailles in 1975, even though Minnelli had been forced to save the day after Halston had stropped out because he felt the French designers were trying to belittle their transatlantic partners by denying them rehearsal time. On his return to New York, he bought a Paul Randolph modernist townhouse that Norton Simon managing director Michael Lichtenstein remembers being the height of chic. He urged Halston to market a fragrance and secretary Podie Lynch recalls him asking Peretti to design a teardrop bottle. 

Max Factor hated it, but it became a runaway bestseller and Halston was soon putting his name on bags, shoes, sheets and rugs. He designed the outfits for the Avis car rental team and the 1976 US Olympic squad, while also rethinking the leader uniforms for the Girl Guides. However, he also started snorting cocaine to help him cope with the strain of the job and secretary Faye Robson admits that he stopped being quite such a workaholic when he discovered Studio 54. Colacello remembers Halston befriending the likes of Mick and Bianca Jagger and Elizabeth Taylor. He also added Venezuelan Victor Hugo to his entourage as both his window dresser and as his lover. But Eula felt they were doomed the day they met and the sex, drugs and disco, although he also disliked the company's new premises in Olympic Tower. 

VP of Sales Don Friese considers this the grandest fashion house in New York history, with Halston designing the interiors himself to make everyone from the workshops to the showrooms feel they were in luxurious surroundings and a key part of the team. But he also lured in Hollywood megastars to model for him and PR executive Paul Wilmot remembers them being known as `the Halstonettes'. The danger was, however, that he would start to believe his own publicity and his antics certainly earned him envious reproaches from some of his competitors. 

In 1980, however, it was Halston who was chosen to visit China, as part of an `opening up' exercise and design assistant Naeem Khan is still amazed by the ambition and scope of an enterprise that included visits to a silk factory to show the staff how their hard work had allowed him to create. But, while this was a huge PR triumph and Halston emerged as America's fashion ambassador, there were grumblings behind the scenes, as a film crew followed the party everywhere and people began to tire of Halston's unique brand of bullying perfectionism. 

As Halston became more of a loner, Eula and Peretti jumped ship. However, business was also starting to slow down, as new names like Calvin Klein and Harry Ellis emerged as serious competitors. Yet, in 1982, he signed a billion dollar deal with JC Penney, in a bid to dress Middle America by going from `class to mass'. Some sneered that he was lowering his standards, but the Halston 3 show went well. Unfortunately, Bergdorf's felt the Penney connection cheapened the brand and stopped selling Halston lines. Other stores followed suit and Halston came to realise the deal was toxic, especially when close confidantes within the company began to bail on him. 

Moreover, things began to sour with Mahoney after he failed in a bid to buy out Norton Simon, which passed into the hands of Esmark. Apart from Playtex, this behemoth had no interest in fashion and Halston found himself having to deal with uncompromising new boss Joe Smilow. He tells the camera that Esmark was the New York Yankees and Halston was a farm team from upstate Bethlehem and snorts that only a fool would waste their time with the amateurs. Niece Lesley Frowick has more contempt, however, for Carl Epstein, a brash Brooklynite who was made managing director by Esmark. 

Ironically, Halston had a soft spot for Epstein and hoped he would be able to work with him. He even made a crown for him, as the new company king. But Playtex executive Walter Bregman was appalled by the slack conduct of the business and the notion that Halston worked when it suited him because he was an artist. Florist Peter Wise recalls Esmark demanding drastic cuts in the flower and catering budgets, while secretary Lisa Jay remembers how furious Halston was when Epstein cut his entourage for a gala in Paris with choreographer Martha Graham. But this was just the beginning of the end. 

Costume designer John David Ridge was promoted to junior designer to work on the Penney collection. He hated the hours and the atmosphere and wanted to quit, but Epstein assured him that things were going to change, as he planned on clipping Halston's wings. Attorney Malcom 'Nick' Lewin has no doubt that Esmark set out to isolate Halston and Ridge became their stooge, after he submitted a jacket design to mollify Penney's when Halston had fallen behind with their June range. Epstein tries to explain that they were running a business and that belts had to be tightened. But there's a smugness in Bregman's revelation that he started calling Halston by his first name, as he no longer owned his surname. 

When he attempted to change the locks at Olympic Tower to keep Esmark out, however, Halston overstepped the mark and he was fired. Epstein then sold off the samples he felt were taking up space and erased the videotapes of Halston's shows. Fortunately, he had kept copies of many of them (otherwise this film would have been all talking-heads), but Frowick and Lewin are in no doubt that this was a hostile gesture to reaffirm their power after the boardroom coup. Epstein claims he gave employees their lives back by normalising their hours, but Balsamo confides that the place became very dull, as the movie stars disappeared and they had to produce Ridge's prosaic designs for Penney's. 

At his niece's suggestion, Halston reconnected with his estranged siblings and accepted the need to slow down. In 1988, however, he revealed to her that he was HIV+ and he sold the house and spent his remaining days with his family in California. Schumacher, Cleveland and Bjornson admit to not knowing he was sick, as he dropped out of sight. He died on Oscar night 1990 at the age of 57 and had Aaron Copeland's `Fanfare for the Common Man' played at his funeral. The news coverage was respectful, but the implication was that he was already yesterday's man. As the film ends, Gevinson dons a dramatic red dress and admires herself in a series of mirrors. It's a tacky way to sign-off on an ill-conceived gambit, especially as the investigation the narrator was supposed to have been conducting leaves so much under wraps.

As eulogies go, this one is unsentimental and hugely entertaining. But it offers frustratingly little insight into how Halston actually revolutionised American fashion by singularly failing to place him in any kind of couture context. We don't even discover how he got into fashion, how he landed his pivotal position in the Bergdorf millinery department or how he came to the attention of a First Lady in need of a pillbox hat. Similarly, while it spends a lot of time basking in the reflected glow of the label's glamour, the film opts against examining Halston's business acumen in any detail and prefers, instead, to follow the Frowick line of demonising Epstein by making him seem boorishly uncouth. 

But the biggest flaw is the reluctance to discuss the childhood and private life of a man who reinvented himself in order to appear at ease in the spotlight. Passing references are made to his drug use and the stormy nature of his 15-year liaison with Victor Hugo. But viewers will have to make up their own minds whether the decision not to lift the veil is down to tact or timidity. Collaborating with Èlia Gasull Balada, Tcheng's editing is clipped and coherent, while Stanley Clarke's score has a pleasurably jazzy vibe. But one is always left with the impression that important, if unpalatable parts of the story are being withheld.

CinemaItaliaUK returns with Adele Tulli's highly distinctive documentary, Normal. Adopting an entirely observational stance that recalls the work of Nikolaus Geyrhalter and Godfrey Reggio, this marks something of a departure from the methods employed in 365 Without 377 (2011), which examined changing Indian attitudes to same-sex relationships, and Rebel Menopause (2014), a short profile of eightysomething feminist Thérèse Clerc. A graduate of the Screen Documentary course at Goldsmiths in the University of London, Tulli is currently doing post-doctoral research at the University of Sussex. But, while this intelligent exploration of perceptions of gender normativeness in millennial Italy makes demands on the audience, it's anything but inaccessibly academic.

Following underwater shots of a pregnancy exercise class, we see a close-up of a small girl named Alma waiting to have her ears pierced. The besuited man performing the operation tells her how cute she looks, while her mother coos about how she will soon look like her. She is clearly apprehensive, but lets little emotion slip as the studs are clipped into her lobes and she smiles shyly on seeing herself in a mirror. Her rite of passage is contrasted with that of a nameless boy being prepared by his father for a minibikes race. They discuss how brave he was for not being afraid of the wind while camping out in a tent before dad imparts some procedural information that his son doesn't appear to be taking in. We see the competitors on the grid and a get a brief glimpse of the action on the serpentine track before the segment ends on a shot of the young lad reflecting with quiet satisfaction on his achievement, while still wearing his helmet and protective clothing.

New mums use their strollers during a keep fit class in a park, while divers hands manufacture plastic toys in a noisy factory. We see pieces being fitted together for an ironing board set, as well as the gender-designated packaging for toolbox and kitchen sets. The picture on the label for a dressing-table set shows a young girl wearing lipstick gazing dreamily into the middle distance and this sense that `one day my prince will come' is thrown into relief by footage of adolescent girls screaming at a meet-and-greet with YouTube star Antony di Francesco. There's something Duce-esque about the way he waves to them from an upper window before giving them a quick hug and careless kiss when they are allowed inside to pose for commemorative snaps with their idol, who barely looks up from squiggling his autograph on copies of the book that each girl has bought before being abruptly moved on by his minders. 

Tulli cuts to close-ups of the screen-lit faces of boys of various ages playing a video game. They are wearing headphones and we are aware of the sound effects for a military scenario that is shown before a cross-cut takes us to a war games exercise, in which young males in macho protective masks shoot at each other with pellet guns. Images of lads trying to keep their balance in a gyrating fairground ride give way to a top shot down on to a kayak being paddled on tranquil water. On the soundtrack, however, we hear a teenager and his PUA Training counsellor discussing ways of talking to the opposite sex. As the kid comes up with opening gambits (some of which are wince-inducingly chauvinist), his mentor evaluates their alpha male effectiveness and asks how he would tailor his chat-up lines to impress a `bitter woman'. 

Clips of women subjecting themselves to facial electrolysis, vibratory muscle stimulation and a sunbed session are followed by footage of bright young things attending a beach party. Boys and girls alike have dressed to impress according to trendy fashion expectations, but the outfits worn by the latter are markedly more revealing. A photographer poses Diana and Diego for some wedding pictures near a marina and blithely remarks that `the man always has to take the initiative'. As the shoot moves on to the beach, Diego is asked to adopt a series of manly poses, as he sweeps his bride into his arms, while she is asked to raise her foot off the ground during a passionate embrace. 

Shifting from wedded bliss to the realities of married life, we see a Catholic priest conducting a group guidance session, in which he considers how couples drift apart through a lack of communication and a dimming of sexual desire. He scotches myths about innocence and says that both parties are inevitably to blame if one partner cheats on the other. His words are received with respectful silence and the odd dutiful smile (as well as one female yawn). But they belong to a different age, as do the scantily clad girls dancing with a hose pipe at a moto convention. The shot of the row of motorbikes that opens the segment is designed to remind us of the little lads footling around on their minibikes. But, while there wasn't a female in sight in that sequence, there are several women and girls watching both this unedifying spectacle and the slow-motion destruction of a car by a string of sledgehammer-wielding petrolheads. 

Any hopes that the pungent whiff of fumes can be borne away by a bracing sea breeze are quickly dashed by a diversion to the beach games taking place away from the tideline where people of all ages, shapes and sizes are happily paddling. Shots of kids on a well-slicked water slide are followed by the sight of three boys ogling a pole-dancing exhibition. Further along the shore, there's a Muay Thai display and another open-air exercise session, which this time involved women bouncing on small trampolines. But nothing quite prepares the audience for the Miss Mondo section, which sees a panel of mostly white middle-aged males listening gawpingly as a woman quizzes the contestants about their career plans. A couple are interested in the law, another wants to become a military engineer, while a third is keen to work in criminology. At the end of her presentation, however, she is asked if she has a boyfriend before being told to lift up her hair and her chin for some photographs. She is then required to walk away from the judges in her high heels and we cut away to a full-length body shot from the low angle close-ups of bikini-clad buttocks that have been used throughout the segment. 

From one stereotype to another, as a middle-class wedding planner in Lecce lectures a group of brides to be about the changes they can expect when they return from their honeymoons and have to start cooking and cleaning for their new husbands. She reminds them not to let themselves go and urges them to be attentive to their menfolk, especially during and after pregnancy, as they will often find themselves with two babies to care for. No wonder Ilaria's hen night friends tunefully plead with her not to get married after they bundle into the back of a stretch limo for a raucous party, complete with phallic cakes and deely boppers. 

Backstage at a magic show, we see a conjuror being made up to cut his glamorous assistant in half. He also makes her disappear and replaces her head with a ball of fire. No wonder he needs to relax afterwards with a well-earned cigarette. The film ends on a classier note, however, as Marco and Pasquale conclude their civil partnership in the spectacular setting of the Teatro Communale in Ferrara. They pose on the stage for photographs with family and friends before toasting each other in champagne and serving a colourfully chic variation on the traditional wedding cake. As they closing credits roll, we rejoin the stroller exercise club, as they pass through the frame, squatting to the chirpy encouragement of their MammaFit instructor.  

There's nothing accidental about a cine-essay as meticulously made as this one and a good deal of Flahertyesque selectivity has gone into the content, staging and juxtaposition of its vignettes But the effect is both potent and provocative, as Tulli's `unexpected atlas' forces the audience to reassess where normality lies in the passing parade of situations and the social constructs that ensure that even the most seemingly outdated continue to be regarded as the norm at the tail end of second decade of the 21st century. It would be fascinating to eavesdrop on the conversations of those leaving the cinema after the screening, as this is very much a film whose meaning will vary according to the beholder - even though it shouldn't.

In creating this `mosaic of associations' to convey the `spectacle of the super-normal reality of everyday life', Tulli is much indebted to Clarissa Cappellani and Francesca Zonars, as well as fellow editors Ilaria Fraioli and Elisa Cantelli. Andrea Koch's splendidly eclectic score also does much to reinforce the rhythm of the piece, while also keeping minds focused with its playful shifts of tone. In eschewing caption and voiceovers, Tulli set out to avoid putting a pedagogical or ideological imprint on the images. But the authorial voice is consistently discernible, as, indeed, it should be when it talks such eminently good sense in addressing the conventions and contradictions on which a supposedly civilised society is balanced.