Parky at the Pictures (DVD 30/5/2013)

FW Murnau and Robert Flaherty had endured mixed fortunes since 1922, when the German had revolutionised screen horror with Nosferatu and the American had redefined the poetic treatment of reality with Nanook of the North. Murnau had helped pioneer the subjective narrative mode and seamless editing with the chamber dramas The Last Laugh (1924) and Sunrise (1927), while Flaherty had been reduced to making the privately funded shorts The Pottery Maker (1925) and The Twenty-Four Dollar Island (1927) between falling foul of the Hollywood studio system in making the exotic duo of Moana (1926) for Paramount and White Shadows in the South Seas (1928), with WS Van Dyke, for MGM. By 1929, the pair were both based at Fox, where Flaherty's study of a New Mexican Native American tribe, Acoma the Sky City had just been closed down and Murnau had become increasingly irked by front office interference during the production of Four Devils (1928) and City Girl (1931).

They were introduced by Flaherty's brother, David, and decided to collaborate. But it quickly proved to be a tempestuous relationship. As Murnau was keen to work in Tahiti, they devised a scenario entitled Turia, which would combine dramatic and ethnographic elements to present a new kind of actuality. Murnau travelled to Tahiti in May 1929 and began scouting locations with Flaherty the following month. But, while they discovered leading lady Anne Chevalier in a cocktail bar, they soon began to disagree on the factual-fictional balance and, when Murnau opted to fund the project himself (after managing to secure only $5000 of the backing promised by the Colorart production company), he assumed control for all artistic decisions.

Frustrated at being forced to shoot in monochrome and silence, Murnau dispensed with the Hollywood crew and started rewriting the script for a picture that was now called Tabu (pronounced `tapu' in the local Polynesian dialect). However, Flaherty disliked the change of direction and protested that the plot now bordered on the melodramatic  Thus, after he had experienced difficulties with his camera while directing the opening sequence depicting the fishermen of Bora Bora, Flaherty stepped down and was replaced as cinematographer by Floyd Crosby. He continued to make story suggestions throughout the remainder of the shoot, while processing the footage at a nearby laboratory, but he lost his co-directorial credit and eventually sold his share of the film to Murnau for $25,000. But this turned out to be a cursed project, as, having spent the winter of 1930 editing the rushes and using the last of his money to hire Hugo Riesenfeld to compose an atmospheric score, the 42 year-old Murnau was forced to sell the distribution rights to Paramount and perished in a car crash a week before the premiere.

Yet, despite the creative differences, this tale of forbidden love and tyrannical superstition is related with a lyrical integrity that helped earn Crosby the Academy Award for his sublime imagery. Divided into two chapters, `Paradise' and `Paradise Lost', the action opens with Matahi and his friends showing off their torsos and fishing skills in a montage that is every bit as homoerotic as it is anthropological. However, the innocent frolics in a cascading waterfall are disrupted when an envoy named Hitu arrives from a neighbouring island with news that a handmaiden chosen to serve their god had passed away and that the chief of the Fanuma tribe has selected Anne Chevalier to take her place because of her royal lineage

According to custom, Chevalier immediately becomes taboo and any man who so much as casts a lascivious eye upon her will be put to death. But Matahi is deeply in love with Chevalier and their passion is evident as they dance during a celebration staged to mark the honour bestowed upon the island. Therefore, at the end of the festivities, Matahi sneaks aboard the ship preparing to take Chevalier away and they escape by canoe to a French colony, where they hope they will be protected under the white man's law. Having survived storms and near starvation, they find a hut on the beach and Matahi quickly becomes a feted pearl diver. But he has little understanding of alien concepts like money and fails to realise that he is running up a bar bill by buying drinks for the patrons each time he shows off his latest find.

Fearing that they will be punished if Chevalier is not delivered to the Fanuma, the elders contact the French authorities and policeman Bill Bambridge is sent to retrieve her. However, Matahi bribes him with his last pearl and they are left in peace. But their troubles soon begin to mount. One of Matahi's friends dies while searching for pearls in a proscribed cove that is home to a fearsome shark that supposedly protects the community before Chevalier receives a message from Hitu that Matahi will be executed if she does not surrender and return to Bora Bora within three days. 

The couple decide to flee once more. But, when Matahi goes to buy tickets on the schooner Hinano, he discovers that he owes a large amount of money to Chinese barkeep, Kong Ah, who takes what little cash he has in part payment.  Desperate to get away, Matahi creeps away in the night to take his chances in the shark-infested waters. But, in his absence, Chevalier leaves him a note stating that they cannot beat the taboo and that she is returning with Hitu. Having fought off the shark to find a pearl of great value, Matahi is distraught to discover that Chevalier has gone and he attempts to swim after her ship. He manages to catch up to the vessel and grab a rope trailing in the water. But Hitu cuts it with his knife and Matahi drowns from sheer exhaustion as he valiantly swims on in a doomed bid to rescue his beloved.

Somewhat overshadowed by Murnau's earlier achievements, his contretemps with Flaherty and his tragic fate within hours of signing off the final cut, Tabu is still a work of great simplicity and beauty. In some ways, it anticipates John Steinbeck's collaboration with the Mexican maestro Emilio Fernández on La Perla (1947). But it was much more a swan song for the sort of silent symbolism that had largely gone out of fashion since the advent of sound in 1927. Together with Floyd Crosy (whose son David would become a rock star in the 1960s), Murnau not only captured the look and feel of the South Sea islands, but he also used the setting to reveal the emotions of his characters and comment upon the loss of innocence entailed by Chevalier's dubious honour and Mahati's ensnaring experience of so-called civilisation.

The performances by the non-professional cast exude a truthfulness that would rarely be seen on screen again until the Italian neo-realists similarly cast newcomers in the search for authenticity in the immediate postwar period. Yet, for all Murnau's artistry, one cannot help feeling a certain sympathy with Flaherty, as the storyline is undeniably westernised and more than a little melodramatic. But, perhaps, it was the fact that so many later film-makers turned Murnau's tropes into clichés that causes one to feel the occasional pang of unease that the islanders were being exploited as much as they and their traditions and lifestyle were being eulogised.

Sociologist Edgar Morin and ethnographic film-maker Jean Rouch set out to be even transgressive than Murnau and Flaherty with Chronicle of a Summer, which remains as fresh, innovative and compelling today as it did five decades ago. Having been impressed by the likes of John Marshall and Robert Gardner's The Hunters (1957) and Karel Reisz's We Are the Lambeth Boys (1958) while serving on the jury of the 1959 Festival dei Popoli in Florence, Rouch and Morin decided to produce `an experiment in cinéma vérité' that would be closer in tone to Rouch's La Pyramide humaine (1960) than such trademark West African studies as Les Fils de l'eau (1953), Les Maîtres fous (1955) and Moi, un noir (1958). However, the collaboration would explore Rouch's perennial theme of the impact of progress upon tradition and, in the process, reveal the extent to which France was being influenced by modernism and the global shift towards the consumer society.

In an effort to break with the Griersonian style of manicured documentary, the pair took their inspiration from the father of the Soviet agit-prop documentary, Dziga Vertov, as well as such poetic realists as Jean Vigo and Jean Renoir, documentarists like Robert Flaherty, Leo Hurwitz, Henri Storck, Georges Rouquier, Lionel Rogosin and Morris Engel, and candid photographers of the calibre of Helen Levitt and Henri Cartier-Bresson. They also exploited the latest apparatus in marrying Stefan Kudelski's Nagra tape recorder with the lightweight prototype KMT Coutant-Mathot Éclair, which was being perfected by André Coutant and which enabled Quebecois cameraman Michel Brault to achieve the brand of cinema on the move that Morin and Rouch dubbed `pedovision'.

Although they were interested to hear what people on the street would say in response to the question posed by Marceline Loridan, `Are you happy?', Rouch and Morin were far more intrigued by the extent to which the camera might change the personality and opinions of any given subject. They were only vaguely concerned with leaving things to chance, however, and hand-picked the majority of the interlocutors. Moreover, they also made it clear on screen what they were hoping to achieve and even allowed the participants to assess the results before they provided a closing summation. Thus, it could be argued that this was less an exercise in cinéma vérité than cinéma vertueux.

In addition to Loridan, the friends and acquaintances selected for the project were Morin's daughters, Véronique (13) and Irène (12), Rouch's Human Pyramid alumni Raymond, Nadine Ballot and Modeste Landry, student Jean-Pierre Sergent, Renault factory workers Angelo Borgien and Jacques Gautrat, white collar executive Jacques Gabillon and his wife Simone, future Che Guevara acolyte Régis Debray, and Marilù Parolini, who had just started working as a secretary at Cahiers du Cinéma alongside her new boyfriend, Jacques Rivette, who would also take a cameo in the film.

Following a discussion between Rouch and Morin about what they hope the picture will achieve, they brief Loridan about her role as vox pop interviewer and let her loose on the streets of Paris. Once they have amassed sufficient responses, they gather their guinea pigs for dinner and stand back and let them interact. One of the labourers debates with a student whether toil or study is the nobler calling; an African immigrant disputes who is the more put upon with a worker on the lowest rung of the indigenous social ladder; and an artist waxes lyrical about his emancipated lifestyle; while Marilù complains bitterly about her struggle to make ends meet.

Yet, for all the spontaneity of these exchanges, Morin and Rouch were still pretty much in control of proceedings. Hence, they could cut from a couple of cocky young men suddenly becoming less strident as they confront the reality of being sent to fight in Algeria to Loridan revealing that she survived the Holocaust while explaining why her reluctance to sleep with a black man is not racist. As the camera tilts to reveal the number that was tattooed on her arm at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the scene shifts to Loridan walking from Place de la Concorde to Les Halles, as she describes into a concealed microphone her experience of being rounded-up, transported to the camp, faced with death on a daily basis and trying to return to normality in postwar Paris. Her memories are still raw, some 15 years on, and subsequent episodes pale by comparison, including the trip to St Tropez to provide some contrasting colour, as the group dance, water-ski and meet a scantily clad girl who poses for tourist snapshots.

Given that the feature predates reality television by some 40 years, it might have been safe to presume that the subjects would not have been particularly media savvy. But, during a fascinating playback session, Morin and Rouch invite them to comment on the `performances' of their colleagues and they relish the opportunity to criticise each other for insincerity, duplicity and playing to the camera. Indeed, the makers were so dismayed by events in the projection room that they cut the scene from the version shown at the Cannes Film Festival and only later decided to restore it, as it was essential to expose the accidental consequences of their schemata, as well as the anticipated ones. The recognition that the lunatics were starting to take over the asylum also informs the closing sequence, as Rouch and Morin stroll through the Musée de l'Homme and analyse the extent to which their experiment has succeeded. Intriguingly, Rouch feels it has worked triumphantly on a cinematic level, while Morin is convinced that it has failed as a sociological study.

What is not in doubt, however, is the seismic impact that Chronicle of a Summer had on commercial and political film-making. Shattering notions of auteur theory, it did much to persuade the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker and Jean Eustache to embark upon collaborative projects. Moreover, it sparked a wave of unflinching ruminations on the contemporary scene, including Jacques Panijel's October in Paris (1962) and the Besançon Medvedkin Group's Class of Struggle (1969) and Women's Strike in Troyes (1971). Rouch and Morin even prompted some of their contributors into becoming film-makers in their own right, with Jean-Pierre Sergent following Rio Chiquito (1965) with The People and Their Guns (1970), which he made with Joris Ivens, who also teamed with new wife Marceline Loridan on 17th Parallel: Vietnam in War (1968). Even Marilù Parolini would take writing credits on Bernardo Bertolucci's The Spider's Strategem (1970), as well as Rivette's L'Amour fou (1969), Noroît, Duelle (both 1976) and Love on the Ground (1984).

Perhaps most importantly, however, this audacious exploit introduced a new discursive element to the documentary and emboldened people to commit their testimony to celluloid. In time, this would lead to such epochal accounts of the Holocaust and the Occupation as Claude Lanzmann's Shoah (1985) and Marcel Ophüls's Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (1988). But it also had a more frivolous impact, as Vilgot Sjöman and Gabriel Axel respectively parodied the vox pop strategy in I Am Curious (Yellow) (1967) Danish Blue (1968), although it took a little while longer before German-born New Zealander Florian Habicht had the idea in his endlessly resourceful anti-dramedy, Love Story (2012), of canvassing a random range of New Yorkers for advice on how he should make his feelings known to Masha Yakovenko, the stranger who had bewitched him on the subway while holding a piece of cake.

Cineastes intrigued by the technical aspects of this invigorating film will also want to check out Chris Kenneally's Side By Side, which chronicles the rise of digital cinema over the past four decades. Fronted by co-producer Keanu Reeves, whose performance as Neo in the Wachowki sci-fi actioner The Matrix (1999) clued audiences to the audiovisual revolution that was about to erupt, this is a picture destined to fall between two stools, as those only passingly interested in how a film looks will find it rather specialised, while those fascinated by the history of screen technology will consider it somewhat superficial. Either way, it clearly suffers from what can only be described as format schizophrenia, as if it is projected on celluloid, it will be difficult to assess the full impact of the digital imagery and vice versa. Yet, while this may lack the romance and acuity of Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy and Stuart Samuels's paean to the art of cinematography, Visions of Light (1992), it is still a timely introduction to the most seismic innovation in film-making since the coming of sound in 1927.

Nearly 120 years have passed since moving images first flickered on to a screen. In all that time, the basic tools of film-making have remained pretty much the same, as there was no workable alternative to the photochemical method of capturing photons on emulsion-coated celluloid. Yet, as clips from past masters like Georges Méliès and Charlie Chaplin launch a montage trip down memory lane through the Golden Age of Hollywood to the present day, Keanu Reeves informs us that a new way has been found to record images that have already proved to be every bit as dazzling and indelible as those created on traditional film stocks.

A brief developmental overview follows, taking us from the first Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) produced by George Smith and Willard Boyle at Bell Labs in 1969 to the latest high-definition cameras manufactured by Panavision, Arriflex, Canon and Red. But if this techno-timeline proves a tad dry, the discussion of the benefits that accrued from the switch to digital is lively and informed. The smugness of such early advocates as George Lucas and James Cameron is more than a little resistible, but they have every right to gloat, as Titanic (1997) and Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace (1999) did much to convince the American mainstream that the future had arrived.

The commercial advantages of shooting digitally were readily apparent. Digital video was much less expensive than celluloid, while instant playback meant that directors no longer had to wait for the rushes to see how the previous day's shooting had turned out. Retakes could be ordered on the spot, therefore, without the need to keep cast and crew members hanging around while sets were relit. Moreover, the increased portability and affordability of lightweight DV cameras gave directors the chance to shoot from multiple angles simultaneously and, as John Malkovich and Greta Gerwig point out, this allowed actors to sustain emotions throughout entire takes rather than for the duration of each storyboarded set-up.

The increased amounts of footage produced initially posed a problem for editors like Anne V. Coates and Walter Murch. But their craft was transformed by the ability to call up image at the push of a button rather than having to sift through lengths of celluloid and then cut and paste the chosen frames into a sequence. The flexibility of pixels also meant that it was possible to correct colours and contrasts in post-production and colour timers Tim Stipan and Jill Bogdanowicz demonstrate how easily such tweaks can be made and speculate about the extent to which Digital Intermediate systems saw power shift away from the cinematographers who had always been regarded as the unimpeachable magicians of light.

Certainly veterans like Vittorio Storaro, Michael Ballhaus, Andrej Bartkowick, Dick Pope and Vilmos Zsigmond feel that much is lost by using digital technology and Christopher Nolan and his regular director of photography Wally Pfister swear eternal allegiance to celluloid. But Oxford-born Anthony Dod Mantle explains how he was converted to the new processes while shooting the first Dogme-95 feature, Thomas Vinterburg's Festen (1998), and then became a firm advocate after becoming the first digi-DP to win an Academy Award for his work on Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire (2008).

His open-mindedness is shared by such luminaries as Martin Scorsese and David Lynch, although the likes of David Fincher, Robert Rodriguez and the since-retired Steven Soderbergh fail to see the point of persisting with celluloid when it has more drawbacks than advantages. This may be true in the case of effects-intense or 3-D blockbusters and most agree that digital projection is preferable to the old print method, as it guarantees a uniformity of image quality. All are equally unanimous in considering it sacrilegious to view a movie on anything other than a theatre screen. Yet, ironically, the best way of preserving films for the future is on celluloid, as digital formats are changing so rapidly that the hard- and software capable of reading stored material is junked the moment they become obsolete. Archiving apart, however, the future does seem to be digital.

For the record, the other key directors canvassed are Barry Levinson, Richard Linklater, Joel Schumacher, Lars von Trier and Andy and Lana Wachowski, while the participating cinematographers include Dion Beebe, Geoff Boyle, Michael Chapman, Michael Goi, Gabriel Judet-Weinshel, Ellen Kuras, Donald McAlpine, Reed Morano, Sandi Sissel, David Tattersall, Jost Vacano and Bradford Young. It might have been useful to see how the switch has impacted upon the documentary and film industries outside Hollywood. Moreover, no real attempt is made to present a detailed aesthetic analysis of the competing forms and this absence of a critical or academic voice leaves the insights feeling a touch parochial. But the contributions are mostly lively - with Fincher and Nolan making particularly pugnacious adversaries - while Reeves makes a disarmingly effective interviewer, as he coaxes some big beasts into revealing trade secrets and passionately held prejudices.

Although eight decades have passed since his heyday, Erich von Stroheim remains the most important Austrian film-maker in screen history. The success of Amour both at the box-office and during the recent awards season, however, suggests that Michael Haneke is narrowing the gap. But Yves Montmayeur has his work cut out in proving the case in Michael H. Profession: Director, as the Munich-born, Wiener Neustadt-raised auteur is not only highly reluctant to talk about himself, but he would also prefer not to analyse his work or discuss the reasons why he was drawn to specific subjects or opted for particular shooting techniques. It is very much to Montmayeur's credit, therefore, that this discreet profile captures something of the 70 year-old's enigmatic personality, while also revealing more about his methodology and preoccupations than he perhaps intended.

The documentary opens with Haneke watching the scene in Benny's Video (1992), in which teenager Arno Frisch shoots Ingrid Stassner in his bedroom while his parents are out of town. He betrays no emotion as the action reaches its shocking conclusion before confiding that he has always taken his audiences seriously, as that way he can explore potentially contentious themes without patronising them with sensationalism. However, he questions the notion that he is a great artist by stating that he is a craftsman who occasionally surpasses himself.

His pragmatic approach to production is certainly evident as he walks through the nightmare sequence in Amour for the benefit of actor Jean-Louis Trintignant and then brings the same level of perfectionism to rehearsing the moment a hand covers his mouth from behind. In an interview on the set, Trintignant jokes that he accepted the part because his agent said he would have fun working with Haneke. However, only the director enjoys himself because everyone else is so afraid of falling foul of him that they are forever on tenterhooks.

The affability witnessed on set wavers slightly when Montmayeur tries to coax Haneke into discussing the political and/or personal aspects of The White Ribbon (2009). He deflects the questions with a smile and the focus shifts to  his use of monochrome and the pleasure he derived from working in German after almost a decade of filming in French. But it is clear that Haneke is a man who expects things to be done his way and actress Susanne Lothar says she would much prefer to answer to a hard taskmaster than a director who didn't know his own mind.

Yet, there is an evident rapport between Haneke and Josef Bierbichler and Enno Trebs as they rehearse the scene in which the baron's steward thrashes his son for stealing a whistle. Moreover, he leavens a session with some drama students with anecdotes about the time he played the Chekhov piece they are workshopping and urges them to establish their own style rather than trying to emulate someone they admire.

What is clear, however, is that Haneke plans his pictures to a tee. He is seen filming with a small camera in the street that proves pivotal to Hidden (2005) to ensure he can control every facet of the final image. Given this reputation for precision, therefore, he finds it amusing that Hollywood keeps sending him entirely inappropriate scripts. While driving to the house in the country that provided the backdrop to the chicken slaying that gives Daniel Auteuil nightmares, Haneke recalls being contacted about a scenario devoid of dialogue. On expressing an interest, however, he was sent a potboiler about a father and son battling lions and bears in the jungle and he despairs of the arrogance and ignorance of American executives who think that Cannes winners would jump at the chance to work with them. That said, of course, he did venture Stateside for a remake of Funny Games (2008) and it is perhaps telling that this is the only picture not mentioned in this otherwise thorough survey of Haneke's career.

He doesn't have an inflated opinion of his worth, however, and says that he is privileged to be a film-maker and is grateful that he can exorcise his demons on the set and not have to pay for a psychiatrist. He does work with some highly strung personalities, though, and Montmayeur cuts to a photo call for Time of the Wolf (2003) that is disrupted by a Béatrice Dalle tantrum and the incident is cleverly linked to a scene in the film in which her character launches into a similar rant only to be slapped across the face and told to calm down. In fairness, Dalle laughs that Haneke did know how to handle her and she compares him to an orchestra conductor for his lightness of touch.

This musical reference leads neatly into The Piano Teacher (2001) and Isabelle Huppert confiding that she and Haneke are on the same wavelength and that she trusts him to share her obsession with a role and take her to unexpected places to achieve the ultimate performance. Haneke explains that he wanted this rite of sexual passage to be a parody of an old-fashioned melodrama, but was quite prepared to introduce an element of obscenity to root the action to reality. Huppert compares his willingness to take risks to Ingmar Bergman's and points out that his films often have an underlying current of dark wit, which she claims is very much part of the Austrian tradition.

According to Haneke, Austria is best known for its culture and its neuroses and he reminisces about seeing The Marriage of Figaro as a boy and getting disapproving tuts from a bourgeois couple in the next row for daring to laugh at the jokes. He confesses that he would have loved to have been a musician, as music is the most subtle form of communication. This, of course, was the central theme of Code Unknown (2000), which was Haneke's first French film and spawned a surfeit of articulation issues during the shooting of the fight sequence between Malian migrant Ona Lu Yenke and Alexandre Hamidi after the latter throws some rubbish at a female beggar.

What is most revealing about this on-set excerpt is the keenness of Haneke's eye for detail and his insistence that even the contributions of the most insignificant extras are spot on. Yet, he drives people hard to save time and money, as nothing is more frustrating than having a long take ruined by somebody not concentrating. Juliette Binoche certainly appreciates this understanding of the actorly process, but wishes Haneke's pictures contained a little more light and hope.

These were in short supply in Funny Games (1997), although he reveals that he told Frank Giering and Arno Frisch to act as though they were in a comedy to make the torment being endured by Ulrich Mühe, Susanne Lothar and their son Stefan Clapczynski all the more excruciating for the audience. Despite the grim brutality that divided those seen here emerging from a festival screening, Haneke intended this to be a pastiche thriller, as, by playing with the rules of the genre, he could remind audiences that children and animals do sometimes die and that not every injustice is avenged.

Yet, over clips from the bank robbery sequence in 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994), Haneke insists that he has no imagination and can only film scenes he has examined thoroughly to ensure their authenticity. He qualifies this over scenes from Benny's Video and The Seventh Continent (1989) by saying that he likes to reduce things to their core truth and admits to being concerned that his fidelity to this principal has slipped over the years. Yet, while his debut was about unliveable lives ending in death, Amour shows how a pleasant existence could be terminated with dignity - although Emmanuelle Riva clearly found shooting the deathbed sequences traumatic and she would not have been able to do them so well without Haneke providing such support. Co-star Isabelle Huppert is less interested in his cosseting side, however, and hopes that his radicalism continues unabated. But even she might be surprised to learn that the principal reason Haneke makes the films he does is not a desire to force society to confront its ills, but a fear of suffering.

A decade in the making, this is a remarkable achievement, if only for presenting such an intimate insight into such a deeply private man. However, Montmayeur not only persuades Haneke to investigate the morality that underpins his existential dramas, but he also makes inspired use of extracts from his films that illustrate the issues and ideas that his self-deprecating subject is often so reluctant to review. Consequently, this provides an excellent introduction to the cinema of a visionary whose dissections of the 'disturbing strangeness' of the modern world are so candid, distinctive and scrupulous.

By contrast, Jeff Orlowski's Chasing Ice represents a massively missed opportunity to use the breathtaking time-lapse photography of James Balog to alert audiences to the very real dangers posed not just by global warming, but also by the drastic changes currently occurring in the basic science that governs our fragile planet. There have been countless eco-documentaries since Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth (2006) and it makes sense to find a new angle to entice viewers into cinemas. But, by opting to present Balog as a daredevil shutterbug who risks life and limb to capture irrefutable evidence of the decline of the world's great glaciers, Orlowski risks trivialising the serious message that the Extreme Ice Survey is trying to convey. Moreover, he leaves too little room for the unique photographic sequences that can only convert detractors to the cause of reducing greenhouse gases in the hope of averting an environmental disaster.

James Balog began taking photographs while studying geomorphology at the University of Colorado. For the first part of his career, he specialised in covering endangered species. But he gradually became more interested in glaciology and established the Extreme Ice Survey in 2007 to show how the dual processes of melting and erosion were irrevocably changing the landscape in some of the Earth's most crucial frozen wildernesses. As wife Suzanne and daughters Emily and Simone reveal, Balog strained himself to the limit as he sought to find the most effective way of using photography to record scenic change. Yet, despite needing frequent surgery on his damaged knees, Balog assembled a team that included Svavar Jónatansson, Jason Box, Tad Pfeffer and Adam Lewinter, who shared his reckless spirit and determination to make a difference.

After much trial and error to construct time-lapse camera rigs whose casing and computer chips could withstand the vicissitudes of the severest weather conditions, Balog was able to mount over 40 different systems in locations as distant as the Rockies and the Himalayas. Serving as his own cameraman, Orlowski joined the EIS crew on its missions to glaciers in Montana, Alaska, Iceland and Greenland and witnessed at first hand the risks taken to secure mountings in suitably immovable vantage points and take regular readings.

However, the thrill of the expeditions clearly convinced Orlowski to include excessive footage of his adventures, which might have been more profitably replaced by more in-depth discussion of Balog's findings by such experts as the Aspen Institute's Kitty Boone, National Geographic's Dennis Dimick, oceanographers Sylvia Earle and Synte Peacock, ecologists Gerald Meehl, Terry Root, Martin Nørgaard and Richard Ward, glaciologist Martin Sharp, dendrochronologist Thomas Swetnam, foreign policy analyst R. James Woolsey and geo risks advisor Peter Hoeppe.

Given the perils faced by the director and his subject, a degree of vanity and hagiography is excusable. But the gauche montage of news clips showing sceptics spouting hot air and the inclusion of Scarlett Johansson's rendition of J. Ralph's plaintiff cry `Before My Time' are less forgivable. Indeed, instead of asking director Louie Psihoyos to eulogise about Balog, the debuting Orlowski might have been wiser to follow the example of his Oscar-winning exposé of Japanese dolphin hunting, The Cove (2009), and focus on the issues rather than the personalities.

This may seem a harsh verdict on a film whose heart is entirely in the right place. But one only has to see the staggering images of glacial retreat that Balog amassed over a three-year period to realise their importance and the urgency of the need to have them seen minus the Boy's Own encumbrances. Yet Orlowski was fortunate enough to capture one sequence of extraordinary power and few will forget the sight of a 300ft chunk of ice shearing away from the Store Glacier in Greenland.

The South Korean couple profiled by Yi Seung-jun in the documentary Planet of Snail also has its distinctive rituals and routines. But, even though Jo Yeong-chan has been deaf and blind from an early age and wife Kim Soon-ho has remained diminutive owing to a childhood spinal injury, this is never a sentimental or condescending account of their relationship. Indeed, taking its title from the pace at which Yeong-chan jokingly insists he lives his life, this is one of recent cinema's most honest and affecting insights into loving togetherness.

Despite being deprived of sight and hearing, Yeong-chan is articulate and ambitious. He fashions models out of clay, produces plays for the local theatre company, takes Hebrew lessons and makes notes for a book about the sensations and frustrations of his situation. However, he freely admits that he was incomplete before he met Soon-ho, who not only guides him through the streets around their Seoul apartment and browbeats him into doing his daily exercises, but also taps out a constant commentary on his wrist in Finger-Braille. Moreover, when perched on her husband's shoulders, she can also fix the flickering light bulb in their bedroom and has developed into quite the hostess for the dinner parties and soirées they are forever throwing for their large circle of friends (many of whom are disabled in some way).

Yet Yi is only passingly interested in presenting the pair as vibrant members of their community. Instead, he accompanies them on walks in the park, as Yeong-chan feels the sun on his face and raindrops on his fingertips and finds reassurance in the trunk of the tree he hugs with unfeigned enthusiasm. Even more remarkable, however, are the close-ups of the subtle, supple gestures that enable Soon-ho and Yeong-chan to communicate. Such is their dexterity that one is irresistibly reminded of musicians caressing a fretboard as they form their notes and few can derive such simple fulfilment and joy from a loved one's touch.

Towards the end of the picture, Yeong-chan has to go on a course to teach him how to cope in Soon-ho's absence and the depth of both his affection for and dependence on her is readily apparent. But, even though he shows Soon-ho picking at a lonely dinner and waiting expectantly for her spouse's minibus to return, Yi is occasionally guilty of marginalising her as he marvels at Yeong-chan's energy and capability. It might also have been instructive to learn a bit more about how they met and how they learned to complement each other so perfectly. But there is little room for saccharine romantic recollection and the fact that Soon-ho trains Yeong-chan to throw pine cones with deadly accuracy at Yi's camera demonstrates that this is a team that gets on with things rather than pondering the whys and wherefores of their conditions or how they are viewed by the outside world.

Much more traditional in its approach, Bess Kargman's First Position bears a more than passing resemblance to three other studies of aspiring dancers: Marilyn Agrelo's Mad Hot Ballroom (2004); Beadie Finzi's Only When I Dance (2009); and Sue Bourne's Jig (2010). Nevertheless, Kargman ably captures the personalities of her hopefuls, as well as the pressures they face in order both to please their parents and coaches and fulfil their own ambitions.

Each year, 5000 dancers worldwide between the ages of 9 and 19 enter the Youth America Grand Prix in the hope of being among the 300 candidates competing in the New York final for the prizes, scholarships and contracts that could change their lives. Kargman alights on seven dancers of varying ages and backgrounds and charts their progress over the months leading up to the competition. Some receive more attention than others, but each one is treated with respect and affection, as Kargman cannily manages to find a circumstance or trait that will have us rooting for each kid every step of the way. 

Adopted with her sister Mia from war-torn Sierra Leone, 14 year-old Michaela DePrince from Philadelphia is easily the most empathetic candidate. Undaunted by the fact that few black dancers succeed in the world of classical ballet and no longer fazed by the skin pigmentation around her neck that used to bother her as a child, Michaela combines poise with power and coaches Stephanie and Bo Spassoff are convinced she has the makings of a great ballerina. Jewish parents Charles and Elaine are aware of the prejudice she faces from her rivals, but their main concern coming into the New York showdown is an Achilles problem that limits the amount of training she can do and, even in the warm-up room backstage, Michaela is uncertain whether she can go on, let alone perform to the standards that have previously delighted such important figures as the Venezuelan-born Rock School ballet mistress, Mariaelana Ruiz.

Dancing since the age of four, 11 year-old Aran Bell has always responded positively to  mother Michelle's contention that achievement is impossible without sacrifice. However, neither has risked more than doctor father Ryan, who accepted a US Navy posting to Kuwait so that his son could stay on the Rome base nearest to teacher Denys Ganio. Aran is friends with Israeli girl Gaya Bommer Yemini, whose choreographer mother Nadine Bommer serves as her tutor, and they meet up for the heats in the southern city of Catania, where his classical and her modern routines secure them berths in New York.

Having moved his entire business from Palo Alto to Walnut Creek in California, Brit Mat Fogarty has also gone to extremes to boost the chances of his children, Miko (12) and Jules (10). Japanese mother Satoko is the driving force, however, and she doesn't always see eye to eye with Russian coach Viktor Kabaniaev, who recognises that Jules merely has energy while Miko has talent. When not browbeating Kabaniaev (who is a renowned dancer and choreographer), Satoko is fussing over diet, costumes and schooling and leisure regimens and seems oblivious to the fact that her husband considers dance the most stressful aspect of his life .Yet she supports Jules with a touching loyalty and is genuinely crushed when he decides to quit because he lacks the passion that saw Miko overcome a fall during her first routine to win her place in the Grand Prix.

Failure is similarly not an option for 16 year-old Joan Sebastian Zamora, whose Colombian parents have invested heavily in his training with Flavio Salazar in New York. He lives roommate Jonathan Mendez and girlfriend Jeanetts Kakareka in Queens and knows that he has to fulfil his goal of joining the Royal Ballet in London if he is ever to repay his family's faith. Having impressed in his semi-final, Joan Sebastian returns to Cali for the first time in a year and revels in a traditional cook-out on the verandah. But the reunion only confirms the expectations piled upon him in the big finale.

At 17, Rebecca Houseknecht from Odenton, Maryland is aware that this is her last chance to make an impression. Parents Wendy and David have always been supportive, but they sometimes wonder whether the money lavished on lessons and costumes might have been better spent on a college fund and a wedding trousseau, and even Rebecca has her doubts, as she explains how she has continued with her studies and even been a cheerleader at school in an attempt to have as normal a youth as possible. However, coach Michelle Lees continues to believe and urges her not to waste her gifts and she demonstrates admirable tenacity in the semi by bouncing back from a disastrous first dance to make the cut.

Having concentrated, thus far, on background and temperament, Kargman devotes more time to dance in the final third. She introduces Larissa Saveliev, the founder and artistic director of the Young America Grand Prix, as well as competition organiser Shelley King, judges Deborah Hess, Franco De Vita and Gailene Stock, and Elisabeth Platel from the Paris Opéra Ballet School and Tadeusz Matacz from the Stuttgart Ballet's John Cranko School, who explain what they are looking for in the competitors. Kargman also provides plenty of behind-the-scenes atmosphere and includes a brief montage containing some of the standout performances by the other aspirants. But the focus eventually falls on our sextet.

Despite her misgivings and the pain in her leg, Michaela comes alive on stage and lands a scholarship that involves her family relocating to New York. Aran and Gaya also show well, with her bronze medal being topped by his prize for best overall performance in his age category. However, they are left to keep practicing and Gaya is shown in inset doing her  Cartoon Girl routine during the closing credits.

Miko manages to ignore the backstage bickering between Satako and Viktor to land a bronze medal and she is later seen doing extra stretching classes to improve her suppleness. The same sequence shows Joan Sebastian enjoying life in London after his piece from Don Quixote brought the house down in New York. Rebecca also gets her big break, despite missing out during the Grand Prix, where she had complained how unfair it was that years of effort came down to a few seconds in the spotlight. But, having gone away to finish her studies, she was hired by the Washington Ballet and seemed to be on her way. However, she has since hung up her shoes to read speech pathology at university. 

This decision confirms the maturity that Rebecca demonstrates throughout the film, along with the tenacity and dedication that she shares with her fellow hopefuls. But Kargman seems less intrigued by the peppy blonde princess and her resolution to remain normal and dwells, instead, on more dramatic incidents like the murder of Michaela's mother and teacher by rebel soldiers and the more amusing stage mother antics of the tigerish Satoko. She is certainly fortunate in her chosen subjects, who combine skill with articulacy and considerable composure before Nick Higgins's camera. Moreover, Kargman and co-editors Kate Amend and Jennilyn Merten knit the stories together well and ably sustains the suspense during the climactic awards ceremony. But, as she is so much in thrall to Larissa Saveliev for her unprecedented access, Kargman also glosses over the many difficulties the dancers face both now and in the future and, in retaining a remorseless positivity, she ignores harsh realities that might have proved more instructive.