Parky at the Pictures (DVD 3/7/2014)

No one will mind about the unlikelihood of the error being repeated on several successive days and few will wonder why nobody seems curious how such an occurrence might have happened. Instead, viewers will settle into the cosy scenario, enjoy the moments of gentle humour and pathos and root for the principals in the hope that the suggested happy ending comes to pass. This is the acme of arthouse feel-good and one suspects Indian restaurants close to venues screening the film will feel the benefit of its sensorial depiction of delicately spiced and lingeringly aromatic dishes. But, for all its many pleasures, this charming romance is actually most successful at conveying urban alienation and the anguish of loneliness.

Taking the advice of upstairs neighbour Bharati Achrekar (who is heard, but never seen throughout) that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, Nimrat Kaur seeks to save her marriage to workaholic Nakul Vaid by preparing him a special lunch. However, the meal finds its way on to the desk of Irrfan Khan, a grumpy accountant who is soon to retire after 35 years of loyal service in a government claims department. Since his wife died, he has relied on Lokesh Raj at the Duke's Restaurant to provide his lunches, but he notices something different about this offering the moment he takes it out of its thermal bag. In a bad mood after being introduced by boss Denzil Smith to his replacement, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Khan savours the dishes. But he remains tetchy and, when Siqqiqui fails to turn up for his first training session, Khan straphangs on a crowded train and berates the neighbourhood kids for playing cricket in the street outside his house.

Kaur is delighted to take delivery of an empty pail from dabbawallah Sadashiv Kondaji Pokarkar. But her hopes of enticing Vaid are dashed when he compliments her on a cauliflower dish she had not prepared and disappears into the next room to take a phone call. They dine in silence with young daughter Yashvi Puneet Nagar, while Khan is piqued when one of the girls he chided earlier closes the blinds so he cannot watch her family eating, as he smokes on the balcony opposite. Kaur calls from the kitchen window to tell Achrekar that her treat had gone to the wrong person and she encourages her to put a note into the next delivery to see if the recipient has the grace to acknowledge the error or thank her for the food.

Khan is surprised to find the missive and Kaur is nettled when he replies that the paneer she had spent so long making was a touch salty. Achrekar lowers a basket containing some fiery chilis and urges Kaur to teach the stranger a lesson rather than telling Pokarkar that the service is misfiring. Having once again avoided training Siddiqui, Khan settles down to eat in the canteen and is so overwhelmed by the heat of the dish that he writes to Kaur to inform her that he needed to purchase two bananas to soothe his palate. She is amused by his observation that many young bucks subsist on fruit because it is cheap and filling. But, while Kaur is disappointed he has again omitted to thank her, she confides in him about Vaid being so distracted and tells him about Achrekar spending 15 years caring for a comatose husband and how she bought a generator to guarantee his comfort when the power once failed and his ceiling fan went off.

As he reads, Khan keeps glancing anxiously at the office fans and responds to Kaur's concern about the purpose of life by telling her that he recently bought a vertical burial plot and will now spend eternity in the same upright position he is forced to adopt on the train home each night. He suggests she has another child to save her marriage and she dresses in her honeymoon sari to try and interest her husband. But Vaid merely complains that the cauliflower dish is giving him gas and Kaur feels forlorn.

The next morning, there's a traffic jam in the city centre and Khan becomes concerned when his rickshaw driver tells him that a woman has jumped to her death from a high-rise building with her young daughter. Fearing this might be his new friend, Khan waits with trepidation for the delivery and is relieved when the familiar green bag is placed on his desk. But, just as he is about to read the enclosed note, Siddiqui rushes up to the table and blurts out that he is an orphan who has never expected anything from anyone and that he will learn the job whether Khan helps him or not. Abashed by his treatment of the junior, Khan sends him off to tackle a file before reading how the woman's suicide had affected Kaur because her own younger brother had taken his life after failing his exams and she wonders what must have been going through the mother's mind as she ascended the building. Kaur concludes that, even though some have criticised her for taking the easy way out, she thinks this desperate measure took considerable courage.

In a bid to cheer her up, Khan warns Kaur about harbouring dark thoughts and tells her about the time he was fondled on the train and was convinced that the culprit was a wizened old lady, who beamed at him when he tried to shame her into stopping by smiling at her. As he leaves work, however, Khan is pursued by Siddiqui, who asks if there is any truth in the rumour that he once kicked a cat under a bus. Khan snarls that it was a blind man he killed and the eager Siddiqui shuffles after him uncertain whether he is joking. They take the train together and, as he chops vegetables on a board on his knee, Sissiqui reveals that he had a tough childhood and picked up most of his skills while working abroad in places like Saudi Arabia. He invites Khan to sample his lamb pasanda and meet fiancée Shruti Bapna, but Khan defers the offer and settles in for another night in front of the television. 

The next day, Khan is about to tuck into an apple dish devised by Kaur's grandmother when Siddiqui plonks himself down in the chair opposite and, because he only has an apple and a banana for lunch, Khan shares his meal. Siddiqui is amazed at how tasty it is and asks for the name of the restaurant. But Khan says it is soon to close and they both agree that true talent is only rarely rewarded in modern-day India. In his reply, Khan praises Kaur's cooking and tells her about watching some TV shows that his wife had videotaped and how he had recalled how he used to catch her reflection in the screen as he smoked on the balcony and now wishes he could still look round and find her there.

Touched by his devotion, Kaur reminisces about watching programmes with her grandmother and ticks him off for smoking because it's bad for his health. This note had been passed to him by Siddiqui, who had found it between two chapatis as he took his share of the next day's lunch. But, as Khan slips the paper into his shirt pocket, Siddiqui contents himself with saying how odd it is to see a handwritten message in the email era.

Khan eats alone next day, but, as he savours the smell of the food, Kaur detects perfume on Vaid's shirts and realises he is having an affair. She goes to see her mother, Lillete Dubey, who is visiting her father in hospital and pleads with her to accept some money towards his expensive medicine. Dubey curses that she wouldn't have money worries if her son was still alive to provide for her and Kaur returns home more eager than ever to hear from Khan, as he suddenly seems to be the only person in her world who understands her or considers her valuable.

He tells her how he bought a painting of a street scene because he thought he had spotted himself among the pedestrians and laments how little of the Bombay of his youth remains in booming Mumbai. But he is glad to be able to tell her such things, as a shared intimacy somehow preserves it and Kaur is suitably moved by his assertion to go and tell Nagar about how she used to play mummies and daddies with her brother and how they often swapped roles. She rewards Khan by making his favourite aubergine dish and he looks around before spooning it on to his tin plate, as he is keen to avoid sharing. His enjoyment is spoilt, however, by the news of Vaid's adultery and Kaur wishes she could go to Bhutan because Nagar has learnt at school that it has Gross National Happiness rather than a gross national product.

Having offered to take her, Khan asks Siddiqui about Bhutan on the train and he suggests gnomically that we sometimes have to take the wrong train in order to arrive at the right station. Alone at home, Khan listens to Radio Bhutan and is taken aback next day when Kaur refuses his invitation because she doesn't know his name. When he tells her, she asks Achrekar to play the filmi soundtrack to Lawrence D'Souza's 1991 movie, Sajaan, and the kids on the train continue the refrain as the scene cuts between the commuting Khan and Kaur writing to suggest that they meet the next day at a discreet restaurant. 

Hesitant about what to do for the best, Khan is summoned by Smith, who informs him that Siddiqui has made an unholy mess of the account entrusted to him. The older man takes the blame (even though he has never made a mistake before) and agrees to work through the night to repair the damage. He ticks off Siddiqui for making the folders smell of vegetables, but admits that he should have made the time to train him and even accepts an invitation to supper. Khan is charmed by the easy banter between Siddiqui and Bapna and agrees to be a witness when they marry, as her strict Muslim father has finally consented to the match and even offered to buy Siddiqui a scooter as a wedding gift.

Siddiqui had complimented Khan on looking 10 years younger and teased him about having a girlfriend at his age. But, as he pauses in front of the mirror before his tryst with Kaur, Khan catches sight of his ageing face and decides to duck out of the meeting when a younger man offers him a seat on the train and calls him `uncle'. Kaur waits nervously at her table, but soon realises she has been stood up and she lets Khan know how betrayed she feels by sending an empty lunchbox the next day. In his remorseful reply, Khan explains how the smell in the bathroom after his shower had reminded him of his grandfather and he was suddenly struck by the futility of her buying a used lottery ticket. He admits that he watched her from the bar at the restaurant and recognised that he could not impose himself upon a woman with the rest of her life in front of her. After extolling her beauty, Khan concludes by thanking her for allowing him to be part of her dream and apologises for not being the man to make it come true.

That weekend, Khan attends Siddiqui's wedding and is the only person on his side in the family photos. He had promised to speak to Smith about Siddiqui becoming his assistant. But he has decided to retire and move to the country instead and assures his protégé that he will make a good husband as he bids him farewell. As he packs a few belongings, Kaur gets news that her father has died and she is shocked when Dubey allows years of pent-up frustration to pour out as she regrets the time she wasted caring for a man she had long ceased to love and whom she eventually came to despise.

Yet, the harsh words strike a chord and, the following day, Kaur confronts Pokarkar about the lunchbox going to the wrong address so that she can find out where Khan works. She goes to the office with Nagar and is dismayed to learn from Siddiqui that Khan has already quit. Indeed, he is already on the train to exile when he has his own epiphanal moment and he gets home that evening to find the children playing cricket outside his gate. Instead of driving them away, however, he urges them not to break any windows and, when he leans on his balcony at supper time, he sees the little girl opposite waving to him. Across the city, Achrekar asks Kaur where she has been hiding and tells her that she has found a way to clean the fan without inconveniencing her husband.

During the night, Kaur sorts throught her jewellery and sits down to write a letter she will never send. She tells Khan that she intends to sell the trinkets to buy two tickets to Bhutan and concludes with the old maxim about reaching the right destination by the wrong train. The next morning, Khan sits among the clapping, singing dabbawallahs on the train and looks out of the window hoping he is not too late to make amends.

Developed with the aid of the Sundance Lab, this undoubtedly had the feel of a picture that has been handcrafted to appeal to the widest possible audience. The performances of Khan, Kaur and Siddiqui are impeccable, while Achrekar provides plenty of off-screen common sense. Moreover, cinematographer Michael Simmonds, editor John F. Lyons and composer Max Richter all make outstanding contributions, as Batra captures the bustle of the more prosperous areas of Mumbai and the ease with which people can become isolated in an age of convenient travel, instant communication and impersonal service. .

Yet the story often meanders and the subplots involving Siddiqui and Vaid don't sit as smugly in the narrative as they might. Several coincidences and convolutions also stick out, along with some of the symbolism. But this is what happens when a picture is made by committee - and this one has 24 producers, including the celebrated Bosnian director Danis Tanovic, whose latest feature, An Episode From the Life of an Iron Picker, goes on general release at the end of the month.

In spite of its finessed quaintness, however, this still has sufficient wit and warmth to engage and entertain. The use of images to illustrate the voiceovers during the letter-reading passages is as slick as that in David Jones's 84 Charing Cross Road (1987). Moreover, even though Khan lives in a Christian quarter and Kaur in a Hindu district, Batra's script avoids the clichés and stereotypes that bolstered the designer poverty of Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and the touristy blandness of John Madden' s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012). But this always owes more to Bollywood than the more nuanced dramas found in Parallel Cinema.

Now in his 80s, Roman Polanski is becoming a dab hand at adapting stage plays for the screen. Following his 1994 take on Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden and his 2011 version of Yasmina Reza's Carnage, he has now joined forces with playwright David Ives to rework a Tony-winning 2010 two-hander whose roots lie in an 1870 novel by the Austrian author, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Full of teasing allusions to his past and boasting a striking performance by his wife of 25 years, Venus in Fur may not be Polanski's most cinematically audacious work. But it has a deceptive complexity and teasing sophistication that make its shifting power games all the more compelling and provocative.

Frazzled at the end of a long day of disappointing auditions, theatre director Thomas Novachek (Mathieu Amalric) is ready to go home. However, he is cornered by late arrival Vanda Jordan (Emmanuelle Seigner), who gives him a sob story about why she is so late for a slot he cannot find on the call sheet. Blowsy and gum-chewing, Vanda seems all wrong for the part in Thomas's adaptation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs, even though she shares a first name with its heroine, Vanda von Dunajew. Moreover, she hasn't put in much preparation for the role and seems to have little insight into either the character or her situation.

Yet, such is her eagerness to please that Thomas agrees to let her read and is surprised when she produces a full script from her bag. She also unpacks a dress she has bought specially for the audition and shows him an authentic Viennese smoking jacket from 1869, which she encourages him to put on as he runs her lines. Keen to get home to fiancée Marie-Cécile, Thomas agrees to play Severin von Kushemski in the hope of demonstrating to Vanda that she is wasting her time. But he is impressed when she approaches the lighting desk in the auditorium and alters the mood of the set, which still contains props from a Belgian musical version of Stagecoach (including a hilariously phallic cactus). Moreover, he is captivated by the way in which she slips into character with surprising and persuasive ease.

Vanda asks lots of questions that seem to betray a lack of education and Thomas finds it hard to take her seriously, even after she changes into her period dress and modulates her accent to deliver her lines. But they soon settle into the roles of Kushemski and Dunajew, as they meet for the first time and she is beguiled by his intellect after finding a picture of Titian's `Venus With Mirror' in the pages of his book. She coaxes him into telling a revealing anecdote about the boyhood humiliation he suffered at the hands of his aunt and he finds himself falling under her spell. He has long remained a bachelor, as he has never found the woman to whom he wanted to give himself entirely. But Vanda is both voluptuous and sensual and he begs her to treat him as a slave and degrade him in order to keep him in line.

With the line between fact and fiction fast beginning to blur, Thomas loses his temper when Vanda suggests the play is merely about child abuse and he snarls that he detests critics who always have to find a subtext or a contemporary relevance for everything they see. She marvels that Dunajew seems to be both a feminist ahead of her times and an incarnation of Venus eager to make Kushemski see the error of his ways. But Thomas is equally amazed, as Vanda seems to know a good deal more about the play than she has been letting on and the pair slip in and out of character as they banter about ambiguity, control, fantasy and reality, and the tensions between the sexes.

The mood is broken by a phone call from Thomas's fiancée and he is put out to return to the stage to find Vanda also chatting on the phone. He asks about her life away from the stage and she tells him she was an army brat who followed her soldier father. However, his curiosity is deflected when she returns to the text as Dunajew proposes drawing up a contract for a year to see whether he has what it takes to be her vassal. Kushemski readily agrees, even though she demands that he finds out the room number of a dashing Greek soldier who has caught her eye. Vanda breaks off again to sip coffee and ask Thomas why he dropped the opening part of the novel and he is again taken aback by her unsuspected knowledge. She suggests they improvise and changes the lighting again and strips to her black lingerie and lets down her long blonde hair to recline on the divan as Aphrodite taunting Severin in a Germanic accent about his love of fur and how powerless he is to resist her.

Vanda is now giving the stage directions and Thomas seems happy to obey, as he has realised he can add a layer to the action by suggesting that Vanda is Venus in disguise looking for revenge. Of course, it doesn't occur to him for an instant than Vanda Jordan may already have anticipated his `inspiration' and he snaps back when she suggests there is a lot of himself in both characters. She dons his jacket and perches his glasses on the end of her nose, as he lies on the sofa to be quizzed about his relationship with Marie-Cécile and how unfulfilling it is. Vanda mocks Thomas for choosing a younger women with brains, beauty and a bank account in order to make himself feel better about ageing and his flawed artistry. But he cuts her short and suggests they return to the play.

Thomas re-arranges the set to resemble a birch grove, while Vanda puts her dress back on and prepares her next ruse at his expense. She takes exception to the inherent sexism of the piece and when he attacks her for not having the wit to see below the surface, she starts to leave. He pleads with her to stay and she complains that Severin retains control even as he succumbs to her whims, as that is what he craves. However, Vanda resumes her performance and shows Severin the contract she requires him to sign and informs him he will become her valet, as well as her sexual slave. She orders him to get her a box at the opera close to the handsome Greek and admonishes him when he protests at her readiness to explore her new carnality.

But, once again, Vanda challenges the veracity of the text and accuses Thomas of peddling corny nonsense because Dunajew would never take a birth twig and thrash him for his insubordination. He defends his work and she puts a knife to his throat. But they are interrupted by his phone and, when he returns to the stage, he accuses her of pretending to call her partner. Vanda shrugs and tells him that she is a private eye who has been hired by Marie-Cécile to check him out before she commits to marriage. But he doubts her story about them meeting at the gym and seems disenchanted by the entire exercise.

However, Vanda tosses him a footman's uniform and overrides his objection that the servile alter ego is named Gregor by calling him Thomas. She gets him to help her into a pair of knee-high boots with spike heels and orders him to tell Marie-Cécile that he won't be home. Completing his transformation, she places the dog collar that she had been wearing around his neck. As they return to the play, Vanda feigns difficulty with playing the moment Kushemski tries to renege on the deal and asks him to play Dunajew to help her understand her motivation.

Once more, Thomas fails to notice the tables being turned, as she puts the fur (actually a knitted shawl) around his shoulders, daubs on some lipstick and makes him wear her black court shoes. He falls to his knees as Dunajew explains that she had only assumed the role of mistress to try and cure Kushemski of his perversion. But Vanda (as Severin) pulls a gun and berates him for his deception. She informs him that she is going use her stockings to tie him (as Dunajew) to the statue of Venus in the garden and Thomas (now utterly confused as to who he is) allows himself to be led to the cactus like a cur on a leash.

As she ties him up, Vanda tells Thomas that the problem with this play is the inescapable conclusion that it is pornographic and degrading to women. Ignoring his protests that it has been drawn from an acknowledged work of literature, she leaves him in the darkness. As she sidles in from the wings with a single spotlight on the cactus, Vanda quotes a line about the fury of the Bacchae and torments Thomas by dancing naked with her fur before slinking off the stage and into the stormy night, leaving him to await the shame of his inevitable discovery. 

Given the resemblance between Mathieu Amalric and a younger Roman Polanski, this is a picture that delights in inviting speculation. Quite how much personal history has been explored here is open to question, but it's unlikely that the 80 year-old Pole has exposed himself quite as courageously as his wife. Emmanuelle Seigner delivers one of her best screen performances here, as she tilts the slow-burning battle of wills and wits to lure Amalric into her trap. He responds with total conviction, as Pawel Edelman's camera glides archly around the stage to capture each shift in tone and perspective. But, while the audience always knows who Thomas is and which role he is playing, the true identity of Vanda remains something of a tantalising mystery.

Non-French speakers are at something of an advantage, as the subtitler has helpfully placed the play text in italics. But Polanski and Ives do a decent job of concealing their sleights of hand, as they comment on both Sacher-Masoch's milieu and mindset, the state of modern gender politics, the process of directing actors and, who knows, maybe even the everyday dynamic within the Polanski household. Cunningly counterpointed by Alexandre Desplat's score and drolly edited by Hervé de Luze and Margot Meynier, this may miss its step in striving to prove in the closing sequence that Thomas wishes to submit more than Vanda seeks to subjugate him. But it atones in sly style and satire for what it lacks in political or philosophical depth.

Written by feature first-timer Eirene Houston, Day of the Flowers is one long muddle, as it vacillates between sibling melodrama, romantic comedy and political travelogue. Browbeating the audience at every turn, it is populated by eminently resistible and thinly sketched characters and directed with polish but no personality by John Roberts, whose last movie was the forgettable 1998 parrot romp, Paulie. With its Irish and English leads mangling Glaswegian accents for all they're worth and their Cuban co-stars being saddled with patronising caricatures, this is shrill, unfunny and charmless.

Well into her thirties and seemingly without a job, dour leftie Eva Birthistle devotes herself to crusading for indeterminate political causes on the streets of Glasgow. While haranguing a passer by, she is interrupted by younger sister Charity Wakefield with the news that their estranged father has died. Sweeping her away to the funeral, Wakefield begs Birthistle to be nice to their detested stepmother, Phyllis Logan, who had transformed their father from a committed activist to a bourgeois lackey. But, when she learns that his ashes are going to be converted into a golf trophy, Birthistle decides to steal them. Handing Down Syndrome stepbrother Tommy Jessop an urn full of cat litter, Birthistle does a flit and explains to the baffled Wakefield that she can follow a recorded delivery slip left in a cigar box of mementoes to find their late mother's whereabouts and scatter them together on the Day of the Flowers in the central Cuban town of Trinidad, where they first met as volunteers for Castro's revolution in the early 1970s. .

Birthistle is put out when Wakefield shows up at the airport with tons of luggage, as she had planned to make the trip with platonic pal Bryan Dick. She is even more peeved when Wakefield gets detained at customs and they miss the bus to Trinidad. Suave stranger Christopher Simpson steps in to help them find a taxi, only for it to break down in the middle of nowhere and Wakefield infuriates driver Luis Alberto García by only giving him a fraction of the agreed fare when they hitch a ride to Havana with a group of fair trade activists led by Robert Fitch and his girlfriend, Olivia Poulet. Birthistle boasts of the work their parents did for the country as the bus rolls along and she is deeply annoyed when, on arrival, Wakefield dons a spangly dress and insists they find a typical Cuban night spot.

However, she is even more nettled when Fitch's friend, Carlos Acosta, cautions her about trusting the likes of Simpson (who just happens to bump into them on the street) because not everyone on the island is a model socialist. Seething with indignation that the locals should have to pander to foreign expectations of national stereotypes, Birthistle refuses to enjoy herself in the bar, even though Poulet assures her that tourism is encouraged by the state. But, when Wakefield lures Dick on to the dance floor, Birthistle accepts Acosta's invitation to join him for a rumba, only to stalk off when she perceives he is flirting with her.

The next morning, Birthistle shows Wakefield the lock of their mother's hair she keeps in a small silver box. But, as they are arguing about Wakefield trying to turn a pilgrimage into a Club Carib holiday, the police arrive to confiscate the ashes because they are not allowed in the country without official documentation. Despite cursing García for ratting on them, Birthistle refuses to ask Acosta for help and has to be dragged to the ballet school where he teaches. Touched by his manner with the young pupils, Birthistle makes her request, only to blow it by insulting the patriotic Costa with her suggestion that they could speed up the process with a bribe.

That afternoon, they join Fitch and Poulet on a tour of a cigar factory, where the sight of Wakefield and Dick cosying up makes Birthistle so jealous that she storms off to find Simpson, who had promised to help her with anything she needs. He takes her to a cashpoint to get funds to grease the palm of a shady character who lurks in a backstreet hideout and she is relieved to leave with the news that wheels are in motion. Simpson offers to introduce her to his family and she climbs on to the back of his motorbike and they ride out into the countryside.

As Birthistle receives a warm welcome and Simpson's mother has her pig slaughtered to give her guest a proper feast, Wakefield becomes worried that her sister has not returned to her room. Determined to prove she isn't such an airhead, she finds an old photo of their parents in Cuba and decides to track down their friend Enrique Molina to see if he can help. Dick accompanies her on what seems like a wild goose chase before a couple of hookers take them to an upmarket hotel, where Molina happens to be head of security. He gives Wakefield a cigar and says she has her mother's spirit. However, he also casts doubt over some of the stories that their father had told about his time in Cuba and jokes that she shouldn't believe all she hears about their roguish ally, Manuel de Blas.

While Wakefield puzzles over what Molina might be alluding to, Birthistle feels overwhelmed by the hospitality of Simpson's kin and is keen to leave after she gets her father's ashes back. However, he insists it would be rude not to stay the night and Birthistle pulls on a frilly pink nightie loaned by his sister. Simpson brings her a fan and tells her he would do anything for her and would love to marry her and go back to Scotland. But Birthistle realises she is being propositioned when he removes his shirt and, on fleeing the bedroom, she is shocked to find what turns out to be his mother and his wife going through her things. Grabbing her bag, she denounces Simpson for betraying a noble socio-political experiment and he retorts that she has no idea how hard life is for the ordinary people. She also twigs that García is his cousin and that he has been setting her up from the moment he saw her. So, she thrusts some cash into his hands and stalks off into the night to sleep rough at the side of a railway track.

On learning there is no public transport on Sundays, Birthistle starts walking back towards the capital and is grateful when Acosta comes to rescue her. He laughs when she gets snapped at by a crocodile at the side of the road and chides her for giving Simpson her money and persisting in being so naive about Cuba. But, as they ride in the back of a truck, he shows her a photo of his daughter and reveals that her mother ran away with a tourist. When she offers her sympathy, Acosta says he never worries about the past because there is always so much going on in the present. Birthistle tells him that she has the ashes and plans to find De Blas as soon as possible. However, on being reunited with Wakefield, she announces that Birthistle has put herself in danger for nothing, as she has the real ashes because Logan faxed through a copy of the death certificate.

Wakefield is livid that her sibling still refuses to take her seriously and, ignoring Dick's protestations, she delights in shattering her illusions by revealing that their mother committed adultery and mocks Birthistle's romantic notion of having been conceived in Cuba by questioning her paternity. Refusing to rise to the bait, Birthistle dresses to the nines and goes dancing with strangers in a bar. However, Dick notices Simpson asking questions around the hotel and follows him. When he sees him bundling Birthistle into the back of García's cab, he smashes the windscreen with a golf club he just happens to be carrying and alerts the passing Acosta to what it going on. Acosta gives chase and is run over in his efforts to block the speeding vehicle and Birthistle rushes over to him when Simpson pushes her out of the back seat as no longer being worth the trouble.

Birthistle goes back to Acosta's flat and cleans up the cut on his forehead. He says she looks sexy in a dress and they kiss and her conviction that this is a bad idea crumbles when he pins her to the wall. Waking the next morning, Birthistle feels an unfamiliar contentment as she pulls on Acosta's t-shirt and watches the happy citizens milling beneath his balcony. However, she suddenly realises it's the Day of the Flowers and apologises to Acosta for making a massive mistake before rushing off clutching De Blas's address. He recognises her immediately and is upset to learn that her father died without forgiving him. She is also dismayed to discover that he has already scattered her mother's ashes on his garden and, when she confronts him about their relationship, he explains that he is Wakefield's father and that her parents split because of him.

Feeling furious once more, Birthistle stomps back to the hotel to discover that Wakefield has checked out. As a parade goes past, she spots her waiting for a taxi and rushes over to say that her mission had been foolish and agrees that they should concentrate on the present rather than the past. The sisters throw flowers off the bridge where their parents first met and scatter some of their father's ashes, as Birthistle cryptically remarks that she is keeping some for a friend. They wander back to the hotel and Wakefield guesses that Birthistle slept with Acosta and urges her not to lose him.

As Wakefield canoodles with Dick during the fiesta, she notices De Blas across the crowded courtyard and knows instantly that he is her father. They smile at each other with lowered eyes before he melts into the throng. Meanwhile, Birthistle wanders the empty streets until she comes to the ballet school. She sees Acosta with his daughter and asks him to dance with her and they sway together in a hallway with peeling walls.

Considering Houston's extensive TV experience, this is a surprisingly slipshod scenario. She has created a heroine whose ideology hardly scarcely stand close scrutiny and whose killjoy inclinations make her difficult to tolerate, let alone like. Moreover, she has concocted a comic relief sidekick who exists solely to highlight what a pompous prude her sister is. And what purpose the kilt-wearing Dick serves is anyone's guess, unless it's to prove that not every male character has to be a walking cliché like the cardboard Cubans Houston has plucked from Central Casting.

Given that the dialogue is also thunderingly prosaic and that the storyline blunders between confrontations sparked by Birthistle's holier than thou attitude, it's no surprise that this never convinces for a second. Roberts struggles to hit either a consistent tone or a dramatic rhythm, while Vernon Layton's photography is perfunctory and Stephen Warbeck's score leaves viewers with few emotional options as it blares away with all the subtlety of the lead performances. Fuming like Alex Ferguson in a post-match interview, Birthistle relies on an array of petulent sneers that are matched by Wakefield's range of incredulous pouts. But, in their defence, they are left high and dry by a plot that would have telenovela audiences rolling their eyes at its corniness.

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.

Despite moving further east, the German influence is strong in the debuting Nana Ekvtimishvili's In Bloom, as this semi-autobiographical rite of passage set in Georgia in 1992 was co-directed by her Munich-trained husband, Simon Gross, who made his own feature bow with Fata Morgana back in 2006. Some of the more poetic realist passages owe much to the Italian neo-realists, the French nouvelle vagueurs and Ekvtimishvili's esteemed compatriot, Otar Iosseliani. But the presence of cinematographer Oleg Mutu connects the action to the work of such Romanian new wavers as Cristi Puiu and Cristian Mungiu,

Even though they frequently squabble, 14 year-olds Lika Babluani and Mariam Bokeria are inseparable. The former is reserved and naive and lives in a spacious apartment with her hard-pressed mother, Ana Nijaradze, and her boy-mad older sister, Maiko Ninua. Their father is in prison for a murder whose significance becomes apparent as the drama unfolds and Babluani treasures a box containing such possessions as some letters, a watch, a packet of cigarettes and a Soviet Union passport. She does take advantage of the fact that Nijaradze is often out to invite Bokeria and other classmates round to drink wine, smoke and enjoy a rousing singsong. The moment the door opens, however, they all pretend they are engrossed by their homework, while a more decorous waltz plays on the piano..

By contrast, the more outgoing Bokeria has to share a cramped flat with drunken father Temiko Chichinadze, embittered mother Tamar Bukhnikashvili, aimless brother, Sandro Shanshiashvili and shrewish grandmother Berta Khapava. No wonder, therefore, she prefers being with Babluani, whether gambolling through a field, riding on the dodgems at the funfair, or joining in a class rebellion against strict teacher, Marina Janashia. Bokeria also delights in flirting with such Tblisi tearaways as Zurab Gogaladze, Giorgi Aladashvili and the more dashing Data Zakareishvili, who has plans to go to Moscow and make his fortune. He is keen to marry Bokeria on his return and, as a result, she spurns the flowers that the thuggish Gogaladze keeps giving her. Indeed, she is deeply touched when Zakareishvili entrusts her with his handgun and a single bullet.

Bokeria soon lends the weapon to Babluani, however, as she is being pestered near the bridge on the way to school by Aladashvili and his sidekick, Gia Shonia. Violence is always seemingly near the surface in a country close to conflict over the disputed Black Sea territory of Abkharia. Thus, Aladashvili tries to intimate Babluani with kung-fu moves, while fights break out in bread queues and quickly spiral out of control.

But everything changes when Gogaladze and his family snatch Bokeria from the street and rush her into a forced marriage. Her parents seem powerless to prevent the match, while Bokeria is far from happy at the prospect of having her wings clipped by in-laws Tamar Bukhnikashvili and Temiko Chichinadze. Yet she goes through with the ceremony and Babluani dances at the afterparty with a strangely joyous abandon, considering that her closest friend has been forced to bow to tradition. Even Bokeria seems to warm to the idea of being a wife when she is serenaded by a solo guitarist and almost swoons with the romantic intensity of the gesture. However, she soon learns how restricted her movements have become, as Gogaladze forbids her to attend school and refuses to allow her to celebrate her birthday with her friends.

Zakareishvili hears about his beloved's abduction and returns to Tblisi. However, Gogaladze and his pals are waiting for him and murder him in a knife fight. Heartbroken, Bokeria urges Babluani to hand over the gun so she can exact her revenge. But, having lost her father to a revenge crime, she talks her out of ruining her life in such a reckless manner and even finds a way of resolving her feud with Aladashvili.

Despite occasionally straying into melodrama, this is a fascinating memoir of a little-seen place at a key point in its recent history. Ekvtimishvili and Gross capture the sights, mood and sounds of the time, with curfew announcements, patriotic radio exhortations and minor Phil Collins hits as likely to crop up on the soundtrack as more traditional Georgian music or tunes hailing from back in the USSR. But, where Ekvtimishvili's script scores highest is in its insights into the status of young women in a nascent democratic society, where virginity suddenly only matters to misogynist traditionalists. The group sequences of the girls gossiping and flexing their new freedoms are splendidly staged and the ensemble playing is admirable. But scenes such as the family dinner that descends into an hysterical shouting match feels less controlled

A very different rite of female passage is chronicled in Lukas Moodysson's We Are the Best!, a sparky adaptation of Never Goodnight, a semi-autobiographical graphic novel by the director's wife, Coco, which captures the enthusiasms, insecurities and indiscretions of youth with considerable wit and offbeat charm, while also exposing just how poorly the Riot Grrrl mindset has been served by the media in general and cinema in particular.

While everyone else in Sweden in 1982 had moved on from punk, 13 year-old Mira Barkhammar still devoted to anarchic Stockholm combo Ebba Grön. With her short hair and granny glasses, Barkhammar looks much less punky than mohawked fellow misfit Mira Grosin. But they share an abrasive attitude towards authority and a seething detestation of their PE teacher. They also have a healthy dislike of Iron Fist, a metal band that rehearses at the youth club run by Johan Liljemark and Mattias Wiberg. So, having been insulted once too often by the long-haired quartet, they exploit a bureaucratic snafu to get them ejected from the rehearsal space and start thrashing around on the drum kit and bass guitar they leave behind. Pleased with the cacophony they create (even though they have never picked up an instrument before in their lives), the girls decide to form their own punk group and play at the school's Christmas concert.

Denied the opportunity to appear in the show, Barkhammar and Grosin watch in disgust as peppy classmates Viveca Dahlén and Clara Christiansson dance in pastel spandex to the Human League hit `Don't You Want Me'. They are no more impressed by a cackhanded magician. But they do recognise the talent shown by classical guitarist Liv LeMoyne and try to enlist the Christian goody two-shoes in the school canteen. Much to their surprise, the lonely LeMoyne comes to the youth club and is so taken with the `Hate the Sport' number that she agrees to sign up and tries to teach Barkhammar a few drum fills and show Grosin how to play the bass.

Barkhammar lives with her mother, Anna Rydgren, and is embarrassed by her efforts to find a new boyfriend after hitting her 40th birthday. Grosin is equally ashamed of parents Lena Carlsson and David Dencik (a clarinet-playing oddball who finds his daughter's misadventures highly entertaining) and siblings Charlie Falk and Lily Moodysson. But Barkhammar has a crush on the 16 year-old Falk (even though he has abandoned Ebba Grön for Joy Division) and tries to impress him at a party, where she succeeds only in getting drunk and throwing up on his record collection. She gets into more trouble with LeMoyne's mother, Ann-Sofie Rase, who threatens to report them to the police after she and Grosin hector their new recruit into letting them shear her long, blonde tresses.

But the trio keep making musical progress and Liljemark and Wiberg are taken aback when they show the girls the club's new electric guitar and LeMoyne launches into an axe attack that earns them a spot alongside Iron Fist in a New Year gig at a Västerort community centre.  They also make contact with a punk boy band from suburban Solna and take a train across the capital to meet with Jonathan Salomonsson and Alvin Strollo on a snowy afternoon. Despite being slightly underwhelmed by their Brezhnev-Reagan song, Barkhammar and Grosin each develops a crush on Salomonsson and the former sulks on the roof of a housing block when she realises he prefers the more gregarious Grosin.

Christmas comes and goes and Barkhammar goes behind her friend's back to meet with Salomonsson in his bedroom. Unfortunately, the truth comes out while they're on a train and LeMoyne has to shame the pair into burying the hatchet so that they can play their debut. Liljemark and Wiberg have hired a bus to transport the girls and Iron Fist to the Västerort and there is plenty of spiky banter en route. But the tiny crowd take exception to the teen trio and some attempt to storm the stage after Grosin taunts them in the grand punk manner and they have to beat a hasty retreat.

The picture closes with inserts during the credit crawl showing Barkhammar, Grosin and LeMoyne getting up to harmless mischief. But, actually, they indulge in little else in a story that amusingly reveals the heroines' bristling posturing to be little more than mild acting out. The worst thing they do is browbeat LeMoyne into letting them cut her hair and their acute awkwardness as Rase suggests a church-going punishment to teach them the perils of coercion reinforces just how young and naive Barkhammar and Grosin really are. In this regard, Moodysson ably catches the tone of his source material. But this lacks the satirical sting of Show Me Love (1998) and Together (2000) and has none of the dangerous edge that made Lilya 4-Ever (2002) such discomfiting viewing.

Brighter, but less prepossessing or assured that Grosin, Barkhammar holds things together ably as the demure, middle-class rebel who doesn't understand why Rydgren keeps looking for boyfriends when she is still clearly fond of ex-husband Peter Eriksson. Yet she has her own share of crushes and occasionally wonders if her outré looks are more of a hindrance than a valid mode of self-expression. Refusing to accept that punk is dead, Grosin is palpably feistier, but she and LeMoyne are less well limned and, as a consequence, the vignettish narrative frequently lacks a cogent focus.

Nevertheless, Moodysson directs briskly and without condescension, as he explores the notion that even mavericks cannot entirely escape stereotype and conformity. He is splendidly served by production designers Paola Hölmer and Linda Janson, costumier Moa Li Lemhagen Schalin and editor Michal Leszczylowski, who imparts a restless energy to Ulf Brantås's unfussy visuals. But credit should also go to Rasmus Thord and the person who came up with such witty translations for the various punk lyrics.