Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 26/9/2013)

As Hannah Arendt (Barbara Sukowa) teases novelist friend Mary McCarthy (Janet McTeer) about her complex love life, news reaches New York that Nazi fugitive Adolf Eichmann has been captured by Mossad agents during a nocturnal raid in Argentina. Arendt and poet husband Heinrich Blücher (Axel Milberg) host a drinks party to celebrate the fact that she has persuaded New Yorker editor William Shawn (Nicholas Woodeson) to let her cover the trial and New School colleagues Hans Jonas (Ulrich Noethen) and Thomas Miller (Harvey Friedman) are proud that the author of The Origins of Totalitarianism will be a witness to the prosecution of a key figure in the Final Solution. Blücher cannot resist taunting Jonas about his wartime service in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army and McCarthy has to ask Arendt's secretary Lotte Köhler (Julia Jensch) to translate their argument. But he also fears that the proceedings in Jerusalem will bring back unhappy memories of Arendt's undergraduate affair with pro-Nazi tutor Martin Heidegger (Klaus Pohl) and the trauma of being detained in Camp Gurs in France prior to her flight to the United States in 1941.

Having travelled across Israel by bus, Arendt is welcomed by Zionist friend Karl Blumenfeld (Michael Degen). But, from the opening speech by prosecutor Gideon Hausner, Arendt has misgivings that the trial has been stage-managed by David Ben Gurion's government in a bid to win over younger Jews who resent the failure of the older generations to defend themselves against the Third Reich and suspect that many debased themselves in order to survive the Shoah. Indeed, as she sits in the pressroom and watches Eichmann struggling with a cold in his glass cage and protesting that he is being grilled like a steak, she decides that he was not a monster but a mere functionary and that the evidence being presented is designed less to secure a conviction than to demonstrate what went on in the death camps and how the survivors merit respect rather than calumny.

Using monochrome footage of the actual trial, Von Trotta cuts between distressed witnesses giving their testimony to close-ups of Eichmann's impassive face and colour shots of Arendt listening intently and forming her opinions. She calls Blücher to lament that a single man is being blamed for the crimes of a regime and reaches the conclusion that Eichmann was not particularly anti-Semitic, but was such a dedicated logistician that he managed to replace curiosity and conscience with duty and job satisfaction and that, rather than being a wicked genius, he was a mediocrity who denied himself the luxury of thought in order to carry out his orders. Unpersuaded by Eichmann's contention that any resistance on his part would have done nothing to prevent the Holocaust, Blumenfeld warns Arendt that her perspective will make a lot of people angry. But she is unmoved and heads home with boxes of transcriptions to begin the arduous process of making sense of what she had seen and heard in the courtroom.

As she toils, Arendt recalls Heidegger telling her younger self (Friederike Becht) that thinking was a lonely and unrewarding business and she feels pressure from Shawn and associates Francis Wells (Megan Gay) and Jonathan Schell (Tom Leick) to deliver her articles as quickly as possible in order to cash-in on public interest in the trial. However, Arendt also has classes to teach and, during a discussion on the nature of radical evil, she tells her students how she managed to escape Europe with forged papers. But her focus is deflected when Blücher suffers a brain aneurysm and she devotes herself to his care. During his convalescence, Eichmann is sentenced to hang and Arendt and Blücher argue with Jonas over the condemned man's claim to have been following the law as it existed within the Reich and whether this excuses him from his greater moral abnegation. Jonas insists that Eichmann remained at his post even after Heinrich Himmler had abandoned the policy and, after he leaves, Blücher jokes that Jonas is still angry with Arendt for becoming Heidegger's lover when he also had a crush on her.

Eventually, Arendt delivers her articles to Shawn. But he is greatly disquieted by her contention that Eichmann merely epitomised `the banality of evil' and that the leaders of European Jewry co-operated with their persecutors in the hope of reducing the calamity. However, Arendt refuses to change a word and develops the pieces into a book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, in which she insists that the behaviour of the elders was the darkest element of a pitch black chronicle. Unsurprisingly, the New Yorker switchboard is jammed by complaints and Jonas and Miller join the chorus of disapproval. As her daughter Charlotte Beradt (Victoria Trauttmansdorff) denounces her arrogance, Arendt retreats to the country, where McCarthy comes to report on the raging media storm and Arendt thinks back to 1933, when she had begged Heidegger to explain why he had joined the National Socialist Party in the hope that his legacy would not be tainted. 

McCarthy complains that the majority of those attacking Arendt have jumped on a bandwagon without bothering to read her articles and she mounts a waspishly eloquent defence of her friend at a meeting of literary luminaries in New York. But Arendt discovers the full extent of the pain she has caused when she learns that Blumenfeld is dying while being threatened by a Mossad agent (Germain Wagner) and he turns his back on her when she visits him on his deathbed. Jonas's wife Lore (Sascha Ley) wishes things could be sorted out, but the hate mail continues to arrive, with Lotte reading one letter accusing Arendt of having cold eyes in wishing that she will be haunted forever by the ghosts of six million martyrs.

She insists on justifying herself to each correspondent and castigates Miller for starting a witch-hunt when he urges her to resign for bringing ingnominy upon their proud institution. But Arendt refuses to be bowed and uses a lecture to explain that the system was tried rather than Eichmann. She concedes that evil perpetrated without convictions is hideous, but stands by her assertion that Eichmann had been obeying orders rather than pursuing a personal vendetta. Miller stands to castigate her for blaming the Jews for their own destruction, but she insists that even victims lose their moral compass in extremis and posits that the leadership might have found an alternative path between resistance and collaboration. As Miller falls silent, Arendt states that she wanted to understand Eichmann rather than judge him and, in studying him and his utterances, she became convinced that his most grievous crime had been to surrender the ability to reach rational decisions, as this refusal to think had made industrial slaughter a possibility.

Arendt urges future generations to avoid repeating this mistake and Miller storms out as she is warmly applauded by her students. She sees Jonas sitting along and is taken aback when he snaps that her hubris and ignorance know no bounds. He asks why she cannot see that Eichmann was responsible for the train that took her to Gurs and that she was spared by a chance denied countless others. She tries to calm him down, but he says he wants nothing more to do with Heidegger's favourite student. Arendt is also ostracised in the canteen and she tells Blücher in their apartment overlooking the Hudson that she cannot apologise for telling the truth.

A closing caption reveals that Arendt continued to muse upon the nature of evil for the rest of her life. But Von Trotta and co-scenarist Pam Katz refrain from exploring how much damage Arendt's stance did to her career. Indeed, apart from a brief mention of the presidential race between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, the action is given little contemporary context. Even the situation in Israel and the tensions within Judaism are dealt with superficially, with the result that the full import of Arendt's opinions cannot be satisfactorily assessed, as she is presented as a woman who set greater store by friends than groups and who was deserted by all except some loyal females and a husband who often seemed to be supporting her to goad a detested rival.  

Nevertheless, Von Trotta is to be commended for broaching such a difficult subject and having the conviction to concentrate more on Arendt's writings than her private life. There is something Capraesque about her fall from grace. But, given the kneejerk nature of the ourcry against her, none can deny the power of her closing remarks in the lecture theatre about the only thing separating ordinary folks from the likes of Eichmann is their ability to think for themselves. This conclusion has a powerful resonance in our own era of angry mobs and vitriolic campaigns on social networking sites. But, even at a remove of half a century, Von Trotta appears cautious in her comments on the wartime Jewish hierarchy and its furious response to Arendt's theories. She also sidesteps several crucial times in Arendt's life, most notably between 1933-40 and the immediate postwar period when she returned to Germany to work with the Zionist welfare organisation. Youth Aliyah. Consequently, with its awkwardly incorporated flashbacks, this is nowhere near as trenchant as it might have been. It is also, on occasions, a little stiff, as films often are when they have to slip between several languages.

Yet, this is still a compelling portrait, with Barbara Sukowa (who took the leads in both Rosa Luxembourg, 1986 and Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen, 2009) capturing the loneliness of academic endeavour and the steely certitude with which Arendt presented her views. She is ably supported by a fine ensemble, with McTeer bringing some much-needed vivacity as Mary McCarthy, while Caroline Champetier's photography and Bettina Böhler's editing are as acute as Volker Schäfer's production design and Frauke Firl's costumes. But the deepest impression is left by the clips of the unrepentant Eichmann, as he argues his case with the jobsworthy fussiness that made Arendt's appraisal of him so chillingly apt.

Having misfired calamitously with Elles, her muddled feminist treatise on prostitution, Malgorzata Szumowska returns to some sort of form with her fifth feature, In the Name Of. Back in Poland, this caused something of a stir with its depiction of homosexuality among the Catholic clergy and its scathing denunciation of provincial prejudice. However, the former topic was covered almost two decades ago by Antonia Bird in Priest (1994) and, as fact has proved much more disconcerting than fiction in the interim, this sincere picture may seem somewhat redundant to British audiences. Nonetheless, it is capably played by a cast often allowed to improvise its dialogue, while the strong sense of place goes some way to atoning for the disappointing descent into melodrama.

Father Andrzej Chyra has worked wonders in his backwater parish after being transferred under something of a cloud from Warsaw a few years earlier. His most enduring achievement is the programme for delinquent boys he runs with teacher Lukasz Simlat, which offers them a chance to learn some useful life skills, as well as play some football and confess their sins. Every  now and then, the local lads pick a fight with those living at the centre, but Chyra takes it all in his stride, as he does the efforts of Simlat's frustrated wife, Maja Ostaszewska, to cook her way into his affections.

One night, Mateusz Kosciukiewicz shows up on Chyra's doorstep after being beaten up. Despite still living at home with mother Maria Maj and his younger brothers, this handsome, but unpredictable youth has a reputation as a pyromaniac. But, even though he awakens the suppressed desires that caused Chyra to be relocated, he agrees to let him spend time at the centre and get involved in some of the manual labour projects. Shortly after Kosciukiewicz's arrival, Mateusz Gajko confides in Chyra that he has been in trouble in the past for sleeping with other boys. However, Chyra is so reluctant to discuss the subject that he consoles Gajko with platitudes and is appalled some time later to find him having sex with new inmate, Tomasz Schuchardt.

In confusion, Chyra gives the offending sofa to an impoverished family and tries to pretend nothing untoward has happened, as he goes for another of his early morning jogs in the forest. However, he starts drinking heavily and dances around with a portrait of Pope Benedict XVI and charges through a cornfield with Kosciukiewicz making bizarre simian noises. But Gajko hangs himself in shame and, within days of the funeral, Schuchardt begins spreading rumours that Chyra is gay. Kosciukiewicz beats him into silence, but Chyra is aroused by the graffiti and the abuse and he seduces Schuchardt in his car. Unfortunately, Simlat spies on them and informs Bishop Olgierd Lukaszewicz, who suggests it is better to let bygones be bygones. Yet, he reproaches Chyra and implies that a fresh placement might be in order.

Distraught, Chyra makes a Skype call to his sister in Toronto and breaks down into confessing that he may be gay, but he is not a paedophile. Soon after his departure, Kosciukiewicz sets light to the centre and runs away. He gets a job on a building site and tracks Chyra down. They sleep together. But Kosciukiewicz decides he has a vocation and, as the film ends, he enters a seminary.

In much the same way that Sam Taylor-Johnson defied the age gap to marry Nowhere Boy star Aaron Johnson, so Szumowska tied the knot with Kosciukiewicz after completing a picture that was photographed by her first husband and co-scenarist, Michal Englert. By giving Kosciukiewicz a beard and flowing Christ-like locks, Szumowska was evidently seeking to rattle some cages. But matters that might still disconcert in conservative Poland have considerably less shock value elsewhere and, for all its simmering eroticism, this is most notable for its exposé of small-town insularity and bigotry.

Reuniting after playing father and son in Jacek Borcuch's All That I Love (2009), Chyra and Kosciukiewicz lack the dangerous spark that Englert tries so hard to strike with his kinetic camerawork. However, the golden light in which much of the action is bathed and the wistful score by Pawel Mykietyn and Adam Walicki further diminish the intended aura of gritty authenticity. But, while the narrative is often a little wayward and too many secondary characters are sketchily drawn, Szumowska refuses to judge and she springs her closing surprise with admirable restraint.

Resisting temptation is also the theme of Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy's Mister John, a marked departure from the austere realism of their 2008 dramatic debut, Helen, that borrows from David Lynch and Apichatpong Weerasethakul to achieve a teasing tone that equates to the confusion that a middle-aged Brit feels on arriving in Singapore to bury his recently deceased brother. With the languid pace being reinforced by Ole Birkland's static compositions and Niall Brady's unsettling sound design, this could almost be an unwritten Graham Greene novel or a remake of one of those moody colonial sagas that Dirk Bogarde favoured as he tried to shatter his image as a clean-cut matinee idol in the early 1960s. But there is also a noirish undercurrent to the exoticism and mysticism that pervades proceedings that ensnare the audience as surely as the hapless protagonist.

Shortly after a body is found floating on a lake in the outskirts of the Lion City, businessman Aiden Gillen flies out from London to identify brother Michael Walsh's body. His luggage is lost in transit and he only has the clothes on his back as he is greeted by sister-in-law Zoe Tay, who insists that he stays in the family home. Gillen prefers to check into a hotel and she takes him to a place run by her friend, Liu Liu Ling. It transpires, however, that the premises are used by the women who pick up their clients at Mister John, the hostess bar owned by his late sibling.

One of the restaurant staff informs Gillen that a water ghost has taken Walsh and that he will have to remain until a suitable replacement can be found. However, Gillen doesn't see this as a grim warning and is quite happy to linger, as things are not good at home because of wife Claire Keelan's recent infidelity. As there is still no sign of his luggage, though, he agrees to accept Tay's hospitality and she insists that he borrows what ever he needs from her husband's wardrobe. She also introduces him to his niece, Ashleigh Judith White, and he tells her about her cousin Molly Rose Lawlor back home.

But the cosy domesticity doesn't last long, as it is clear that Tay has designs on Gillen and he slips away to visit the place where Walsh drowned. As he pays his respects, he is bitten by a snake and doctor Maryanne Ng tells him that he won't feel like himself for the next few hours. In fact, Gillen is afflicted with an erection that refuses to go down as Tay acquaints him with the hostesses at the bar and their regular punters. She explains that she has decided to keep the place going, but needs German ex-pat Michael Thomas to pay his debt. Gillen offers to speak to him, but only finds girlfriend Janice Koh at home and she complains bitterly that Thomas has a roving eye.

Returning to the bar, but still with no idea that he is slowly being sucked into the vortex of this dystopic paradise, Gillen gets drunk. As he sleeps, his dream veers between a blazing row with Keelan and what seems to be an interview, as he assesses her suitability for a post at the bar. The following morning, he sets off to find Thomas and gets into a fight when he demands Tay's money. Badly beaten, Gillen jumps in the lake that claimed his brother and he is scarcely surprised when Tay kisses him when he gets home. However, he decides the time has come to reclaim his own personality and he puts his own clothes on and calls Lawlor to promise to bring her a present from his travels. But whether he will ever get home is left in doubt, as Gillen breaks down at the funeral, partly out of grief for Walsh, but also out of a sense of frustration at having lost control of his life.

Ever since they debuted with the short Who Killed Brown Owl (2004), the Irish husband-and-wife team of Lawlor and Malloy have rooted their films in the landscape and the curious atmosphere of this distinctive setting starts impacting upon Gillen from the moment he arrives. Indeed, he is almost powerless to resist its pull and this unnerving sense of something supernatural playing upon his already vulnerable psyche makes this feel as much like an offbeat thriller as a study in emotional collapse. In some ways, the premise resembles that of Helen, in which 18 year-old Annie Townsend becomes steadily more immersed in the role when she is asked to stand in for a missing girl during a police reconstruction. But Gillen seems oblivious to the fact that a karmic combination of the spirits and his surroundings seems to have selected him to assume the nefarious Walsh's status within the community. 

In recently having Viggo Mortensen pass himself off as his twin in Everybody Has a Plan, Ana Piterbarg succumbed to the temptation to impose twists upon an already intriguing plot rather than trusting the suspense of the original set-up. By contrast, Lawlor and Malloy follow the lead set by Evelyn Waugh at the end of A Handful of Dust and insinuate the peril into which their anti-hero has landed himself. Consequently, with Stephen McKeown's score also withholding the customary emotional cues, this becomes a puzzle that the directors make all the more perplexing by their decision to dispense with the standard rules of screen grammar. This absence of establishing shots and the abstract elision of sequences adds to the challenge facing the audience. But those willing to accept the erratic rhythms and quirky convolutions in following Gillen's darkly comic night of the soul will find much to appreciate in this teasing dissertation on fear, deceit and the complex senses of self, purpose and belonging.

Unfortunately, the week's other directorial duo, Femi Oyeniran and Darwood Grace, come unstuck in trying to cram as many clichés and caricatures from Hollywood high-school movies as possible into their lame London romp, It's a Lot. The obvious influences are John Hughes's Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) and Reginald Hudlin's House Party (1990). But this also owes much to Adam Deacon and Daniel Toland's Anuvahood (2011), in which Oyeniran parodied the roles he had taken in Noel Clarke's hard-hitting urban dramas Kidulthood (2006) and Adulthood (2008). However, the standard of the writing is moderate at best, while too many of the cast lack the talent to match their enthusiasm. Yet, while this is only likely to find favour among the least discriminating members of its target audience, it is nowhere near as inept as some of the reviews have suggested. .

Entrusted to the care of grandma Ellen Thomas while parents Eddie Kadi and  Renée Castle are away on holiday, teenager Femi Oyeniran is bullied by younger brother Kareem Grace before heading off to school. His wealthy father thinks his son attends the local private school, but Oyeniran so dislikes snobs like Bill Partitt that he enrolled at Sacred Heart College with his cousin Jazzie Zonzolo and their wannabe white pals Charley Palmer Merkell and Miles McDonald.

Oyeniran has a hopeless crush on mean girl Roxy Sternberg, who struts around with acolytes Red Madrell and Miss London and barely notices that he is alive. So, he decides to drive to school in Kadi's prized Lotus and offers to take Sternberg for a spin. But, if she is impressed by the car, she is blown away by the size of his house and asks if she can have her birthday party there in Saturday night. Thomas is initially sniffy towards Sternberg but warms to a bit of flattery and they chat away happily as Grace tells Oyeniran that he had better let him rule the roost of he will snitch to their parents.

Oyeniran drives Sternberg back to her estate. But he is so afraid that the car is going to be damaged by a gang of rough kids that he prangs it against some bollards and the local garage demands £20,000 to make the necessary repairs. He summons his posse and Palmer Merkell hits upon the idea of setting up a fake charity and using flyers and a website to encourage people to donate. Although doubtful about the legality of such a scheme and scarcely convinced it could rake in enough cash before his folks get home, Oyeniran realises he has little option and is amazed when his Buff Marrow Campaign starts to catch on. Madrell is particularly enthusiastic, as her younger sister has leukaemia and is in hospital hoping a donor will come forward in time to save her life.

Meanwhile, Oyeniran has to host Sternberg's birthday party and she charges £10 admission so she can make a profit on the side. With Thomas out on a hot date with white toyboy Tom Bolt, Sternberg quickly takes over the house and Grace threatens to snitch to his parents unless Oyeniran arranges for his to kiss Sternberg. Unable to arrange this, he pairs him off with Roxanne Pallett, another white wannabe, who happily takes Madrell's place in the gang when she tells Sternberg she's had enough of her attitude. As the night progresses, McDonald gets cornered by drug dealer Jack Doolan and his black sidekick Nicky SlimTing Walker and allows them to take the television to pay off part of the debt he owes them. But the bash is soon broken up by the arrival of cops Danny Midwinter and Vas Blackwood, who delight in humiliating the lads before sending them home.

Oyeniran is appalled by the state of the house and Madrell calls in her uncle's housekeeping company to help him out. She also gives him the £3000 she took on the door and hopes it helps his campaign. Already feeling embarrassed, Oyeniran is mortified when one of the cleaners turns out to be Zonzolo's single mother Sarah-Jane Crawford, who has not spoken to Castle since they fell out over their father's inheritance. He promises to speak to his mother and patch things up between them. But he has more pressing matters to attend to when Nigerian headmaster Kojo informs him that the media has picked up on BMC and that he is planning a show at the end of the week to raise funds and the profile of the school.

Once again, Palmer Merkell comes to the rescue and gives a pep talk at a meeting of volunteers to urge everyone into doing their bit for BMC. Even his racist dad, Stephen Marcus, becomes interested in the cause when he learns that one of the raffle prizes at the gig is a box at West Ham. Yet, just as everything seems to be going so well, Madrell tells Oyeniran that she needs £15,000 to get her sister to the United States for an operation and suggests that they expand the charity to accommodate their needs. Feeling out of his depth, Oyeniran confides in Kadi's Asian buddy, Silas Carson, who offers him a joint and tells him to get some perspective.

He has reached no conclusions, however, by the time Tim Westwood swaggers in to emcee the concert. Sternberg, London and Pallett do a dismal dance routine and get booed, but the assorted rappers, guitar bands and folky duets are cheered to the rafters and Kojo is thrilled with the way things are going. But, backstage, McDonald steals the takings to pay off Doolan and Oyeniran feels so bad when Madrell kisses him that he confesses everything on stage and is arrested by Midwinter and Westwood. Carson gets him bailed and tells him to put things right as quickly as he can.

Rushing to the station before McDonald can flee to France, Oyeniran rollocks him for stealing the box office and sells the Lotus in order to push a cheque under Madrell's door. She instantly forgives him and Castle proves equally forbearing when he returns home with Crawford for an overdue reunion. But Kadi has to be reminded of the need to be true to oneself and do something worthwhile with one's wealth before he accepts the apology. Indeed, only Kojo refuses to forgive and forget and the picture ends with him ordering the scoundrels to clean the toilets with toothbrushes to make amends.

There's little to get excited about here. Oyeniran and Grace attempt a few directorial flourishes (mostly involving slo-mo and jump cuts), while the script by Oyeniran and Nick Walker is almost completely devoid of originality and wit. A sample gag has the cops being called Ant and Dec. Oyeniran's struggles with a posh accent are almost equally painful to endure. But the cast tries hard and it makes a refreshing change to a black British film focus on something other than deprivation, drugs, rap and gang crime.

The contrast could not be greater between this disposable tosh and an enduring classic like Michael Roemer's Nothing But a Man (1964), which is reissued this week. Made for just $300,000, this was hailed as a landmark in African-American cinema, as it sought to depict everyday existence from the perspective of ordinary working blacks rather than that of the white liberals who wrote and directed the pleas for tolerance sponsored by the Hollywood studios. As a Jew who had escaped Europe via the Kindertransport and had been subjected to ceaseless prejudice during his youth in the Deep South, Roemer knew all about second-class citizenship. But there are no kindly whites here reaching out to decent blacks who just need a chance in a society that doesn't care. Instead, this follows the lead of Shirley Clarke's The Connection and Kent MacKenzie's The Exiles (both 1961) in depicting black characters struggling to overcome their own personal flaws as much as the odds stacked against them.

Ivan Dixon is a railroad labourer in Alabama. He claims not to be political, but insists on being treated with respect and this often puts him at odds with his white employers and his family and friends. Estranged from father Julius Harris, he wiles away his free time playing checkers and pool with pals Yaphet Kotto and Leonard Parker, who keep trying to persuade him to use his head instead of constantly picking fights he can't win. However, it's not their hectoring that causes Dixon to rethink his situation, but his sudden infatuation with schoolteacher Abbey Lincoln after he notices her in preacher father Stanley Green's church.

Although she knows he is trouble and that Green will not approve of her choice, Lincoln is attracted to Dixon and agrees to go on a date. He tells her he is not the marrying kind and that he already has a four year-old son, who lives with a nanny. But she refuses to be put off by his bad reputation or his self-loathing and assures him that she sees the intelligence and kindness behind his outward displays of truculence. However, after they marry, Dixon finds settling down tougher than he had imagined. A free spirit since being demobbed from the army, he not only resents playing house, but also kicks against his white bosses and those within his own community who knuckle under rather than confront the injustice blighting their lives.

When he loses his job at a mill for complaining about the conditions and urging his workmates to unionise, Dixon is blacklisted and only lands a job at a gas station through Green's good graces. However, Dixon refuses to show his white customers the deference they expect and he is fired for being too proud. When Lincoln tells him that he has to compromise because she is pregnant, he accuses her of not knowing what it means to be black and chooses to hit the road rather than accept a pittance to pick cotton.

Promising to send for Lincoln once he is back on his feet, Dixon visits his son before travelling to Birmingham to see Harris. He is appalled to discover that he has become a hopeless drunk and he pities stepmother Gloria Foster, as she tries to care for him with uncomplaining devotion. Harris warns Dixon about selling out, but he dies en route to the hospital and Dixon and Foster feel sorry for him and each other as they realise that Harris owned little more than the items in his pockets and has left virtually no trace of his wasted existence. Aware that he and his son risk going the same way, Dixon returns to Lincoln in a bid to make something of his life

Co-scripted by cinematographer Robert M. Young, this was filmed in New Jersey in the 1963 summer that Civil Righs activist Medgar Evers was gunned down by White Citizens' Council member Byron De La Beckwith and Martin Luther King made his `I Have a Dream' speech. But, while its themes are evident, this is not an overtly politicised film, as the problems facing Dixon were not exclusive to African-Americans. Yet Malcolm X proclaimed it an important work and its neo-realist refusal to provide easy answers to intractable questions meant that it struck a chord with contemporary audiences - although, it was not widely distributed, despite winning an award at the Venice Film Festival.

Half a century on, this has many fascinating aspects. The action is shot through with a casual chauvinism that has Kotto telling Dixon to stick to low-class girls who don't make trouble and Green lecturing Lincoln that he didn't have her educated to become a ghetto mamma. But this only adds to the authenticity, as does the naturalism of the performances, with Kotto, Green and Harris producing vibrant characters whose shortcomings contrast with the forbearance of Lincoln and Foster. But this is very much Dixon's journey and the range of smiles he produces to reflect his frustration, passion, cynicism, inadequacy and determination to change effectively conveys the complexity of his personality and the difficulty of defying history, the system and ingrained expectation to take a stand and make a difference.

The second oldie of the week is one of the most chilling horrors ever produced in this country and Robin Hardy has chosen to mark its 40th anniversary by releasing a final cut of The Wicker Man. Since being butchered to fit on a double bill with Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, this disturbing homage to folk mythology has become the subject of its own cult and has been reissued in editions of varying lengths. Although the materials for the so-called Long Version have probably now been lost, this print has been based on the cut that Hardy agreed with Abraxas for a US re-release in 1979. Digitised and restored from a 35mm print found in the Harvard Film Archives, this may resemble a patchwork in places. But Hardy is happy with the effect and the occasional visual shifts do enhance the pervading sense of dislocation. Thus, while this may not be precisely the story that Hardy and screenwriter Anthony Shaffer wished to tell, it remains compelling and those who seek it out in cinemas will also want to own the DVD or Blu-Ray sets, which are released on 14 October and contain all three extant versions of the film, as well as the original soundtrack and a host of extras, including interviews with Hardy and featurettes on the making of the film and its enduring appeal.

When he receives a letter claiming that 12 year-old Geraldine Cowper has disappeared on Summerisle, Sergeant Edward Woodward flies his sea plane to the island off the West Highland coast to make inquiries. Ignoring a warning from harbour master Russell Waters that he needs the permission of laird Christopher Lee to proceed, Woodward goes to Irene Sunters's post office to show a photograph of the missing girl he presumes to be her daughter. But Sunter claims not to recognise the child and her daughter, Jennifer Martin, confuses Woodward by referring to a hare playing in the fields.

He takes a room at the Green Man tavern owned by Lindsay Kemp and, as a deeply religious man, he is discomfited by the locals singing a song in praise of Kemp's comely daughter, Britt Ekland. Snooping around the premises, Woodward finds some photographs of bygone harvest festivals and notices that the previous year's picture is missing. When Ekland brings him supper, he asks to sample one of the island's famous apples, but she informs him they have all been exported and he is further disturbed by Ekland's behaviour when he sees Lee present her with a youth for sexual initiation and he is unable to pray because of the noises coming from next door.

The following day, Woodward accuses the local children of being liars when he finds Cowper's name in the register after they have denied knowing anything about her. Breaking away from a lesson about the significance of phallic symbols, teacher Diane Cilento explains that the girl's soul has returned to nature and, even though he finds what appears to be her grave beside an abandoned church, Woodward can find no mention of her at the record office. Baffled, he calls on Lee, who gives him permission to exhume Cowper's body. However, when Woodward expresses his distaste for a naked fertility ritual being performed in the manor grounds, Lee explains that his grandfather bought the Hebridean island because of its rich soil and encouraged the inhabitants to revive legends about pagan gods in the hope of producing abundant fruit crops and they have now become an integral part of the local way of life.

Unimpressed, Woodward opens the grave to find it contains nothing but a hare. He suspects that Lee has had the child killed and breaks into the chemist shop to find the missing harvest photograph, which shows Cowper standing beside Summerisle's failed crop. Now convinced that the girl has been abducted to be sacrificed as the May Queen, Woodward returns to the pub and is sorely tempted to betray his fiancée back on the mainland when Ekland makes it clear she wishes to seduce him and sings `Gently Johnny' through the dividing wall. He is further frustrated the next day when he cannot get his plane to start and learns that there will not be a boat to the mainland for another week. But he uses his time to research fertility rites in Ingrid Pitt's library and conduct a door-to-door search in the hope of finding Cowper. Exhausted, he returns to The Green Man, where Kemp attempts to drug him and Woodward attacks him and steals his Punch costume.
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He wears this to the May Day celebrations and is pleased that Lee doesn't recognise him when he mocks his inexpert dancing. As the procession moves on, Woodward sees swordsmen sacrifice a neighbour in a hare outfit and Lee make a sacrifice of ale to the gods of the sea. But, when he spots Cowper among the crowd and whisks her off to a cave to ask what is going on, he realises that he has been duped and looks up to discover that Lee and the islanders have cut off his escape. Lee explains that he is the perfect sacrificial victim, as he has come willingly and combines the attributes of a king, a virgin and a fool. Woodward tries to resist as he is stripped and anointed and insists that his death will not improve the harvest. But his cries are in vain and Lee leads his vassals in singing `Summer Is Icumen In' as Woodward is locked inside a giant wicker effigy on top of the cliff and a fire is lit beneath him.

Wickedly breaking with generic convention by punishing chastity rather than promiscuity, this is a film that delights in confounding expectation. It begins as a policier, but flirts with allegory and anthropology before finally turning towards horror. Yet, even then, Hardy and Shaffer refuse to play by the rules by blurring the lines between good and evil in defining character motivation. Instead, they slowly build a sinister atmosphere with their discussion of heathen practices and dismissal of Christian primacy. Moreover, there is no gore in the denouement, which is all the more effective, as it leaves the agony that Woodward is about to endure to the audience's imagination.

Flummoxed by these antics, British Lion marketing director Michael Deeley had no idea how to promote the picture and followed the advice of B-icon Roger Corman in cutting around 10 minutes from the sumbitted version before releasing it with Roeg's Venetian masterpiece. Most features would have vanished without a trace after such ignominious treatment. But it says much for The Wicker Man that it refused to go quietly and it has since survived numerous revisions and even a less than adequate 2006 remake by Neil LaBute. Much of its fame is down to the horror magazine Cinefantastique devoting an entire issue to it in 1978. But it helps no end that Christopher Lee insists this contains his finest screen performance and he is more than ably supported by Ekland, Cilento and the cameoing Pitt. Harry Waxman's cinematography and Seamus Flannery's art direction are also outstanding, as is the debuting Hardy's direction. But it is Woodward's priggishly devout copper who holds this fruitless quest together and his invocation on realising the gravity of his situation remains among the most terrifiying moments in cinema.

The action is even more gleefully extreme in Ernesto Diaz Espinoza's Bring Me the Head of Machine Gun Woman. But this Chilean homage to old school grindhouse has very little to say in socio-political terms and seems entirely content on melding pastiche tropes with video game visuals to create a wild ride that will appeal almost exclusively to aficionados of LatinXploitation. Bullishly played and driven along by a pumping score by Rocco, this may not be subtle and it is most certainly not politically correct. However, Espinoza achieves what he sets out to do and proves that he knows his subject every bit as well as Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.

Games-mad DJ Matia Oviedo works in a Santiago nightclub run by gangster Eric Kleinsteuber. However, he has the habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and is caught eavesdropping in the gentleman's restroom as Kleinsteuber is giving a couple of henchmen orders to eliminate gun-toting bounty hunter Fernanda Urrejola. Faced with execution, Oviedo offers to do the hit himself and reasons that his experience in gaming environments will make him a decent hitman. But twiddling your fingers and thumbs and filling killing machines full of lead turn out to be two very different things and Urrejola is anything but an easy target.

Naturally, mayhem ensues and Espinoza relishes staging gun battles than make Hong Kong heroic bloodshed stand-offs look like coy exchanges of pleasantries. Editing with cinematographer Nicolás Ibieta, he cuts a touch too frenziedly in places. But the pair creditably create video game visuals that manage to lampoon as much as they glamorise the cartoonish violence. They also poke fun at the tendency for female action heroes to be scantily clad and Amazonian. But, while Urrejola is clearly in on the joke, she is often presented in a fetishised way that doesn't always feel entirely knowingly retro. She makes an imposing presence, however, and her sober ruthlessness tempers Oviedo's irksome tendency to overact.