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Now, some 50 years after it was written, The Illusionist has finally been filmed and it is not only well worth the wait, but it also benefits enormously from being an animation rather than live-action. While Tati himself would have been able to invest the title role with the gangling innocence he brought to the Monsieur Hulot pictures, it might have been trickier for another actor to forge an attachment to a much younger woman without incurring the wrath of those who insist on seeing something sinister in every cinematic age-gap liaison. So, by basing a cartoon character on Tati's physical appearance and screen persona, Chomet has been able to create a naif, who is as guileless as he is genial and whose motives for befriending a gullible waif are entirely honourable.

Times are tough for Monsieur Tatischeff. Variety is rapidly being overtaken by television and rock`n'roll and he is reduced to playing seedy Parisian venues to make a sou. Willing to accept any booking, he crosses the Channel and takes the train north to entertain the residents of a remote Scottish island that has only recently received electricity. While staying in the local hostelry, Tatischeff makes the acquaintance of Alice, a teenage maid who is so transfixed by his act that she genuinely believes he has the power to perform magic.

Indeed, she is so in thrall after the kindly stranger presents her with a new pair of shoes that she follows Tatischeff to Edinburgh and they take rooms in a hotel populated by a sombre clown, a drunken ventriloquist and an endlessly energetic troupe of trapeze artists. All goes swimmingly for a while, as Tatischeff takes odd jobs to sustain the illusion that the gifts Alice receives have been plucked from the ether. However, when she develops a crush on a boy of her own age, Tatischeff realises that the time has come to say goodbye.

The friendship between Tatischeff and Alice is blamelessly chaste throughout. However, he has considerably more trouble with his tetchy rabbit, who deeply resents being plucked from a hat each evening and has developed a habit of making untimely appearances during tricks. Yet, the creature sleeps happily on Tatischeff's chest, as he hunkers down on the couch to allow Alice to have the only bed.

Resisting the temptation to anthropomorphise in the Disney manner, Chomet also avoids using computer-generated imagery outside the odd scene transition and complex camera move. Consequently, this melancholically comic gem always has a quaintly old-fashioned feel that brings to mind the work of such Gallic masters as Paul Grimault, Jean-François Laguionie and René Laloux.

The recreation of late 1950s Edinburgh manages to be both authentic and nostalgic, while the wealth of small details in every frame recalls Tati's own genius for the mise-en-scène technique of shooting in long takes with an ever-observant camera that allowed audiences to find the gags at their own pace. The watercolour look of the graphics is exquisite, while the use of rhubarbing dialogue, sound effects and silence reinforces the sense that Chomet has not just captured a time and place with deft fidelity, but also the spirit of Jacques Tati himself. Richard Tatischeff Schiel McDonald may feel that Chomet has betrayed the family subtext. But, with its beautiful design and a finesse to match Tati's own, this is simply sublime.

A decade after we watched Elsa Zylberstein leave Klezmer musician Antoine de Caunes at the end of Man Is a Woman (1998) to begin a new life in the United States, she pays him a surprise visit to introduce son Taylor Gasman in Jean-Jacques Zilbermann's farcical sequel, He's My Girl. Ordinarily, De Caunes would be delighted to see them both, as he has remained fond of his ex-wife, despite outing himself as gay. But her timing couldn't be worse, as not only is agent Catherine Hiegel pressurising him to complete a new album and commit to a tour, but he is also taking care of mother Judith Magre, while she recovers from a broken hip.

In truth, however, these are the least of De Caunes's troubles, as he is also entangled with a couple of lovers. Thirtysomething philosophy teacher Micha Lescot is married and still uncertain about his true sexuality. Mehdi Dehbi, on the other hand, is much more comfortable in his own skin. It's just that he would prefer to cover it with women's clothing and this begins to pose insurmountable problems when he instals himself as Magre's live-in carer.

Those familiar with De Caunes solely from his stint on Euro Trash will perhaps be surprised by his assured performance in this amusing, if rather predictable Jewish sitcom. Reluctant to hurt anyone, but ever keen to have things his own way, he mugs occasionally. But he largely keeps the copious contrivances on track until he has to make a decision over whether to follow Orthodox teaching and abandon his gay Arab lover in order to retain contact with his son.

The always reliable Zylberstein provides sound support alongside Magre and Hiegel. But it's Dehbi who dominates proceedings, whether waitressing in a seedy club, teasing the smitten De Caunes or ministering to Magre and the members of her Auschwitz survivors club.

The Holocaust is explored in a more sombre vein in François Dupeyron's musical, Conversations à Rechlin. Adapted for the stage from the Martine Chevalier novel Chemin Venel, the story of three people from different parts of Europe being drawn together in a labour camp during the last days of the Second World War was premiered by the Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2009 and this is a filmed record of its production.

With austere sets and lighting by Gilles Lambert and chillingly familiar costumes by Carmel Peritore, this is a deceptively simply, but profoundly moving experience. Each day, Marie-Claude Chappuis and Inna Petcheniouk are brought together for a ritual that has been permitted by commandant Nicolas Brieger at an unknown cost and which allows them to cope with their physical exhaustion and the psychological strain of not knowing what is going to happen to them as the Nazi defeat seems increasingly inevitable.

Accompanied on the piano by Petcheniouk, Chappus performs lieder by Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf, whose lyrics are used to comment on the conditions being endured by their fellow prisoners and to question how a nation capable of such poetry, harmony and humanism could have sanctioned the Final Solution.

In stark contrast to this sensitive and poignant piece, Richard Berry's 22 Bullets is a raucous shoot `em-up gangster revenge thriller that barely pauses for breath as it careens around the streets of Marseilles. Based on Franz-Olivier Giesbert's bestseller, L'Immortel, this has much more in common with actioners like Jan Kounen's Doberman (1997) than old-fashioned crime flicks like Jacques Deray's Borsalino (1970). But it still trades heavily on allowing Jean Reno to indulge in the kind of swaggering macho displayed by Vincent Cassel in the first and Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo in the last.

First seen speeding along the Côte d'Azur with Tosca blaring out of the speakers of his flashy car, the retired Reno is gunned down in an eight-man car park ambush, along with son Max Baissette de Malglaive. But it's not the 22 slugs that leave him without the use of his right hand that prompts him to avenge himself on his enemies, but the slaughter of a loyal henchman who is chopped up for dog meat.

Reno suspects childhood pal-turned-drug baron Kad Merad is behind the onslaught. Moreover, so does cop Marina Foïs, who is also determined to discover who murdered her husband. But, just to be on the safe side, Reno opts to eliminate anyone who has crossed him, despite the misgivings of lawyer brother-in-law Jean-Pierre Darrousin.

Otherwise, despite numbering Luc Besson among its producers, this is a pretty ham-fisted effort. Thomas Hardmeier's photography is serviceable, but Berry stages shootouts and car chases with a clunkiness that is exacerbated by Camille Delamarre's rat-a-tat editing and Klaus Bedelt's boomingly blatant score. Thus, the heroes are largely required to strike poses rather than act, while the villains are essentially reduced to snarling briefly before standing and wait for Reno to take aim and fire.

A much more sedate take on crime is provided by Police, Adjective. Having won the Caméra d'or at Cannes for 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006), his hilariously revisionist take on the 1989 Romanian revolution, Corneliu Porumboiu surpasses himself with this chilling insight into the extent to which things have really changed since the coming of democracy. Tackling such complex issues as language, the law and the long reach of history, this is also a stylistically ambitious picture that compellingly combines long stretches of mundane activity with taut sequences of intricate verbal dexterity.

Dragos Bucur is an undercover cop in the north-eastern city of Vaslui, who has been detailed by inspector Ion Stoica to shadow teenager Radu Costin, who is suspected of being a drug dealer. Following him from his apartment in a drab tenement, Bucur watches Costin sneak away with classmates Alexandru Sabadac and Anca Diaconu for a crafty smoke on some wasteland near a toddlers' playground. He also spends hours lurking outside Sabadac's family home, noting the comings and goings of his parents and the disappearance of an older brother, who is probably responsible for smuggling the dope into the country. Yet, even though he has collected a couple of joints, Bucur is far from convinced that Costin is a danger to society.

When he's not on stakeout duty or setting slowly turning bureaucratic wheels in motion back at headquarters, Bucur is bickering with new wife Irina Saulescu, either over her repeated playing of a corny pop song on her laptop or the imprecise use of grammar. Ironically, it's a linguistic matter that proves Bucur's downfall, as he is subjected to a grilling by martinet captain Vlad Ivanov, who makes him look up the words he uses so casually in his report to demonstrate the rigidity of the Romanian legal system.

Photographed in long realist takes by Marius Panduru, this is a darkly satirical, yet insidiously disconcerting study of routine and rubric. Moreover, it's an acute dissection of a society trapped between its totalitarian past and a pan-European future. Bucur is unwilling to prosecute Costin, as he will receive a life-ruining sentence for something that would merely be deemed a minor misdemeanour under incoming EU legislation. But, having spent days scrupulously avoiding his superiors, his humiliation by Ivanov suggests that not everyone is yet prepared to relinquish trusted methods.

Exposing the absurdity of much detective work and the growing inability to communicate in the new media age, this is a deceptively trenchant film that ends the drolly interminable scenes of surveillance and beadledom with a resounding thump, as the iron fist of authoritarianism crushes any notions of personal initiative.

Ruben Östlund offers an alternative way of cinematicising good intentions in his multi-stranded scenario, Involuntary. Tackling the perils of internet chatrooms, binge drinking and peer pressure, this is a droll ensemble drama that explores declining moral standards in contemporary Sweden.

The opening vignette centres on ageing birthday boy Villmar Bjorkman, who soldiers on gamely after being hit in the face by a firework so as not to spoil the celebration that his family has taken so much trouble to organise. The most disturbing incident, however, involves Gothenburg teenagers Sara Eriksson and Linnea Cart-Lamy, who love to strike provocative poses for their webcam. But it's a wild night partying that ultimately lands them in trouble, as Cart-Lamy is left insensible at the roadside by her so-called friends, while Eriksson accepts a life home from a stranger.

However, Östlund is also keen to point out that grown-ups also face crises of conscience and confidence, with morally upright teacher Cecilia Milocco fighting a losing staffroom battle after accusing a colleague of bullying, twentysomething Olle Lijas feeling the odd man out at a raucous rural reunion and famous actress Maria Lundqvist allowing a small boy to take the blame when bus driver Henrik Vikman refuses to resume a journey until someone owns up to vandalising his onboard washroom.

The latter incident particularly benefits from Östlund's quirky wit and unconventional framing, with Lundqvist's discomfort being emphasised by the vehicle's claustrophobic interior. Yet if this segment smacks of Todd Solondz's patented brand of squirm-inducing voyeurism, the remainder of bears comparison with Michael Haneke's Code Unknown (2000), which examined similarly conflicted lives across the continent with a muscular humanism. But, while Involuntary is occasionally unsettling and frequently bleakly hilarious, Östlund's rigorous detachment sometimes makes it difficult to ascertain precisely where he and co-writer Erik Hemmendorff stand on each dilemma.

The debuting Michael Rowe takes an even more dispassionate stance as he chronicles the unconventional arrangement that transforms freelance business journalist Monica del Carmen's hermitic existence in the Camera d'or-winning Leap Year. An Australian based in Mexico, Rowe makes evocative use of light and confined space in this often disturbing depiction of urban alienation that sees the masochistic Del Carmen enter into a dangerous liaison with the sadistic, but otherwise genial Gustavo Sánchez Parra, who shows her considerably more affection than either the whining mother with whom she has interminable telephone conversations about her failure to make something of herself (which prompt her to invent a network of adoring friends) or the insecure brother (Marco Zapata), who travels from the provinces to seek her solace whenever his love life hits the skids.

When not working unenthusiastically on assignments for an editor she never sees, the 25 year-old Del Carmen hides behind her net curtains to spy on her neighbours. She envies elderly couple Ernesto González and Bertha Mendiola their cosy closeness and frequently masturbates while watching Ireri Solís with her boyfriend. But Del Carmen is not short of male company, as she regularly dolls herself up to lure a lover back to her apartment for kinky sex sessions that invariably end in disappointment and the sound of a closing door.

But Sánchez Parra seems different. He may turn up when it suits him and disappear for days on end. But he understands her needs and, even after he has used and abused her, he is content to cuddle up on the sofa with her and watch television. Yet even his devotion is tested by an extreme request that Del Carmen insists has to be granted on 29 February in order to exorcise the ghosts that have been tormenting her since she was 12 years old.

Echoing the works of both Tsai Ming-liang and Bruno Dumont and with the minimalist aesthetic provided by Juan Manuel Sepulveda's muted photography and Alisarine Ducolomb's cramped sets intensifying the dramatic tension, this is both shockingly intimate and coolly detached. Some of the sequences with Sánchez Parra teeter on the gratuitous and make for distinctly disconcerting viewing. But Del Carmen's courageous performance ensures that it is a surprisingly tender treatise on trauma, isolation, addiction and self-esteem.

Problems with his original lead meant that Rafi Pitts was forced to direct himself in his fifth feature, The Hunter, which was produced in June 2009 at the height the controversial Iranian election campaign. Thus, it's easy to read significance into the recurring use of the colour green and the broadcast of threatening statements on the car radio and even more tempting to surmise that the death that prompts Pitts to seek drastic vengeance was inspired by the shooting of Neda Agha-Soltan. Yet, for all its political undertones, this is most noteworthy for its audacious attempt to combine the urban neo-realism of something like Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948) with a more stylised outdoor thriller like Joseph Losey's Figures in a Landscape (1970).

Released after serving time for an unspecified crime, Pitts can only find work as a night guard at a Tehran car factory. Consequently, he doesn't see enough of wife Mitra Hajjar, six year-old daughter Saba Yaghoobi and their playful kitten. However, his weekend habit of hunting in the woods further limits family time and he returns from one trip perplexed to find nobody home. Eventually, he reports the disappearance to the police and learns that Hajjar has been killed during a stand-off between armed officers and a group of protesters. What's more, there is no sign of Yaghoobi and Pitts is left to search for her alone, as commander Ali Nicksaulat appears wholly indifferent to her fate.

After days of pounding the streets and visiting orphanages, Pitts is called back to the morgue for an identification. Calmly, he drives to see his parents and entrusts them with care of the kitten. Then, he fetches he rifle, takes up a position on a bank overlooking the motorway and waits for a police car to pass. Having gunned down its two occupants, Pitts speeds out of the city, changing his car after he fears he is being tailed by a helicopter. However, he is soon involved in a chase along a misty country road and he crashes his vehicle before fleeing into the woods.

Quickly apprehended, he is escorted by cops Gholamreza Rajabzadeh and Ebrahim Safarpour, who promptly get lost and begin bickering among themselves. Briefly left alone, Safarpour confides that Rajabzadeh is a corrupt and brutal man and he has to stop him from shooting Pitts to save the executioner the bother. Caught in a downpour, they seek shelter in an abandoned house and Rajabzadeh handcuffs Pitts to a hook in the wall and orders Safarpour to fetch reinforcements. Next morning, however, Safarpour returns to offer Pitts the chance to escape - providing he eliminates his detested colleague.

With editor Hassan Hassandoost achieving an ominous rhythm by cutting between Mohammad Davudi's measured images, this is a film of small, but shocking moments that offers a sombre insight into life in Ahmadinejad's Iran. The sense of soullessness is evocatively conveyed by the bleak factory, the congested roads and the deserted tunnels, while the mistrust between Pitts and anyone in a position of authority is palpable. The switch from dour realism to studied suspense may not convince everyone. But the storytelling is confident, the pacing is controlled and the quiet fury at the way in which Iran is being ruled is uncompromising and courageous.

Sadly, the same cannot be said of The Stoning of Soraya M.

In 1994, French journalist Freidoune Sahebjam published an eye-witness account of the stoning of Soraya Manutchehri in the remote Iranian village of Kupayeh. Her crime was adultery. But, according to her aunt, she was framed by her prison guard husband, as he wanted to marry the 14 year-old daughter of a Death Row doctor who was willing to consent to the match in return for clemency. As the husband knew that the local mullah was a charlatan who had served time under the Shah, he secured the holy man's co-operation and duped the mayor into reaching a guilty verdict that carried a capital punishment under Sharia Law.

The book provoked global outrage. But it did little to prevent similar executions from being carried out across the Muslim world and, sadly, Cyrus Nowrasteh's film version will have even less impact. This has much to do with hardened attitudes amongst Islamic fundamentalists. But it also owes much to the fact that this is a remorselessly manipulative and mediocrely melodramatic movie that deals exclusively in clichés and caricatures and uses close-ups, slow-motion and a mawkish score to control the audience's response to nigh on every incident.

Soraya is played as the perfect wife and mother by Mozhan Marnò, whose dutiful devotion is starkly contrasted by the lustful machination of Navid Negahban, who not only turns her two sons against her, but also allies with mullah Ali Pourtash to coerce illiterate widower Parviz Sayyad into confessing to adultery in order to prevent his vulnerable son from being sent to an asylum. Mayor David Diaan lacks the backbone to resist the gossip of the womenfolk and the growing indignation of their husbands and disregards aunt Shohreh Aghdashloo's plea for justice by presiding over a kangaroo court and the public stoning of an innocent woman that is, at one point, grotesquely interrupted by the arrival of a travelling circus troupe.

The power and poignancy of the story - which is bookended by scenes of Aghdashloo confiding in Jim Caviezel's Sahebjam, who has been stranded in the village after his car breaks down - might still have come through had Nowrasteh not staged each scene so calculatingly. Marnò's last walk in the sunlit fields with her daughters links her with the angels, while Negahban's scheming with Pourtash and Diaan feels like something of an Arabian Nights fantasy produced in Hollywood Technicolor, with bearded and turban-wearing villains hypocritically fingering their prayer beads while chauvinistically plotting the demise of the innocent who has dared to thwart their nefarious plans.

Even the stoning sequence, which should have been excruciating to view, is blighted by stylistic excess, as Nowrasteh employs slo-mo, canted angles, blurred focus, point-of-view shots and lyrical flashbacks to depict savagery that would have been infinitely more shocking had it been shown in its simple brutality. But worse is to come, as Nowrasteh reduces Caviezel's departure to something out of a B thriller, as his bags are searched by the menacing Pourtash, only for Aghdashloo to return the cassette of their conversation as his car stalls before her house and he only just manages to get the engine started again and zoom along the dusty road to safety before a pursuing Revolutionary Guardsman can aim his gun.