Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 24/4/2014)

Perhaps the misgivings would melt away if her frequently non-professional casts spoke in a foreign language that would make their performances seem less obviously mannered. Yet, even when they venture to Tuscany or Tresco, Hogg's characters inhabit a defiantly English space and it is this rarefied milieu and the smug social, political and cultural attitudes that underpin it that makes her work so resistible. There's no question that this renitence is rooted in a personal cinematic prejudice against haute bourgeois introspection and self-conscious artiness. But Hogg takes it all (and herself) so achingly seriously. Thus, even though it is easy to admire her eschewal of formulaic narrative strategies and her exquisite sense of mise-en-scène, it is exceedingly difficult to embrace the characters in her latest offering, Exhbition, or summon the slightest enthusiasm for their marital diffidence, mid-life anxiety and pretentious self-absorption.

Viv Albertine and Liam Gillick live in the West London house that modernist architect James Melvin designed for himself and wife Elsa after their children left the nest. Albertine loves the place, with its spiral staircase and sliding doors, and had hoped to spend her old age there. But Gillick feels that 18 years is long enough and asks estate agents Tom Hiddleston and Harry Kershaw to find a buyer so he can start building a new home as soon as possible. Albertine confides her doubts in a Skype chat with Julienne Dolphin-Wilding, but there seems no point trying to dissuade the short-fused, egotistical Gillick, as he clearly considers himself the head of the household.

Albertine and Gillick are both artists who work from home on undivulged projects. He taps away at his laptop and occasionally uses the intercom to ask what she is doing and awkwardly declare his love. But he never discusses his projects with her and resents the fact that she refuses to allow him to critique hers, as he can be a passive-aggressive intellectual bully and she dreads losing faith in a piece before she's had a chance to think it through. Albertine is a bashful and somewhat easily distracted performance artist, who spends her days sketching her face with a hand mirror or finding ways in which to position her scantily clad torso in poses that appear to have both exhibitionist and onanistic connotations.

At some point in the past, Albertine seems to have suffered a trauma and, even though she feeds off the building's unique energy, she is unnerved by the noises it makes in the night when Gillick goes away for a few days.. She is also reluctant to join him for a late-night walk through a neighbourhood she considers to be dangerous. It's certainly noisy, with nocturnal roadworks and crashing scaffolding disturbing the peace. One night an ambulance siren in the street below causes the half-dressed Albertine to dash outside to check that Gillick has not been harmed while out on an errand. But he seems more than capable of looking after himself, as he proves in a stand-off with builder Mark McCabe, when he parks in his space.

Despite her reticence, Albertine is no pushover. Thus, when Gillick calls down to suggest an afternoon sex session, she participates without enthusiasm. She also confides her fantasies to a Dictaphone as Gillick sleeps beside her and even puts on high heels to masturbate in bed without waking him. Yet, at other times, they share baths and make love with a mutual affection that seems to make them a better fit as a couple than neighbours Mary Roscoe and Christopher McWatters, who talk to incessantly about their children that Albertine fakes a fainting fit during one dinner party in order to effect a quick getaway.

As Albertine works on ideas for a show she keeps secret from Gillick, the line between reality and imagination begins to blur. During a long walk through the centre of the capital, for example, she has an encounter with fire tuba player Krzysztof Werkowicz outside the National Gallery before sitting in the audience at The ICA to watch herself and Gillick discuss their marriage on the stage. Such eclecticism continues, as Albertine wraps herself in fluorescent tape and stands upon a stool as if to make an exhibition of herself at the window of her study. Gillick appears to view the spectacle from the street below, but any comments he elects to make are kept off screen.

Having agreed a sale (on the proviso that the new owners respect the property's artistic value), Gillick and Albertine throw a party and cut a cake in the shape of their soon to be former home. As they pack boxes, Albertine tells Gillick about her forthcoming gallery show that will comprise prepared and improvised pieces to allow her to make mistakes as she goes along and give the audience a chance to see creativity in action. He is generous in his congratulations and she is grateful for his support. As she looks out of the window for what could be the last time, Albertine sees a woman holding her dog on the corner of the road as a group of cyclists spin past. However, instead of life taking place outside the window, the closing image from the pavement shows the newly installed family of five playing in the space that was designed to be enjoyed rather than reverenced.

Studding the action with Ozu-like pillow shots of the flora and fauna outside the Melvin house, Hogg strives hard to convey the gnawing agonies and fleeting pleasures of the artistic process. She is ably served by cinematographer Ed Rutherford, who exploits the various reflected or shuttered surfaces to reinforce the conflicting emotions that Albertine experiences as she tries to communicate with her husband and corral her ideas into something meaningful. The fact that Hogg only fitfully achieves significant insight of her own actually works in the picture's favour, as it reinforces a largely elusive theme. But the chilly detachment with which she observes her exhibits serves only to distance viewers, who will have little in common with protagonists who scarcely invite empathy.

In fairness, Gillick (who is a Turner-nominated conceptual artist who was cast shortly before shooting commenced) and the stripy-jumpered Albertine (who was the guitarist with the post-punk combo, The Slits) do well enough, given the presumed brief to make it up as they went along within prescribed parameters. But their limitation are frequently exposed by Hogg's self-indulgence. Moreover, they are repeatedly upstaged by the house and by the soundscape concocted by Jovan Ajder and Howard Peryer that is almost invariably more interesting to listen to than the dialogue.

Once again, acolytes will acclaim Hogg for the way the couple's interaction with their surroundings betrays their estrangement and ennui. But, even though it seems clear that Hogg is capable of eventually producing a masterpiece  this modish exercise in décor porn and stage-managed spontaneity is too static, erratic, chic and oblique to win many converts.

A very different Britain emerges in Justin Edgar's We Are the Freaks, a rite of passage set in Birmingham in the immediate aftermath of the Conservative coup against Margaret Thatcher in November 1990. Closer in tone to Edgar's gross-out debut, Large (2002), than the well-meaning disability comedy Special People (2007), this owes most to TV series like The Inbetweeners and Skins. Indeed, two alumni from the latter feature prominently. But while Edgar gets the look and feel of the period right (thanks, in no small measure, to a spot-on songtrack), he elects to ditch the first person larkiness of the opening sequences to cleave more closely to any number of American slacker movies..

Hurtling through the fourth wall, Jamie Blackley speaks directly to camera about the things he hates most - including movies in which characters address the audience. Although he is working at a bank, Blackley is an avid reader of Charles Bukowski and hopes to get a local authority grant so he can accept a place on a creative writing course at the University of Bolton. But he doesn't want to open the envelope that arrives at the house he shares with his disabled mother and sister, as he knows money is tight and wants to live the dream that little bit longer.

Best friend Sean Teale is already enjoying the high life, as he has discovered how to play his rich, divorced parents off against each other and now revs around town in a Porsche. But, the third member of this hapless triumvirate, Mike Bailey is also caught in the starting gate, as he desperately wants to move away from his Maggie-worshipping father (Dominic Coleman) and prove he can stand on his own two feet, when, in fact, he is still frighteningly immature and boasts about being well in with local drug dealer Michael Smiley and having a girlfriend.

The socially ambitious Rosamund Hanson orders Bailey to attend a Young Conservative meeting. But Blackley and Teale insist on gatecrashing it and the former catches the eye of Amber Anderson, a talented cellist who is about to go to Cambridge. The soirée descends into chaos when Bailey damages his penis while having vigorous sex with Hanson in a garden shed and he has to be rushed to hospital. But Teale almost causes another medical emergency when he takes Adam Gillen for a ride in his car (in the hope of impressing his sister, Danielle Lineker) and nearly gives him a heart attack while executing a series of handbrake spins.

Slipping away from the others, Blackley and Anderson go to a rave. But he soon realises that they are not a match made in heaven, as she not only hoovers up the drugs she is offered, but also gyrates wildly on the dance floor and Blackley decides to cut his losses. The evening is going no better for Bailey, however, as he has been cornered by some thugs in the chip shop. But, much to his astonishment, he is rescued by Smiley, who beats the living daylights of the tearaways (in a curious homage to Park Chan-wook's Oldboy, 2003) and persuades Coleman that the time has come to let Bailey make his own decisions. Sadly, Blackley gets home to find that his options have narrowed ruinously, as he opens the letter to discover he has not qualified for his grant.

Ending on a credible downswing, this may well appeal more to those who lived through the era than modern teens. Yet, while much may have changed in the worlds of technology and communication, the basic instincts of those trying to find their niche are much the same and Edgar is probably wise to link Bailey and Teale to their small-screen incarnations, Sid Jenkins and Nick Levan. However, he might have devoted a bit more time to the storyline and connecting the characters to the prevailing socio-political attitudes at the end of the Thatcher decade. There are plenty of decent gags and the performances are solid. But this always feels like something that might have been written by an aspirant who had seen John Hughes's Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) and Danny Boyle's Trainspotting (1996) rather than a third-timer who had done it all before and a lot less self-consciously, too.

British teenpix are so rare these days that any attempt should be applauded. Scandinavia, on the other hand, continues to produce exceptional films for and about young people and Dane Kaspar Munk tackles the taboo topic of adolescent sexuality with insight and restraint in You & Me Forever. What sets this apart from other recent offerings, however, is that Munk relied solely on a story outline and brief discussions with his actors before the camera started rolling. Consequently, the action has a spontaneity and an edginess that owes more to life than anything more consciously scripted or workshopped.

Sixteen year-olds Emilie Kruse and Julia Anderson have long been best friends. Yett, while they are curious about boys and the temptations that nightlife can offer, they are still naive and a little bit vanilla. They get drunk and a bit gobby and, on one occasion, Anderson chases away some bullies picking on a defenceless kid when she stops outside a bar to vomit. But their parents approve of their friendship and they are pretty much inseparable. However,, when new girl Frederikke Dahl Hansen arrives at their school, Anderson can't help but notice how outwardly sophisticated and confident she seems and accepts a swig of absinthe when she proffers a stolen bottle at a party. .

Recognising a potential kindred spirit, Dahl Hansen begins hanging around Anderson at school and slyly drives a wedge between the friends. Kruse gets jealous and loses her temper when loner Benjamin Wandschneider asks after Anderson when she throws up during a class visit to a piggery. But Anderson dismisses her concern as possessiveness and she stops taking her calls after she spends an evening at the luxury home Dahl Hansen has to herself because her parents are away. By contrast, Kruse discovers that Wandschneider is living alone in an abandoned building on the edge of town and she is dismayed when Anderson takes Dahl Hansen there and she realises just how much her head has been turned.

Keen to show off the effect she has on men, Dahl Hansen takes Anderson nightclubbing and they tap off with twentysomethings Allan Hyde and Cyron Melville, who agree to give them the cab fare home in return for fellatio. Leaving the pair with their trousers around their ankles, the girls pocket the money and flee into the night. Next morning, Anderson shrugs off the anxious inquiries of parents Susanne Storm and Morten Hauch-Fausbøll, while Kruse urges mother Petrine Agger to leave her alone when she finds her sobbing in her room. Realising the need to press home her advantage, Dahl Hansen takes Anderson to Wandschneider's squat and dupes him into stripping on the promise of sex with the girl he has long idolised from afar.

Sensing something is wrong, Storm and Morten Hauch-Fausbøll suggest that Anderson invites Kruse to their country cottage for the weekend. However, she informs that Kruse is not available and heads off to see Dahl Hansen. She is smoking dope with Victoria Carmen Sonne and Anderson is initially put out at having to share her friend. But she soon mellows out and even indulges in a little chaste kissing (as Dahl Hansen has always boasted about her female conquests). She likes the feeling of waking beside her next morning, but walks into a furious row at home, as her parents have discovered she did not spend the night with Kruse. They force her into coming away for the weekend and confiscate her phone. But Anderson's surly mood lifts when she manages to call Dahl Hansen, who texts back that she loves her.

Suitably emboldened, the pair go in search of Hyde and Melville again and agree to go back to their boat. As the booze flows, Anderson starts smooching with Hyde. But they are interrupted when Dahl Hansen starts screaming and ordering Melville to stay away from her. Anderson guesses that her friend must have suffered some sort of abusive trauma in her past  and hurries her away. But she is appalled that Dahl Hansen has agreed to sleep with the men in return for money and, having tossed her phone into the dock, vows to have nothing more to do with her.

Kruse is now dating Wandschneider and their first time together coincided with Anderson's misadventure on the boat. But she forgives Anderson for abandoning her and supports her when she decides against throwing herself off a motorway bridge and has an assignation with Hyde in order to lose her virginity. Exhilarated and exhausted (and also feeling somewhat purged having left a banknote on the table while Hyde was in the bathroom), Anderson arrives at Wandschneider's place in time to watch with Kruse as the building is demolished.

Shot in tight, restless close-up by Søren Bay to bring a sense of immediacy to the energetic and laudably natural performances, this frequently recalls Swede Lukas Moodysson's Show Me Love (1998) in its unflinching authenticity. Despite Munk basing his 30-page treatment on a story idea by Jannik Tai Mosholt, the action bristles with insights into the mindset of adolescent girls, as they try to come to terms with who they are and the opinion that others have of them. But he avoids explaining why Dahl Hansen and Wandschneider are alone and refuses to explore the reasons why she needs to steal Anderson away from Kruse and then virtually become her pimp.

Dahl Hansen allows glimpses of the vulnerability below her vicacious façade, while Anderson (who headlined Hold Me Tight) appears suitably dazzled in her headlights. Kruse sometimes comes across as a bit too good to be true and her romance with Wandschneider teeters on the verge of soppiness. But Munk seems to have allowed the actresses to make their own decisions (and perhaps mistakes) and his refusal to judge their behaviour ensures that this avoids feeling like a cautionary tale or one of those mean girl high school movies that Hollywood can't resist trying to pass off as real life.

A less familiar area of a major European city provides the setting for Basil da Cunha's After the Night. A Swiss of Portuguese origin, the debutant director makes evocative use of the Reboleira district of Lisbon, which feels like a Brazilian favela transplanted into the outskirts of the capital. Populated predominantly by migrants from the former colony of Cape Verde, the rundown ghetto has an atmosphere all of its own and cinematographer Patrick Tresch and sound designers Philippe Ciompi and Adrien Kessler do a fine job in capturing its distinctive mood. But, while this retains its air of authenticity even after the hero starts seeing ghosts, the narrative is allowed to ramble and the imagery is often frustratingly impenetrative at crucial moments. Consequently, for all its fleeting fascination, this never comes close to matching the grim poetics of Pedro Costa.

Returning to his neighbourhood after a spell behind bars, Pedro Ferreira immediately falls foul of gang boss João Veiga, who demands he repays a debt within a matter of hours or face the consequences. Veiga is furious that his headquarters were burgled while he was at a rave and puts one-armed oppo Paulo Ribeiro in charge of finding the culprit. Keen to go as straight as he can, Ferreira begins calling in markers. But nobody has the cash to spare and he is forced to resort to stealing from disapproving aunt Susana Maria Mendes da Costa in order to make a down payment. She catches him red-handed and orders him to see bruxo José Zeferino da Cruz, so he can use his mix of Christianity and superstition to lift the curse that Da Costa is sure is hampering her nephew.

Failing to shakedown another debtor, Ferreira bumps into buddy Nelson da Cruz Duarte Rodrigues, who tells him he is mad for trying to do business at night and urges him to get a proper job. However, Ferreira prefers the night and returns to his shack to apologise to his pet iguana for depriving it of sunlight. He entrusts the reptile to young neighbour Ana Clara Baptista de Melo Soares Barros, who promises to feed the creature and bring it home if it mananges to escape (again).

Craving a dish of snapper and onions, Veiga runs into Ferreira at a café and accuses him of stealing from his compound. He denies the charge, but realises that Veiga is not a man to cross and uses force to extract a few euros from one of his welshers. However, Veiga is not impressed with such a paltry sum and coerces Ferreira into joining Ribeiro on a nocturnal mission. Uncertain what he is supposed to be doing, Ferreira accepts a gun and tags along with the crew as they creep through a deserted building that someone says stinks of death. Shots suddenly ring out in the darkness and Ribeiro claims that Ferreira has murdered Veiga's brother.

Ferreira beats a hasty retreat and dodges the cops to return home, where he uses a knife to remove a bullet from his left arm. However, he knows he cannot linger and looks down from the rooftops as Veiga and a torch-carrying posse search the sidestreets. He takes sanctuary with Da Costa, but she makes it clear he is a nuisance and he slips away after arming himself with a machete. Stopping off to give Barros his iguana and a wristwatch to buy some food, Ferreira promises that they will all go to the moon one day. He also gives his storm lantern to Rodrigues, as they look down from the rooftop as members of Veiga's gang are arrested in the street below. But he delays his departure in order to visit Da Cruz, who performs a tarot reading and tells Ferreira he needs to have a malign spirit driven from his body before he can do something useful with his life.

Mumbling prayers, the shaman strikes the supplicant's head with twigs and Ferreira leaves in such a good mood that he pauses to dance to some accordion music. Confident he has been purged, he swings his machete as he strides through the streets and passes a trio arguing on a corner about a football match as if he hasn't seen them. He does spot the ghost of Veiga's brother, however, who warns him to flee, as, not everyone knows he didn't shoot him. But Ferreira is too spaced out to think rationally and he falls asleep in the street, only to be bundled into the back of a car and driven to the beach.

Veiga wakes Ferreira and orders him to execute Ribeiro for killing his brother. He gives him a gun. But Ferreira lacks the necessary ruthless streak and, just as one of Veiga's sidekicks warns him that it is Friday the 13th and that something is bound to go wrong, two shots ring out in the near distance. Veiga is furious that Ferreira has fouled up and shoots Ribero with a single bullet. But he refuses to help the wounded Ferreira, who is left lying on the sand with the breeze rustling his hair, as an iguana slips off a nearby rock.

Whether the last image is symbolic of Ferreira's spirit being released is unclear, but much is obfuscated in this challenging anti-thriller, which devotes more time to ambience than suspense. Despite bathing much of the action in an orange streetlight glow, Da Cunha and Tresch keep the audience in the dark during a number of key scenes and it comes as no surprise that Ferreira should meet his fate just as he sees the light. Considering he has no previous acting experience, Ferreira makes a genial, if frustratingly passive protagonist, who lives according to his own rules and rhythms and more than lives up to his name (Sombra), as he skulks in the shadows. However, the remainder of the non-professional ensemble throw themselves into their roles with some vigour. Veiga taints his menace with world-weary wit, while young Barros is utterly beguiling as the tot who takes pity on Ferreira and his pet.

Da Costa overdoes the tough love as the hectoring aunt, while Rodrigues (whose character name, Nuvem, translates as Cloud) struggles to make an impression. Yet they still contribute to the feeling of life being lived, which is reinforced by the lively and varied music and by the banter that is epitomised by the prattling of Veiga's brother, as he relates an anecdote about a gunshot victim who was unlucky enough to be hit by a stray bullet as he lay in the coffin at his own funeral. 

The scene shifts to the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula for Julien Leclercq's The Informant, a crime saga that has been adapted from Marc Fievet's autobiographical novel, L'Aviseur. Set in Gibraltar in 1987, this should have made for riveting viewing, as The Rock was then a hotbed of trafficking, smuggling and political intrigue. But Leclercq, who made his name with the combustible 2010 actioner, The Assault, fails to exploit the unique status and atmosphere of his location, while screenwriter Abdel Raouf Dafri struggles to match the intensity and complexity of his scripts for Jean-François Richet's similarly fact-based Mesrine dualogy (2008) and Jacques Audiard's uncompromising prison saga, A Prophet (2009).

Gilles Lellouche runs a café in Gibraltar with his wife, Raphaëlle Agogué. Times are tough and he has allowed so many debts to mount up that he can scarcely refuse when French customs officer Tahar Rahim offers him big bucks to snitch on any patrons involved in drug dealing. Seduced by the James Bond-like glamour of his new role, Lellouche sets about bugging his premises with some excitement. However, Agogué has grave misgivings and dismisses his reassurances that everything will turn out for the best.

All does go smoothly for a while, with Lellouche passing on information and Rahim paying promptly. However, Irish thug Aidan Devine becomes increasingly suspicious about Lellouche's activities, as do British customs officials Vlasta Vrana and Joe Cobden. Yet Rahim convinces Lellouche that he is safe and promises a bumper payday if he agrees to allow his boat to be used in a sting operation. Unfortunately, the drop goes wrong and Lellouche is caught by the British, who insist that he starts working for them.

Feeling exploited, Lellouche starts recording his conversations with Rahim. But he still needs money and accepts a commission from Irishman John Ralston to deliver a consignment of cocaine to the IRA. Internecine feuding results in Devine shooting Ralston before he is double-crossed. But, while it is clear to everyone but himself that he is perilously out of his depth, Lellouche impresses Italian kingpin Riccardo Scamarcio, who not only offers him a lucrative connection, but also starts dating his sister, Mélanie Bernier. Ignoring Agogué's warnings, Lellouche agrees to organise a shipment of drugs to Canada. However, the vessel is impounded and Lellouche is arrested as he tries to leave Gibraltar. He is tried for trafficking in Canada and given a stiff sentence. But Agogué uses his taped conversations with Rahim to have him returned to France, although he is still forced to spend a decade in jail.

Despite the copious twists and turns, this is a disappointingly predictable yarn that feebly descends into a climatic morass of sentimental melodrama. The performances are doughty, but the lack of psychological depth and character development often leaves the principals looking like inert pieces in an elaborate storytelling game. The screenplay is also lazily verbose, as Dafri relies too heavily on expository dialogue to get him out of tricky corners. Given that he was working from a fact-based source, Dafri always has a ready excuse for Lellouche's unceasingly idiotic antics. But he still might have made him less doltish and easier to root for.  

What really prevents the action from catching light, however, is Leclercq's lacklustre direction. In addition to wasting the milieu outside the dingy café by having cinematographer Thierry Pouget wash out any local colour, Leclercq also frequently allows matters to become bogged down in a surfeit of superficial detail or (especially in the latter stages) entangled in red tape. He also lets Lellouche stumble into situations that anyone with half a brain would recognise as dodgy, if not downright dangerous. The reduction of Agogué to a tutting shrew exacerbates this chauvinist idiocy, but it scarcely helps that males and females, goodies and villains are all pretty much ciphers, whose every move is anticipated by Clinton Shorter's mawkishly manipulative score.

By contrast, understatement is pivotal to Danis Tanovic's An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, a docudrama that boldly casts the subjects of the story as themselves. In 2011, Tanovic read a newspaper article that so distressed him that he travelled to rural Bosnia and asked Nazif Mujic and Senada Alimanovic if they would like to appear in screen reconstruction of their incident. When they consented, Tanovic sought out the doctors and charity workers who had also played a significant part in the saga and, much to his surprise, they agreed to participate, too. Gathering everyone together for nine days in the depth of winter, Tanovic completed the picture for just €17,000. The result may not be as slick or amusing as his Oscar-winning feature debut, No Man's Land (2001). But it is a vast improvement on his misfiring take on Krzysztof Kieslowski's Hell (2005), the soulless photojournalism melodrama Shell Shock (2009) and his virtually unseen adaptation of Ivica Djikic's comic novel, Circus Columbia (2010).

Roma couple Nazif Mujic and Senada Alimanovic live with their daughters, Sandra and Semsa, in the village of Poljice in the Tuzla region of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Unable to find a regular job, Nazif survives by scavenging for scrap iron on rubbish dumps or by picking apart abandoned cars or electrical appliances. It's a hardscrabble existence and he often has to dig in the snow in order to uncover items that only bring in a few coppers. Senada is used to him coming home with a pittance. But she keeps the girls amused during the day, while she does the laundry in the bathtub and bakes elaborate burek pasties that they share with a real sense of family togetherness.

One day, Nazif gets home to find the pregnant Senada suffering from crippling stomach pains. He drives her to the nearest hospital, where they learn she has suffered a miscarriage. However, as the pair have no insurance, the doctors are not permitted to do anything other that write a recommendation for treatment and hope that Nazif can come up with the 980 marks (around £400) they require for the essential dilatation and curettage surgery that would prevent septicaemia. Distraught, but powerless, Nazif drives Senada home. But, even though her agony increases, she is turned away during a second visit to the emergency room, as the medical staff are unable to bend the rules, no matter how serious the situation may be.

Nazif discovers a charitable organisation that might be able to help. But his rust-bucket of a car breaks down and he has to take a bus to the distant town. The volunteers do what they can to help and ring social services to explain the gravity of the case and plead for a little leeway. But, even when a second charity demonstrates that the hospital has to operate, Senada refuses to allow herself to be admitted until she has a guarantee that all bills will be paid in advance. Terrified he is going to lose his partner, Nazif borrows his sister-in-law's insurance papers and borrows a neighbour's car to a different hospital. He convinces the duty nurse that he has forgotten Senada's identity card in the rush to get her seen and she undergoes the operation. As she recovers, the consultant confides to Nazif that she was potentially a few hours away from succumbing to fatal complications

On arriving home, Nazif and Senada discover that their electricity has been disconnected because they have not been able to pay the bill. Their relatives and neighbours sympathise, but they don't have the cash to spare to help them out. However, Nazif's pals, Kasim and Refke, help him tear his old banger apart and they scrape together enough to have the power switched on. In the circumstances, it feels like a minor victory, but Nazif and Senada are just happy to be together and are ready to face whatever else life may throw at them.

In 2008, Tanovic co-founded Nasa Stranka (`Our Party'), a political organisation dedicated to ensuring that every citizen in Bosnia-Herzegovina was entitled to equal rights, regardless of their class or ethnic origin. This deceptively simple feature could easily be used as one of its party political broadcasts, as it meticulously avoids blaming anyone but the uncaring bureaucracy for Senada's plight. The doctors and charity workers are shown as compassionate, but hamstrung, while the couple's friends and family do what little they can to try and help. It's an intriguing approach and one that might profitably be emulated by those holier-than-thou British social realists who always insist on directing their judicious satirical ire at a snooty middle-class jobsworth.

As one might expect of non-professionals reliving the most traumatic moment in their lives, Nazif and Senada are sometimes a little stiff. But they are much more relaxed in the company of Sandra and Semsa and come across as fond parents and devoted partners. They seem at home with their neighbours, too, and Tanovic is as keen to highlight this sense of community as he is to commend the decency of the health professionals who tried to explain things as clearly and compassionately as they could. There are charged moments, such as when Nazif wonders why he and his late brother spent four years fighting for his country after the break up of Yugoslavia. But they never play to the camera or curse their luck. Instead, they reflect, shrug and get on with it, as there is no point wasting emotion or energy on things that can't be changed.

That said, of course, Nazif risked imprisonment to embezzle the state and save Senada. But he puts himself out every day, as he rummages for anything that could put food on the table. Shooting in natural light with a small digital camera, Erol Zubcevic captures the backbreaking drudgery of the struggle. He makes particularly telling use of the snow and the belching chimneys of the nearby factories to make Nazif look small and alone. Yet, while the harshness of the Roma existence is key to the story, Tanovic is just as interested in the human warmth that ensured it had a happy ending - and he was rewarded by the fact that the couple named their son Danis in his honour.

The mood is considerably lighter in Eytan Fox's Cupcakes, which recalls a more innocent time in harking back to such classic Israeli screen musicals as Ephraim Kishon's Oscar-nominated The Policeman (1971), Menahem Golan's Kazablan (1974) and Avi Nesher's Ha'lahaka (1978). However, fans of the Father Ted episode `A Song for Europe' will also revel in this brisk comedy, which both celebrates and satirises the Eurovision Song Contest and the disconnect between the kitschy patriotism of the majority of the audience and the cynical agendas of the national organising committees.

Gathering to watch the annual UniverSong show, a group of Tel Aviv neighbours hope they can forget their problems for a night and have some much-needed fun. Gay nursery school teacher Ofer Shechter (who frequently lip syncs in drag for his charges) wishes that boyfriend Alon Levi would forget the fact he is the clean-living face of his wealthy family's brand of hummus and come out of the closet, while Anat Waxman laments the fact that her marriage is not doing as well as her bakery. Political aide Dana Ivgy (who has an unsuspected crush on chauffeur Ofer Hayoun) also feels stressed, as she is never allowed to be herself in dancing attendance on ultra-traditional father Shimomn Mimran and blowsy cabinet minister Sarit Vino-Elad. Former beauty queen Yael Bar-Zohar also feels unfulfilled, even though she is now a successful corporate lawyer (and is having an affair with married boss Lior Ashkenazi), while the bashful Keren Berger finds it impossible to be herself outside her blog and lesbian singer-songwriter Efrat Dor is frustrated because she just can't find her audience.

Despite needing a boost, nothing on the show looks likely to lift their spirits, as the music is formulaic and style counts for much more than content . But, when Waxman breaks down and spills the beans about her husband leaving for Thailand, Dor tries to cheer her up with an impromptu UniverSong ditty and Shechter and Ivgy quickly join in. Shechter records it on his cellphone and, for a joke, submits `It Will All Work Out' by Anat-Ofah to the Israeli committee for consideration.

Much to his amazement, the song is chosen as the official entry and the naysaying of those around the other five persuade them to sign up and give the contest a shot. But TV station manager Uri Hochman and his cabal of producers, choreographers and PR gurus want them to use a slick arrangement more in keeping with the approved style and the friends have to decide whether to stick to their principles or conform and get an all expenses trip to Paris.

It won't come as much of a surprise to learn that the combo ditch `Anat You've Got the Guts' and head for the City of Light on Bar-Zohar's modelling savings. Moreover, Fox manages to give them a limo tour that is amusingly shot by cinematographer Dani Shneor through colour-coded sunglasses. But, for all its breeziness, this only offers superficial insights into the expectations of bourgeois thirtysomethings and, while it's fun to see them standing up to the Israel Broadcasting Authority and bantering with Gallic host Edouard Baer, this feels more than a little contrived until it reaches showtime and Fox delights in parodying the Eurovision vibe. Composed by Scott Hoffman - aka Babydaddy of Scissor Sisters, who went to college with one of Fox's cousins - the Anat-Ofah song is as bubblegummy as Arad Sawat's production design and it is performed by the excellent ensemble with knowing glee. But the escapism always feels a touch forced and the happy endings are more than a little self-conscious.

Finally, this week, Luke Dodd and Michael Whyte present an affectionate tribute to one of Britain's finest photographers in Looking For Light: Jane Bown. Now 89 and needing to be wheeled around by her youngest son, Hugo Moss, Bown makes a splendid subject for a documentary, as she is proud of her achievement, but far from impressed by the reputation she accrued during a 65-year career at The Observer. She is equally modest about the quality of her work and seemingly indifferent to the fact that she has not only photographed some of the most famous people on the planet, but also sufficiently caught them off guard to capture something of their true personality beneath the carefully created façade.

Given the extent to which British press and portrait photography for much of the postwar period was dominated by men, this would be quite a story in its own right. But it seems all the more remarkable for the fact that Bown was born on the kitchen floor of the handsome Herefordshire home of a married man in his sixties named Bell, who had no intention of leaving his family for the young nurse he had impregnated. Recognising that their sister would struggle to raise the child on her own, Bown's aunts agreed to take care of her and she spent the happiest part of her childhood in Dorset with Iris and Phyllis, who put a stop to her mother's visits because she had a tendency to spoil the daughter she adored, but rarely saw.

Dodd (who is Bown's archivist) joins Moss on a trip back to Bronsil House and Bown admires the tiles in the kitchen. She bears no ill will, as she visits the churchyard in which her father is buried (he died when she was five), although she admits it might have been nice to get to know her four half-brothers. She also regrets not asking her aunts more questions in later life, but Bown is not one to linger.She admits that she became a bit of a terror around the age of 12, when the identity of this occasional visitor finally dawned on her. But the 20 year-old Bown had still not fully come to terms with her situation when she looked around the church at her mother's funeral and wondered if all the mourners knew who she was.

By this time, Bown was serving in the Women's Royal Navy Service, where she first became interested in photography. On being demobbed, she enrolled at the Guildford School of Art, but admits to being a rebellious student, who never quite saw the point of the exercises set by tutor Ifor Thomas. This spirit of independence was to serve her in good stead, as she abandoned child portraiture and started out in the competitive print world, where a distinctive profile of the philosopher Bertrand Russell proved to be her big break in 1949.

Once ensconced at The Observer, Bown began accompanying reporters like John Gale on interview assignments and was soon snapping the likes of Winston Churchill, Jayne Mansfield, Sir John Betjeman, Truman Capote and fellow photographers Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassai and David Bailey. She recalls persuading Samuel Beckett to let her take five shots in a dark alleyway and, with the third one, produced the most iconic image ever taken of the irascible Irish writer. On another occasion, she proved her elbows to be as sharp as any paparazzo's in grabbing a candid shot of Bette Davis. Bown also caught the pent-up energy of The Beatles in their dressing-room and the slightly peevish expression on the face of Fred Astaire that she had to take in a hurry because Gale had tired of interviewing him after 10 minutes.

The screen continues to fill with stylish, but unforced pictures of the great and the good. Among them are Jean Cocteau, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Cilla Black, Groucho Marx, Gina Lollobrigida, Andrei Tarkovsky, Woody Allen, Spike Lee, Tom Hanks, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Boy George, PJ Harvey, Björk, Desmond Tutu, Margaret Thatcher, Edna O'Brien and Richard Ashcroft. The latter pair enthuse about the experience of Bown posing them in natural light and prowling around them like a cat until she could pounce and come up with the perfect portrait. Photographers Don McCullin, Rankin and Nobby Clark, and former colleagues like Lynn Barber, Polly Toynbee, Gary Woodhouse, Andrew Billen, Sean O'Hagen and Patricia Holland similarly speculate about her economic working methods and the thought processes that meant she invariably found a photograph rather than took it. They also wonder how she managed to combine being at the top of her profession with raising three sons with retail executive Martin Moss.

But the best stories always come from Bown herself, who got to photograph Elizabeth II on her 80th birthday because she thought the monarch might quite like to work with a fellow octogenarian. This impish inquisitiveness prompts Bown to return to the Observer offices each Tuesday to see old friends and wallow in the atmosphere of a place she still feels is home. She refuses to retire, but is nowhere near as active as she used to be. But, while Bown seems aware that no one (male or female) is likely match her longevity or productivity, she retains a humble gratitude for the opportunities that have come her way and the talent that enabled her to exploit them.

In truth, this charming tribute isn't particularly cinematic and Bown is far too watchful to reveal much about her life, art or opinions. Frail, but hearty, she is mostly filmed in her home in Alton (which once belonged to Jane Austen's brother) and the attempts to take her out and about yield much less interesting material than the fireside chats. Dodd is a sensitive inquisitor and he coaxes Bown into relating her best anecdotes. But, in expanding upon a 2005 interview, Dodd and Whyte rely too heavily on the greatest hits technique of flashing up monochrome portraits with simple identifying captions that are supposedly intended to impress celebrity-struck viewers. In fact, the most fascinating photographs are the ones depicting everyday life and it's a shame the co-directors didn't think to include more of them, especially as they reinforce the elusive personality and subversive honesty of a style that was never as simple, unpretentious and unthreatening as it was adroitly designed to seem.