Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 9/7/2015)

For once, Welles completed the shoot on time and remained within the $800,000 budget. Zugsmiths superiors declared themselves delighted with the daily rushes and Welles left to start work on his long-cherished take on Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote without any thought that Universal would treat his picture in the same way that RKO had bowdlerised The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) when he travelled to South America to make It's All True (1943) for the US government. The moment he set foot off the lot, however, the front office ordered journeyman director Harry Keller to re-film several scenes and add a new one that removed much of the ambiguity from the storyline. Furthermore, studio chief Edward Muhl had the entire feature re-edited and the returning Welles was so aghast that he sent a detailed 58-page memo lamenting the manner in which his vision had been so callously compromised.

Unsurprisingly, Welles disowned the 96-minute version issued by Universal (which he branded an `odious thing'), as well as two further revisions that appeared over the next two decades after the picture tanked at the box office. In 1978, however, a 108-minute preview version was discovered by UCLA academic Robert Epstein, but Welles had died by the time a concerted effort was made in the 1990s to restore the film to its pristine state. Using Welles's memo, producer Rick Schmidlin commissioned editor Walter Murch to assemble a 111-minute cut and this finally sent the picture into profit when it grossed almost three times the original budget. This is the version that is now back in UK theatres.

As the credits appear on screen, an uninterrupted three-minute crane track glides across four blocks of a seedy, decaying town on the US-Mexican border. A pair of hands primes an explosive device that is placed in the boot of a car belonging to American Rudi Linnekar (Jeffrey Green) and his stripper companion Zita (Joi Lansing). As they drive slowly through the dark night, their way is lit up by neon signs advertising the pleasures of the flesh. The car pulls up at a set of traffic lights and the camera switches its focus to newlyweds Susan (Janet Leigh) and Miguel `Mike' Vargas (Charlton Heston), a Mexican agent of the Pan-American Narcotics Commission who is recognised by the border guards and congratulated for recently nailing a notorious drug lord.

They smooch as they cross into the United States. But the car detonates as their lips touch and a combination of zooms and cuts ends the plan-séquence to show the effects of the blast on the vehicle. Handheld shots accompany Vargas and Susan as they run towards the burning wreckage and he orders her to return to their hotel in Los Robles while he sees if he can be of any assistance to the US authorities. As the coroner (Joseph Cotten) and District Attorney Adair (Ray Collins) break the news to Linnekar's cynically unconcerned daughter, Marcia (Joanna Moore), cigar-chomping Texan police captain Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) arrives with his sergeant, Pete Menzies (Joseph Calleia). He resents Vargas's offer of assistance and rasps that he would rather follow the premonitions of his game.

Meanwhile, Susan has been persuaded to accompany Pancho (Valentin de Vargas) to the Ritz Hotel on the US side of the border, as he claims to have something of importance for her husband. In fact, she has been brought to meet Uncle Joe Grandi (Akim Tamiroff), the brother of the lynchpin Vargas has just busted. He tries to intimidate her at gunpoint, but she mocks his movie gangster mannerisms and warns him that he will never sway her husband from doing his duty. Yet, when she meets up with Vargas at the hotel, she is peevish when he suggests she leaves town for her own safety.

His concerns are fulfilled when he joins the other cops at the Rancho Grande strip club, as a member of the Grandi gang attacks him with a bottle of acid that fizzes into the poster of Zita on the outside wall. Having chatted briefly to the owner (Zsa Zsa Gabor), the limping Quinlan leaves through a back door and is amused to hear some familiar music coming from the bordello operated by his old fortune-telling friend, Tanya (Marlene Dietrich). She tuts in disgust at how badly he has let himself go and sneers that the chili she once used to cook for him would probably be too hot for his taste now.

Quinlan dismisses Vargas's suggestion that the car bomb and the acid attack are related to the Grandi case and he returns to find the hotel room in darkness because Susan has thrown the light bulb at a peeping tom in the shadows. Another member of the gang lies in wait when she comes down to the lobby and hands her a photograph of her with Pancho. Momentarily, she wonders if she would be better off in the capital. But she decides to remain beside her husband, who feels unmanned at not being able to protect his own wife. But he has no idea of the vicious plan that Uncle Joe is hatching to wreak his revenge.

Menzies drives Susan to the remote Mirador Motel and arrests Uncle Joe when he spots him tailing the car. She is welcomed by the fussy night manager (Dennis Weaver), who seems disconcerted by the news that Uncle Joe has been taken into custody. Meanwhile, Vargas and Quinlan visit the Linnekar Construction Company site, where the foreman (Billy House) informs them that Marcia has been having an affair with shoe shop assistant Manelo Sanchez (Victor Millan), who is suspected of having stolen some dynamite. They swoop on Sanchez's apartment and Quinlan subjects him to an intense interrogation after letting Marcia leave with her lawyer. He accuses Vargas of trying to abet his compatriot as he acts as translator and he complains to deputy Al Schwartz (Mort Mills) about Quinlan's brutal methods.

While Vargas calls Susan on a public phone in a shop owned by a blind woman, Quinlan finds two incriminating sticks of dynamite in a shoebox in the bathroom. However, Vargas knows the Texan planted the evidence and the pair have to be separated when he threatens to expose him. Determined to protect himself, Quinlan calls on Uncle Joe and they hatch a plan to eliminate their common foe. They go to a bar, where Quinlan falls off the wagon at the same time that Susan is being terrorised by Grandi gang members at the motel. But the oblivious Vargas is solely intent on bringing Quinlan to book and he meets up with Adair and Chief Gould (Harry Shannon) in his hotel room to show them proof that Quinlan purchased some dynamite from the local hardware store. Yet, because they are every bit as bigoted as their colleague, they take his side against the Mexican.

At the Mirador, the leader of the thugs (Mercedes McCambridge) taunts Susan through her room door that they are going to break in and subject her to all sorts of humiliations after doping her with marijuana. But Quinlan is already intoxicated and confides in Menzies that Sanchez was foolish to use such a messy murder weapon, as nothing leaves fewer clues than string, and he should know because his wife had been strangled three decades ago and he had never been able to find the proof to put the mixed-race killer on Death Row. He explains to Menzies that he has hated Mexicans ever since and has never allowed a single murderer to escape justice.

Fighting drunk, Quinlan barges into Vargas's room and demands to know what gives him the right to question his record as a policeman. Vargas insists that law enforcement should be a difficult job in a free society and Quinlan throws down his badge in a fit of pique. Adair jumps to his defence and Menzies returns the badge symbolising Quinlan's power. But, as Vargas and Schwartz go to the station to check for other instances of Quinlan planting evidence, the gnarled veteran tells Menzies that he has heard rumours that Vargas purloins confiscated drugs to feed the habit of his junkie wife.

Unaware that his defenceless spouse is being menaced by Pancho and his cohorts, Vargas shows Menzies how he has been played for a fool down the years by Quinlan planting evidence for him to find. He is crushed to learn how many miscarriages of justice he has helped perpetrate. But his despair is nothing compared to that of Vargas when he is told by the night manager that the Grandi family owns the motel and that Susan has been abducted and taken to the Ritz. In fact, Pancho merely planted evidence around the room, along with the seed in Susan's mind that she might have been assaulted.

While Uncle Joe carries out his side of the bargain, Quinlan decides he can no longer be trusted. Consequently, he takes him into Susan's room and points a gun at his head while Uncle Joe calls headquarters to confirm that Susan is innocent and safe. As soon as he replaces the receiver, Uncle Joe tries to escape through the window. But Quinlan pulls him down and strangles him on the bed with one of Susan's stockings, as she lies insensibly beside them. In his haste to leave, however, Quinlan forgets his cane and he shuffles into the night, as Susan rouses herself and screams for help from the fire escape.

Speeding back from the Mirador, Vargas fails to see her in his fury and he bursts into the Rancho Grande and starts pulping Pancho against the jukebox. But, as he is smashing up the joint, Schwartz bursts in to inform Vargas that Susan has been arrested for possession of drugs and murder. Vargas rushes to the cells and dismisses the circumstantial evidence linking Susan to the crime. However, Menzies has learned his lesson and he shows Vargas the cane than Quinlan left at the scene.

Sensing that Quinlan will have taken refuge with Tanya, Vargas fits a wire inside Menzies's coat and sends him to dupe his boss into confessing his guilt. Quinlan asks Tanya to read his tarot cards, but she tells him he has no future and should go home. Despondent, Quinlan allows Menzies to walk him along the canal bank and Vargas listens in above the noise of the oil derricks pumping in the distance, as Quinlan accuses his friend of getting too cosy with the Mexican, whom he dismisses as an idealist. He gazes at the oil fields and curses that he could have made a fortune from back-handers if he didn't have scruples.

But Menzies steers the conversation around to Uncle Joe and asks Quinlan whether he had been thinking of his wife when he killed him. He also goads him into admitting that he helped justice along from time to time. However, as Vargas wades through the shallow water below the bridge, his recorder echoes off the metalwork and Quinlan realises he has been set up. Loyal to the end, Menzies allows him to take his gun and shoots him. But, as Quinlan tries to wash his blood off his hands, he slips backwards on to a pile of rubbish as Vargas approaches. He brandishes the gun and tells Vargas it is his weapon and that he intends framing him for killing Menzies. But the dying Menzies has heard enough and he fires a single shot into Quinlan, just as Schwartz and Susan arrive in a squad car.

As he slips into unconsciousness, Quinlan listens to his pathetic confession. Tanya crosses the bridge as the reeling cop falls into the water. Schwartz tells her than Quinlan's last hunch had been a good one, as Sanchez had confessed to planting the bomb. He opines that he had been a good detective, but no cop should also act as the judge, jury and executioner. But Tanya shrugs and dismisses Quinlan as a lousy cop: `He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?'

Coming so late in the canon, it is often forgotten that Touch of Evil is a magnificent film noir. Director Paul Schrader rightly deemed it the epitaph for the postwar golden age. Cinematographer Russell Metty's use of light and shadow is as masterly as Alexander Golitzen and Robert Clatworthy's grittily authentic production design, while Henry Mancini's lowering score is deftly complemented by Walter Murch's restoration sound mix. Ever since his radio days, Welles had demonstrated a talent for using sound to enhance a story's sense of place and ambience and he had transformed the way in which dialogue and sound effects were deployed on screen with Citizen Kane (1941), which exposed just how little effort film-makers had invested in the experimental use of sound in the 14 years since the advent of talkies.

Everyone rightly remembers the audacity of the opening sequence, which artist Mark Lewis mischievously inverted in the Upside Down Touch of Evil exhibit that came to Oxford's Museum of Modern Art in 2001. But the way the pianola music drifts on the air to lure Quinlan into Tanya's lair is as inspired as the changes in timbre that Welles builds into the cross-cuts between Quinlan and Menzies reminiscing and Vargas eavesdropping on them. This was also the first film to include natural dialogue in a moving car.

Of course, the performances are also outstanding. Few directors coaxed better work out of character actors than Welles and the film would be a much lesser achievement without the excellence of Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff and Dennis Weaver. Charges of misogyny have been levelled at Welles for the indignities suffered by Janet Leigh. But she gives as good as she gets before she is overpowered and her treatment is clearly a reflection of the macho arrogance of the milieu rather than Welles's own mindset. Indeed, if Leigh had not been so comfortable in her own skin as she lounged around on the bed chatting to Charlton Heston on the phone, she would almost certainly not have cavorted in her underwear with John Gavin in the opening sequence of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960).

Such was the casting policy of the time that no one batted an eyelid that Heston was cast as a Mexican. His accent is a little dubious, but he makes a sufficiently earnest hero. Moreover, he doesn't steal any scenes from Welles, who gives one of the best self-directed performances of his career (not that he gave many bad ones). Buried beneath layers of padding and the Maurice Seiderman make-up that made him look much heavier than 300lb and far older than 43, Welles captured the same kind of bush justice mentality that an aged and bulkier John Wayne had exhibited in John Ford's The Searchers (1956). But this frontier is populated with hot rodders, lesbians and drug-addled thugs, who put Leigh through an ordeal that again echoes Natalie Wood's. Welles was always a huge Ford fan and it would be intriguing to know the extent to which this was an (un)intentional imitative homage.

The final film that Welles produced in America would be the screen highlight of any week. Therefore, Bruno Dumont has to count himself a little unfortunate that his own compelling police procedural, P'Tit Quinquin, has to settle for second place in the running order. Taking its title from an 1853 song written in the Picard Ch'ti dialect by Alexandre Desrousseaux, this exists as both a four-part television series and a 197-minute feature, which share the episode titles `The Human Beast', `At the Heart of Evil', `The Devil Incarnate' and `Allah Akhbar!'. Essentially, it's a parody of the CSI style of forensic investigation is so full of knockabout humour and it's sometimes difficult to remember that it has been directed by an ascetic disciple of rigorously bleak Bressonian realism. Yet, dark social issues moil beneath the surface of this scathing exposé of insularity, ignorance and intolerance, and one suspects that the post-screening debates are as likely to be about Dumont's use of non-professional players and his depiction of learning limitations as about his unexpected switch from rural miserablism to a Clouseau-like whodunit.

Things are usually quiet in the sleepy corner of the Côte d’Opale patrolled by police captain Bernard Pruvost and his loyal lieutenant, Philippe Jore. However, when a cow is found at the bottom of a Second World War bunker, its retrieval by a helicopter quickly becomes a talking point, especially when body parts belonging to the wife of local farmer Stéphane Boutillier are found inside. The discovery is particularly of interest to young Alane Delhaye and his pals Julien Bodard and Corentin Carpentier, as the school holidays have just begun and following the gendarmes around on their bikes gives the mischievous trio something else to do than throwing lighted fireworks through front doors.

Delhaye lives with parents Philippe Peuvion and Céline Sauvage and grandparents, Andrée Peuvion and Lucien Chaussoy, who have a unique way of laying the table. However, he also has a crush on Lucy Caron, who plays the trumpet in a marching band and is happy to chat and experiment with kissing. But, for all the innocence of their trysts, Delhaye has a despicable racist streak and he, Bodard and Carpentier declare war on Baptiste Anquez, whose immigrant father works at the nearby abattoir. As Pruvost and Jore conduct their inexpert inquiries, they discover that Anquez's father was having an affair with the murder victim. But, no sooner do they ascertain this piece of information than he also winds up dead.

Despite seeming to miss more clues than he picks up, Pruvost questions Cindy Louguet, who leads the troupe of majorettes that is busy rehearsing for the Bastille Day parade. She is married to Pascal Fresch. But, as he watches the festivities, Pruvost notices the looks she exchanges with Boutillier and draws the conclusion that they are lovers. This is his first lead in a while. But, before he can act upon it Boutillier's body is discovered and Pruvost is surprised to discover that he is Peuvion's brother. Prosecutor Raphael Mourgues is not impressed by the conduct of the case, however, and he urges Pruvost to get some tangible results as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Anquez has developed a crush on Caron's older sister, Lisa Hartmann, who keeps pigs. She fancies herself as a singer and performs her own song, `Cause I Knew' to a mixed response. Her friend, Coralie Renzi, is disgusted by a foreigner lusting after Hartmann and she subjects him to a torrent of racist abuse. As a consequence, Anquez starts shooting from a window of the house he shares with mother Catherine Juritt and yelling `Allah Akbar!' and `Shame on France'. By the time Pruvost gets inside, however, the youth is dead and Hartmann is found soon afterwards, having been partially devoured by her own pigs. The body count rises further when Louguet turns up on the beach and Pruvost considers the possibility that Delhaye's mentally challenged uncle, Jason Cirot, may be responsible for the crimes. But, as Pruvost is unable to make sense of the evidence, the case remains unsolved.

With his shock of unruly grey hair, bushy eyebrows and disconcerting array of convulsive tics, Pruvost makes the most arresting screen detective in quite some time. Eager to be as thorough and inspired as Sherlock Holmes, yet lacking any propensity for police work, Pruvost resembles Albert Einstein doing an impression of Peter Falk's Columbo. But, even though he singularly fails to notice the sinister balaclava-wearing biker who seems always to be lurking in the background, Pruvost is never entirely presented as a figure of fun. Indeed, his fears about the prevalence of evil and his compassion for the people he is interrogating are manifest throughout the picture, while his dismay at the tensions between the locals and the migrants is genuinely heartfelt.

Some may object to the way in which Dumont employs first-time actors like Jason Cirot, whose performance occasionally teeters uncomfortably on the narrow lines between fact and fiction and authenticity and poor taste. But the laudably egalitarian Dumont never exploits his casts and this ensemble clearly revels in a project that seems as intent on lampooning earlier Dumont outings as Humanité (1999) and Hors Satan (2011) as taking itself too seriously as a work of art. That said, in capturing the ambience of the environs in lengthy widescreen takes, Dumont and cinematographer Guillaume Deffontaines make copious references to the work of artists as different as Gustave Courbet and Marcel Duchamp, while cineastes are bound to notice in the bovine aviation shots an impudent homage to the flying Christ statue that opens Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960).

Those perplexed by the prospect of Dumont directing comedy should rest assured that he has such a delicious sense of the absurd that it is tempting to revisit his canon to seek out the overlooked gags that may well be hiding in plain sight. Some of the jokes are pretty basic, such as the clergyman getting a fit of the giggles at a funeral. But, while the humour sometimes recalls that in Dany Boon's box-office hit, Welcome to the Sticks (2008), it also contains echoes of quirkier policiers like David Lynch's soon-to-return Twin Peaks (1990-91). Moreover, there is a relishable gallows grimness about the murders that is chillingly contrasted with the vehemence of the xenophobia displayed by Delhaye and the other youngsters, who resent the fact that their own limited opportunities are being further curtailed by the influx of outsiders.

The third film this week to have race relations at its core is writer-director Justin Simien's Dear White People. Ribbing its target audience by making it clear that this is a picture that has nothing to do with Tyler Perry, this is very much a first-time outing that allows Simien to flex his cinematic and satirical muscles without him needing to pay to much heed to plot and character development. As is often the case with rookies, influences are brandished with pride, with the result that passing references to Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman and Wes Anderson are bolstered by more specific homages to John Landis's Animal House (1978), Steve Miner's Soul Man (1986) and Spike Lee's School Daze (1988). But the picture this most closely recalls is Kim Chapiron's business school comedy, La Crème de la crème (aka Smart Ass, 2014), as the focus falls not on the usual bevy of slackers, jocks and stoners, but the preppies, activists and hacks who intend making the most of their time at college to rack up the credits and contacts that will stand them in good stead in the big bad world of work.

Although Winchester University has made great strides since the student body became integrated, a number of African-American undergraduates feel marginalised. Among the more vocal is mixed-race talk show host Tessa Thompson, who deeply resents the fact that Armstrong/Parker House is to lose its status as a black hall of residence because of the Randomisation of Housing Act that has recently been passed to ensure students of all races and creeds intermingle. Using her radio spot, `Dear White People', Thompson starts campaigning for sub-cultural solidarity and is persuaded by adoring classmate Marque Richardson to run for student president against her ex-boyfriend, Brandon P. Bell.

Extremely popular and successful in several non-curricular fields of activity, Bell is now dating white girl Brittany Curran, and is confident of winning the election. He also has high hopes of being invited to write for the satirical magazine, Pastiche. However, he has female competition here, too, in the form of Teyonah Parris, who uses her vlog to rally support for her cause and to try and impress Malcolm Barrett, a television producer who is visiting Winchester with a view to basing a reality show in an Ivy League college that can guarantee him a little spice and scandal. However, Bell also has a mano a mano rivalry with cocky white party animal Kyle Gallner that is made all the more intense by the fact that Bell's father is dean Dennis Haysbert, while Gallner's is president, Peter Syversten.

Completing the coterie is Tyler James Williams, a gay nerd with an impressive Afro who hopes his pieces for the main campus newspaper will win him the heart of its white editor, Brandon Alter. Williams finds Thompson fascinating and determines to do a profile after she causes a stir with a short film entitled The Rebirth of a Nation, in which she draws parallels between Obama's America and the Reconstruction era one depicted by DW Griffith in the controversial silent feature, The Birth of a Nation (1915), by insisting that the Tea Party is little more than an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan. But, even though its cast is done up in whiteface, this bold statement turns out not to be the picture's most controversial moment, as Bell, Thompson, Parris and Williams all manage to gain admission to a whites-only Halloween party, at which they are appalled to discover that the guests have responded to the hip-hop theme by stereotyping African-Americans in the broadest and most politically incorrect manner possible. Yet, afterwards, Thompson has to admit that she has been conducting a clandestine affair with white teaching assistant Justin Dobies all along and even has a soft spot for Taylor Swift.

Although his insights into post-racial America are witty and astute, Justin Simien is currently more of a satirist than a cineaste. He dots the meticulously composed action with knowing references to famous films and has his whip-smart actors trade bon mots with the effervescent elegance of a Whit Stillman cast. But Simien struggles to compress his images and ideas into a coherent narrative and, as a result, this ends up feeling a little self-satisfied instead of disconcertingly accusative.

Indeed, this often feels so aware of its own ingenuity that it's tricky to work out who the picture is aimed at. Thompson's amusing radio taunts, her furious debate with Dobies about the racial politics of Joe Dante's Gremlins (1984) and the climactic party suggest the butt of the joke are those white Americans who refuse to accept that the campaign for Civil Rights is now an historical fact and not an ongoing struggle. But there are lots of digs at the Obama-hating elements of the black population, as well as those who think the battle is already won and that the time has come for the formerly meek to inherit. Yet, the most interesting aspects of this scattershot picture involve the crossing points between the black and the white characters and the fact that Williams is both homosexual and aracial, in so far as he feels no obligation to wear his African-Americanism on his sleeve. Even though it is disappointingly contrived, Thompson's climactic confession is similarly worth noting, as for all her pithy pronouncements, she would rather be a hypocrite when it comes to matters of colour than face up to her own truths.

Simien's schematic screenplay is a little glib in places, with too many exchanges sounding like polished pronouncements rather than spontaneous speeches. He also labours the subplot involving Helmut West and his Reality TV show, which will leave some viewers wondering whether the film they are watching is life in the raw or a manipulated (possibly even scripted) version of it. Moreover, while there is much to admire about Topher Osborn's photography and Phillip J. Bartell's editing, everything feels a bit too neat and lacking in everyday energy. The use of classical music to counterpoint the action is a case in point, as it seems chic, but actually comes to feels forced far too quickly. There is also a lack of edginess about the comedy. Yet, Simien coaxes fine performances out of leads asked to make complacently privileged kids seem empathetic and raises enough awkward issues to keep the audience thinking long after the credits roll.

An elite place of learning is also to the fore in François Girard's The Choir, which completes a musical triptych for the Canadian director that began with Thirty Two Films About Glenn Gould (1993) and The Red Violin (1998). However, it marks a distinct change of pace for writer Ben Ripley, who made his mark with Duncan Jones's dystopic sci-fi thriller, Source Code (2011). In many ways, this is the flipside of Wes Craven's Music of the Heart (1999), in which Meryl Streep risked her reputation to teach the violin to some poor kids in Harlem. But it bears a marked similarity to Roberta Durrant's undervalued charmer, Felix (2013), which sees the rebellious son of a jazz musician fall foul of the snootier students at an exclusive South African school. Moreover, it also contains the odd echo of star Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut, Quartet (2012), in which the residents of an retirement home for musicians put on a concert to mark Giuseppe Verdi's birthday.

Despite having a rare gift for singing, 11 year-old Texan Garrett Wareing is something of a misfit. His single mother, Erica Piccininni, is often too drunk to care for him and school principal Debra Winger is alone in recognising his talent. She encourages him to sing and persuades renowned conductor Dustin Hoffman to let him audition for the National Boychoir Academy. While Wareing is performing, however, Piccininni is killed in a car crash and word is sent to the boy's estranged father to collect him.

Having gone up in the world, Josh Lucas now lives in New York and has never mentioned his son to wife Janine DiVita, who is the mother of his two daughters. He pleads with Hoffman to take Wareing on full board at the school and agrees to make a generous donation to ensure his acceptance. Relieved at being able to wash his hands of the youth, Lucas returns to Manhattan, leaving Wareing to make the best of things with classmates who are fully aware that he comes from the wrong side of the tracks.

Smarmy British tutor Eddie Izzard takes an instant dislike to Wareing, as does star pupil Joe West. But administrator Kathy Bates and junior teacher Kevin McHale join Hoffman in believing that Wareing has sufficient potential for them to tolerate his rough edges and occasional outbursts. However, West has no intention of allowing his thunder to be stolen and he goads Wareing at every opportunity, until he eventually lashes out after a cruel prank. Keen to replace Hoffman, Izzard makes a big deal of the issue and demands that Wareing is expelled. But Hoffman threatens to resign if any steps are taken against him. Moreover, when West falls ill, Hoffman decides to offer Wareing the solo spot in an Easter rendition in New York of `The Hallelujah Chorus' from George Frideric Handel's `Messiah'.

Lucas feigns surprise when some tickets to the event arrive in the post. But DiVita thinks it sounds like fun and insists that Lucas attends. Unsurprisingly, West is allowed to make the trip east and he attempts to sabotage Wareing's performance by hiding his sheet music. But he triumphs without it and Hoffman is delighted with him. Lucas's heart proves to be made of sterner stuff, however, as he informs Wareing that he has decided to pack him off to a school in Switzerland. But Hoffman has become fond of the lad and threatens to tell DiVita the truth unless Lucas does. She accepts the situation with good grace and, as West is punished for his arrogance, Wareing settles into his new home.

Mercifully, this is nowhere near as glutinously belaboured as this synopsis makes it sound. The noise made by the plot pieces clunking into place occasionally comes close to drowning out the music. But, for all the cornball convolutions in Ripley's sometimes risible screenplay, they are atoned for by the subtlety of Girard's direction and the sincerity of Hoffman's acting. Wareing does his best in the thankless role of the delinquent with the voice of an angel and Winger, Bates and Izzard work hard to turn caricatures into, well more credible caricatures. However, while this prosaic rite of passage falls a long way behind Girard's previous musical outings, it remains memorable thanks to the choir's sublime handling of Thomas Tallis's `Spem in Alium', Handel's `Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne', `Pie Jesu' from Gabriel Fauré's `Requiem' and `Balulalow' from Benjamin Britten's `Ceremony of Carols'.

The singing may not be of the same calibre, but the storyline is much less manipulative and mawkish in Tomm Moore's Song of the Sea. Adopting the same distinctive graphic style that he employed on his Oscar-nominated debut, The Secret of Kells (2009), Moore demonstrates once again that hand-drawn 2-D animation has much to offer audiences of all ages. Those reared on Disney and Pixar confections may find this quest across the Irish countryside a little sluggish and difficult to follow, as there are no obvious villains and the Celtic mythology is sometimes obscure and complicated. But Studio Ghibli aficionados will find much to admire in a saga that pays as much attention to background detail as foreground poetry and avoids resorting to broad humour or breakneck chases to keep the action moving.

Ben (Kevin Swierszcz) lives in a lighthouse on the edge of Ireland with his parents, Conor (Brendan Gleeson) and Bronagh (Lisa Hannigan). His mother is expecting a second baby and she delights in teaching her son about the myths and legends of his homeland. She explains how Macha the Owl Witch (Fionnula Flanagan) turned her sea god son, Mac Lir (Gleeson), into stone because she could not bear to see him suffering from a broken heart. In entrusting him with the care of a musical shell, Bronagh also tells Ben about selkies, the half-human, half-seal guardians of the shore. But, having tucked him up for the night with his beloved sheepdog Cú, Bronagh goes into labour and disappears from his life.

Six years later, Ben (now voiced by David Rawle) finds himself on the beach taking care of his sister, Saoirse (Lucy O'Connell). He is trying to draw, but Saoirse (who has yet to utter her first word) keeps wandering to the tideline to look at the seals peeking out of the depths. When she wades into the sea, Ben has to overcome his fear of water to bring her back to the shore and he complains bitterly to his father, who has never recovered from the loss of his wife and spends his days gazing distractedly out to sea.

They are interrupted by the arrival of Granny (Flanagan), who has come from Dublin to celebrate Saoirse's birthday. She crosses from the mainland with Ferry Dan (Jon Kenny) and browbeats Conor about his drinking and the fact that this remote outpost is no place to be raising children. Ben disgraces himself by pushing his sister's face into her birthday cake and he further loses his temper when Saoirse takes the seashell horn he treasures. As Conor nurses a pint in a pub and Ben and Cú snuggle down to sleep, Saoirse sneaks out of her room and follows a trail of lights that leads her to a trunk in Conor's bedroom, in which she finds a white seal coat. Putting it on, she wanders out into the snow and responds to the beckoning of the seals by swimming with them. Yet, while she feels a freedom she has never experienced before, Saoirse allows herself to be washed up on the sand and tucked up in bed by her relieved grandmother.

The next morning, however, Granny insists that Ben and Saoirse move to the city and Conor is so distraught at losing his children, as well as his wife, that he throws the coat trunk into the ocean, along with its golden key. Dismayed at having to leave Cú behind, Ben makes a map of their journey and ignores Saoirse's silent entreaties for reassurance. They arrive in Dublin as the streets are filled with children celebrating Halloween. But Ben and Saoirse are sent to bed early after she makes a mess in the bathroom while wearing Granny's favourite coat.

Feeling homesick, Saoirse plays her shell and the sound is heard by deena shee faeries Lug (Pat Shortt), Spud (Liam Hourican) and Mossy (Colm Ó Snodaigh), who hope that she is the selkie whose song can break the Macha spell that has led to their banishment from Tír na nÓg and seen so many of their kind turned to stone. When Ben climbs out of his window to make his way back home, Saoirse joins him and is snatched by the deena shee, who take her to their hideout on a traffic island. Ben follows and learns that some owls are on the lookout for Saoirse to take her to Macha, so that she can impose her will on the entire land. But, as the faeries are finishing their tale, the owls swoop down and Lug, Spud and Mossy are turned to stone after helping Ben and Saoirse escape along a water pipe.

Ben suggests they catch a bus to the coast and the driver (Hourican) gives them their tickets. They sit on the back seat. But Saoirse sees the twinkling lights outside and opens the emergency exit to reach them. Deposited in the middle of nowhere, the siblings wander into a wood and Ben is relieved when they bump into Cú, who has escaped from the lighthouse and come to find them. It starts to rain and they shelter in a chapel filled with Marian statues. However, Saoirse is beginning to tire and she dives into a holy well and Cú drags Ben in after her. Unable to find his sister, Ben discovers himself in the lair of the Great Seanachai, a faerie entrusted with keeping stories in the hairs of his enormously long beard.

He shows Ben what happened to Bronagh on the night that Saoirse was born and he learns that both his mother and his sister are selkies. The Great Seanachai warns Ben that Saoirse will perish without her white coat and confides that he fears the owls have already taken her to Macha. He gives him a hair to follow to Macha's house, where he is surprised to discover that the witch is not evil at all. She is simply a concerned mother, who turned Mac Lir to stone to mend his broken heart and she believes she has been helping the deena shee by doing the same thing to them. Ben finds Saoirse in an upstairs room and Macha is so ashamed by her ashen state that she gives Cú the power to speed to the coast so that Saoirse can find her coat and restore her health.

However, Conor dismisses Ben's pleas and starts rowing to the mainland to get Saoirse to a hospital. But Ben defies his father and jumps out of the boat and swims down with the seals, who take him to the place on the ocean bed where the trunk has settled. He brings the coat to the surface and Saoirse says his name in gratitude. But, even though she feels better when she is wrapped in the fur, Ben knows that Macha's spell can only be lifted if Saoirse sings the song of the sea and he teaches her the words that Bronagh taught him. As she takes up the refrain, the deena shee are released from their petrified state and even Mac Lir is returned to human form and strides across the water with his faithful hounds. Bronagh comes to claim her child so she can fulfil her destiny. But Saoirse decides she likes being human and renounces her selkie side so that she can stay with Conor and Ben.

Borrowing liberally from Gaelic folklore, Christian iconography and the works of WB Yeats, CS Lewis and Hayao Miyazaki, screenwriter Will Collins has cobbled together a sturdy storyline that manages to be simultaneously culturally specific and universally accessible. Accompanied by an evocative score by Bruno Coulais and the Irish folk band Kila, the tale is briskly told, but Moore frequently lingers to allow the audience to appreciate the artwork designed by Adrien Merigeau. Saoirse may look a bit too much like a Powerpuff Girl for some tastes, but there is genuine poetry in the watercoloury textures and the canny blend of stylised realism and Celtic symbolism. Few animations, for example, have made such mesmerising use of light, whether it's the lighthouse beam, the underwater glow, the misty streetlights of the city or the astral pyrotechnics unleashed by Saoirse's singing.

The voicework is admirable, with the decision to have the adult actors play human and mythological characters harking back to the doubling up in Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (1939). But Moore claims his biggest influences were Wolfgang Reitherman's The Jungle Book (1967) and Mike Newell's Into the West (1992). In spite of such disparate antecedents, it was not a surprise that Song of the Sea was pipped for the Academy Award by Don Hall and Chris Williams's Big Hero 6, as the voting last spring was the most conservatively pro-Hollywood in recent memory. But, with Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi's The Boxtrolls and Dean DeBlois's How to Train Your Dragon 2 pretty much making up the numbers, only Isao Takahata's Ghibli swan song, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, could match Moore's film for artistry and ingenuity. It will be interesting to see what he does next and whether he opts to complete an Irish triptych or venture further afield.

By contrast, this critic couldn't care less which direction Dutch director Tom Six opts to take after completing one of the most abhorrent trilogies in screen history. There was a modicum of merit in The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009), as the concept of a mad scientist forcing three victims to share a single digestive tract by sewing them together mouth to anus was viciously original. However, the novelty had begun to wear off long before the end of The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011) and there really is no need for the sick saga to continue past The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence), which simply seeks to antagonise where its predecessors had sought to shock and amuse. Crassly scripted, sloppily photographed and smugly directed, this threequel will be remembered solely for the monstrous antics of its German star, who shames his fellow cast members with a contemptible display of foul-mouthed, bigoted misanthropy that makes a mockery of their own earnest efforts. The tagline gleefully proclaims `100% Politically Incorrect'. But it should have read `100% Unwatchable Bilge'.

Notoriously racist, chauvinist bully Dieter Laser is the warden of the George HW Bush State Prison. Demanding snivelling respect from his inmates, he meets with the facility's accountant, Laurence R. Harvey, to see if he can get any disciplinary tips from Tom Six's Human Centipede films. Secretary Bree Olson massages Laser's feet during the screenings and is subjected to a humiliating sexual assault after she dares to contradict his scathing condemnation of the pictures. However, they are interrupted by a phone message that there has been an incident in the cells. Laser and Harvey discover that one of the guards has been stabbed and Laser punishes the culprit by breaking his arm so badly that the bone is exposed.

Returning to his office, Laser opens a parcel containing some dried clitorises and he extols the African practice of female genital mutilation as he chomps on the snacks he claims give him strength. Suitably refreshed, he waterboards a Native American prisoner and seems pleased with the scarring effects of the boiling water. He receives a visit from state governor Eric Roberts, who warns Laset that he will be dismissed unless he improves his performance. But the only tactic Laser can devise is a mass castration of the inmates and he follows a grisly demonstration of what such a strategy would entail by eating the severed genitals for lunch. Hilariously, Olson mistakes one of the dried clitorises for a sweet and Laser forces her to fellate him in front of the embarrassed Harvey. He tries to attend to some paperwork.

That night, Laser has a nightmare about being raped by the inmate he emasculated. He is still feeling shaky, therefore, when Harvey suggests that they could coerce the prisoners into behaving by creating a human centipede to act as a deterrent. Laser mocks the notion, but is persuaded of its potential by Tom Six, who is invited to the prison by Harvey to reassure the governor that the scenes depicted in his movies are wholly medically viable. However, Six has one condition for allowing Laser to copy his idea - he is allowed to watch the procedure.

Unwisely, Laser decides to show the prison population the films before he calls in the surgeons and a riot breaks out in the canteen. Laser and Harvey try to barricade themselves in their office, but the rampaging thugs gain entrance and one beats Olson unconscious while another looks on lasciviously. Just as Laser escapes through a window, however, back-up arrives and the cons are returned to their cells. But the episode convinces Laser that he has no option but to implement the centipede policy immediately and he tours the wings and personally tranquillises each inmate. Those he deems unfit for the graft, he shoots on the spot. However, he orders that the dream rapist is attached to a man with chronic diarrhoea. Ironically, Six throws up as he watches some Death Row residents being dismembered. He is also dismayed when Laser murders a coprophiliac prisoner who can't wait to become part of the centipede. But, by now, everything Laser does is repugnant and he goes to his next extreme by rapid the comatose Olson in the sick bay after Harvey confesses to loving her.

Once doctor Clayton Rohner has finished stitching all 500 convicts together (with Olson in the middle), Roberts comes to inspect the giant centipede, as well as the caterpillar that has been assembled out of lifers who have had their limbs removed. He declares Lister criminally insane and threatens to take action as he leaves the jail. However, Lister is far from intimidated. He guns down Rohner and is about to take a pot shot at Harvey when Roberts returns unexpectedly and declares that the human centipede is just what the American justice system needs to bring the crime figures down. Laser is delighted at being feted and takes such exception to Harvey's attempt to take the credit that he blow him away. As the picture ends, the demented governor dances naked on the prison watchtower, as the centipede slithers excruciatingly across the exercise yard.

There's little need for critical analysis, as the précis pretty much says it all. One is left feeling sorry for exploitation stalwarts like Robert LaSardo, Tommy `Tiny' Lister, Jr., and Jay Tavare, as Laser rants and raves his way through one of the least accomplished screen performances of all time. He could argue that Six required him to bite such huge chunks out of the scenery, but anyone who signs up to deliver such pernicious dialogue has to take it on the chin when the brickbats are being thrown. Harvey, Roberts and Six himself should all expect invitations to next year's Razzie Awards, as should Olson, whose character's treatment is deplorable and the former porn star has done herself and her gender a great disservice by agreeing to participate in this sexist farrago.

On the technical side, David Meadows's photography is as serviceable as Rodrigo Cabral's production design, while Eilam Hoffman's chillingly authentic sound design is vastly superior to Misha Segal's tacky score and Joost Hagedoorn's visual effects are markedly inferior to the make-up efforts of Megan Nicol and her team. But the buck stops with Six, whose self-promoting meta-cameo sums up this entire franchise. He probably thinks he is being terribly daring and subversive in having the tiresome Laser spout all manner of racist obscenities and calumnies. But anyone who thinks female circumcision a fit subject for bawdy comedy deserves censure and one hopes that no UK distributor feels the need to give a DVD release to Six's earlier outings, Gay in Amsterdam (2004), Honeyz (2007) and I Love Dries (2008).

The narcissism may not be as offensive, but it's every bit as tedious in Anna Odell's The Reunion. Known in her native Sweden as a provocative conceptual artist, Odell made headlines while studying at Stockholm's prestigious Konstfack Art Academy when she was charged with fraudulent practice, raising a false alarm and resisting arrest after it was discovered that she had feigned a suicide bid on a city bridge in order to gain admittance to a psychological unit for her film, Unknown Woman 2009-349701. Perhaps the notoriety of this stunt explains why this follow-up feature won the FIPRESCI prize for best debut at the Venice Film Festival, as the cinematic merits of this self-satisfied exercise in self-pitying look-at-meism are exceedingly modest.

As the guests mingle at a dinner to mark the 20th anniversary reunion, Anna Odell arrives late. She makes awkward small talk, but it is clear she is ill at ease in such chic company. When the toasts are made, therefore, it comes as something of a surprise when she gets to her feet. She introduces herself and wonders how many of these enjoying an evening of nostalgia remember the torment that they inflicted on her at school. Retaining her composure as the first protests arise from the floor, Odell recalls a series of humiliations that she endured at the hands of her so-called friends. She is persuaded to sit down. But, when the host hopes that their children enjoy the same camaraderie they all shared, Odell jumps back to her feet to accuse some by name of bullying her and she continues to hurl accusations at the top of her voice as she is forcibly removed from the room.

This concludes `The Speech' part of the proceedings and `The Meetings' opens with Odell revealing that this is actually a short film that she has written and directed because not only did she not attend the class reunion, but she was also not invited. However, while the classmates in the vignette are played by actors, Odell wonders how her real peers might react to seeing themselves being subjected to some harsh home truths and she contacts them with a view to attending a screening.

It's at this point that an already shaky conceit starts to judder. Odell tries to shoot her encounters with those who accept her offer with raw spontaneity. But her images are too consciously composed, the reactions of her `classmates' are too studied (almost as if they were actors like their counterparts in the first segment) and the eavesdropped snippets are too loaded with meaningful admissions and tokens of regret or recrimination. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction has always made documentary film-making so fascinating and frustrating. But it would appear that these are re-enactments rather than records of real events. Moreover, if these people are genuine alumna, they appear either to have exceeded Odell's wildest expectations by pure chance or to have consented (or been coerced) (in)to colluding with the director to achieve her desired reaction. Wherever this truth lies, the merest suspicion that the footage has been scripted, rehearsed or shaped undermines its integrity and, thus, robs it of its value as a work of catharsis, social critique or art.

Odell is aware that the culprits for making her life a misery came from the upper echelons and she is determined not to let her chief persecutor off the hook. Therefore, she tracks them down and confronts them in situations and places designed to cause them maximum discomfort. Among those she ambushes is her biggest nemesis and Odell ends her film walking the corridors of her school as if she has reclaimed them for herself and she can now move on with her life because her past traumas have been healed.

Scandinavian film-makers clearly have a thing about capturing social gatherings at their moment of implosion. In this regard, Odell follows in the wake of Thomas Vinterberg's Festen (1998) and Ruben Östlund's Involuntary (2008). But there are dozens of examples of misfiring reunions, including Michael Miller's National Lampoon's Class Reunion (1982), Francis Ford Coppola's Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), George Armitage's Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), David Mirkin's Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997) and Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg's American Reunion (2012). On the small screen, Tina Fey in 30 Rock and Kaley Cuoco in The Big Bang Theory even got to face up to the fact that they had been doing the bullying.

But, while Odell can be forgiven for failing to break much new ground in her discussion of class, cliques and childhood cruelty, she should not be let off so lightly for making this paean to what Sight and Sound's Nick Pinkerton aptly called the `sanctity of victimhood' so pretentious, ponderous and predictable. Artists invariably use vanity projects to self-project, but this takes humblebragging in an entirely freakish direction. If it was supposed to be a denunciation of the way Swedes deal with their nonconformists and outsiders, then it fails dismally. However, as a means of getting Odell noticed further and wider than ever before, it has already worked its oracle.