Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 2/6/2011)

Raised in the Berry town of Châteauroux, the young Depardieu inherited his wastrel father Dédé's tendency towards silence, tantrums and staccato sentences. He also developed strong anti-bourgeois sentiments and a proclivity to revel that was exacerbated by his contact with the nearby USAF base, where he was seduced by American fashion, luxury and culture, and began adopting the mannerisms of Marlon Brando and James Dean, as well as homegrown yé-yé singers like Johnny Hallyday and Eddie Mitchell.

Getting into all manner of scrapes, the teenage Depardieu also identified with Antoine Doinel in François Truffaut's Les 400 Coups (1959). Yet, while he was a bit of a Jacques the Lad, Depardieu was never institutionalised. Indeed, he looked much tougher than he actually was (thanks to the broken nose acquired during a passing enthusiasm for boxing) and he spent two summers in the mid-1960s charming well-heeled guests as a beach boy on the Riviera.

So, by the time he arrived in Paris in 1965, Depardieu had already discovered that he had a natural actor's gift for fitting into sundry situations. But he still had trouble communicating and it wasn't until he began attending acting classes with Jean-Laurent Cochet that the source of his taciturnity was revealed by speech therapist Alfred Tomatis, who used Mozart to correct an imbalance in Depardieu's hearing. This enabled him to speak with increased confidence and channel his mental energy into greater powers of concentration and memory.

Suddenly something of a cultural gourmand, Depardieu began atoning for his lack of schooling and counted stage director Claude Régy and novelist-cum-filmmaker Marguerite Duras among his tutors. He was also adopted by veteran actors Jean Gabin and Bernard Blier, with the latter's director son, Bertrand, affording him his first big screen break in Les Valseuses (1974). The film brought accusations of boorishness that he initially found difficult to shake. But, by the late 1980s, Depardieu had attained a very different kind of reputation and evolved into an actor who chose films for the risks they involved and the potential on-set camaraderie they promised.

Moreover, he had also begun drawing on what he called his `genetic memory' to find the requisite emotional tools to bring authenticity to his performance. Consequently, he no longer settled for loveable palookas with a dangerous streak, but undertook diverse roles that married psychological conflict with quality dialogue. Despite his prolific output, Depardieu rarely essayed similar personalities twice. Yet, like the icons of Hollywood's Golden Age, he invariably played variations on himself that were impeccably tailored to suit the truth of the scenario He is in particularly lively form in Mammuth, which is not only a fascinating character study, but also a sly insight into the plight of the casual worker. Shot on reversible Super 16 by Hugues Poulain to reinforce the wistful mood, this may lack the edge of earlier Delépine and Kervern outings like Aaltra (2004) and Louise-Michel (2008). But the offbeat humour occasionally drifts into the surreal, while there's considerable poignancy in Depardieu's growing realisation that his day is nearly done and that being retired is going to be a full-time job.

Having just left the local pork slaughterhouse, Depardieu quickly discovers the limited appeal of doing jigsaw puzzles and shopping in the supermarket where straight-talking wife Yolande Moreau works. She also wants to retire, but knows they won't have enough to live on because Depardieu can't qualify for his pension unless he has payment slips from his previous employers.

Naturally, as a man of little education, he has never been good with paperwork. So, having flitted between menial posts for much of his peripatetic life, Depardieu has to hit the road in the hope of collecting enough dockets to satisfy the authorities. Leaving Moreau to hold the fort, he revs up his 1973 Münch Mammut motorbike and starts revisiting some old haunts. But the majority of his former employers gone out of business, while few of those still extant have kept meticulous records.

Former boss Dick Annegarn asks Depardieu to help him exhume a coffin in return for his co-operation, while Philippe Nahon languishes in a care home with dementia as Depardieu struggles to cope with the intercom security system at the mill where they once worked (which has been converted into a cutting-edge digital animation studio). He has no more luck at the bar where he once toiled. Moreover, he allows himself to be duped by con woman Anna Mouglalis and he keeps being haunted by visions of old flame Isabelle Adjani, who was killed when they were both much younger in a car crash that was his fault.

Eventually, exhausted and disillusioned, Depardieu decides to call in on his brother. But, instead, he reconnects with his niece Miss Ming, an outsider artist who sculpts with stuffed toys and broken dolls, who is such a determinedly eccentric free spirit that he comes to wonder whether he has stumbled upon the perfect spot to settle down.

Affectionate and anarchic, this may be a bit patchy, but it's also a moving meditation on the speed with which places change and not always for the better. Although the visual style suggests the 1970s, the dramatic mood owes much to American outings like Alexander Payne's About Schmidt (2002) and Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler (2008), with Depardieu's straggly mane giving him an almost parodic look of Mickey Rourke (although he never grappled naked with his cousin, as Depardieu does here with Albert Delpy).

Accompanied by Gaetan Roussel's resolutely upbeat score, the first third bristles with sour satire and a muscularly amusing mix of physical and verbal comedy. But the picaresque encounters are less consistent, while Depardieu's sudden conversion from palooka to poet feels a touch far fetched, as does his discovery of bliss with the spaced Miss Ming. Yet he clearly relishes being permitted to push his larger-than-life role to the limits and it's only a pity that more was not required of Adjani and Moreau, who have to look enigmatically ethereal and cumbrously corporeal, as they respectively prepare to let Depardieu go and take to the road to prevent him from making a fool of himself.

The crisis that sent Depardieu on his travels is explored with laudable clarity and control by David Sington in The Flaw. Opening with footage of Alan Greenspan - the chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987-2006 - admitting to the House Oversight Committee that there was a glitch in the efficient market hypotheses on which American capitalism had been based for several decades, this occasionally runs the risk of being wise after the event. However, with its judicious mix of talking heads and poignant case studies, this is a fascinating insight into why so few academics and financiers failed to notice the imminence of meltdown until it was too late.

In order to put the downturn in context, Sington uses clips from the animated educational shorts Going Places (1948), What Makes Us Tick (1952) and It's Everybody's Business (1954), as well as the 1957 live-action infomercial Where the Heart Is, to explain the theories of supply and demand, how competition stimulates growth and why so much emphasis is placed on owning property. He then allows onetime traders George Cooper and Andrew Luan and economics professors Robert Shiller (Yale), Louis Hyman (Harvard), Robert Frank (Cornell), Robert Wade (LSE), Don Ariely (Duke) and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia) to discuss how Reaganomic deregulation, the collapse of Communism, the dot.com boom and the growth of the sub-prime mortgage market saw the US economy place its bets on increasingly risky ventures that ultimately created a bubble that simply had to burst.

Those enraged by how various bankers, stockbrokers and hedge fund traders could have brought the world to the brink of fiscal collapse will be particularly piqued by the analysis of how the postwar consumer boom became a scramble for property and how the sub-prime racket placed an untenable strain on the American economy. Even for a layman, it's difficult to see how nobody could have spotted the fact that something would have to give, with the top 1% of earners monopolising wealth and those on the lower rungs ratcheting up the national debt as unemployment rose and demand dropped.

However, the loans kept coming and hard-working people were lured into investing beyond their means, among them real estate speculator Steve Nahas, who bought big just as the market peaked and now faces ruin, and successful optician Antoinette Coffi-Ahibo, who risked foreclosure because the bank refused to renegotiate her mortgage agreement. The most salutary study, however, is provided by Ed Andrews, who became a delinquent borrower even though the was the Economics Correspondent of the New York Times.

Following Andrew Luan, as he leads a guided tour along Wall Street, Sington challenges the easy assumptions that the crisis was simply caused by greedy bankers and indolent watchdogs. His arguments are cogent and compelling, but it remains to be seen how many of his lessons about excessive income inequality leading to economic instability will be taken onboard.

The subject couldn't be more different in the second of the week's three documentary releases, as Jerry Rothwell embarks upon an investigation into the world of artificial insemination in Donor Unknown. As in Deep Water (2006) and Heavy Load (2008), Rothwell displays considerable tact in dealing with a sensitive issue. But he also invests the story of a group of half-siblings searching for their anonymous father with equal measures of ethical acuity and gentle wit.

Raised by her lesbian mother Lucinda in Erie, Pennsylvania, JoEllen Marsh first saw Donor 150's profile from the California Cryobank when she was seven years old. She was intrigued by the physical description: `Caucasian, aged 28, 6ft, blue eyes, light brown hair, guitar player, dancer and philosophy major.' But it was the last line of his personality profile that caught her imagination: `This earthly life is transitory and the joys of this world are ephemeral. So keep your moment and, if sincere, great fortune will come.'

JoEllen was keen to meet the man who had made her existence possible and her chances increased when she was 12 years old with the discovery of the Donor Sibling Registry website. Although she had no intention of searching in earnest until she was 18, she signed up and soon made contact with Danielle Pagano, a younger half-sister who had been born to a heterosexual New York couple. After exchanging e-mails and chatting on the phone, JoEllen and Danielle met face to face when they were 16 and 15 respectively and their encounter made the pages of the New York Times.

By sheer luck, 52 year-old Jeffrey Harrison saw the front-page story in Venice Beach, California and realised that the teenagers were his daughters. Born in Delaware to well-heeled parents who had divorced when he was six, Harrison had rejected father Ray's military lifestyle and he survived bouts of teenage depression to relocate to Los Angeles and make his way variously as a waiter, masseur, erotic dancer, Playgirl model and sperm donor. He also devoted himself to caring for animals and he is first seen pampering the dogs who share his battered RV and tending to the wounded pigeon he is nursing back to health. But he has also patched things up with his father and frequently visits him at his residential home.

While Harrison was pondering whether to get in touch with JoEllen, she had started corresponding with new `sibs', including Ryann McQuilton (based in LA after growing up on Cambridge, Massachusetts), Roxanne Shaffer (from San Diego, California), Rachelle Longest (who was reared in Millington, Tennessee by mothers Joy and Helen) and Fletcher Norris, who lives in Boulder, Colorado with his mothers Sue and Cathy. The latter have misgivings about their son meeting Harrison and the pressures of attempting to forge a relationship with a donor are further discussed by Dr Cappy Rothman, who claims to have expedited 60,000 births since launching the California Cryobank, and Wendy Kramer, who co-founded the Sibling Donor Registry after the birth of her son, Ryan.

But JoEllen is determined to meet the man who styles himself a `soul caller' and her brief stay, along with a number of her half-siblings, is genuinely touching, as Harrison takes an interest in their achievements and aspirations and responds to all their questions with an alacrity and honesty that typifies his hippie attitude to life. Moreover, Rothwell avoids sentimentalising the encounter by questioning how agencies verify and monitor their data, the contrasting rights to know and to anonymity and the frequency with which individual donors are allowed to make deposits and how often they are offered for selection.

Appealingly scored by Max de Wardener and ably interweaving JoEllen and Jeffrey's backstories, this never descends into Oprah territory. It also avoids of the urbane melodramatics of Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right. But one is left wondering how many similar meetings go so well or seem to leave so few emotional scars.

Finally, another beach provides the setting for Justin Mitchell's Rio Breaks. A far cry from the iconic surfing documentaries of Bruce Brown, this is a poignant study of the Brazilian kids who see riding waves off Arpoador Beach as the only escape from a short life of crime with a favela drug gang. Mitchell includes some striking aquatic action. But the focus is firmly on the narrowing options facing 13 year-old Fabio and his younger buddy Naamã, as they hone their skills with the Favela Surf Club in the hope of winning a competition and landing a lucrative sponsorship deal that will keep them out of the clutches of the notorious Commando Vermelho or Red Command, which competes ruthlessly with its Blue counterpart for control of the Pavao neighbourhood that has been nicknamed Vietnam because of the incessant gunfire.

Fabio and Naamã live to surf. They spend much of their time bickering and taunting each other, but they are inseparable and would never dream of hitting the beach near Ipanema alone. They idolise Favela Surf Club mentors like Rogerio, Jean and Thyola, who grew up alongside Simao Romao, who has not forgotten his roots since making it big as a professional surfer. The trio do their best to keep their eyes on kids like Maicon, Jaira, Pretao, Picachu and Nem and try to convince them that surfing is the great leveller in Brazilian society, as breakers dump rich and poor alike.

However, it's impossible to ignore the dire straits in which most of this eager band are raised. Naamã's family hails from the rural North-East and his parents strive to raise him and sisters Brisia and Canan according to traditional values after their oldest son was gunned down by a rival dealer. But, while they ensure that Naamã goes to school and encourage him to play football, as well as surf, Fabio is more often left to his own devices and, thus, seems more likely to stray. His father was murdered when he announced he was leaving his gang and his mother abandoned him and sister Patricia to be raised by their grandfather Gildo because she was so desperate to make a fresh start away from the slums.

An air of inevitability hangs over Fabio's progress, even though Jean takes him and Naamã to his local church in an effort to convince them there is a better way than crime. He vows to continue with his education after the club imposes a new rule barring those cutting classes from the beach. But while Rogerio's daughter Joyce begins dedicating herself to following the example of 20 year-old sensation Maya Gabeira, Fabio starts looking increasingly likely to emulate Biloa, who has to quit the water and find a job after getting his girlfriend pregnant, and Bochecha, a promising athlete who was tempted by the quick cash offered by the gang bosses and nearly lost a leg in a shooting.

Dying his hair blonde to look cooler, Fabio is suspended from school and acquires a reputation for bullying. He even tests Naamã's friendship on several occasions and boasts that he is better on a board than Rogerio. But, more worryingly, with the club struggling for funding, he finds his surfing options narrowing and, while Picachu and Joyce make sacrifices to train with big-wave rider Carlos Burle and enter prestigious competitions, Fabio blows his chances by arriving late and missing his call.

Naamã decides to concentrate on body-boarding after a disappointing result in his first surfing contest. But he is anything but disheartened and even seems resigned to the fact that Fabio is no longer his buddy - because that is the harsh reality of favela life and he would rather play alone than in bad company.

The stakes for which these kids are playing can be summed up by the shot of the rubbish tip that has become known as `the pit' because of the number of gangland victims that have been dumped in it. Yet so many are willing to take the risk that they will be the lucky one to prosper and avoid the bullet of a policeman, an enemy or a disaffected comrade. Mitchell makes this point by showing the pocked walls as the excited youths take the steepling steps from their eyrie hovels. But, while Fabio may be lost by its end, this is not a film without hope and certainly not one without heart.