Too Much Starch in the Sincerity

Kounen starts well with a lengthy passage depicting the backstage agitation before the 1913 Paris premiere of Stravinsky's ballet, The Rites of Spring. He makes confident use of David Ungaro's swooping camera to generate a sense of expectation and capture both the audacious energy of Vaslav Nijinsky's choreography and the growing indignation of the audience at witnessing something so dauntlessly and indecently modern. Anny Danche's crisp editing similarly conveys the rising sense of disquiet and disgust that inevitably provokes a riot. But having reached such a dramatic crescendo, Kounen struggles to bring similar intensity to the tempestuous romance that developed seven years later, after Chanel (Anna Mouglalis) offered Stravinsky (Mads Mikkelsen) the use of her Garches villa after they were introduced at a flapper party (where each is being boorish to their friends) by Sergei Diaghilev (Grigori Manukov).

Despite being married to Katarina (Elena Morozova), the ailing mother of his four adored children, Stravinsky easily succumbs to Chanel's advances at Bel Respiro, as a distraction from the torment of composing `Symphonies for Wind Instruments' and `Five Easy Pieces`. Working from his own novel, screenwriter Chris Greenhalgh clearly sees this as the lustful meeting of two reckless and creative spirits. But there is simply no spark between the characters, with the bedroom sequences being too discreetly filmed to suggest uncontrollable passion and the pillow talk lacking any insight into the intellects that inspired his music and her invention of Chanel No.5.

Adopting an air of imperious egocentricity, Mouglalis suggests Chanel's fierce independence and unwavering sense of entitlement. But Stravinsky's restless genius and prickly charm elude Mikkelsen, who settles for a stoic display of complex brilliance that finds echo in Morozova's sulky suffering. Consequently, this elegant, if airless chronicle reduces the biopic clichés to tasteful tableaux set against Marie-Hélène Sulmoni's brooding Art Deco interiors without ever coming close to erupting into life.

Such is its conventionality, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky could have been made at any time over the last four decades. The same could also be said of Manoel de Oliveira's Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl. However, this is meant to be a compliment, as the Portuguese centenarian invokes the spirit of Luis Buñuel and Claude Chabrol in translating a short story by the 19th-century realist, Eça de Queirós, to credit crunch Lisbon. Lustrously lit by Sabine Lancelin, this is a mischievous miniature that confirms De Oliveira's cinematic mastery, 70 years after he made his directorial debut.

The action flashes back from Ricardo Trêpa relating his doleful saga to fellow train passenger Leonor Silveira, as they travel to the Algarve. He has been dispatched to recover his composure by uncle Diogo Dória after falling for entrancing blonde Catarina Wallenstein, after spotting her from the balcony of the accounting office above Dória's fabric shop. However, his passion turned out to be ruinous.

Having spent days gazing at Wallenstein flirting coquettishly behind her Chinese silk fan and a translucent window blind, Trêpa rushes gauchely into the store when she comes to look at some cashmere with her mother, Júlia Buisel. However, he is promptly sent back to his desk by the dourly disapproving Dória and has to be content with Wallenstein's intrigued glance, as he retreats up the creaking staircase. A few days later, Trêpa notices acquaintance Filipe Vargas doffing his hat to Buisel from the pavement and he tracks him down to a club devoted to the appreciation of De Queirós in order to request a formal introduction.

The following Saturday, the pair attends a soirée hosted by lawyer Miguel Seabra and, while the other guests listen to a harp recital and a poetic recitation (given by veteran actor Luis Miguel Cintra), Trêpa clumsily attempts to make small talk with Wallenstein and winds up being embarrassed by a missing chip during a card game. His indiscretion doesn't deter Wallenstein, however, and he asks Dória for permission to marry. But not only does the starchy merchant refuse his nephew, he also turfs him out of his job and lodgings and Trêpa is reduced to residing in a squalid bedsit and snatching glimpses of Wallenstein from the street, as he tries in vain to find employment.

Eventually, stranger Rogério Samora offers Trêpa an opportunity in the Cape Verde Islands and Wallenstein promises to wait for him. After several months of unbearable toil (the details of which are restricted to a single letter), Trêpa returns, having restored both his reputation and his finances. However, he feels duty bound to invest in Samora's new hardware business and is bankrupted when the rogue absconds with an ensign's wife. He re-appears shortly afterwards to suggest another African jaunt, but Dória decides that Trêpa has suffered enough and not only takes him back into the firm, but also consents to his wedding. But Wallenstein then chooses to reveal her true colours.

Despite continuing his investigation into subjectivity and modes of representation and the relevance of his acerbic asides on the perils of materialism, De Oliveira doesn't always succeed in convincingly updating this charmingly old-fashioned fable to the present day. Some may also bridle at the oblique brevity of the minimalist melodrama and the clipped mannerism of the performances. But there's no denying the wit, acuity and precision of the direction and De Oliveira's insights into unchanging foibles of human nature. Moreover, the deftness with which he uses long takes and entrenched camera placements to suggest the antiquated formalism of his source attests to his innate understanding of the relationship between text and image.

The démodé feel is less deliberate in Javier Fuentes-Léon's debut feature, Undertow. Set in a remote Peruvian fishing village and exploring the homophobia that persists in communities deeply in thrall to machismo and Catholicism, this is a sincere and carefully made picture. But it too often opts for magic realism when a neo-realist approach might have been more appropriate.

A pillar of Fr Julio Humberto Cavero's church and about to have a baby with wife Tatiana Astengo, fisherman Cristian Mercado is much admired by family and neighbours alike. When his cousin dies, he helps José Chacaltana and Emilram Cossio carry the bier for the outdoor funeral and then escorts the body for burial at sea, in order to free its spirit. However, Mercado is also conducting a clandestine affair with Manolo Cardona, a bourgeois painter he knows from childhood holidays. They meet at secret rendezvous away from prying eyes and indulge in energetic sex. But Cardona wants Mercado to acknowledge their love and stalks off in frustration after the latest of their recurrent contretemps.

A couple of days later, Mercado is aghast to discover Cardona waiting in his kitchen and is even more amazed when Astengo walks past without noticing him. But, instead of being distraught that his friend has drowned in the treacherous tidal currents, Mercado is excited by the prospect of having a spectral romance that no one can criticise or disrupt. A montage follows, in which the couple enjoy their new-found freedom. But Mercado hasn't told Cardona that he has found his corpse on the ocean bed and lashed it to a rock to ensure that his spirit remains restless.

The idyll is doomed, however, as teenage maid Cindy Diáz exacts her revenge for Mercado rejecting her advances during a beach party by spreading gossip about the nude sketches and paintings she has found in Cardona's shack, while looking for somewhere to canoodle with her boyfriend. Mercado denies the accusations, but Chacaltana and Cossio refuse to celebrate the birth of his son and Astengo decides to leave him when he confesses everything after Cardona's remains are recovered. Finally, stung into facing up to his responsibilities, Mercado persuades Cardona's city-dwelling mother to let him carry out the local ritual and the film ends with Mercado sailing back alone to face an uncertain future.

Handsomely photographed in the village of Cabo Blanco by Mauricio Vidal, this owes less to life than the tele-novellas that Astengo insists that Mercado watches instead of the football. Indeed, Fuentes-Léon strews the action with equally hoary clichés, whether depicting the labours and leisure of the rugged trawlermen, the contented domesticity of the womenfolk or the conservative attitude of the entire community to homosexuality. The earnestness of the performances makes this easy enough to watch. But it's far too intent on avoiding offence to do more than reinforce stereotypes in meekly pleading for tolerance.

Luke Seomore and Joseph Bull plead their case with more courage and commitment in their admirable documentary, Isolation.

Britain has never been a land fit for heroes. Returning soldiers have been left to fend for themselves since the days of hand-to-hand combat and the introduction of a welfare state and a national health service has done little to improve the situation. In this stylised, but nonetheless effective actuality, Seomore and Bull highlight the plight of troops who served Queen and Country in the Gulf and Afghanistan and have largely been abandoned since being invalided out of the services. It's a stark, trenchant and moving study of courage, duty and betrayal and it's almost impossible to watch without a rising sense of anger and shame at the ingratitude and indifference of the establishment that sent these under-equipped squaddies into action.

At the heart of the picture is Stuart Griffiths, a veteran who spent several months living on the streets after being demobbed and who turned his life around by becoming a photographer. Dissatisfied with snapping celebrities, Griffiths chronicled the daily existence of the homeless before turning to the struggle faced by many former comrades to come to terms with the physical and psychological scars left by their tours in a war zone that has seemingly been consistently misrepresented in the media.

Having chatted to Nixon and Joey in an East London hostel about the stresses of making the transition to Civvy Street and the role played by Ghanaian and other Commonwealth troops in the British Army, Griffiths conducts interviews with TA medic Marianna Proietti, blinded engineer Simon Brown and rifleman Jamie Cooper.

Proietti, who was the first woman below the rank of officer to see action in the First Gulf War, recalls the trauma of tending to the wounded and dying and the nightmare of being left behind in a Swedish hospital for Iraqi prisoners after she fell ill. Now suffering from Gulf War Syndrome, the 40 year-old mother of four feels let down by the standard of aftercare she received and deeply resents the ease with which her service has been forgotten.

Brown was a corporal in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, who was shot in the cheek by a sniper while going back to recover a broken-down vehicle in Basra. With laudable sang froid, he describes how he had to staunch his own bleeding and put his thumb in his mouth to prevent choking on his shattered palate. Paying tribute to his family and friends, and the St Dunstan's charity, Brown discusses coping with blindness and his work with disaffected youth. His good humour is humbling in the extreme.

At 19, Cooper became the youngest casualty of the Iraq War when he was hit by two mortars while testing radio equipment. The first damaged his hands, the second sent shrapnel through his buttocks, pelvis and stomach. He is also remarkably nonchalant about his suffering, even though he twice caught MRSA and C Difficile during his recovery.

Much of the power of this arresting documentary lies in the fact that Griffiths (who served for five years as a paratrooper in Northern Ireland) can empathise with each interviewee's situation. Asking awkward questions with frank tact, he elicits graphic testimonies that expose the inadequacy of the system for the 1300+ who have been invalided out of action since the conflict began in 2001. The camera maintains tight close-ups during the exchanges, but there is nothing intrusive about the tactic. It simply increases the immediacy of the grim facts and the inhumanity of the inept governmental response.

Between the encounters, Seomore and Bull allow David Procter's camera to roam urban settings in order to emphasise that this neglect is occurring on our own doorsteps. There is a disconcerting lyricism about some of the nocturnal images of backstreets, parks and tenement buildings, while Griffiths's seething narration has a rough poetry of its own. But, even though the main film ends with Griffiths expressing his gratitude for the chance to live a normal family life on the south coast, harsh reality returns with captions that shockingly reveal such statistics as the fact that the 300 Falklands veterans who have committed suicide far outnumbers those who actually perished in combat.