Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 27/3/2014)

Flying into Charles de Gaulle aiport after four years away, Iranian Ali Mosaffa is greeted through thick plate glass by estranged wife Bérénice Bejo as he makes his way through customs on to the concourse. Despite the fact he is returning to France to finalise their divorce, there is still a frisson between the pair, as they drive in the rain to the north-eastern suburb of Sevran, where Bejo lives in a cul-de-sac adjoining the railway line.

The pair exchange hesitant glances as they travel, with Bejo's feisty nature emerging during her interaction with other motorists and her struggle to find a parking spot. But a surprise awaits Mosaffa, who has accepted an invitation to stay at the family home for the duration of his trip. Bejo and daughters Pauline Burlet and Jeanne Jestin now share the premises with Tahar Rahim and his young son, Elyes Aguis. Moreover, Bejo is pregnant with Rahim's child and they plan to marry. However, as the teenage Burlet is quick to disclose, she dislikes Rahim intensely and informs Mosaffa that his wife, Aleksandra Klebanska, has been in a coma for eight months, since she discovered his infidelity and attempted to commit suicide.

As Bejo works in a chemist shop and Rahim owns a dry-cleaning business, Mosaffa finds himself babysitting Jestin and Aguis. He fixes a broken bicycle chain, unclogs a blocked drain and helps tidy up the cluttered garden. Despite being taken aback on discovering that his belongings are piled unceremoniously in the shed, Mosaffa also cooks dinner for the kids (none of whom are his) and bandages a cut finger. He even mucks in with the decorating and mops up spilt paint without complaint, even though he is hurt by the fact that Bejo is essentially erasing all traces of his ever having lived in the place.

Burlet is as temperamental as her mother and the pair have a blazing row that results in Burlet running away to stay with Mosaffa's friend, Babak Karimi. Bejo dispatches Mosaffa to make peace and Burlet confides that she forwarded email exchanges between Bejo and Rahim to Klebanksa and feels entirely responsible for her fate. Mostaffa reassures her that she could not have known how a stranger would have reacted. But the tensions between Burlet and Bejo prompt Rahim and Aguis to move back to their flat above the shop and mother and daughter have another furious argument that takes them a while to recover from. Shortly afterwards, it emerges that Rahim's assistant, Sabrina Ouazani (who disapproved of her boss's adultery) had told Klebanska the truth about his affair and, feeling guilty for the suffering he has caused, Rahim pays his wife a rare visit in hospital. He is curious whether the smell of his aftershave will rouse her and, much to his consternation, she reaches out to squeeze his hand.

Typically, Farhadi leaves us wondering whether this is a gesture of reassurance or possessive reclamation. But so many loose ends are left dangling tantalisingly at the end of this thoughtful picture. How, for example, will Bejo and Mosaffa reconcile their feelings for one another and their untenable situation? However, Farhadi is less concerned with the future than the way in which the past impacts upon the present. He is also fascinated by the way people muddle along in domestic units while carrying so much emotional baggage. Consequently, he devotes much time to capturing the shabby cosiness of a residence in one of the poorest parts of the capital. Yet, he eschews banelieue clichés, just as he avoids touristy vistas of the City of Light. This is a Paris of real people and, if their problems are slightly convoluted and Farhardi tends to make the men easier going and less emotional than the women, this always feels like a slice of life.

Bejo holds the picture together, but quite whether she merited the Best Actress prize at Cannes is another matter, as the focus of the action's two key segments falls on Mostaffa and Rahim. However, the acting is impressive all round, with Bulet combining viciousness and vulnerability to touching effect, while Mostaffa and Rahim forge a bond that is not only believable, but also revealing in its undercurrent of chauvinism, which slightly dissipates the film's humanist timbre. Yet, the locale often proves as enlightening as the performances, with Claude Lenoir's interiors reinforcing a sense of homely chaos that pervades proceedings that are photographed with teasing restraint by Mahmoud Kalari, whose lighting of the interiors is as delicate as Evgueni and Youli Galperine's sparingly used score.

Not everyone has been convinced that French-Canadian actor-director Xavier Dolan is the wunderkind he clearly believes himself to be. Since debuting at the age of 20, the onetime child star has already completed the `impossible love' trilogy of I Killed My Mother (2009), Heartbeats (2010) and Laurence Anyways (2012). Now, he moves on to Tom At the Farm. Yet, even though such productivity at such a young age is remarkable, many continue to dismiss Dolan as self-indulgent and self-obsessed. Abjuring the flamboyance that characterised his first outings, this fourth feature feels closer in tone to a Patricia Highsmith novel or an Alfred Hitchcock thriller. But, even though it has been adapted from a play by Michel Marc Brouchard, this is still very recognisably a Dolan picture. Yet, while he still can't quite resist giving himself a surfeit of close-ups, Dolan demonstrates an edgy new finesse that pushes his neo-noir melodrama in the direction of Claude Chabrol's masterly dissections of prejudice and hypocrisy.

Mourning the death of his lover, Caleb Landry Jones, Xavier Dolan travels from Montreal into the Quebecois countryside for the funeral. As the landscape changes, Frida Boccara's Gallic version of `Windmills of Your Mind' plays on the soundtrack and it is clear that Dolan is not looking forward to the ordeal for all sorts of reasons. Arriving at the remote farmhouse to find no one home, Dolan lets himself in and dozes off at the kitchen table, where he is awoken, some time later, by his boyfriend's ageing mother, Lisa Roy. She was clearly not expecting Dolan and has no idea of the nature of his relationship with Jones. But Dolan plays along that he is a close friend who wanted to pay his last respects and even agrees to say something at the service the following day.

As he sleeps that night, Dolan is roughly roused by Jones's older brother, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, who threatens him with dire consequences if Roy ever finds out that her son was gay. He explains how he has created a fake girlfriend to keep Roy from becoming suspicious and Dolan readily agrees to do nothing that will distress his hostess. The next morning, however, he decides against giving a eulogy and there is an awkward silence before priest Jacques Lavallée continues with the requiem.

As Dolan visits the bathroom after the committal, he is confronted by an angry Cardinal, who assaults him for upsetting Roy. Dolan tries to apologise, but realises he needs to get back to the city as soon as possible. Unfortunately, his luggage is still at the farm and Dolan has no option but to return home with Cardinal and Roy. The next morning, he wakes to find the tyres have been removed from his car and Cardinal tells him that it would be nice if he could stay a little longer and console Roy, who is disappointed that Jones's partner failed to make an appearance at her boyfriend's funeral.

Seeing this is a way to extricate himself from the situation, Dolan calls friend Evelyne Brochu and begs her to pose as Jones's beloved to appease Roy and convince Cardinal that he has done his duty. But Brochu's arrival fails to have the desired effect, as Roy has already taken against her and Cardinal has no intention of letting Dolan leave so easily. Thus, he bundles Brochu on to a bus and lets Dolan know in no uncertain terms what will happen if he tries to abscond again.

In spite of himself, Dolan is aware that he is becoming attracted to the muscular Cardinal and is even beginning to derive pleasure from his roughhousing. But he sidles into town that evening, where bartender Manuel Tadros regales him with the story of how Cardinal had disfigured a gay patron in an a frenzied attack a few years earlier. Unsure whether Cardinal is homophobic or self-loathingly closeted, Dolan decides to make a run for it the following day. However, he hasn't got far on foot before Cardinal catches him up in his SUV. He chases Dolan through the woods, but the twentysomething doubles back and steals the car to make his getaway. When he stops for petrol, however, he recognises the man Cardinal maimed and beats a hasty retreat.

Dispensing with the jukebox songtrack approach that has reinforced the trendy ambience of his previous pictures, Dolan makes mischievious, if occasionally self-conscious use of a Gabriel Yared score that owes much to the kind of lowering accompaniment that Bernard Herrmann used to compose for Alfred Hitchcock. Moreover, he also allows André Turpin's camera to wander around interiors and exteriors alike in order to convey Dolan's entrapment. Indeed, he even tinkers with the aspect ratio a couple of times to stress how much his options are narrowing.

This may all sound a bit gimmicky, as, when compared to the excesses of Laurence Anyways, this is a masterclass in restraint. Yet Dolan isn't simply pulling in his horns to get the sceptical critics off his back. This curtailing of directorial flamboyance also suits the situation, as the grieving Dolan has to rein in his urban exuberance to perpetuate the myth of Jones's heterosexuality  But what is most ingenious about this correlation of theme and technique is that it gives Dolan a clean slate for his next project. This would appear to be called Mommy and the mind races with the possibilities that the quicksilver 24 year-old might be preparing to mine. But this stylistic shift suggests considerable artistic maturity and one hopes that Dolan will continues to work in tandem with a more experienced writer to help him resist narratorial temptation.

In truth, some of the dialogue in this latterday fairytale is a bit stagy and the proscenium positively hovers over sequences like the barn tango. Dolan also needs to work on his acting, if he is to concentrate on weightier issues. But he invests the action with a jagged vein of dark humour and, even if characters frequently behave irrationally to the point of recklessness, this makes for consistently discomfiting viewing, both on account of its depiction of provincial bigotry and the suspenseful treatment of Dolan's fate.

Another unlikely encounter sparks comedy in Jill Soloway's Afternoon Delight, as thirtysomething Jewish housewife Kathryn Hahn ignores the advice of shrink Jane Lynch and follows the suggestion of gal pal Jessica St Clair to spice up her love life with entrepreneur husband Josh Radnor by going to an LA pole-dancing club. But, instead of picking up tips, Hahn vows to rescue fallen blonde Juno Temple after she is treated to a private lap dance. Hanging around a coffee kiosk near the club, Hahn gets to know Temple and, when she sees her evicted from her digs, she offers her a room and passes her off to her judgemental friends as daughter Sawyer Ever's new nanny.

All seems well, as Radnor accepts Temple and makes a move on Hahn rather than the stripper in the spare bedroom. Moreover, Ever takes a shine to her and St Clair and fellow moms Michaela Watkins, Annie Mumalo and Suzy Nakamura also seem to accept her without asking too many questions. But Hahn is fascinated by the fact that Temple keeps servicing one regular client and asks if she can tag along the next time she visits the ageing and perfectly charming John Kapelos. Spooked by what she sees, Hahn suddenly becomes concerned that a hooker is babysitting her daughter and Temple exacts her revenge on a night that Hahn is out trading fantasies, gossip and accusations with her posse, while Radnor is hosting husbands Josh Stamberg, Keegan Michael Key and Noah Harpster at a poker night.

Having made her name as a television writer, Soloway won the Best Director prize at Sundance for this risqué satire on suburban mommyhood. But, in trying to spice up the screwball scenarios found in Gregory La Cava's My Man Godfrey (1936) and Fifth Avenue Girl (1939) by tossing in a little of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Theorem (1968) and a lot of John Cassavetes's Husbands (1970), Soloway strains the credibility of an already rarefied plot. Moreover, she puts so many polished quips in the mouths of Jewish stereotypes that they wind up ringing hollow.

The girls' night at which Hahn tries to coax everyone into sharing their abortion confessions is particularly misjudged, as is her taunting of the prudishly traditional Mumalo. But the ease with which Temple tempts Stamberg into her bed during the boozily lurid poker game exhausts the reserves of sympathy for these eminently resistible characters that has fast been diminishing since pretty much the opening scene.

It's even harder to like the characters in Ben Cookson's Almost Married. This British comedy seems to have been made from the best intentions, as it clearly encourages viewers to reassess their attitudes towards casual sex and to get themselves tested whenever there's even the slightest possibility of having contracted an STD or the HIV virus. But such is the cheap vulgarity and sitcomedic contrivance of this sordid story that it comes pretty close to unwatchable long before its smug twist ending.

While on his stag weekend in Newcastle, mechanic Philip McGinley is treated to sex in a brothel by his best mate, Mark Stobbart. A few days later, he notices a burning sensation when he urinates and he has to go to the clinic to be tested for a sexually transmitted infection. Doctor Val McLane informs him that he has chlamydia. But, in expressing his relief, McGinley lets slip that his unprotected intercourse was with a prostitute and McLane informs him that he will have to wait 90 days before he can be tested effectively for hepatitis and HIV.

As his wedding to fiancée Emily Atack falls within this period, McGinley is facing a major dilemma. But he also has to avoid having intimate contact before then and consults the Internet in the hope of finding inspiration. When Atack catches him acting furtively, he claims to have been watching dwarf porn and she accuses him of being a pervert. He manages to avoid subsequent liaisons by getting so drunk he is incapable of performing and taking a weekend job away to buy himself some thinking time. On another occasion, the curry sauce on Atack's fingers comes to his rescue. But he is soon running out of excuses and the unsympathetic Stobbart finds the situation highly amusing.

Atack gets it into her head to become pregnant before the ceremony, so they can start a family right away. So, McGinley starts going on all-night fishing trips with Stobbart to avoid her and she is deeply wounded, as fishing is their way of being together away from the madding crowd. On one expedition, Stobbart gives him some tips on what to say if Atack asks if he has been unfaithful. But he is so chastened by her tears at a wedding rehearsal that when she does challenge him, he tries to be honest without revealing the whole truth and finds himself being nettled when she admits to having doubts about their future.

Things scarcely improve when McGinley and parents Smug Roberts and Janine Birkett have a barbecue and word games evening with Atack and her folks, Bill Fellows and Allison Dean, which culminates in Atack deciding to leave him. When McGinley calls Stobbart the next day, he becomes convinced his pal is about to commit suicide and, when he is pulled over by the police for doing an illegal U-turn, he gets McGinley into trouble by using his despair as an excuse.

McGinley exacts revenge by having Stobbart think he has hanged himself in the garage, but such larking hardly solves the pressing problem. They discuss frenulum injuries over absinthe and contemplate drastic measures like inducing a coma and scalding McGinley with a panful of boiling water. But, then, Stobbart has the brainwave that they simply need to go back to Tyneside, find the hooker and get her to take the test so that McGinley will know whether or not he is likely to have become infected. They look up brothels in an Internet café and Stobbart offers to take one for the team when McGinley wants to leave after realising the first place they visit is not the stag venue. 

They have more luck second time around, however, and McGinley is mightily relieved to learn from Laura Norton (who has stripped him to his shorts and pinned him down on the bed for a massage) that he was too sloshed to perform when they first met. Besides, she insists that she is regularly checked because of her amateur porn commitments. But McGinley is no longer listening, as he has suddenly realised that he must have caught chlamydia from Atack and that she, therefore, must have been the one to have cheated. As Stobbart sits with McGinley and Norton in the lounge, the brothel madam lectures him on women having urges and needs as well as men. But he is in no mood to listen and speeds back to Atack's family home.

He arrives at the same time as Roberts and Birkett, whom he has summoned while on the road. Fellows and Dean are taken aback by the unexpected visitors, but they invite them to share their supper. Stobbart waits in the car, as McGinley stalks inside and causes a scene at the table when he asks Atack where she might have picked up a venereal disease. Possibly because of their own guilty consciences, Roberts and Fellows try to prevent their wives from hearing such indelicacies. But everyone hangs on McGinley's reply when Atack demands to know why he waited two months before confronting her.

As their parents make their excuses (and Dean states baldly that paying for sex is tantamount to rape), McGinley admits that he nearly strayed on his stag do, but was saved by his inebriation. Atack also has a reason, as a sex toy was passed around at a lingerie party and she must have been tainted by that. McGinley is about to accept her explanation when she utters words he has heard somewhere else before - `I swear on the health and happiness of everyone I hold dear' - and he knows in an instant who has been responsible for cuckolding him.

Never has a plot synopsis damned a picture so thoroughly. However, the excruciating unfunniness of the missing word game has to be seen to be disbelieved, while the repeated references to `banjo strings' will have those not already cringing with embarrassment squirming with discomfort. To their credit, the cast plays this grotesque farrago rather well and, once again, it is worth stating that the cause is noble. But, surely, there were better ways to promote it.

An unwise association also drives the action in John Jencks's feature bow, The Fold. Scripted by first-timer Poppy Cogan, this contains faint echoes of Malgorzata Szumowska's In the Name Of... (2013), in which a Polish priest develops a crush on a youth in his care. But the emphasis here is on grief rather than lust, while the religious aspect of the story proves almost tangential. Indeed, the protagonist's faith plays such a small part in her choices, that she may as well have been a teacher, a social worker or a doctor rather than a woman vicar. This casual approach to character is compounded by an arch indifference towards backstory that allows individuals to behave in an irrational manner that suits the plot rather than reflects psychological reality.

Following the death of teenage daughter Kate Hollowood, Anglican priest Catherine McCormack accepts a parish on the Cornish coast and, with husband Owen Teale opting to stay in the city to work, she drives down with surviving child Dakota Blue Richards to make a fresh start. It's never explained why Hollowood ended up at the bottom of a swimming pool after a family party, but, even though 11 months have passed, McCormack still blenches when busybody parishioner Isobel Middleton offers her condolences, as she shows her round the church perched on promontory above the crashing waves.

As part of her duties, McCormack spends two days a week at a drop-in centre in Redruth run by Oliver Dimsdale. He prefers to operate along secular lines and fobs McCormack off with some admin to keep her occupied. However, when she finds a teenage girl sleeping in the vestry and recognises her at the centre, she offers to help her improve her English. Marina Stoimenova has come to Britain from Bulgaria and is working in the daffodil fields. But little is revealed about the circumstances that led her to flee and it quickly becomes clear that McCormack sees her as a surrogate for her lost child when she intervenes in a contretemps between Stoimenova, her boyfriend Gavin Swift and his thuggish mate, Sean Mulkerrin.

As she has a chance of securing a place on an art course in Exeter, Dimsdale is all in favour of McCormack coaching Stoimenova in the run-up to a crucial examination. So, she ventures into the woods to find the caravan camp housing the migrant workers and compliments Stoimenova on the drawings in the notebook she left at the church. She convinces her she has potential and urges her both to follow her dream and stay away from the possessive Swift. Overcoming her misgivings, Stoimenova agrees to the Saturday morning sessions and warms to the family in the textbook McCormack gives her. She is also moved by McCormack's bereavement when she notices that she is left-handed like her dead daughter.

But McCormack fails to mention Richards, who has been left to fend for herself since arriving at St Piran's. However, while on one of her cycling expeditions, she finds the caravan site and is bewitched by the music being produced around the campfire by blonde violinist Jakub Gierszal and his friends. The following day, McCormack also visits the camp, as Stoimenova has missed a lesson and, after much persuasion, she agrees to continue studying because it would please her teacher.

Her enthusiasm is dimmed, however, when she calls at the cottage late at night to drop off her homework and she sees McCormack canoodling with Teale at the kitchen table. He is visiting to mark the first anniversary of their loss. But, instead of saying a prayer in the church, the family goes for a picnic and McCormack merely watches as Richards and Teale send a paper lantern floating into the sky in Hollowood's memory. No sooner has Teale gone than Dimsdale calls McCormack to inform her that Stoimenova has slashed her wrists and she rushes to the camp to comfort her. But such is her determination to save the Bulgarian to atone for letting down her own daughter that she fails to realise that Stoimenova acted out of jealousy. Even when she drives her to Truro and they listen to the cathedral choir rehearsing `De Profundis', no alarm bells sound when Stoimenova compares being with McCormack to having light in her darkness. Indeed, as she waits at the clinic, all McCormack can think about is Hollowood lying face up in the pool and this vision renews her determination to do right by a waif in need of her protection.

McCormack suggests they should have lessons at the church, as it is more convenient for them both, and Stoimenova readily agrees, as this means she can have her benefactress all to herself. However, Dimsdale has been making plans for her to move in with a foster family in Exeter and he asks McCormack to break the news. She does so obliquely by giving Stoimenova a more advanced textbook and the girl says she will miss the Jones family in the other volume, as they seem to happy. A shot in the mirror shows how closely McCormack and Stoimenova sit as they work, while the gap between mother and daughter is emphasised as the camera peers through the cottage window to see Richards sloping off to her room to smoke out of the window before sneaking off to the camp.

Some days later, McCormack conducts a funeral and a couple of men sing a melancholic sea shanty at the graveside. At the reception, she chats to Dimsdale about discovering her vocation when her mother died during her first year of teaching. But they are interrupted by the sound of a commotion and rush out to see Stoimenova threatening Swift with a piece of broken glass because she had seen him being consoled by his female cousin in the graveyard. McCormack rushes forward to disarm the girl and sweeps her away to the church, where she makes up a bed in the vestry. Stoimenova asks her to lie down with her for a while and they snuggle chastely under the covers. She reminisces about the idyllic days she spent in her obviously troubled childhood with her grandfather in the mountains and compares McCormack's solicitude to the loud singing of peasant mothers so that their shepherd sons can hear them on the distant hillsides.

As McCormack kisses Stoimenova on the forehead, she appears to replace Hollowood with the Bulgarian in her drowning reverie. But she is too overcome by maternal feelings to recognise the folly of her actions and is appalled when Dimsdale orders her to stay away from Stoimenova after Middleton discovers them in each other's arms the next morning. She also misses the fury in Stoimenova's voice when a woman approaches her at the centre to ask if she would be willing to give her son English lessons. Distraught at being thwarted in her mission to save Stoimenova, McCormack drives to the camp and sees her kissing Swift. She is unaware, however, that Richards is also nearby with Gierszal, who has become her boyfriend (even though she would appear to be underage).

Waking in a cold sweat after seeing Hollowood's hair billowing on the water, McCormack goes to find Stoimenova and lies on her bunk. They hug when she gets home and McCormack asks if she would like to become her ward. Thinking that McCormack wishes to adopt her, the girl agrees. But Dimsdale tells McCormack he would block any application and tells her to focus on her own family. Stoimenova is so excited by the prospect of belonging to McCormack that she comes to the cottage and is so enraged to learn of Richards's existence that she slaps McCormack to the floor and holds a knife to Richards's throat. A scuffle ensues and McCormack leaves Richards shocked on the kitchen floor in order to chase after Stoimenova and pull her out of the sea when she tries to drown herself.

Having comforted Richards when she wakes up screaming from a nightmare, McCormack goes to the hospital to leave a package for Stoimenova. As they sit in the car outside, she asks Richards why she came with her rather than staying with Teale and Richards says she knew her mother needed her. She asks McCormack if she would have preferred her to drown and the pair embrace tearfully. But, in her dream that night, McCormack sees Hollowood turn to look at her sitting at a table covered with party detritus before lowering herself into the pool and this eye contact seems to help McCormack finally reconcile herself to her loss, as it would appear she could have done nothing to prevent her daughter from dying. Stoimenova recovers in time to do her exam and McCormack and Richards strip down to their underwear to go swimming in the sea. McCormack even manages to kneel in supplication in her church before she accompanies Teale to see Richards duet with Gierszal at the camp.

The closing shot frames the scene within an arc of fairy lights, but this aspires more to social realism than fantasy. That said, there is hint of horror in the notion of an Eastern European stranger shattering the peaceful existence of a quaintly traditional English backwater. But, while there are no torchlight processions of angry locals demanding that the witch is burnt at the stake, there is enough melodrama here to sustain several episodes of a soap opera.

The dialogue hardly helps, as much of it has a penny dreadful ring. But McCormack holds things together ably and she is well supported by the underused Richards. Unfortunately, Stoimenova (who was a rhythmic gymnast before turning to acting) lacks the range to convey the necessary vulnerability and pent-up angst. However, the weaknesses in the script mean that the task would have taxed a more experienced performer.

Cinematographer Luke Palmer makes effective use of the contrasting scenery around Kynance Cove and Praa Sands, but Jencks struggles to achieve a palpable sense of place and, as a consequence, it is difficult to discern where the parish lies in relation to Redruth and Truro, which are eight miles apart. The debuting Elliot Goldner does a much better job of establishing his West Country setting in The Borderlands, another film with a religious theme that is set up like a classic shaggy dog story, as its key characters are an Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman. Yet, while it contains wisps of knowing humour, this is very much a chiller, whose title not only refers to its locale, but also to the grey areas between the spiritual and the temporal, superstition and rationality, and faith and fear.

Some time after Brazilian police raid a church and remove items from the altar, as well as microphones and cameras from behind the walls, Fr Luke Neal claims that a miracle has occurred in his small rural church. The Vatican dispatches a team from an organisation named The Congregation to verify the instance and Scottish priest Gordon Kennedy, Irish superior Aidan McArdle and agnostic English technician Robin Hill take up residence in a village cottage to conduct their investigation. Neal shows them video footage taken during a baptism of objects vibrating on the altar, so they don headcam sets and instal CCTV cameras around the church to record any paranormal activity.

The trio rub along pretty well, even though Hill is only in it for the money and teases the bibulous Kennedy and the punctilious McArdle about nature being the only thing worth revering (or at least it was before the Christians crushed the pagans). They are all sceptical about Neal and suspect he has staged the episode to garner some publicity for his impecunious parish. But, as they meet with locals Marcus Cunningham and Sarah Annis, they learn that the church has a long history of unexplained phenomena, much of it seemingly linked to the network of catacombs beneath the crypt.

Even when the lights start blowing and inteference begins marring their imagery, Kennedy and McArdle remain dubious and they are about to close the case when Neal suddenly commits suicide. Moreover, when Kennedy goes into the church alone at night, he senses a presence and they decide to report to their superiors, who send Fr Patrick Godfrey to assess the situation.

It transpires that Kennedy was involved in a scandal in Brazil when seven priests died soon after claiming to have seen God. But Godfrey takes his claim about the church seriously and they agree to perform an exorcism. During the ritual, however, McArdle appears to perish and no sooner has his body disappeared than Godfrey also vanishes. At a loss to explain such strange happenings, Kennedy and Hill begin searching the catacombs and are horrified to discover a collection of cages that prompt them to conclude that the previous incumbent had been using the premises as an orphanage before he had gone mad and started sacrificing the defenceless kids.

When they next venture below ground, the pair keep catching glimpses of McArdle and Godfrey, but they remain elusive. They also hear their voices beckoning them to follow. So, even though they know they are taking an enormous risk, Kennedy and Hill go further into the narrowing tunnel until they realise they are trapped. As they take in their surroundings, their cameras detect blood seeping through the clay, presumably as the victims wreak their revenge on the clerics who betrayed them.

The working title of this slick, if rather obvious indie horror was The Devil Lies Beneath, which harks back to such mid-period Hammer offerings as John Gilling's The Reptile and Cyril Frankel's The Witches (both 1966). Yet, with its laboured jokes about Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man (1973) and Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code (2006), this seeks to edge into the fertile postmodern terrain currently being cultivated to great effect by Ben Wheatley. Indeed, Robin Hill reinforces the link, as he edited Down Terrace (2009), Kill List (2011) and Sightseers (2012). However, the Wheatley film this most resembles is A Field in England (2013), as they share an appreciation of the horrific potential of folklore, which Goldner shrewdly has the triumvirate explore over a pint in the pub rather than in any more earnest theological diatribes.

Indeed, Goldner makes a lot of sagacious choices throughout the picture, as he and editor Mark Towns crosscut between the CCTV and headcam footage shot so expertly by Eben Bolter. The fixed position images are particularly well used, as they acquire eeriness through the staticity that suggests anything might wander in or out of the frame. But Goldner also exploits the jerky headset perspective to pitch the viewer into the middle of action that becomes increasingly creepy and claustrophobic as Kennedy and Hill progress along the tunnel.

This does raise certain credibility issues, however, as why would anybody press forward when doom is the inevitable outcome? It also begs the question of how these last images were recovered, while there is an inevitable recurrence of that perennial found footage chestnut: who edited the sequences together with such cinematic acuity? Yet Goldner uses this gambit with more restraint than many of his peers, even though he cannot resist a brief homage to Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick's The Blair Witch Project (1999). His dialogue also tends towards the expository, while his resort to having lone characters think aloud is more than a little shiftless. But his insights into the crimes committed in the name of worship are astute and he coaxes fine performances out of Kennedy and Hill, whose prickly camaraderie keeps the audience onside, as they await the fright that never really comes.

Religion also had a key role to play in the evolution of backing singing, as Morgan Neville reveals in the Oscar-winning documentary, Twenty Feet From Stardom. Many of the African-American women who helped change the way popular music sounded in the 1960s started out in gospel choirs (indeed, many had pastors for parents), where they not only learned about harmonies, but also the value of being part of a group. Some yearned to be in the spotlight and took their shot at the big time. But, as this considered account explains, the people who ran the music business had very definite ideas about who should be a star and so, unfortunately, did those often indiscriminating arbiters of taste: the record-buying public.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Having made such an impressive start with The Lottery (2010), onetime Martin Scorsese assistant Madeleine Sackler similarly comes up a little short with Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus. Bearing in mind that a large chunk of this documentary was filmed in Europe's last dictatorship and had to be smuggled out of the country, this is a work of considerable commitment and courage. Yet, while the footage of the Belarus Free Theatre protesting against President Alexander Lukashenko's oppressive regime and the scenes depicting them trying to continue the fight in exile are compelling, the extracts from the stage plays that made such an impact on New York and Edinburgh stand in awkward isolation and lack the visecerality and immediacy that clearly informed the live experience.

According to actor Oleg Sidorchik, it's relatively easy living under a tyrant as all decisions are made for you. However, he is part of a troupe that refuses to tow the line and Sackler films the Belarus Free Theatre rehearsing a skit that involves its members nodding along with white balloons in their mouths to a clip of Lukashenko playing an old folk song on an accordion. Suddenly, shots ring out on the soundtrack and Sackler cuts to 19 December 2010, when Minsk went into meltdown following the announcement of an election result that confirmed the ruler who had held sway since 1994 would remain in power. Actor-musician Dzianis Tarasenka states that, if scars are supposed to be sexy, then Minsk must be the sexiest city in the world, as the rigged ballot inflicted red, green and white scars all over its body. 

News clips of the police and army beating people in the street are crosscut with the troupe banging on the stage with grey plastic pipes to create a sense of unease. Natalia Koliada and husband Nikolai Khalezin, who co-founded BFT, express their sorrow that the election failed to fulfil the nation's hopes. But they are even more dismayed that they face arrest and are forced to flee to the United States, as they will no longer be allowed to play their secret shows to the patrons who need them.

Sackler cuts back three months to September 2010, so stage manager Sveta Sugako can explain that the BFT is not registered as an official organisation and cannot, therefore, charge admission for its productions. Actress Maryna Yurevich reveals that her role with the company precludes her from being offered any government-related employment. But she has no regrets about her choices, even though they have frequently been raided by the KGB and even had the audience detained during one show.

The current production directed by Vladimir Shcherban is called Zones of Silence and Sackler shows how ticket requests have to be made over the phone or online and how Sugako has to fetch patrons from the street and lead them to the venue to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves. But those who do attend are left spellbound by segments like `Legends of Childhood', in which Sidorchik reveals how his 10 year-old son, Nikita, hanged himself in 1998 with the belt his stepfather used to thrash him with. He confesses to camera that he spent four years drinking to forget, but BFT gave him a new purpose and Khalezin (whose art gallery was closed down) similarly views the theatre as a means of telling truths that are banned from television and he hopes that his daughters don't share his fate of living much of his life under an authoritarian regime.

Although opposition had largely been quashed for many years, Lukashenko allowed several candidates to stand against him in 2010. Prominent among them was Andrei Sannikov, who is shown appealing to the electorate to overthrow a shameful regime. But he admits in retrospect that he had no idea how dangerous standing would be and it's a shame that Sackler contents herself with a passing reference to the number of opponents who disappeared or died (a curious omission considering that Sannikov's own press secretary, Oleg Bebenin, being found hanged in suspicious circumstances). She does, however, include a snippet from the `Disappearances' sketch, but its meaning is far from clear in isolation, as the male cast members light cigarettes and leave them burning on the stage, as they turn their backs on the audience.

When Khalezin and Koliada organised a demonstration against the disappearances, she was snatched by KGB agents who threatened her with rape and atrocities from which the Nazis would flinch before she was released. He was placed in a `stone glass' cell and was only freed when Amnesty International took up his cause. They chose to remain in Belarus, but friends continued to be targeted by Lukashenko and their daughter Daniella caused a scene in a bookshop by asking why a man who had killed her godparent should have his photograph on display. Actress Yana Rusakevich is also trying to raise a daughter and Marta seems equally prepared to say what she thinks. But Rusakevich refuses to knuckle down and she is proud to be standing up to the man who is preventing her child from experiencing freedom.

Sackler returns to election day and Sannikov is shown voting, as he commends the fortitude of those Belarusians who strove to make a difference. Koliada tells a good news/bad news joke about Lukashenko being re-elected even though nobody voted for him, but there was nothing to laugh at when he declared a 79.65% share of the ballot and thousands took to the streets in Minsk in defiance of his assurance that nobody would protest against his victory. Rusakevich recalls a genuine optimism among the crowd that the regime would topple, as young and old were standing shoulder to shoulder. But, as Sannikov arrived to address the throng, the order to disperse was given and the riot forces went in with a pitiless brutality that saw one opposition leader bleeding in the gutter and Sannikov behind bars in a crowded courtroom, as the world's media looked on helplessly.

Realising that the KGB would be looking for them, Shcherban, Khalezin and Koliada went into hiding. But, when Rusakevich was raided for being a witness to the disturbances in the square, the eight members of the BFT made plans to be smuggled into Russia on false passports on 31 December and, within a month, they had set up base in Manhattan. They were introduced to the American press by Oskar Eustis, who explains that they have come to the USA to testify about conditions in Belarus. All have left someone behind and they Skype with family members when not becoming accustomed to their new surroundings.

As they are here to work, they hire the famous Off-Broadway venue, La MaMa and present Zone of Silence to rave reviews. Yurevich is singled out for praise and she teases the others when she arrives at the dressing-room the following day. But, once again, the extract Sackler selects will frustrate those trying to gain a fuller appreciation of the BFT's artistry. The segment opens with Yurevich struggling to emerge from beneath a huge plastic sheet. When this is finally raised, it reveals a man in shorts wearing a surgical mask and he stands there while a fellow with a walking stick struts about the stage discussing the duties of a playwright. Yurevich is also wearing a mask by now and she is interrogated about the number of times that she was raped. When she replies that she cannot remember, she is dismissed as an unreliable witness.

We see Rusakevich, Sidorchik and Yurevich chatting with loved ones back home and they channel these emotions into a moving piece involving a puppet made out of newspaper, who is helped around the stage by four of the ensemble and manages to generate a palpable sense of innocence at risk. But, even though the show is nominated for an Obie Award, half of the troupe know they have to return to Minsk, as five months have now passed and they are no longer under threat of detention (although they still joke about packing cyanide capsules). The same nervous wit informs their conversations as the train from Moscow draws closer to home and Yurevich, Rusakevich and Tarasenka are relieved to find that only their families are awaiting them on the platform.

The remaining quartet relocate to London, where they apply for political asylum. They are joined by Sannikov's sister Irina and gather petition signatures on the streets to protest against him being jailed for five years. Daniella has now joined her parents and Sidorchik tells her that it is sometimes fun not to know where you are going. But he also has his concerns about what he is going to do with his life so far away from home. However, Khalezin and Koliada have no alternative, as he faces 10 years in prison and she seven because of the cases that Lukashenko has compiled against them. Khalezin's parents speak to camera about being under surveillance, but they are as determined to resist as the rump of the BFT, which quickly goes into rehearsals for a new production, with Pavel Gorodnitski being recruited as a new member.

Rusakevich is glad to be back with Marta, although she chides her for joining the Young Pioneers and asks her if she understands the meaning of the oath she has sworn. She admits to not being a particularly political person, but she feels she has no option but to speak out, even if it means she is blacklisted. Yurevich also fears being banned, but she dances with Tarasenka's rock band when they play a covert gig and Gorodnitski enthuses about doing his bit to bring down a dictator who is foolishly trying to achieve the equivalent of putting toothpaste back in a tube.

As a recession begins to bite, social media sites start urging Belarusians to take to the streets. But rather than protesting volubly, the marchers simply applaud and the authorities are flummoxed by their approach. It isn't long before the black marias arrive, however, and a policeman makes a grab for the camera. Yurevich and Gorodnitski say everyone knows someone who was beaten or arrested and the pain goes on, as Khalezin's father dies and he is distraught at not being able to attend the funeral. Koliada states her intention to devote more time to her family, but she also knows her compatriots need her to speak out, as comparative calm has returned to Belarus some eight months after the election and Yurevich says it feels like everyone took a gulp of freedom and will have to live off it for a while longer.

She is soon on the move again, however, as the company reassembles in Edinburgh for the Fringe premiere of Minsk 2011, which has been written by Koliada and Khalezin and directed by Shcherban. It opens with individuals being carried away after making small gestures of resistance and the road is swept clean after each abduction. A highlight of the show is a monologue by Rusakevich, in which she claims that Belarus isn't sexy to outsiders, as it has no plunderable resources. She recalls being fingerprinted as a teenager, but as she speaks she is stripped and rollered with black ink to leave an imprint on a long sheet of paper. This is wound around her in a bid to silence her, but not only does she keep speaking, but she also bursts out of her cocoon cracking a whip and warning Lukashenko that the girl he intimidated is now grown up and ready to strike back.

The blunt beauty of this sequence suggests what Sackler might have achieved if she had shown more of the BFT's remarkable repertoire. As it is, she concludes a year on from the stolen election with a secret show in Minsk. Khalezin and Koliada vow to return one say, while Sidorchik avers that all human dignity will be lost if totalitarianism is allowed to prevail. Closing captions inform us that Sannikov was released after 481 days (many of which were spent in solitary confinement) and that the BFT was raided four times in 2012, as it sought to stage pieces conceived in exile by their absent friends. But the fight goes on and the screen splits as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Vaclav Havel, Kevin Kline, Kevin Spacey, Jude Law, Joanna Lumley, Olympia Dukakis, Tom Stoppard, Lou Reed and Mick Jagger urge viewers to add their voices to the clamour.

More tantalising than truly informative, this is still a worthy tribute to some brave people and a worthwhile shot across the bows of a despot. An external evaluation of the BFT's capabilities might not have gone amiss, while more much more might have been made of the access to Sannikov. We also get to learn very little about several members of the troupe as individuals, with Shcherban, Tarasenka and Sidorchik being particularly short-changed. But the overriding problem lies with the contextualisation of the extracts, whose provocative power is dissipated as a consequence, as is the film's vital message about the importance of art.

The last, but by no means the least of this week's bumper offering is Petri Luukkainen's My Stuff, a treatise on the perils of consumerism and the value of sentiment in which the 24 year-old Finn comes to his senses after a buying spree prompted by a split with his long-term girlfriend and puts everything he owns into storage in his basement and embarks upon a fascinating experiment into possession and purpose.

Stark naked and alone in his cold and empty flat, Luukkainen decides to select a single item a day so that he can appreciate both his ownership of it and its use to his daily life. Starting with a long coat, he quickly comes to discern the difference between what he wants and needs. Moreover, by denying himself the possibility of buying anything new, he also comes to appreciate how easy it is to live without inessentials.

He is abetted during the first few days by younger brother Juha, pals Eero, Jesse and Pete, and his cousin, Little Jesse, who do his shopping while modesty limits him to a nude dash around his Helsinki neighbourhood in the dead of night. Luukkainen is also encouraged every step of the way by his grandmother, who dismisses belongings as mere props and convinces him that he will be happier with a simpler life. But, once he has returned to work (initially without any underwear or socks), he starts fretting about how his social life will collapse if he no longer has the wherewithal to go out or the means of keeping in touch. One of the first luxuries he selects is his laptop, but he waits a whole four months before plumping for his mobile phone Then, just as he convinces himself that he could become a pariah, he gets a crush on a new girl and, after 212 days of self-denial, he asks Maija out.

However, she refuses to participate on camera in the experiment until they have been dating for several weeks. Moreover, he has to deal with the fact that his grandmother has become too frail to care for herself and she has agreed to go into a home. Petri and Juha go to her empty house to dispense with her belongings and they are touched by how many items she has kept simply because she had an emotional attachment to them. This epiphany changes Luukkainen's attitude to the last leg of his challenge and he starts selecting more items that express his personality or confirm his identity. Furthermore, when he completes the task, rather than piling everything back into his flat, he decides that the objects still in store can stay there, as he didn't miss them and achieved a nice balance of must-haves and comforts and joys without them.

Explaining at the outset how he intends to feed himself and continue to make a living during his year-long de-clutter, Luukkainen almost inevitably comes across as a Finnish Morgan Spurlock. But this geniality allows him to avoid sounding smug as he reveals the benefits of his regime and how being without has taught him vital eco lessons, as well as social, economic and cultural ones. He might have given his musings a sharper political edge and the action does tail off once he has acquired enough to make his existence bearable and he has settled into a routine of making do. But he puts his points across without preaching or patronising and no one seeing this will be able to resist putting themselves in his shoes the moment they get home.