Parky at the Pictures (DVD 29/9/2016)

Great things have been expected of Kawase since she became the youngest winner of the Camera d'or at Cannes for her feature debut, Suzaku (1997), which chronicled the impact of economic stagnation on a family in a remote mountain village. However, her blend of mystical lyricism and calculated mannerism prompted mixed reviews for The Mourning Forest (2007), which focuses on the relationship between a nurse grieving for a lost child and an old man suffering from dementia, and Still the Water (2014), in which a pair of lonely teens are brought together by their domestic woes. In adapting Durian Sukagawa's novel, Sweet Bean, however, she strikes a better balance between reflection and drama, as she returns to her key themes of meaningful communication and the connection between humanity and the natural world.

Stuck in a middle-aged rut, Masatoshi Nagase runs a dorayaki kiosk in a Tokyo suburb. He is forever being lectured by owner Miyoko Asada about showing more initiative, but he is so uninspired by his work that he goes through the motions while serving regulars including schoolgirl Kyara Uchida. In a bid to lighten his load, Nagase advertises for a kitchen assistant and is embarrassed when 76 year-old Kirin Kiki applies for the job, as she is so frail and has gnarled hands.

As the cherry blossom brightens the neighbourhood trees, Kiki returns to plead with Nagase to give her a chance. She notices that he uses tinned sweet bean paste in his pancakes and tells him that he will never attract customers unless he makes his own `an'. Early the next morning, Kiki arrives at the stall and shows Nagase how to prepare the ingredients to make a bubbling pot of dark red azuki beans. He is surprised by the difference in the taste and news soon spreads that his dorayaki are the best around.

Feeling neglected by her single mother, Uchida begins spending more time at the kiosk and enjoys talking to Kiki, who is always so positive about life and the people she meets. However, rumours start circulating that Kiki lives in a former leper colony and Asada cautions Nagase about employing someone who might jeopardise health and safety regulations.

On realising she is causing Nagase problems, Kiki sends him a letter of resignation. But Uchida is determined not to lose contact and suggests they go to visit Kiki at the sanatorium in which she had been confined before the law about the exclusion of leprosy victims was changed in 1996. She is pleased to see them and introduces them to her friend, Etsuko Ishihara. Kiki urges Nagase not to feel guilty, as she understands Asada's concerns and is grateful to have had one last opportunity to use her culinary skills.

Touched by Kiki's acceptance of her fate, Nagase writes her a letter, in which he explains that he had once been imprisoned for injuring a stranger in a bar brawl and that he had been forced to borrow money to make reparation. He is now so indebted to a loan shark that he has to work for Asada, who makes his life a misery. But he is glad to have had the chance to work with her and promises not to go back to using mass-produced an.

Shortly afterwards, Nagase is informed that Asada intends replacing him with her nephew. He also learns that Kiki has died. Accompanied by Uchida, he returns to the sanatorium in its pleasantly wooded grounds and is touched to discover that Kiki has left him her cooking utensils. She has also recorded a cassette message for her new friends, in which she reminds them that it's important to live well and put more effort into being a decent person than a success. In conclusion, she exhorts them to take pleasure in the world around them and savour the sensory sensations of daily life. As the film ends, the cherry blossom has returned and Uchida drops in on Nagase's new dorayaki bar in the park.

This cosy scene typifies Kawase and cinematographer Shigeki Akiyama's use of Nature throughout this touching, if slightly stilted saga. Whether lingering on the pink blossom on the trees or the red beans moiling in a large saucepan, Kawase celebrates the everyday sights that so many people miss while rushing around or dawdling with their eyes on a handheld screen. Avoiding platitudes about the old ways being best, she touches fleetingly on the impact of the recession on Japanese society and the extent to which it continues to cleave to age-old concepts of duty and honour. However, by raising the treatment of lepers alongside such issues as ageism and chauvinism, Kawase also reflects upon the lack of compassion and empathy in regards to social stigma that remains an enervating national characteristic.

Playing opposite her real-life granddaughter, Kiki is a delight as the septuagenarian making the most of her borrowed time. Her little heart-to-hearts with Uchida are charming, but her intimate early morning moments with the disaffected Nagase are both amusing and moving, while the care she takes over each stage of the caramelising process will have foodies drooling. The mood changes outside the confines of the kiosk and Kawase allows her social message to be clouded by a touch too much sentiment. But, despite David Hadjadj's piano score sometimes feeling a little twee, this treatise on patience and tolerance, resignation and regeneration slips under the jaded defences and will leave most viewers with a smile and an appetite.

Gastro-cinephiles will also warm to Florent Emilio Siri's French Cuisine, a remake of Gilles Grangier's 1963 comedy, La Cuisine au beurre (1963), which starred the much-loved Fernandel and Bourvil as rival chefs competing for the affections of Claire Maurier, while feuding over the respective merits of cooking with butter and oil. This seems an odd project for a director who followed the social drama One Minute of Silence (1998) with a pair of action thrillers, The Nest (2002) and Hostage (2005), the latter of which starred Bruce Willis. But its never been possible to pigeonhole this fiftysomething Sorbonne graduate, as he proceeded to explore the use of napalm in the Algerian War in Intimate Enemies (2007) and relate the life story of popular entertainer Claude François in My Way (2012).

Chef Franck Dubosc and wife Pascale Arbillot run a chic hotel on the Mediterranean coast. But, while he obsesses about getting a Michelin star, she is desperate to start a family before it's too late. Their problems are exacerbated, however, when Arbillot's first husband, Gérard Lanvin (who was presumed to have been killed in the 2004 tsunami), makes an unexpected return and not only sets himself up in opposition to Dubosc, but also starts using his charm on the broody Arbillot. But while Dubosc is initially prepared to trade insults with Lanvin in his kitchen, he realises the gravity of his situation when Lanvin's resurrection raises serious legal issues about his marriage and his business.

Teaming up for the first time since Fabien Onteniente's Camping (2006), Dubosc and Lanvin snap into each other with evident relish. But their often coarse banter sits awkwardly with a plot that essentially reworks the 1940 Garson Kanin screwball, My Favourite Wife, in which Irene Dunne makes a miraculous reappearance seven years after supposedly being lost at sea and comes between husband Cary Grant and his new spouse, Gail Patrick. Sadly, Arbillot is given much less to work with, as she struggles to prevent Lanvin and Dubosc ruining her Riviera dream through their macho posturing.

Cinematographer Giovanni Fiore Coltellacci contributes some picture postcard vistas. But there is too little haute cuisine for foodies to salivate over and too few surprises in the scenario to raise more than the occasional smile.

Stéphane Brizé's brings things back down to earth in The Measure of a Man, which continues the proud French tradition of cine-realism that dates back to the 1930s. Co-scripted by Olivier Gorce, this compelling insight into the compromises that people need to make in order to keep their heads above water during the ongoing recession owes much to both Loach and the Dardenne brothers. But Brizé also taps into the unaffected humanism of Jean Renoir in creating an everyman who is played with such naturalist conviction by Vincent Lindon that he thoroughly deserved to win both a César and the Best Actor prize at Cannes.

A year after he was laid off from the factory job he had hoped he would hold for life, 51 year-old Vincent Lindon complains to job centre counsellor Yves Ory about being sent on a time-wasting training course in crane driving that has done nothing to improve his employment prospects. He attends meetings of former workmates who are still convinced that they can fight the company if they stick together. But Lindon's heart is no longer in the struggle and he argues with his pals in a bar.

As 700 men lost their jobs when the plant closed, wife Karine de Mirbeck realises Lindon is doing everything he can to find work and makes no complaints about trying to stretch the monthly €500 dole cheque to feed them and their teenage son, Matthieu Schaller, who is in a special needs class at school. He amuses Lindon with a story about drops of water in an empty glass and they are proud of his progress. However, they also value their time alone together at a dance class run by Noël Mairot, who insists on cutting in to demonstrate the steps with De Mirbeck.

After several fruitless applications, Lindon gets a Skype interview and the unseen Christophe Rossignon adopts a high-handed tone as he questions him about his experience with machine tools and his readiness to take a pay cut from his last position. Despite answering dilgently, Lindon is left in little doubt that he will not be offered work after Rossignon takes him to task for the poor composition of his CV. A meeting with bank manager Catherine Saint-Bonnet barely goes better, as she tries to persuade him to sell his flat to pay for Schaller's fees at a progressive boarding school. When he insists that he has invested too much in the property to lose it now, she suggests he takes out a life insurance policy.

Lindon and De Mirbeck decide instead to part with their mobile home and drive to the coastal caravan park to show it to prospective buyers, Roland Thomin and Hakima Makoudi. Thomin is concerned it is 16 years old and tries to haggle Lindon down from his €7000 asking price because he feels it is old-fashioned and in need of renovation. But he refuses to budge below €6800 and feels stung that a stranger should criticise a place he associates with happy memories. Lindon also resents having his video criticised by the other delegates on Tevi Lawson's interview training course, as everyone around the table takes it in turns to denigrate his dress sense, body language, amiability and clarity.

Out of the blue, however, he lands a job as a security guard at an out-of-town hypermarket and rather enjoys dressing in a jacket and tie to patrol the shop floor. However, he feels like the poacher turned gamekeeper after catching Soufiane Guerrab pocketing a phone charger. He tries to bluff his way through his interrogation by Stéphanie Hurel and claims that he was ordered to steal the connection by a man who threatened to beat him up unless he co-operated. After a while, however, Guerrab comes clean and offers to pay for the charger and annoys Hurel by insisting on being treated like a valued customer.

After hours, Lindon joins the rest of the staff in wishing Gisèle Gerwig a happy retirement after 32 years with the company. He looks on wistfully, knowing that he won't be there that long or be held in such high esteem. New manager Saïd Aïssaoui, who only joined six months ago, commend Gerwig on putting in 10 years on the tills, as well as 22 years on the cold meat counter. But Lindon gets plenty of affection at home when Schaller joins in as he dances to `Stay' with De Mirbeck and they all hug each other.

Lindon is shown around the CCTV operations room by Rami Kabteni, who points out what to look out for when people hold on to items before putting them in their basket or trolley. He also warns him to keep an eye out for open bags and surprises him by revealing that checkout staff are sometimes in cahoots with shoplifters. Left alone, Lindon flicks between images on the bank of screens, as he tries to get a feel for customer behaviour. That evening, he gives Schaller a bath before going to the school with De Mirbeck to discuss with principal Eric Krop the need to improve his grades in order to apply for a college engineering course.

A few days later, Lindon is on duty when ageing bourgeois Christian Watrin is detained with two items of fresh meat in his pocket. He readily produces his papers and is mortified at having caused everyone so much trouble. Lindon assures him that he can go if he pays for the stolen produce, but Watrin laments that he has no money and doesn't have any family or friends who could lend him the necessary amount. Lindon is dismayed that such a patently decent fellow should be in such a predicament, but has no option but to call the police.

Shortly afterwards, Lindon's car breaks down and he has to ask Saint-Bonnet for a bank loan to buy a new one. She is pleased he is back on his feet and agrees to the payment. But Lindon is finding it increasingly difficult to compromise his principles at work and feels decidedly uncomfortable when long-serving checkout operator Françoise Anselmi is caught recycling coupons from her till. Manager Aïssaoui summons security guard Jean-Eddy Paul to back up Lindon's story and she pleads with them to make an exception because she has never done anything wrong before. Aïssaoui accuses her of stealing bonuses from her colleagues and regrets that he can no longer trust her.

A couple of days later, Aïssaoui assembles the staff with human resources manager Guillaume Draux to inform them that Anselmi has killed herself in the store because she is so ashamed at being fired after 20 years. Droulx reveals that her son was a drug addict and that she had fallen into debt because of his habit. He tells the employees not to blame themselves for what has happened, as Anselmi had problems they could not have solved. Indeed, he even implies that she has been selfish in staging her death at the supermarket when the reasons for her unhappiness lay elsewhere.

At the funeral, Lindon can barely bring himself to look at the coffin as it is carried into the church. But his patience snaps a few days later when Sakina Toilibou is charged with swiping her loyalty card through her till to claim unwanted customer points. As she pleads with Samuel Mutlen not to take the matter any further, Lindon walks out of the interrogation room and strides through the store to his locker. He puts his coat on and makes for the car park. Without a second glance, he gets behind the wheel and drives away into an uncertain future, as, even though his integrity is intact, he will be forced to wait for his benefits claim to be processed and will doubtless struggle to find future employment.

Harking back to the days before Ken Loach became overly dogmatic and melodramatic, this is a compelling slice of life that has all the authenticity of a documentary. Photographed in long, unobtrusive takes by actuality specialist Eric Dumont, the action benefits from the use of actual locations and the blend of professional and untrained actors. But Brizé and Gorce take care to avoid driving home their political message and resist the temptation to heap the blame for the troubles of those on the lower rung on jobsworthy middle managers or the faceless fat cats who profit from their exploited labour. This refusal to suggest that everything would be so radically different in a socialist paradise roots the film in real life rather than ideological wishfulness. Moreover, it makes Lindon's battle with his principles all the more persuasive. He knows what he is risking by taking a stance, but he can no longer live with the version of himself that can acquiesce in the enforcement of petty rules that have already driven one desperate woman to her death.

Anselmi's drastic action feels somewhat excessive, while the inclusion of a developmentally challenged child seems a tad contrived. But Brizé otherwise maintains the air of observational detachment that makes the episodes feel eavesdropped rather than workshopped. He also leavens the story with flashes of dark humour and genuine warmth that show how out of touch the comfortable and the complacent are with grimmer reality. But what separates this from so many other social realist tracts is that Lindon says everything with his actions and expressions rather than with impassioned agit-prop speeches and the silent withdrawal of his collaboration says much more than any polemical showdown ever could.

There's an autobiographical element to Catherine Corsini's Summertime, which has been produced by her life partner, Elisabeth Perez. Set in 1971 and exploring the chasm between rural and urban attitudes and the essential conservatism of Pompidou's Paris, this will remind some of Corsini's 2001 drama, Replay, in which Emmanuelle Béart and Pascale Bussières struggled to come to terms with their conflicted emotions. Moreover, it's tempting to compare this tearjerker with the other two pictures in which Belgian actress Cécile De France has played lesbian characters, Cédric Klapisch's romcom, Pot Luck (2002), and Alexandre Aja's body horror, High Tension (2003). However, this has its own distinctive personality, even though Corsini and co-scenarist Laurette Polmanss don't quite pull the two halves of the story together.

Twenty-three year-old Izïa Higelin lives on a farm in the southern Limousin region with her parents, Jean-Henri Compère and Noémie Lvovsky. They know their daughter sneaks out at night for secret assignations, but presume they are with Kévin Azaïs, who has doted on Higelin since they were kids. But she is actually meeting up with girlfriend Loulou Hanssen and she is so devastated when she announces that she is getting married that Higelin makes the spur of the moment decision to move to Paris and broaden her horizons.

Not long after arriving in the capital, however, Higelin becomes besotted with Spanish teacher Cécile De France, who is 10 years her senior and is also a key member of a feminist action group campaigning for equal pay, access to contraception and the legalisation of abortion. They go on protests and print pamphlets and fliers and Higelin is impressed by the vivacity and togetherness of the sisterhood. But she is also motivated by her crush on De France and feels slighted when she discovers she lives with writer Benjamin Bellecour.

De France is very much an emancipated woman, she is sexually naive and is swept off her feet when Higelin makes an unexpected move. The pair are soon inseparable, although De France can't quite get round to breaking the news to Bellecour. Despite his liberal leanings, he takes his cuckolding badly and De France spends more nights at Higelin's cramped bedsit. They grow closer after helping Laetitia Dosch rescue cousin Frank Bruneau from the country clinic where he is being given electro-shock treatment to cure him of his homosexuality. But their romance seems doomed when Compère has a paralysing stroke and Higelin returns home to help Lvovsky run the farm.

When Lvovsky goes to stay near the hospital, Higelin invites De France to the farm. She coaxes her into mucking in with the chores, but they also lounge naked in the fields and De France realises that she has to break up with her boyfriend in order to commit to her lover. However, Azaïs sees them kissing and feels cheated when Higelin asks him to help with Compère when he comes home. De France is also distraught when Higelin informs her that she cannot abandon Lvovsky, as the farm means everything to the family and she would hate to see it swallowed up by one of their avaricious neighbours. But she struggles to re-acclimatise to city living and breaks up with Bellecour in order to make a fresh start.

As they drive back from the station, Higelin reminds De France that they will have to be discreet, as rural folk are both conservative and judgemental. She also regrets that they will have to sleep in separate rooms because Lvovsky would never understand their relationship. But, while Lvovsky is cautiously welcoming to her daughter's guest, she begins to warm to De France when she rolls up her sleeves and does her bit. She teases Higelin by telling Lvovsky that they met at a pottery class and they soon start sneaking along the landing in the dead of night for stolen moments of passion. Eventually, Lvovsky dances to De France's portable record player and Higelin is amused to see her mother and girlfriend getting on so well.

However, Lvovsky has high hopes that Higelin will marry Azaïs and stay on the farm. Thus, she is taken aback when she sees Higelin kiss De France's palm after she pops the blisters she developed hauling hay bales. She says nothing to Compère, as she washes him on a chair. But De France does speak to him when they are alone and confides that she is in love.

As the summer draws to a close, the farmers hold a bonfire party and De France looks on with pride as Higelin jumps over the fire like her male counterparts. However, Azaïs takes her to one side and cautions her against ruining Higelin's life by coming between her and the people who love her most. Lvovsky also chats to De France about her hopes for Higelin and Azaïs and she suddenly feels a long way from home, De France broaches the subject of spending some time in Paris, but Higelin says she can't just up sticks and they have a blazing row (which Lvovsky overhears) about putting the farm before love.

While walking in a leafy glade, Higelin is spotted kissing De France by a gossipy neighbour. When she attends the unveiling of the new combine harvester, Higelin sees the man and becomes so convinced that he is going to tell the others that she is a lesbian that she panics and begs Azaïs to kiss her. He refuses to be her alibi and storms off, humiliating her in front of the men she has been trying so hard to impress. Feeling blue, she crawls into bed with De France, who assures her that everything will work out for the best.

They oversleep the following morning, however, and Lvovsky finds them naked in bed together. Higelin dresses hurriedly and goes to work, but Lvovsky tells De France to pack her bags and leave on the first train, as she won't have a jezebel under her roof. De France rushes out to find Higelin ploughing on the tractor and urges her to come to Paris with her and leave the blinkered yokels behind. But, while she packs and travels to the first station, Higelin has a change of heart as they wait for their connection and she remains on the platform, as De France climbs aboard. Returning home, Higelin pulls up a chair and Lvovsky gives her a coffee and an understanding smile.

Five years later, De France is working at an abortion clinic. She advises a client to use contraception and explains that she doesn't have to because she lives with a woman. A letter arrives unexpectedly from Higelin. She reveals that she has left home and now has a small farm of her own further south. She wishes she could turn back time and arrange a happier ending. But she can only move forward, while never forgetting.

While never as graphic as Abdellatif Kechiche's controversial Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013), this is an unapologetic celebration of Sapphic passion that is played with spirit and tact by De France and Higelin, a singer who earned César nominations for her first two features, Patrick Mille's Bad Girl (2012) and Olivier Nackache and Eric Toledano's Samba (2014). In conjunction with production designer Anna Falguères and cinematographer Jeanne Lapoirie. Corsini ably captures the look and feel of the early 1970s. But, while she doesn't overdo the period trappings or the town-and-country contrasts, she isn't always able to prevent some of the more bucolic farming sequences from feeling a little twee.

However, Corsini and co-writer Laurette Polmanss ably convey the mood of the French feminist movement in the early 1970s and the extent to which lesbianism was still something of a taboo within the sisterhood. The scenes in which De France pinches the bottom of a chauvinist who has been plaguing her is more convincing than the protest at a pro-life lecture. But what is most fascinating is the utter disconnect between the capital and the provinces, where the pace and style of life seem not to have changed in decades.

Parental interference also comes to the fore in Ivan Calbérac's The Student and Master Henri, an adaptation of his own stage comedy that marks a return to features after six years for a writer-director who won a César with his debut, Irène, in 2002. In many ways, this is a variation on Calbérac's 2009 study of child custody, Alternate Weeks (and Half the Vacation), as it focuses on the struggle to acclimatise and find a sense of acceptance and stability. But the premise feels far-fetched from the outset and, despite the best efforts of a solid cast, its conclusions are predictable and patronising.

Now in his late seventies, retired accountant Claude Brasseur is finding it hard to make ends meet. His son Guillaume de Tonquédec, who took over the family business, suggests he finds a student to rent a room in his spacious Parisian apartment and Brasseur plumps for Noémie Schmidt, who has paternal issues of her own, as nothing she ever does is good enough for Stéphan Wojtowicz, who runs a market stall in Orléans. Despite being begrudgingly polite to his tenant, Brasseur initially wants nothing to do with her. But he realises that she could be useful in driving a wedge between De Tonquédec and his vacuous wife, Frédérique Bel.

Brasseur offers Schmidt free board and lodging if she can break the couple up and she starts flirting with De Tonquédec, even though he is almost twice her age. He is flattered by the attention and starts sporting a leather jacket, sending gauche texts and attempting to be impossibly hip in nightclubs. But Brasseur also begins to fall under Schmidt's spell and channels his own regret at not making the most of his opportunities into cosy exhortations to seize the moment and follow her dream of becoming a musician.

It's difficult to warm to a film in which the characters are so stereotypical and unsympathetic. Brasseur growls effectively as the misanthropic father who is so disgruntled that he fails to realise that, despite all her faults (and there are many), Bel makes De Tonquédec happy. But the ease with which his bitterness dissipates on getting to know Schmidt is as corny as her readiness to destroy a marriage is hard to believe. There is also something eminently resistible about a young woman overcoming her own self-doubts by using her looks to humiliate a middle-aged housewife whose attitudes irk a father-in-law who has never taken the time or trouble to get to know her. Thus, while this has the odd amusing moment and an affecting tête-à-tête between De Tonquédec and Brasseur, this never escapes its theatrical origins and says far too little about its key themes of age, gender and remaining true to oneself in the face of familial expectation.

The French capital is seen to good effect in Igor Gotesman's debut feature, Five, which seeks to put a Gallic spin on the laddish comedies of Judd Apatow and his imitators. Expanded from a 2011 short of the same name, the picture reunites Gotesman with Pierre Niney and François Civil, with whom he co-starred in the short-running 2013 tele-comedy, Casting(s). One episode featured a guest turn by Marion Cotillard and Fanny Ardant similarly cameos in this brisk, if blatant paean to decadence and bling. Those accustomed to seeing onetime Comédie Française star Niney taking the title role in Jalil Lespert's Yves Saint Laurent (2014) or turning on the romcomedic charm in David Moreau's It Boy (2013) and Yann Gozlan's Un Homme Idéal (2015) may be surprised to see him essaying such a shiftless character. But he does everything with a quiet confidence that lulls audiences into following wherever he leads.

Having convinced father Philippe Duclos that he is studying hard at medical school, Pierre Niney receives an allowance that enables him to install childhood pals François Civil, Igor Gotesman, Margot Bancilhon and Idrissa Hanrot in a swanky apartment in Paris. In fact, Niney is taking a course in classical theatre and, when he fails to resuscitate a stranger having a seizure, Duclos smells a rat and cuts him off without a penny.

Determined to keep his friends in the lap of luxury on the Place du Pantheon, Niney decides to become a drug dealer. He lands a job as a valet at a swish restaurant and slips deliveries into his client's cars. Moreover, he becomes the personal pusher of trendy actress Fanny Ardant. But Niney and Civil become a bit too fond of their own merchandise and begin running up debts that they unwisely seek to pay on credit. When his chief supplier bales on him, the naive Niney appeals to the police for help. But when his folly leads to him being shaken down by rival banlieue gangs, Niney has to come clean to his flatmates and seek their help in re-establishing his connections in Thailand.

Awarding himself the choice role of Bancilhon's morally upright boyfriend, Gotesman proves he is still better at writing sketches than stories with this flashy, but fitfully funny farce. He peppers the action with crude one-liners and descends into gross-out territory with one scatological set-piece involving a flight of steps. But, from the moment he flashes back from the opening Thai gambit, Gotesman strains to sustain the momentum of a narrative that celebrates indolence, easy riches and the abnegation of responsibility.

Niney is typically engaging, as the spoilt brat getting out of his depth on being exposed to the real world and he is ably supported by Civil as his stoner sidekick. However, Gotesman, Bancilhon and the debuting Hanrot have far too little to do until the denouement, where their tangential sketchiness comes home to roost. Nicolas De Boiscuille's sets splendidly convey the lifestyle to which Niney aspires. But there's nothing edifying or entertaining about watching a bunch of bourgeois layabouts exploit others to sustain their addiction to conspicuous consumerism.

Changing tack completely, Danish director Anders Thomas Jensen re-imagines HG Wells's The Island of Dr Moreau as a knockabout farce in Men and Chicken, which pushes the boundaries of grotesque horror in the same manner as The Green Butchers (2003) and Adam's Apples (2005), which respectively pondered the subjects of cannibalism and neo-Nazism. Since winning the Academy Award for Best Short with Election Night (1998), Jensen has written several realist dramas for Susanne Bier, including Open Hearts (2002), Brothers (2004) and In a Better World (2011), which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. But this dystopic romp goes so far out on a limb that it is likely to find a devoted cult following rather than mainstream acceptance.

Despite having a harelip, Elias (Mads Mikkelsen) fancies himself as a ladies man. He endures an appalling dinner in the hope that his wheelchair-bound psychiatrist date will give him free therapy, but has to placate his overactive libido in the privacy of his own home. Meanwhile, his estranged

philosophy professor brother Gabriel (David Dencik) - who also has a cleft palate - is visiting their dying father in hospital. When the old man passes, Gabriel summons Elias to watch a videotape that reveals they were adopted and that their real father is Evelio Thanatos, a 99 year-old geneticist who lives on the remote island of Ork.

Gabriel is eager to meet his biological father and hopes to find out what happened to his mother. But he is only half pleased when Elias insists on accompanying him, as not only is he a loose cannon slave to his urges, but he can also turn a discussion of the relative merits of Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein into a full-scale feud. On the ferry, Elias flirts with Inger (Birthe Neumann), but she is sufficiently intrigued by the newcomers to introduce them to her brother, Flemming (Ole Thestrup), who is the local mayor and is obsessed with keeping the population above 40 so that the island can qualify for important government grants. He introduces Elias and Gabriel to his cake-baking daughter, Ellen (Bodil Jørgensen), who is desperately unhappy and tries to seduce Elias when she gets him alone in the kitchen.

Flemming and Inger inform Gabriel that Evelio lives in a dilapidated sanatorium on the other side of the island. So, he rescues Elias and they set out to introduce themselves. They are greeted, however, with violence and a volley of abuse by Franz (Søren Malling), Josef (Nicolas) and Gregor (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), who don't get many visitors and are convinced that the strangers spell trouble. Elias notices that the siblings also have cleft lips and tries to convince them that they are family and mean them no home.

Eventually, Franz (who has a penchant for beating people with stuffed animals) relents and Gabriel and Elias venture inside the crumbling edifice that is overrun with bizarre barnyard animals. They share a meal and are bemused when Franz, Josef and Gregor argue over some decorative animal plates. Gabriel is also nonplussed when the brothers gather for a bedtime story. Yet Elias finds the whole rigmarole as appealing as the ritualistic cheese eating and the highly competitive games of badminton that take place on an indoor court and he urges Gabriel to enjoy himself instead of fretting that he is not allowed to visit Evelio on the top floor of the clinic.

Determined to find out what is going on, Gabriel tries to sneak upstairs during the night, only for Franz to catch him and march him back to his room. When the siblings invite Elias to go looking for girls, Gabriel resumes his snooping and discovers that Evelio has been dead for quite some time. He confronts Franz and pleads to be allowed in the basement laboratory to see what their father had been working on. But, even though he intrigues Josef by insisting that the bedtime story should come out of the Bible, he is kept under close watch.

Pining for a missing stork, Gregor is more sympathetic, however, and helps Gabriel gain access in return for a promise to meet a nice girl. He is disturbed by the gross specimens in jars lining the shelves and pores through notes in order to learn that Evelio had been experimenting with his own stem cells and animal semen in a bid to impregnate willing women with hybrid offspring. As he reads, he discovers that he is part owl, while Elias has bull DNA and Franz, Josef and Gregor were respectively bred from a chicken, a mouse and a dog. He also gleans that they are all sterile and that he and Gabriel were regarded as such failures that Evelio put them up for adoption.

Franz is angry with Gregor for allowing Gabriel into the lab and he puts Elias in a large cage at the front of the sanatorium. But, while Gabriel initially considers fleeing from the horrors he has uncovered. He decides to stay and the closing shot presents a soft-focus snapshot of the extended family that implies that Gabriel has been dabbling in the dark arts himself.

Directing his first feature in a decade, Jensen has concocted a grim fable that would not have been out of places in Matteo Garrone's Tale of Tales. Blending the look and feel of Universal and Hammer horror with the kind of socko slapstick usually associated with The Three Stooges, he employs the unsavoury mix of bestiality, brutality and brotherhood to celebrate the sanctity of life in all its forms and there is genuine poignancy in a humanist message that is all the more effective for coming from so far out of left field.

Much depends on the commitment of the leads, who rise to the challenge of being indestructible props and strangely sentient beings with considerable physical energy and intellectual refinement. Sporting a large moustache and forever slipping away to answer the call of lust, Mikkelsen proves what a versatile and unaffected actor he is. Swede David Dencik also impresses as the nerdier sibling seeking answers to questions that have long troubled him. But, while Søren Malling, Nicolas Bro and Nikolaj Lie Kaas throw themselves into their roles, their characters are less well defined. Moreover, the action loses momentum as the focus falls on Dencik's obsession with the locked room.

Once open, this doesn't disappoint, however, as every aspect of Mia Stensgaard's production design is wondrously atmospheric, with the Havershamesque clinic being particularly arresting, thanks to its echoing hallways, cluttered courtyards and sinister hideaways. Cinematographer Sebastian Blenkov bathes the interiors in a muddy light that ends up feeling deceptively cosy, despite the ethereal eerieness of Frans Bak and Jeppe Kaas's zither score. But such ambiguity is par for the course in an absurdist shocker that is much more about acceptance than accusation and about making the most of the worst hand that fate can deal.

Most histories of European cinema shun the populist genres in order to focus on the directors who pushed the artistic envelope. In Italy, however, the line between creativity and crowd-pleasing has been blurred since the mid-1900s, when the Cines company realised the appeal of pictures set in the Roman past. Yet, while the superspectacles of the 1910s (which had an incalculable influence on the father of American film, DW Griffith) morphed into pompous patriotic propaganda during the Fascist era, pictures set during the age of Classical Antiquity regained their allure during the 1950s, when ageing Hollywood stars headlined a series of glossy colour adventures that became known as `peplum' or `sword-and-sandal' movies. During the 1960s, however, the genre fell from favour and was replaced by the spaghetti Western, which essentially switched its familiar plotlines to the untamed frontier. And a further shift in the 1970s saw the `western all'italiana' relocate to the urban jungle, where cops and mobsters fought it out in uncompromisingly brutal crime thrillers dubbed `poliziotteschi'.

Some of the biggest names in Italian cinema contributed to at least one of the peplum, spaghetti or poliziotteschi genres, including Fernando Di Leo, who set the tone for the latter with the Milieu Trilogy, comprising Caliber 9, Manhunt (both 1972) and The Boss (1973). Among his rivals was Sergio Sollima, who graduated from screenwriting to direct a couple of Agent 3S3 spy thrillers with George Ardisson before guiding Lee Van Cleef through the 1966 Western, The Big Gundown, and Telly Savalas and Charles Bronson through the gritty tale of hitman vengeance, Violent City (1970). Now, his son, Stefano Sollima, has taken over the mantle by following his excellent work on the TV series Romanzo Criminale (2008-10) and Gomorrah (2014-) with his 2012 feature bow, ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards), and his compelling sophomore outing, Suburra.

Adapted from a novel by journalist Carlo Bonino and crime writer Giancarlo De Cataldo (who respectively penned the sources material for ACAB and Romanzo Criminale), the action is set during a torrential downpour in 2011 and takes a few liberties with historical fact to provide its ominous backdrop to the `seven days leading up to the Apocalypse'. While Silvio Berlucsconi was finally forced to resign in November 2011, Benedict XVI didn't relinquish the throne of St Peter until February 2013. But why let such details stand in the way of a rattling good story?

Despite the crises paralysing the Church and state, a consortium of Roman crime families continues to negotiate a lucrative property deal in the seaside town of Ostia. Ruthless mob boss Claudio Amendola has plans to turn the development into the Italian Vegas and has the backing of corrupt politician, Pierfrancesco Favino. Despite starting out as a right-wing terrorist, Amendola has acquired a degree of respectability and has persuaded French cardinal Jean-Hugues Anglade to throw the Vatican Bank's weight behind the project.

In order to celebrate his success, Favino hires hookers Giulia Elettra Gorietti and Yulia Kolomiets for a kinky session in a swanky hotel room. Between couplings, the trio consume large amounts of drink and drugs and Kolomiets dies of an overdose. On realising she is underage, Favino panics and urges Gorietti to use her contacts to smuggle the body out of the hotel without anybody noticing. She calls on trusted Romany friend Giacomo Ferrara, who disposes of the corpse in the River Tiber.

Ferrara's family made its fortune from usury and he and brother Adamo Dionisi are more than ready to use violence to settle old scores. Among those indebted to the clan is Antonello Fassari, a pimp who arranges Bunga Bunga parties for the rich and powerful in his antique-crammed villa. When he realises that he will never be able to raise sufficient funds, Fassari kills himself and Dionisi makes grieving son Elio Germano an offer to cancel the account in return for the villa.

Always one to exploit an opportunity, Ferrara contacts Favino and threatens to expose his part in Kolomiets's demise unless he buys a consignment of drugs. But Favino has friends in high places and he secures the services of heavy Alessandro Borghi to teach Ferrara a lesson. Unfortunately, things get out of hand and Borghi ends up killing Ferrara and Dionisi vows to avenge his brother's murder. Borghi's father is a close confidante of Amendola and he is dispatched to the waterfront to intimidate the shopkeepers and other small business people who refuse to vacate their premises. However, he is distracted by the antics of his addict girlfriend, Greta Scarano.

Gorietti is frightened that she will be dragged into an inquiry into Kolomiets's disappearance and agrees with Favino to remain silent. She turns to Germano for protection and, when he discovers the full story, he informs Dionisi that he will give him the name of Ferrara's killer in exchange for the family villa. Dionisi sends henchmen to slay Borghi, but he survives the attempt and Amendola attempts to broker a peace deal between the families in order to protect his Ostia investment. However, Dionisi wants his cut of the action and terrorises Germano into betraying Gorietti in the hope of getting some inside information.

Desperate to save her own skin, she tells Dionisi that Favino is using his position to facilitate the property deal and he kidnaps Favino's son in the expectation of being given a sizeable percentage. However, Favino appeals to Amendola for help and, aware that the Vatican Bank is becoming nervous about the scandal starting to surround the project, he decides to eliminate Borghi and his family. But, while Borghi goes down in a hail of bullets, Scarano manages to hide.

Amendola contacts Dionisi about collaborating on the Ostia venture, even though he suspects he cannot be trusted. Germano comes to a similar realisation when Dionisi welches on his promise to return the villa and has his goons give Germano a salutary beating. A short time later, parliament gives its approval for the enterprise and Amendola, Dionisi and Favino are grateful to Anglade for his promise of backing. But, while they are luxuriating in their triumph, Kolomiets's body washes up on the riverbank and the furious Germano blames Dionisi for her death and unleashes his savage pitbull after reducing him to bloody pulp. Amendola also pays the ultimate price, as Scarano guns him down outside his mother's apartment, while the resignation of the prime minister leaves Favino at the mercy of the police, who remind him that he will lose his immunity once he is out of office.

Given that Netflix has commissioned a 10-part spin-off series, it's clear that this sinuously complex drama inspired by any number of true-life municipal corruption scandals, has already hit its mark. But, for all its modish box-set potential, this is a very much a throwback to the bullet-riddled glory days of Di Leo and Sollima padre. By taking its title from the district between the Viminal and Esquiline hills where ancient Romans went to let off a little steam, however, this also has its roots in the intrigues recorded in Latin tomes that are now primarily the concern of university scholars rather than pulp crime novelists.

Like Pasquale Catalano's electronic score (played by the French duo, M83) and Patrizio Marone's sharp editing, Paolo Carnera's evocative camerawork and Paki Meduri's inspired production design are very much at the service of Sollima's grand design to convey a sense of something rotten on every level of life in the rain-lashed Eternal City. Similarly, the screenplay by De Cataldo and Bonini, in conjunction with Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli, is dedicated more to moving the principals between the major incidents without entangling them in too many loose ends. But, even though the characterisation is merely functional, the performances are outstanding, with Favino excelling as the wily politician convinced he is made of Teflon and Amendola chillingly capturing the air of respectability that belies the vicious instincts honed during his days as a terrorist.

Dionisi, Germano and Borghi also have their moments, as does Scarano, who needs keeping an eye on, as she rouses herself from her addled indifference to become the sole character with a moral compass. Indeed, Sollima makes astute use of the women in what is usually a men only milieu, particularly when he incriminates the audience in Favino's crime by only revealing that Kolomiets is underage after she has participated with glass-eyed relish in a ménage that is photographed with intrusive voyeuristic intensity. But what sets this apart is the way Sollima follows Paolo Sorrentino in The Great Beauty (2013) by showing how much the Roman élite has changed since Federico Fellini famously took a pot shot at it in La dolce vita (1960).