In the 1930s, the British Documentary Movement was renowned throughout the world for its lyrical treatment of reality. Eight decades later, having become better known for televisual than cinematic actuality, this country is again acquiring a reputation for documentary excellence, courtesy of such experimental offerings as Clio Barnard's The Arbor, Patrick Keiller's Robinson in Ruins and Carol Morley's Dream of a Life. Applying imaginative audiovisual strategies to hard fact and/or scholarly speculation, these fine films are now joined by Grant Gee's Patience (After Sebald), a compelling companion to WG Sebald's 1995 novel, The Rings of Saturn, which not only brings the text to life, but also the landscape that inspired it, the method of its composition and the impact its themes and style have had on a range of erudite devotees.

The son of a career soldier, Winfried Georg Maximilian Sebald was born in Germany in 1944. However, `Max' (as he was known to intimates) was resident in East Anglia for most of his adult life and his fascination with and affection for the place is readily evident in the book that resulted from his walk in August 1992 along the Suffolk coast between Lowestoft and Bungay. The sights and sounds Sebald encountered were merely the starting point for the prose, however, as anecdotes, digressions and meditations filled the pages that flit in and out of Gee's engrossing homage to an enigmatic man and his remarkable mind.

Engravings, photographs and maps compete with colour-drained vistas as Gee intersperses textual readings by Jonathan Pryce with the recollections and insights of writers Robert Macfarlane, Rick Moody, Barbara Hui, Dan Gretton, Marina Warner, Iain Sinclair and Christopher Woodward, poet Andrew Motion, editors Lise Patt and Bill Swainson, film-maker Chris Petit, theatre director Katie Mitchell, artists Tacita Dean and Jeremy Millar, architect William Firebrace, journalist Arthur Lubow, publisher Christopher MacLehose and psychoanalyst Adam Phillips. Yet, despite the occasional flash of preening intellect, this highbrow line-up proves far from intimidating.

Indeed, such is the enthusiasm of the contributors that aficionados will feel the need to revisit Sebald's work, while newcomers will surely be impelled to seek it out. The majority refer to the author's distinctive working methods or his discussion of such diverse topics as trawling for herring, silkworms, the Opium Wars, slavery in the Belgian Congo and the Holocaust. But, in the spirit of the source, it's equally intriguing to hear Katie Mitchell compare the shingle beach at Benacre Broad to a landscape in a Tarkovsky film, Tacita Dean recall the fact that her great-great uncle was the judge who sentenced Sir Roger Casement to death and Andrew Motion remember childhood holidays in Dunwich and the fate of the clifftop church of All Saints, which fell victim to erosion. Even the Google maps and flow charts of Barbara Hui and Rick Moody have an anoraky charm.

Yet, perhaps, the most poignant moment comes in the final moments, as Jeremy Millar lets off a firework at the spot where Sebald perished in a car crash in 2001 and Gee superimposes the lingering wisps of smoke onto a photograph of emphasising the writer's resplendent white moustache. In most circumstances, this would seem ineffably corny. But it feels like an ethereal seal of approval for a treatise that not only takes literature seriously, but also finds a new way to discuss it intelligently and cinematically.

A graduate of St Catherine's College, Gee has, thus far, been best known for his music videos and the rockumentaries Meeting People Is Easy (1999), about Radiohead, and Joy Division (2006). However, he takes a sizeable step forward here, and deserves credit for both the ambition of his project and the humility of his recognition that his film could only ever be an `aesthetic response' to the atmospheric beauty of the coastal scenery and the poetic density of Sebald's writing.

Aware he is considered something of a sensationalist by some after The Pornographer (2001), Bertrand Bonello seeks to signal his good intentions by drawing on Laura Adler's book Daily Life in the Bordellos of Paris, 1830-1930 for his study of fin-de-siècle prostitution, House of Tolerance. He also alludes to Kenji Mizoguchi's geisha tales, the `La Maison Tellier' segment of Max Ophüls's La Plaisir (1951) and Louis Malle's Pretty Baby (1978), as well as countless pieces of Impressionist period art, to create the mood of a brothel that once operated at 24 rue Richelieu near the Opera. Yet, while Alain Guffroy's opulent sets, Anaïs Romand's sumptuous costumes and Josée Deshaies's evocative lighting cannot be faulted, the episodic structure and slight characterisation make this feel more like a case study than a costume drama.

Middle-aged mother of two Noémie Lvovsky owns L'Apollonide, a luxuriantly decorated house of commerce that attracts patrons of all ages from the upper echelons of Parisian society. Her most requested girls are Céline Sallette, a 28 year-old who has been in Lvovsky's employ for 12 years; Alice Barnole, a handsomely melancholic beauty who is nicknamed `The Jewess'; Adele Haenel, a statuesque blonde who can barely disguise her disdain for her clients; and Hafsia Herzi, a haughty Algerian, whose exoticism is only matched by the cheerful Jasmine Trinca, who has been dubbed `Caca' because of her kinky speciality.

Trinca is doted upon by ageing aristocrat Jacques Nolot, while Sallette has hopes that artist Louis-Do de Lencquesaing will clear the debt she owes to Lvovsky. Barnole has also developed an attachment to the taciturn Laurent Lacotte and she confides a dream in which he proposes to her with an emerald before he ties her to the bed and slashes her mouth with a knife. Reduced to helping out in the kitchen and laundry, tries to stay out of sight because her face has been so hideously scarred. But the portly Vincent Dieutre (who always attends with his pet panther, Ninon) develops a fetish for her and Lvovsky agrees to parade her before the curious when the local prefect refuses to intervene when her landlord doubles the rent.

Indeed, Lvovsky is not above acceding to any request that will enable her to pay the bills. Consequently, 16 year-old newcomer Iliana Zabeth is sent to bathe in champagne with one of the regulars, while Haenel is forced to behave like an automated doll. However, Sallette rejects De Lencquesaing suggestion of a ménage and she becomes increasingly addicted to opium after he jilts her for the more accommodating Zabeth. Even though he continues to pay for her services, Nolot similarly abandons Trinca after she contracts syphilis and no one takes responsibility when Herzi discovers she is six months pregnant.

The latter diagnoses come during one of the debasing medical examinations to which the women are regularly subjected. But, while he doesn't shy away from depicting the less salubrious aspects of their routine, Bonello also stresses the sense of community that exists within L'Apollonide by showing the residents sharing meals, playing games, telling fortunes and enjoying a picnic on the banks of the River Marne. Lvovsky is also happy for her children to socialise with the girls and seems genuinely distressed when Trinca dies and she is forced to sell contracts to rival houses after staging a farewell masked ball on Bastille Day.

Bonello attempts to tie a number of loose ends during these closing sequences, with Lacotte most notably being lured back to receive his just desserts at the very moment that Barnole reaches a disconcertingly lachrymose climax with a disguised stranger. However, the decisions to show the women dancing morosely to the 1967 Moody Blues hit `Nights in White Satin' and end the picture with a shot of a modern-day Sallette getting out of a car after servicing a john seem as flawed as Madonna's use of `Pretty Vacant' and Wally's visit to Mohamed Al Fayed in W.E.

Extending the comparison, the performances are fine across the board. Lvovsky's Madame displays a persuasive blend of grim experience, maternal concern and self-preserving pragmatism, while Sallette succumbs piteously to the fear of ageing and rejection and Zabeth exudes the misplaced confidence of innocent youth. The standout, however, is Barnole, whose sad eyes prove as mesmerising as the gaping wound gouged into her cheeks, which seems deliberately to recall the rictus expressions sported by Lon Chaney's Gwynplaine in Paul Leni's adaptation of Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs (1928) and Jack Nicholson's Joker in Tim Burton's Batman (1989).

Despite accusations of prurience, Bonello strives to expose the exploitative conditions prostitutes endured at the dawn of the 20th century, while also highlighting that, for many women, this was a preferable profession to being a seamstress, servant or farm worker. Moreover, he condemns the chauvinism of the clientele, who deceive their unseen wives as shamelessly as they disregard the feelings of the paramours for whom they proclaim such affection. Nonetheless, in the true DeMillean manner, Bonello also ensures that he presents plenty of sinning before broaching any semblance of redemption. Thus, the camera frequently lingers on the actresses in various states of undress and many of these tableaux appear to have more voyeuristic than artistic or dramatic purpose.

If the mise-en-scène is key to establishing the atmosphere in House of Tolerance, the screenplay is absolutely crucial to musician Johnny Daukes's writer-director debut, Acts of Godfrey. Despite inaccurate claims to be the first script specifically written for the screen in verse, this is a laudably ambitious bid to familiarise a new audience with the ingenuity and versatility of the rhyming couplet. It's just a shame, therefore, that what is essentially doggerel occasionally lapses into what one might call `versiflage' and not even a splendidly sporting cast hamming it up for all its worth can disguise the shortcomings in the storyline and characterisation.

The scene is set by Simon Callow, a celestial (and possibly deific) being with licence to act as both Greek chorus and extra, who introduces the delegates attending a conference on power selling given by Demetri Goritsas at a country hotel. The last to arrive is Iain Robertson, a Scottish alarm salesman, who is expecting a phone call and is keen for receptionist Max Digby to summon a mechanic to repair his clapped-out car. He blunders into the seminar room where estate agents Doon Mackichan and Myfanwy Waring, undertaker's assistant Shobu Kapoor, boy band manager Michael Wildman, medical suppliers Jay Simpson and Ian Burfield, and small businessman Harry Enfield are already seated.

During the course of the first session, it transpires that Enfield is really a con man, who has already duped widow Celia Imrie out of a small fortune and brought about the death of a mixed-race boy while trying to fleece his Essex mother, Sadie Pickering. Moreover, he has tricked Kapoor into supplying him with details of vulnerable mourners and she is as determined to sever the link as Mackichan and Waring are keen to win a bet respectively to seduce Wildman and Robertson before the weekend is over.

Over dinner and drinks that evening, further revelations connect Simpson and Burfield with gangster Michael McKell, who was sold his Costa del Crime villa by Mackichan, while it becomes clear that Wildman has long been seeking Enfield to exact his revenge for an unsolved crime. Still distracted by his phone call and car, Robertson fails to join the dots or realise that Waring is flirting with him. However, even he has caught up by the time DCI Simon Greenall arrives next morning to slap on the handcuffs - although the final revelation still comes as something of a surprise!

Indulging himself with the odd visual flourish to complement the verbal pyrotechnics, Daukes overcomes a shaky start to cross-cut confidently between confessional flashbacks in the central section. However, the need to tie up the loose ends tempts him into caricature and contrivance and even the willing Callow, Enfield and Mackichan eventually struggle to sock over the increasingly strained rhymes. The makers' suggestion that this is a `modern twist on Shakespeare' is hyperbolically wide of the mark, but it's a fun romp with a sheen of Agatha Christiesque pastiche papering over the misfiring wisecracks.

The ensemble mayhem is even more manic in Chan Hing-Ka and Janet Chun's All's Well, Ends Well, the seventh in a series of offbeat Hong Kong comedies that somehow manages to attract some of the biggest names in the business. Released to coincide with the Lunar New Year, this good-natured romcom may represent ideal holiday entertainment for some, but many more will find its ludicrous contrivances, pantomimic performances and cornball musical numbers something of an ordeal.

Frustrated after a morning of minor disasters around the house, middle-aged Gong Linna sets up a website inviting people to extend a helping hand to a stranger. Pretty soon Baoxi.com is attracting plenty of traffic and wannabe musician Donnie Yen decides to sign up as he has nothing better to do with his time when his air hostess girlfriend sets off on another extended trip. He finds himself paired with Sandra Ng, one half of a 1980s singing duo who wants to teach arrogant ex-partner Crystal Tin a lesson by showing up for lunch with a millionaire lover. Naturally, the date goes horribly wrong, but Ng feels she owes Yen a favour when he discovers his girlfriend has been cheating on him.

Meanwhile, bestselling romance novelist Chapman To is peeved because his publisher refuses to let his readers see him, as they have promoted him as a hunk when he is actually something of a nerd. So, he accepts a request to help blind dancer Lynn Hung feel something of the love she has long been denied as a resident of Lee Heung-Kam's orphanage. He fakes a trip to the beach and the sensation of touching the clouds, but panics when he learns that the increasingly devoted Hung is about to have a cornea transplant as she will seen him as he really is.

Deception is also the name of the game when builder Louis Koo answers an advertisement for a model placed by photographer Kelly Chan. Having just been humiliated by the boss's daughter at the site where he works with buddy Lam Suet, Koo tries to play the stud. But, while Chan thinks he has a photogenic body, she is singularly unimpressed with his personality and reluctantly takes the advice of mentor Ronald Cheng to pretend she has a crush on Koo in the hope of capturing his soul on film.

As Koo begins to lose his heart, divorce lawyer Raymond Wong contacts fatherless Yan Ni, as he wants to prove he can be a decent parent after failing so spectacularly with his spoilt daughter Karena Ng. Ni was left a fortune in her late father's will, but she can only inherit if she is married and she asks Wong to help her choose between the three suitors who have pursued her most ardently. After failing to coax out their protective sides during a mahjong game in a supposedly haunted house, Wong sets up a car accident to see who will remain loyal if Ni loses her looks.

Naturally, everything works out for the best (the clue is in the title), with Koo forgiving Chan for humiliating him at her gallery opening, Hung teaching To that looks aren't everything and Yen and Ng taking a tilt at the big time by auditioning for a stage musical. But the storylines matter less than the set-pieces, with Ng and Tin hilariously pastiching an 80s pop duet, Wong and the potential grooms performing a patter piece over the mahjong tiles and Yen letting rip with a power ballad that blows up the sound system.

Elsewhere Koo sends up his macho image and To lampoons long-haired director Peter Chan. But only those familiar with Hong Kong cinema are going to appreciate such in-jokes and only those fluent in Cantonese are going to be able to follow the action easily, as the English and Mandarin subtitles are squashed together at the bottom of the screen. Indeed, such is the disregard for non-Cantonese audiences that no one bothered to translate the seemingly obligatory bloopers playing alongside the end credits.

Sadly, it's all too obvious what's going on in Paris Leonti's Mercenaries, a clunking actioner set in an unspecified Balkan state that just happens to have a key strategic town named Srebrenica. With much of the budget seemingly spent on tanks and explosives, this has all the attributes of a direct to disc movie and it's somewhat mystifying that it has received a theatrical release. Still, it rattles through its formulaic plot effectively enough and those attuned to its macho posturing and comic-book politics will doubtless relish it.

When rebel leader Antony Byrne sends eye-patched oppo Michael Nardone to assassinate President Simon Thorp and his family, American colonel Billy Zane is dispatched to the nearest UN base to brief a mercenary quartet about its top secret mission. Robert Fucilla, Vas Blackwood, Robert Boulter and Rob James-Collier have a reputation as a crack team and Zane orders them to rescue US Ambassador Danny Sapani and his aide Kirsty Mitchell from Byrne's compound. However, they are to operate without back-up and must accept that they will be disowned by Washington if they are captured.

Naturally, the foursome embraces the mission, with the cage-fighting Fucilla being particularly grateful of a distraction from the grief he still feels at losing his wife and daughter in the 2005 terrorist attack on the London Underground. Dropped in the woods, the buddies soon stumble across a village whose menfolk are being forced to dig a mass grave at gunpoint. On Blackwood's insistence, they launch an assault to liberate the prisoners. However, they lose Boulter in the process and Fucilla is still seething when they reach the rebel stronghold.

Blackwood himself pays the ultimate price as Sapani and Mitchell are sprung. But, while they also succeed in capturing Byrne, Fucilla and James-Collier become separated in beating a retreat and the latter forges an alliance with the rescued villagers as the former struggles to stay ahead of Nardone and his pursuing troops. Meanwhile, back at headquarters, Zane waits nervously for news from the mole inside the rebel camp (Geoff Bell), who is also doing his level best to sabotage the search for Byrne, whose constant attempts to escape turn the svelte Mitchell into a gun-toting virago.

A late bid to suggest a burgeoning emotional bond between Fucilla and Mitchell sums up the hackneyed nature of this resoundingly mediocre enterprise. Leonti makes decent use of the forest location and stages the firefights capably enough. But the dialogue (subtitled for the baddies) is as feeble as the plotline, while the performances range from the inanimate to the inept. Thus, while this is more ambitious than the onetime location driver's 2008 debut, Daylight Robbery - in which a photofit gang use a trip to the World Cup as cover for a raid on a London bank - it is every bit as reliant on cliché and caricature and sorely lacks the odd flash of gallows humour.