Parky at the Pictures (DVD 2/6/2011)

Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel could never agree over their respective contributions to their second and final collaboration, L'Age d'or (1930). Dali was entirely absent from the shoot, but he claimed to have conceived many of the film's scabrously subversive ideas, even though the equation of sexual frustration with religious and political repression was to become a recurring theme of Buñuel's work for the next 45 years.

Whatever its artistic origins, this is certainly a bizarre assemblage of images, although André Breton was perhaps exaggerating when he dubbed it `the only authentically Surrealist film ever made'. There's clearly method in the madness as Buñuel and Dali set out to attack just about everything that they blamed for the piteous state of contemporary society. Moreover, they were also hell bent on shocking their complacent critics or, as Buñuel put it `raping clear consciences'.

The thwarted passion between Gaston Modot and Lya Lys was vulgar enough (in addition to their attempts at love-making, she sucks a statue's toe). But the film also contains anti-clericalism (from the skeletal bishops to the cleric tossed out of Modot's window), class satire (the aristocrats keep dining despite the deaths of the maid and the gamekeeper's son), bureaucratic lampoon (Modot wipes out countless lives at the Ministry of Good Works), incest (Lys kisses her father), bestiality (Lys removes a cow, among other things, from her bed) and, finally, blasphemy (as the leader of the libertine quartet that has been enacting De Sade's 120 Days of Sodom proves to be Jesus Christ).

Initially passed by the French censor, the film was banned after right-wing thugs attacked a Parisian cinema (throwing ink at the screen and smoke and stink bombs at the audience) before vandalising artwork by Dali, Man Ray, Miro and Max Ernst in a neighbouring gallery. The film was banned days later and Buñuel's home was raided, although he was in Hollywood negotiating with that most straight-laced of studios, MGM.

Jan Svankmajer's films frequently disconcerted the authorities in the former Czechoslovakia. But he was a deft exponent of subtle subversion, as he frequently demonstrated in Alice (1988). However, the master animator didn't have an easy transition from acerbic shorts to features.

Anyone familiar with Sir John Tenniel's original illustrations for Lewis Carroll's books about Alice's adventures in Wonderland and through the Looking Glass will have noted a sinister element to them that chimes in with the text's disconcerting surrealism. This dark tone should have rendered this beloved fable the perfect vehicle for Svankmajer to make his feature debut. However, rather than proving an inspiration, Carroll's eccentric chronicle seems to inhibit Svankmajer's imagination and, on several occasional, it even exposes his limitations as a storyteller.

As ever, the texture and colours of Eva Svankmajerova's art direction are impeccable and her husband admirably resists the temptation to follow film precedent and resort to casting heavily disguised guest stars as the Queen of Hearts's subjects. Moreover, as one would expect of the artist who had already re-imagined the Jabberwocky in 1971, Svankmajer does come up with some eye-catching Carrollian moments.

But they tend to come when he allows his imagination to soar and he introduces creatures of his own devising, such as the menacing flying bed, the skeletal hybrids (which anticipate vicious Sid's experiments in Toy Story) and the partially feathered chicks. That said, the Frog Footman who can't resist shooting out his tongue to catch flies, the Doormouse who sets up camp in Alice's hair and the taxidermied White Rabbit who has to keep gobbling sawdust to replace that oozing from his torn stomach are all memorably grotesque.

The attempt at some underwater sequences (which is notoriously difficult in stop-motion animation) is also laudable. But Svankmajer entrusted much of the puppetry to his assistant, Bedrich Glaser, who isn't always as meticulous as his mentor. Consequently, he seems content to settle for ingenious unreality rather than irresistible illusion and, so, while this is an intriguing adaptation it's never as compelling as it promises to be.

Jean Painlevé had highlighted the surreal aspects of aquatic life in such wonderful documentary shorts as Sea Urchins (1929), The Sea Horse (1934), The Vampire (1945) and The Love Life of the Octopus (1965) - which are available on the BFI release Science Is Fiction. However, underwater cinematography reached a new level of clarity and sophistication in The Silent World (1956), an adaptation of Jacques-Yves Cousteau's 1953 book The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure that was co-directed by a young Louis Malle.

Filmed over two years in the Mediterranean and Red seas, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, this record of the activities of the crew of the Calypso became the first documentary to win the Palme d'or at Cannes and went on to win the Academy Award. It was later accused of environmental vandalism by eco critics who denounced the use of dynamite to chronicle life in a coral reef and the savage slaughter of a shiver of sharks that was feeding on the carcass of a baby whale that had become accidentally entangled with the ship's propellers. Yet it remains a landmark in natural history film-making and there is something undeniably intrepid about the `menfish' diving down to then-record depths of 247ft to reveal the secrets of a previously unseen realm.

Some of the scenes seem to have been filmed primarily for aesthetic effect, such as the torchlight progress of five divers through almost impenetrably dark waters. There is also a suspicion that some of the set-pieces have also been choreographed in a Flahertyesque manner. But the images achieved by Cousteau and Edmond Séchan are quite stunning, with the Technicolor stock capturing the full beauty and mystery of the deep.

However, this is as much about Cousteau and his Oceanauts as the marine life they are studying. The fascination with technology is evident, as is the pleasure that the crew take in acting out simple scenarios below deck, such as the diver complaining of knee trouble being forced to miss his supper after he is sent to the decompression chamber. Some of these sequences are a little stiff, but there's a splendid spontaneity about the encounter with an over-friendly creature nicknamed Ulysses (who has to be caged to stop him disrupting the filming) and the balletic rendezvous with a giant turtle (although some have again lamented the exploitative nature of such interactions).

The footage of the meeting with a school of porpoises and the monsoon that threatens to engulf the Calypso is equally spectacular. But, for entrancing atmosphere, nothing beats the sequence accompanied by Yves Baudrier's ethereal score as one of the divers follows an anchor line to discover a sunken ship and the piscine community that has moved into its cabins. Nothing better epitomises Cousteau's motto, `We must go and see'.

Like Malle, Nicolas Philibert served his apprenticeship with a number of notable directors before becoming an acclaimed artist in his own right. Born in Nancy in 1951, he obtained a degree in philosophy prior to serving as an assistant to René Allio, Claude Goretta and Alain Tanner. However, he struck out on his own in 1978, as he liked `the vulnerability, the element of risk connected with what is invented from one day to the next without ever knowing how it is going to turn out'.

Initially shooting on 16mm and video, he completed a series of shorts on the mountaineer, Christophe Profit. But he soon started working on 35mm and in available light and made his name with La Ville Louvre (1990), which is one of four films gathered in Artificial Eye's Nicolas Philibert Collection.

Housed in a palace that was originally conceived as a fortress in the late 12th century by Philip II, the Louvre is the world's most visited museum. Opened on 10 August 1793, it now occupies an area of 652,300 square feet on the Right Bank of the River Seine and houses some 35,000 items dating from prehistory to the 19th century. However, Philibert is less concerned with these impressive facts and figures than with the hundreds of employees who shuttle along its miles of corridors and maintain the exhibits that enthral an average of 15,000 visitors per day.

Harking back to the dawn-to-dusk structure employed in the `city symphonies' of the 1920s, this is a discreet, but endlessly fascinating behind-the-scenes insight. Indeed, silence is often key to this profile of the 1200 people who function in the subterranean storerooms, bustling offices, crowded galleries and sunlit studios, where artifacts are restored and often rediscovered as new details come to light during hours of patient and intricate craftsmanship. But, while the Louvre operates like a hushed metropolis with its distinct hierarchies, Philibert regards all its inhabitants with the same curiosity and courtesy, whether they are curators, archaeologists, art scholars, administrators, frame gilders, picture hangers, guides, cooks, cleaners or nightwatchmen.

Philibert first became intrigued by these daily routines while recording the museum's reorganisation during the construction of IM Pei's Grand Pyramid in 1988. He ended up shooting for five months and furthered his reputation as a chronicler of institutions with Un Animal, des animaux (1996), a study of the Museum of Natural History in Paris that followed In the Land of the Deaf (1992), which was similarly a work of collaboration as much as observation.. However, he insisted `It's not so much institutions that interest me: It's learning to live together. It's not so easy to learn to respect others and their idiosyncracies.'

The museum's Gallery of Zoology had been damaged during the Second World War. But it remained open until the mid-1960s when it was finally pronounced unsafe for visitors. A quarter of a century later, the gallery underwent major renovation and Philibert captured the scene at various junctures between 1991 and 1994 with a wry and respectful tact that simultaneously mourns the fate of the mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, fishes and crustaceans being spruced up for display and celebrates the dedication and skill of those ensuring that each installation is impeccably presented.

Opening with an amusing updating of Noah's Ark, as a lorry carries a cargo of stuffed animals across the city, this is very much a study in animated stillness. The staff scurry and fuss, but pause long enough to pay earnest and minute attention to the smoothing of feathers, the touching up of an elephant's wrinkled skin, the arrangement of butterflies in cases and the alignment of beasts in a statuesque procession. Noses are painted and glass eyes selected with infinite care from large drawers. But, even though the camera lingers on the melancholic expression of the captive creatures, Philibert is keen to convey the esteem and expertise of the taxidermists and curators seeking to ensure that visitors learn as well as admire.

If a sense of peace pervades this paean to preservation, a more troubling tone is evident in Nenette (2010), as Philibert keeps his camera firmly fixed on the eponymous orang-utan to produce a typically thoughtful investigation into the pros and cons of zoos. Originally planned as a short and filmed over several months in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, this is an audacious audiovisual experiment, as Philibert fills the soundtrack with the voices of unseen visitors and keepers, who put Nénette's life into context, while also musing on her physical beauty, psychological state and raison d'être.

Born in Borneo in 1969, Nénette has been in France for 37 years and has already exceeded the life expectancy of orang-utans in the wild. She has been through three mates and now shares a pen with her son, Tübo, and has contraceptive pills mixed into her food to prevent an incestuous pregnancy. Much of her day is spent sleeping, eating and gazing distractedly through the glass at the faces peering in at her. Whether devouring fruit and yoghurt or drinking tea from a plastic bottle, Nénette seems content. But Philibert and co-cinematographer Katell Djian occasionally catch a look of world-weary melancholy in her eye and it's difficult not to feel pity for a majestic creature that has had to endure captivity in such an enclosed a space for so long.

However, the keepers are keen to point out that Nénette and her companions are well cared for and that the discoveries made by the scientific staff are of enormous benefit both to understanding the beasts and ensuring their continued safe existence in the wild. Some of the comments are delightful, as parents and teachers attempt to interest children in natural history. Others are jokier and slightly disrespectful. But the observations of ordinary members of the public contrast intriguingly with comedian Pierre Meunier's improvised monologue, the gypsy song performed in Nénette's honour and the contention of 18th-century naturalist George-Louis Leclerc, Count de Buffon, that orang-utans were prone to abduct young maidens.

Tangentially, a treatise on the power of actuality to capture and preserve, this is alternately educational, touching and provocative. But, despite the courage of its minimalist close-up focus, it's never quite as compelling as such earlier outings as Être et avoir (2002).

In the two years following Un Animal, des Animaux (Animals, 1994), Philibert made Every Little Thing (1996), a profile of La Borde, a psychiatric clinic in the Cour-Cheverny region of the Loire Valley notable for its liberal regime, limited reliance on medication and its annual stage production. He intended moving on to an investigation into the impact of European agricultural policy on impoverished French farmers. But during his research, he became increasingly taken with the single-class schools that continued to serve around 400 rural communities. In particular, he was intrigued by how a teacher could simultaneously sustain the education of a dozen or so pupils of varying ages, backgrounds and abilities, while also attending to their emotional needs at such differing levels of development.

Having visited nearly 100 schools, he opted for the one in Puy-du-Dome, in the Auvergne region of the volcanic Massif Central. Comprising 13 children, from nursery age to 11 year-olds, it was run by Georges Lopez, who was approaching retirement, having spent 20 years in the village, and whose rather traditional methods had earned him the respect of his neighbours.

However, Philibert was keen to avoid an idealised portrait of the school - `I didn't want an approach founded on the picturesque or on nostalgia ("ah, the depletion of the countryside", "ah, a school of a type that we now see on the road to extinction") but on the desire to follow as closely as possible the work and progress of the children, in a way that the spectators can share their trials, their successes, their moments of discouragement.'

Shooting over ten weeks, from December 2000 to June 2001, Philibert accumulated almost 60 hours of footage. What emerges is fascinating portrait of a consummate professional, who still takes pleasure, after 35 years of teaching, in seeing students learn and whose ability to reach each child on their own level is repaid with an affection that is evident whether they're being encouraged, consoled or gently admonished.

According to the director, `the film is very open, it gives everyone the possibility of projecting into it what they wish, their own memories of childhood.' Yet somewhat surprisingly, he also saw in `a certain gravity, indeed a certain violence, even if it is somewhat suppressed. Before making the film, I believe that I had forgotten to what degree it is difficult to learn, but also to grow up. This dive back into school made me recall it with a vengeance. It's that, perhaps, that is the true subject of the film.'

Reclaiming actuality from the sensation-seeking of reality television, the film deservedly won the Best Documentary category at the 2002 European Film Awards. However, some of its lustre was tarnished by a legal dispute between the makers, Lopez and 11 of his students, who claimed that they had been misled about the intentions of the project and merited remuneration from its €2 million profits. A court ruled against them in 2004 and Philibert admitted to feeling betrayed by their action. Nevertheless, the warmth, patience and affection that Lopez extends his students remains genuinely moving and inspirational.

Just as Être et avoir emerged from an entirely different premise, so did Benda Bilili. While making Victoire Terminus in Kinshasa in 2004, French documentarists Renaud Barret and Florent de la Tullaye came across the busking band Staff Benda Bilili, which loosely translates as `Look Beyond Appearances'. Struck by the unique blend of samba and rhythm`n'blues and the indomitability of leader Léon `Ricky' Likabu (who was confined to a wheelchair by polio and slept rough in a cardboard box), the pair offered to finance a record and returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo the following year.

While Papa Ricky and guitarist Coco Ngambali Yakala were preparing for the chance of a lifetime, Barret and De la Tullaye introduced them to 12 year-old Roger Landu, a street kid who could play the most haunting melodies on an instrument called a satonge that he had fashioned from an empty tin, a curved piece of wood and a taut string. The veterans graciously welcomed the cocky kid to their rehearsals at Kinshasa Zoo and everything seemed set. But the session was abandoned following a fire at the shanty hostel where many of the bandmates lived with their families and four years were to pass before the film-makers were able to return.

They were pleased to find that the combo was still playing and, having ventured outside the city to locate Roger, they informed the amazed musicians that they had arranged for them to go on a European tour. The reaction of the impoverished Congolese to luxury hotels, Norwegian snow and packed venues tilts the film away from the struggle to survive in a corrupt and often dangerous country towards a euphoric climax, as Benda Bilili steal the show at the Eurockeennes concert in Belfort. But it's impossible not to be swept away by the excited energy of the band's performances and the enthusiastic response of crowds who could only have the vaguest notion of the group's origins.

Considering the emphasis that is placed on Papa Ricky's gritty lyrics being based on his own experiences, it's somewhat disappointing that so few of the songs are subtitled. However, this remains a compelling profile of dauntless survivors, who refuse to be defined by either their disability or their poverty. Barret and De la Tullaye include discussions of street urchins combing (or stealing) in order to get by and depict the band busking outside restaurants in the hope of picking up tips from tourists and well-heeled Congolese. But socio-political comment becomes increasingly confined to the margins once the rags-to-riches story kicks in.

The African connection continues in Home From the Hill (1987), which announced the arrival of documentarist Molly Dineen, whose career is being marked by a tripartite DVD release by the British Film Institute. Born in Canada, but raised in Birmingham, Dineen had something of a rebellious youth. She settled down in London under the influence of writer stepmother Shirley Lowe and enrolled in the London School of Printing. But encounters with happening people like Boy George convinced her to transfer to the National School of Film and Television, where she challenged the classic observational techniques taught by Colin Young and Herb di Gioia.

Although her work has been shown in festivals, Dineen is essentially a small-screen film-maker, with several of her commissions coming from BBC2 and Channel Four. Home From the Hill centred on Lieutenant Colonel Hilary Hook of the 7th Hussars, who had given his life to serving the British Empire in India, Burma, Korea, the Sudan and Kenya. However, when a Kenyan entrepreneur moved him out of his house, Hook was forced to return to Blighty for the first time since 1938 and Dineen accompanies him as he learns to cope without servants and master such marvels of modernity as an electric kettle and a supermarket trolley.

By contrast, Sylvia Richardson opted to remain in Kenya and her determination to sustain a lifestyle that now seems as politically incorrect as it is antiquated is charted in My African Farm (1988). The sequence in which her brother arrives for Christmas and suggests that she might make more of an effort to acquaint herself with her indigenous neighbours will infuriate many. But Dineen refuses to judge and, as a consequence, provides an invaluable insight into the rapidly disappearing colonialist mindset.

She returned to London to make what became her favourite film, Heart of the Angel (1989), which again turned on the clash between the old and the new in its discussion of the plans to renovate the Angel Tube station in Islington. But, while she records the stationmaster complaining about modernising his platforms during her 48-hour vigil, Dineen is more interested by the `fluffer' gang that nightly descends into the tunnels as the power supply is switched off to remove the build-up of hair and dust that constitutes a fire hazard. In particular, she is intrigued by the class, gender and ethnic make-up of these supposed menials.

Dineen takes evident pleasure in the camaraderie between fluffers like Sylvia and her daughter-in-law Lynn and in the genial banter of Mr Simms the lift operator. And togetherness is equally crucial to the Royal Welsh Guards under the command of Major Crispin Black, as they embark upon a tour of duty in Northern Ireland in the three-part series, In the Company of Men (1995). Bizarre details emerge during the course of the programmes, such as the fact that only two of the men in the unit had ever fired a weapon in anger, while one mission sees some 100 members of the Prince of Wales Company dispatched to guard eight policemen in a border station.

Yet the emphasis is less on the stand-off between terrorist and trooper than on the disparities between officers educated at public school and Sandhurst and the privates who increasingly rarely consider the forces to be a career for life. Anticipating Restrepo and Armadillo in exposing the long stretches of tedium that exacerbates the tension of serving on the front line.

Finally, King George VI: The Man Behind the King's Speech represents a rather disappointing return to a more traditional form of documentary. Combining newsreel footage and talking head interjections, this feels somewhat hurriedly thrown together by ITN. Sloppy errors abound, such as a reference to `Gothenburg' in a discussion of the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha and the addition of an `s' at the end of the surname Bowes-Lyon. But it's the dogged determination to mention the Oscar-winning feature The King's Speech as frequently as possible that proves most irksome.

In addition to Colin Firth and director Tom Hooper, the contributors also include biographers Mark Logue and Peter Conradi and royal correspondent Tim Ewart. Yet none has anything particularly new to say about Bertie's difficult childhood, his stammer or his time as Duke of York, let alone the Abdication, his role during the Second World War and the steady decline of his health. Much more valuable are the bonus Gaumont reels showing the unveiling of George V's statue in Westminster, the Royal Family's 1947 visit to South Africa and Prince Charles's christening.