Parky At the Pictures (17/4/2026)

(Reviews of Miroirs No.3; Diamanti; The Wizard of the Kremlin; Kinaestheria; and Time Hoppers: The Silk ROad)

MIROIRS No.3.

Taking its title from a piano piece by Maurice Ravel, Christian Petzold's Miroirs No.3 is the latest of the Berlin School director's films to be set against the backdrop of a stifling summer. Unlike The State I Am In (2000), Jerichow (2008), Barbara (2012), and Afire (2023), however, the twist in the tale is not so closely guarded, with the result that, for all the excellence of the acting and craft contributions, this cine-novella often feels like a minor outing from a master of mood, mystery, and malaise.

Piano student Laura (Paula Beer) stands on an autobahn flyover and gazes down into the river below. Roused from her reverie after watching a man punt past, she returns home to find boyfriend Jakob (Philip Froissant) in a state of agitation, as she is late for the start of a sailing weekend with a producer named Roger (Marcel Heuperman) and his partner. Debbi (Victoire Laly). She mumbles something about losing her bag, but Jakob reminds her that he needs to make a good impression on Roger and he has to coax Laura into joining the conversation, as they drive through the Brandenburg countryside in a shiny red sportscar. When they pass a woman painting the white picket fence of her cottage, Laura looks round and she sees her again after she asks to go home and Roger tosses Jakob the car keys to drive her to the station. He had almost run into the woman while grumbling at Laura, but he remains distracted and is killed when the car turns on its side and Betty (Barbara Auer) rushes to the couple's aid.

Jakob is killed outright, but Laura has been thrown clear and Betty helps her back to the cottage. Refusing to go to hospital, Laura asks to stay until she recovers and Betty assures the attending cop and paramedic that she has room for a guest. She puts Laura to bed and sits with her, as it rains during the evening. When Laura wakes, she nibbles at a snack left on the bedside table and she finds a coffee waiting for her in the morning, along with some clean clothes. Not seeming to notice that Betty calls her `Yelena', Laura asks if she can help paint the fence and listens contentedly, as Betty tells her how Tom Sawyer had tricked some neighbours into painting a fence for him.

Betty says nothing when Laura comes out in a red Babybel t-shirt and pops on an overshirt to begin painting. A couple of elderly cyclists stop on seeing Laura and Betty chides them for gawking. She also reminds Laura that Jakob's death was not her fault and they hug. The pair also exchange glances, when Laura looks through the bedroom window while getting ready for bed and sees Betty standing by the fence. She rides on the back of her bicycle when they go shopping in the village and Betty is taken aback when Laura offers to cook Koenigsburg dumplings as a thank you.

These happen to be the favourites of her husband, Richard (Matthias Brandt), and son, Max (Enno Trebs), who live at the garage they have opened together. When Betty calls to invite them to supper Richard is concerned that she has taken in a stranger and has stopped taking her pills. They are stunned into silence when Laura appears and it's only after they've eaten that Richard explains that it's a long time since they last sat down together as a family. He offers to fix the dripping kitchen tap, while Max repairs the dishwasher. Betty reprimands them for their boorish behaviour during the meal and asks Richard to get the piano tuned and mend Yelena's bike. Driving home without a word, father and son clearly know what the other is thinking about the situation.

The next day, Max comes looking for Richard and learns he's picking plums with Betty. He asks Laura if tending the flower beds is like therapy and she agrees it is. Richard asks Max to take his sister's bike in the truck, so he can adjust it for Laura. As he works, a customer arrives and Laura is curious about the whispering before the man and woman drive off in separate cars. She inquires whether they are engaged in any illegal activity and he smiles because they are merely jamming the GPS for the clien, who doesn't want the manufacturer tracking the vehicle. Richard returns and tells Max to avoid the crash site when he cycles Laura home, but she goes on alone after he takes a tumble and is amused when she invites him for plum cake the following day. On her return, Betty tells Laura that she's glad she's there.

While they argue over the pastry on the verandah, some neighbours stop to snoop. Betty feels flustered and asks Laura to play the piano. She chooses Frédéric Chopin's `Prelude, Op. 28, No.4' from the sheet music and the trio listen uneasily. Max makes his excuses to go, leaving Laura to stack to dishwasher, while Richard and Betty go for a stoll. The machine explodes and Laura cycles to the garage to find Max. He is working and she asks him to play the song he was listening to when she arrived. Over a beer, they smile to Frankie Valli's `The Night' before Richard drives up and sends Laura home to look after Betty because the dishwasher incident has shaken her up. He refuses to let Max go with her, however, and he sulks, as she cycles away.

While doing the dishes at the sink, Betty asks Laura if she'd like to come to Berlin with her and Richard. Perhaps, she could pick up a few belongings while they buy a new dishwasher. Although she declines, Laura asks to stay because she likes the house and Betty tells her she can remain as long as she likes. Having watched Richard and Betty leave the next morning, Laura cycles over to the garage to see Max. He says there's something important he has to tell her and she can see he's feeling troubled and goes to put a hand on his shoulder. However, he pushes her away and her nose starts to bleed when she falls over. Rushing to her bike, she starts to cycle away, only for Max to call after her that she cannot replace the sister who committed suicide. Laura stops and looks round in surprise, when he shouts that his parents are sick because of what's going on and she snaps back that they are all sick.

Max phones his parents and they all come to the house. Betty knocks on the bedroom door and tries to explain and apologise. But Laura tells her to go away and throws a shoe at the door. Her father arrives to collect her and she barges out to the car without another word, leaving Betty to collapse on the drive. Richard puts her to bed in the camp bed she had been using in the front room and makes her some soup. But she just wants to sleep, while Max puts Yelena's bike back in the shed. Although she agrees to give her daughter's clothes away and have her room redecorated, Betty is still worried about Laura and Max disguises himself to record her on the university campus. He says she looked fine. but Betty senses there's something wrong.

Time passes and the family spend more time together. Betty brings lunch to the garage one day and tells Richard and Max that they are going to Laura's final recital. They object, but they watch, as she plays `Une barque sur l'océan' from Ravel's `Miroirs No.3'. Back home, Betty starts to cook for her boys, while Laura returns to her flat and a quiet smile plays over her lips.

Echoes of the Vertigo-like Phoenix (2014) flit around this teasing and sometime implausible drama, which depends heavily on the audience buying into the fact that Laura is so traumatised by the events leading up to Jakob's fatal car crash that she fails to realise what is readily evident to everybody else. She tells Max that she they weren't a proper couple and that she's not particularly sad he's dead. But this is as much of an insight into her psyche as Petzold and Beer are willing to give. She may well be too shaken to notice the numerous clues indicating that Betty is mourning her lost daughter or maybe she's simply playing along so that she doesn't have to answer a lot of awkward questions about the state of her relationship with Jakob and what happened in the run-up to the crash. The opening sequence suggests that she's unhappy, but no reasons are given and one can only presume that her father didn't come looking for her sooner is that the police had assured him that she was better off where she was until she was ready to face her old life again.

The uneasy situation invites viewers to speculate about Betty and Richard's marriage, her bond with Max, and Yelena's motive for killing herself. But any reading has to be done between the lines, as the performers are content to conspire with Petzold in withholding any manifest truths. Yelena's clothes suggest that Betty had treated her as mama's little girl, while Laura's readiness to step into her shoes implies that she might have been trying to run away from her old self. Yet, she returns to college to complete her studies and we're left to surmise whether she noticed her surrogate family in the audience as we seek to interpret her last enigmatic smile.

Since taking over from Nina Hoss as Petzold's muse, Paula Beer has challenged audiences to fathom her characters. Traces of vulnerability, elusiveness, and psychological complexity have characterised Marie, the wife of a missing person. in Transit (2018), the historian with a troubled love life in Undine (2020), and Nadja, the unexpected guest at a Baltic holiday home, in Afire (2023). But Laura is more slippery and less likable than her predecessors, as she never seems to care about the impact she is having (whether she's aware of it or not) on Betty, who is played by another Petzold regular, Barbara Auer, who featured in The State I Am In, Yella (2007), and Transit.

Unfussily, but elegantly shot in natural light and country colours by Hans Fromm, the action relies heavily on K.D. Gruber's production design and Katharine Ost's costumes to fill in some of the many gaps and ambiguities with which Petzold bestrews a scenario that leaves more off screen than it puts on. He also leans on the sound design created by Dominik Schleier. Marek Forreiter, and Bettina Böhler, whose editing also supplies the seductive rustic rhythms that entice Laura into prolonging her stay in order to delay addressing her existential dilemmas. Where she goes after the final fade to black is anyone's guess - but the same goes for her life before the opening shot on the bridge.

DIAMANTI.

Turkish-Italian director Ferzan Özpetek had never quite fulfilled the promise shown in such early features as Hamam (1997), Harem Suare (1999), The Ignorant Fairies (2001), Facing Windows (2003), and Sacred Heart (2005). But he has still had a marvellous career and he returns with Diamanti, an Almodóvarian melodrama set against the backdrop of the Italian film industry in the 1970s.

Özpetek's 15th feature harks back to the time he was an assistant to such important Italian directors as Massimo Troisi, Maurizio Ponzi, Ricky Tognazzi, Sergio Citti, and Francesco Nuti. Among his tasks was to liaise with the costume makers at the Sartoria Tirelli, which was run by Piero Tosi. As it's dedicated to Mariangela Melato, Virna Lisi, and Monica Vitti, it's fitting that the action opens with some of the actresses with whom Özpetek has worked down the years. Indeed, he even takes a cameo as himself to welcome such old colleagues as Luisa Ranieri, Jasmine Trinca, Nicole Grimaudo, Paola Minaccioni, Elena Sofia Ricci, Lunetta Savino, Aurora Giovinazzo, Milena Vukotic, Carla Signoris, Anna Ferzetti, and Loredana Cannata. Along with newcomers Vanessa Scalera, Geppi Cucciari, Milena Mancini, Sara Bosi, and Mara Venier, they have been invited to lunch and a read through of Özpetek's latest screenplay, which he has co-written with Carlotta Corradi and Elisa Casseri and which sets its story in Rome in 1974.

Sisters Alberta (Luisa Ranieri) and Gabriella Canova (Jasmine Trinca) run a fashion house that designs costumes for the stage and screen. When Oscar-winning designer Blanca Vega (Vanessa Scalera) comes to discuss her forthcoming 18th-century saga, she drops beads down the staircase to emphasise the fluidity she requires with the fabrics. Alberta is concerned that they are taking on too much work and that their seamstresses are exhausted. But the micro-managing Gabriella insists they will cope and produce their customarily excellent work.

Her husband, Lucio (Luca Barbarossa), detects distress at the dinner table, but she swears everything is under control. By contrast, seamstress Nicoletta (Milena Mancini) gets hell from spouse Bruno (Vinicio Marchioni) when he comes home in a foul mood after being fired and tosses her into the yard with a slap for serving up substandard risotto.

Unable to find child care, Paolina (Anna Ferzetti) brings her young son into work and gets lectured by Gabriella. But Silvana (Mara Venier) hides him away in a storeroom before telling Paolina how she used to be a dancer in the music-hall before time caught up with her and her boyfriend lost interest. The mood lightens, however, when a couple of hunky men make a delivery and the women cajole them into singing a song and everyone joins in for an impromptu dance number that leaves both men smitten with newcomer Giuseppina (Sara Bosi), who annoys Gabriella by wanting to design before she had learnt the ropes.

Something of a diva, Bianca is unhappy with a dress until she sees Gabriella unwrap a sweet and gets the idea to decorate the frock with ruffles. Actress Alida Borghese (Carla Signoris) proves harder to please when she comes for a fitting and Alberta and Gabriella have to prevent her from bumping into deadly rival Sofia Volpi (Kasia Smutniak) in the next room.

Alberta is taken aback when Leonardo Cavani (Carmine Recano) comes to the atelier with a financial proposal. Gabriella doesn't recognise him, but he was the love of her sister's life and she reminds him of how he had broken her heart in Paris 15 years earlier. When they dine with Aunt Olga (Milena Vukotic), it emerges that Alberta was working for Balenciaga at the time and seems to have sacrificed her career to join Gabriella in business. Seemingly, she was also close to Silvana, who continues to worry about her.

Meanwhile, Beatrice (Aurora Giovinazzo), the niece of Eleonora (Lunetta Savino), is hidden away in a storeroom after she flees the police following a street demonstration. During the night, she adds brocade to a dress and Bianca is delighted with it and asks who did such exquisite work, but no one knows. On her next visit, however, she fumes that a costume that is key to revealing a character's personality has been altered without her permission and Alberta and Gabriella fall out when the former refuses to admonish their client for being so rude to their workers.

Over a typically gossipy staff lunch, Nina (Paola Minaccioni) notices the cut on Nicoletta's lip and offers her sympathy. Fausta (Geppi Cucciari) says they will help her kill Bruno and dump his body in the well and she agrees to let them know the next time he hurts her. Working late, Alberta catches Beatrice tinkering with another dress and is so impressed by her reasons for the change that she hires her. Across the city, Nina (Paola Minaccioni) tries to coax son Vittorio (Dario Samac) into watching television with her, but he refuses to leave his room. Eventually, he agrees to visit a friend of Eleonora's to discuss his problems and father Marco (Valerio Morigi) offers to take him.

Lorenzo the film director (Stefano Accorsi) comes to the atelier and demands that a train is added to a dress against Bianca's wishes. She cringes at being humiliated in front of the staff, but the sisters play it cool in order to keep Lorenzo happy. When he returns, he throws a hissy fit and Bianca walks out, confiding in the sisters that she suffers from crippling doubts and hated going up for her Oscar because she felt everyone was judging her.

One rainy night, Fausta calls Nicoletta to check she's okay, but she has already turned the tables on her abusive spouse when he had tried to tip her into the well. Alberta keeps receiving gifts from Cavani and is so preoccupied that she doesn't listen to Bianca when she discusses the train dress. However, she promises to sell an heirloom for Paolina after finding her son cowering in the button room and realising how expensive it must be for a single mum to put her child through school. Discovering the piece is worthless, Alberta tells Paolina that she'd like to keep it in return for helping with her son's expenses. At the same time, Silvana gives the boy her lucky charm.

Alberta allows Beatrice to stay late to work on some sketches because she has genuine talent. Despite being a costume short and up against a deadline, the sisters lunch with Aunt Olga and bump into Cavani at the restaurant. Gabriella insists on saying hello and is introduced to his wife, Rita (Loredana Cannata). She wonders if Alberta is her husband's friend from Paris and reveals that she had an accident there that left her in a wheelchair. But Alberta insists she's never been to Paris and, when she gets a quiet moment with Cavani, she touches his shoulder in forgiveness because she now knows why he stood her up all those years before.

During a smoking break, Nicoletta tells her friends that Bruno went out for cigarettes and never came back and they all know what must have happened and are pleased for her. However, they're all on edge when Gabriella mistakenly double-books Alida and Sofia and they have a slanging match about the former returning to the stage because she's too old to make films. Slamming the office door, Alberta threatens to fire Gabriella because she keeps making errors and isn't pulling her weight. She urges her to stop dwelling on her young daughter being run over and start living in the present. But Gabriella is hurt by the suggestion that she should snap out of it and help keep the business afloat, even though she knows she has to stop been paralysed by grief. Alberta runs after her when she leaves the studio and they hug.

Bianca apologises to the staff for Lorenzo's behaviour and admits he confuses her. She gives Beatrice one of her sketches as a memento and Gabriella has an idea. A few days later, during a sit-down lunch cooked by Silvana, the seamstresses slip away from the table one by one. Alberta notices them go, but isn't aware they are beavering away with red fabric and beads. She joins them with Bianca, who is thrilled to see her sketch coming to life and they work all night, with Sofia as their model, to finish the gown. She applauds them all, as she marvels at their creation.

Suddenly, the camera alights on Özpetek, who nods at the sleeping Silvana. He wanders around the empty atelier, as voices from the past echo around him. He sees Elena Sofia Ricci gliding between rooms. She smiles and reminds him that he had taught her that the only thing that matters is what remains inside us. Walking on, he opens a cupboard door and reaches in for the lucky glass sphere that Silvana had given to Paolina's son and he holds it up to the right-side lens of his glasses and looks at the audience.

Rooted in such Hollywood ensemble pieces as George Cukor's The Women (1939) and Sidney Lumet's The Group (1966), this is a splendidly involving drama that pieces together several vignettes to create more of a character study than a storyline. Some of the seamstress tales feel a bit novelettish, but Özpetek knows precisely what he's doing, as he has the score by Giuliano Taviani and Carmelo Travia ladle on the pathos when required. And, in an extra wink to the audience, he even repurposes the crux of Leo McCarey's An Affair to Remember (1957) for the culmination of the Alberta/Cavani strand!

This is played, as is the entire picture, with impeccable good taste by a cast whose collusion in the mischief is made apparent during the opening luncheon. Indeed, they even feature in an occasional self-reflexive cutaway, as if to remind us that we are watching a film and that even they were affected by scenes like the one in which Gabriella's secret is revealed. Possibly Özpetek pushes this gambit too far by appearing during the all-nighter to look directly into the lens after checking up on the snoozing Silvana and then to encounter Elena Sofia Ricci on the deserted set before producing the keepsake that resembles the snow globe in Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941).

Luisa Ranieri and Jasmine Trinca must be singled out for their exceptional performances, but mention should also be made of Vanessa Scalera as the insecure Bianca and Mara Venier as the den-mothering Silvana, who never seems to get ruffled. Unlike some of the marvellous costumes designed by Stefano Ciammitti, whose colours are vividly captured by cinematographer Gian Filippo Corticelli, who also captures with atmospheric finesse the light changes between the different rooms in Deniz Göktürk Kobanba's interiors.

THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN.

Although his reputation rests primarily on the films made in his native France, Olivier Assayas has also directed a clutch of films in English. They include Demonlover (2002), Boarding Gate (2007), Personal Shopper (2016), and Wasp Network (2019) and their number is now expanded by the addition of The Wizard of the Kremlin, an adaptation of a 2022 novel by Giuliano da Empoli that mixes fact and fiction with such cavalier brio that this 156-minute account of Russian history since the collapse of the Soviet Union feels like a mini-series that someone forgot to chop in half.

The first part of the film brings American academic Rowland (Jeffrey Wright) to Moscow to research a biography of Soviet writer Yevgeny Zamyatin, whose 1921 novel, We, inspired George Orwell's 1984. News of his arrival reaches Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), who invites him to his dacha to discuss the author and the Stalinist era in which he lived. This prompts Baranov to tell Rowland who he rose from selling electrical goods through the ranks of avant-garde theatre during the perestroika era that saw Russians become intoxicated on freedom.

Baranov became fixated on singer Ksenia (Alivia Vikander), who takes a shine to his ambitious buddy, Dmitri Sidorov (Tom Sturridge), as they party hard as the Soviet system begins to crumble. When they split up, Baranov moves into television and becomes the producer of a reality show that shows girls how to land rich husbands. The head of the station is Boris Berezovsky (Will Keen), who is also running the country behind the scenes because President Boris Yeltsin (George Sogis) is too drunk. After suffering a heart attack, he has to be strapped into his chair to make a speech before the elections and Berezovsky has words dubbed in to match his lip movements.

Recognising that Yeltsin's race is run, Berezovsky founds the Unity Party and put Vladimir Putin (Jude Law), the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), in charge to be a compliant mouthpiece. Baranov accompanies Berezovksy to a meeting at the Lubyanka, where is is clear that the latter has underestimated his chosen prime minister and he uses the Chechen War and the threat of Islamic extremism to increase his grip on power and five him a freer hand in exercising it. He coaxes Baranov away from Berezovsky and employs him as his strategist, as people around the Kremlin start referring to Putin as `the tsar'.

Rejecting Berezovsky's style of presentation, Putin and Baranov adopt a more austere show of strength after Yeltsin is persuaded to step down to allow Putin to assume the presidency. He spends New Year with troops on the Chechen frontline and promotes the image of a fearless action man. However, the Kursk submarine tragedy prompts a misstep, when Putin stays at his dacha in Sochi rather than meeting the wives of the lost submariners. His anger leads to Berezovsky being ousted and charged with fraud in absentia after he seeks asylum in Britain. Before leaving, he warns Baranov that they have made a big mistake in letting the FSB take control, as they will seek to impose a more repressive system than the Communists.

On a trip to the United Nations, Putin bridles against the way the United States perceives itself as the winner of the Cold War. He vows to show them that Russia remains a power to be reckoned with. However, he also has to deal with opposition at home, including the National Bolshevik Party under Eduard Limonov (Magne-Håvard Brekke). He also decides to take down the oligarchs and has Baranov supervise the arrest of his old friend, Sidorov. Next, he's sent to the Riviera to warn Berezovsky against supporting the Ukrainian opposition to the Russian-backed regime. But the Orange Revolution can't be stopped and Putin regards this as a personal slight because he considers Ukraine to be an essential part of historical Russia.

Deciding that such CIA infiltration can't be allowed to happen in Russia, Putin details Baranov to bring the leaders of subversive groups on-side to prevent them from being co-opted. He meets with Alexander Zaldostanov (Kaspars Kambala), the leader of the Night Wolves biker gang, and explains the plan to neutralise opponents in the name of patriotism and give the young a cause to believe in while hating the decadent West. Baranov calls his new enterprise, `sovereign democracy', and claims it brings a stability to help the economy grow. Chess champion Garry Kasparov (Dmitry Turchaninov) mocks him at a soirée, but he ends the night in bed with Ksenia, whom he had last seen on the Riviera. She has no sympathy with him losing his soul to achieve his goals, but she finds his power attractive.

On a roll, Baranov hits upon the idea of using the Internet to spread dissent and misinformation around the world and, by seeming to support both friends and foes within the Western world, they will be able to mess with minds and control the agenda. He explains to Yevgeny Prigozhin (Andris Keišs) that there is no message emanating from Moscow, as it doesn't have an idealogical zeal, as in the Soviet past. Instead, its purpose is to tinker and destroy accepted notions of truth, so that no one can trust any source of information as reliable.

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Leaping forward to 2013, Baranov comes to London and scoffs when Berezovsky gives him a letter for Putin asking for forgiveness and offering his services. However, Baranov informs him curtly that times have changed and that he no longer has a role to play in modern Russia. Before leaving, Ksenia breaks the news she is pregnant.

When Baranov insists on Daft Punk playing at the Sochi opening, Igor Sechine (Andrei Zayats) warns him that his political smartness will eventually land him in trouble. But Putin accepts the need to show an open Russia and the ceremony is a triumph. Before the end of the Games, however, Ukrainians take to Maidan Square again to remove a pro-Moscow president and Putin retaliates by invading the Crimea. Rowland accuses Baranov of being behind the sniper attacks on the square and he admits doing what was asked of him. However, the US and Europe put him under sanction and Sechine gloats as he breaks the news.

Slipping away to Stockholm, Baranov tells Ksenia that power is addictive and that he will have to get used to being retired. He hopes he has done a good enough job to be left alone. As Rowland prepares to leave, Baranov tells him about Putin's breakfast and swimming habits and his tendency to work late in the Kremlin after arriving mid-afternoon after Moscow is brought to a standstill for his motorcade. There's no admiration in his voice, just an awareness that a man they had chosen as a puppet now has more power than anyone in the country and most of his fellow world leaders. His young daughter rushes in to find her cat and Baranov tells Rowland that she represents his only happiness and he hopes that she needs him for a long time before making her own way in the world. But, as the car drives his visitor away, Baranov is shot in the back of the head and lies bleeding in the snow.

No such fate befell Vladislav Surkov, the model for Baranov, who served as First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia from 1999-2011 and ended his Kremlin career overseeing policy towards Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Ukraine before he was dismissed in 2020. Indeed, there is as much fiction as fact in the screenplay that Assayas has written with Emmanuel Carrère. It's not always easy to tell where the lines have been drawn, but the sections involving Rowland, Ksenia, and Sidorov are all made-up and they are by far the least interesting parts of a long film that doesn't always make it easy for non-specialists to follow.

A few more dates and a little less Wikilike exposition might have helped, but Assayas doesn't seem disposed towards informing or entertaining the audience, as he plods through what often feels like a stodgy teleplay. Paul Dano and Jude Law give fascinating performances, although Dano's post English accent and mannered delivery style make it difficult to appreciate the alarming power that his character is wielding and how poised he often is on a tightrope that envious rivals are keen to shake. Law also opts against employing a Russian accent, but his measured speech, stillness, and steely gaze make it clear that Putin is a tirelessly focussed and pitilessly dangerous customer.

Interest levels may dip for many when Law's off screen, even though Dano succeeds in making Baranov a ruthless operator. But the screenplay never makes it sufficiently clear the extent to which he is the architect of the strategy or merely its implementer. Does Putin have ideas of his own or does he just have a wish list that Baranov is supposed to find ways of achieving, seemingly without an inner circle of confidantes or cohorts? However, the fact he is an anti-héros à clef makes it difficult to summon up much intellectual curiosity about his motives and methods.

Will Keen is the pick of the supporting cast, as the naive Berezovsky, but the sub-plot involving Baranov and Ksenia never catches fire and becomes a problematic distraction as his tenure becomes increasingly precarious. The ending also feels tacked on from a cornball political melodrama. But the main issue is the lack of selectivity when it comes to lesser players like Zaldostanov, Prigozhin, and Limonov.

Yorick Le Saux's photography is typically accomplished, although the camera is largely a static bystander in order to ensure that the viewer stays attentive during dialogue exchanges that often sum up complex situations without offering much insight into the minds of the speakers. Comparisons have been made with Ali Abbasi's The Apprentice (2024), but Assayas never quite achieves the same rapport between his dual protagonists. For some genuine insights, watch Vitaliy Manskiy's documentary, Putin's Witnesses (2018) instead.

KINAESTHESIA.

Harvard film scholar Vlada Petrić's 1978 essay, `Films and Dreams' provides the starting point for Kinaesthesia, a documentary essay about the way in which film-makers in cinema's first silent three decades sought to use moving images to recreate the sensations aroused by dreaming. With South African-born director Gerald Fox himself reading extracts from his former tutor's writings and actor Goran Kostic giving him an on-screen presence, this is as much a personal tribute as a survey of avant-garde aesthetics and techniques prior to the coming of sound. It's a bit fusty in places and fussy in others. But, by drawing attention to so many unjustly forgotten films, Fox has created a dissertation that has to be seen by any serious student of screen history.

Opening with shots of Vlada Petrić (Goran Kostic) threading a projector before sitting to watch monochrome footage of himself walking in slow-motion through some trees, the film lauds the French poet, Robert Desnos for championing in his 1923 essay, `Dream and Cinema', the power of the moving image to make people dream and help free them from the shackles of their mundane existence. Impersonating Petrić's Slavic accent, Fox explains how the earliest film makers sought to use their flickering images to create `kinaesthesia' in a bid replicate the sensation of movement that can only be achieved while in the dream state.

He's not wildly impressed by Georges Méliès's A Trip to the Moon (1902), as he believes it is a theatrical presentation enlivened by a few trick shots. The same goes for Edwin S. Porter's Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906), which uses photographic backdrops, superimposition, and split screens to convey the experience of having a nightmare. D.W. Grittith employed light and shade in Edgar Allan Poe (1909) to emulate the setting mood of The Raven, which anticipated his reliance on Poe's `The Tell-Tale Heart' and `Annabel Lee' in generating unease in The Avenging Conscience (1914), which gave superimpositions a pioneering psychological purpose. In France, Abel Gance did much the same thing in seeking to convey the emotions of his characters in La Folie du Docteur Tube (1915), while Swede Victor Sjöström used double exposures to reinforce the expressionist nature of the action in The Phantom Carriage (1921). Compatriot Mauritz Stiller achieved kinaesthesia by utilising long tracking shots to convey the hero's dreams of being pulled through the snow in Gunnar Hedes saga (aka The Blizzard, 1923). Superimposition is also used to suggest past memories.

In La Fille de l'eau (1924), Jean Renoir used overexposed light, slow motion, and reversed footage to show the heroine's troubled thoughts. Petrić points out that the photorealistic nature of the motion picture persuades viewers to accept the absurd and the irrational on screen as they would do in their dreams. René Clair employed accelarated motion and freeze frames to depict the effects of a mad scientist unleashing a ray gun on the French capital in Paris qui dort (1923), Clair was a great believer in the influence of dreams in film and he placed an oneiric emphasis on Entr`acte (1924), which showed mourners haring after a hearse being pulled by a camel (an image Fox has Petrić repeat in a wood) before it winds up on a roller coaster. Such absurdist slapstick chimed in with Surrealism around the time that Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy were experimenting with post-Cubist Dadaism on screen with Ballet mécanique (1924).

In Napoléon (1927), Abel Gance used abstract imagery during the dream sequence, while Dimitri Kirsanoff combines camera movement and superimposition to convey the mindset of the woman contemplating drowning her baby in hjs Impressionist masterpiece, Ménilmontant (1926). He would also use dissolves for dislocatory effect in the short, Brumes d'automne (1929), while Germaine Dulac employed multiple exposures for the perspective of the priest chasing his vanishing lady in The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928). Foolishly, Fox has his Petrić stand-in re-enact this scene with Ana Cilas as his quarry and succeeds in undercutting the ingenuity and impact of the first clip shown here by a woman director (who upset co-scenarist Antonin Artaud by stressing the dream nature of the action).

Prolonged dissolves and jump cuts enabled Renoir to recreate what Hans Christian Andersen's pitiable heroine sees at the moment of her death in La Petite marchande d'allumettes (1928). The editing of the horse chase was designed to approximate the anxiety of the nightmare and Chinese director Wang Shifi similarly used superimposition in another equine pursuit in Romance of the Western Chamber (1927), which originally ran for 10 reels and now only survives in part. The following year, Jean Epstein also used Impressionist imagery in adapting Poe's La Chute de la maison Usher (1928), with Luis Buñuel as his assistant, as he had been on Mauprat (1926). Epstein believed that the camera was a machine for dreaming that could intelligently turn realist footage into evocative and sometime surrealistic imagery.

A year later, Americans James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber plumped for camera distortions and Expressionist décor in The Fall of the House of Usher (1929). Distortion and deception were also employed by Slavko Vorkapić and Robert Florey on The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra (1928), which sees an aspiring star dehumanised by the studio system. Vorkapić felt kinaesthesia was the equivalent of the body experiencing a melody and he inserted a surreal dream sequence in Millions Like Us, the 1935 American Labor film that he co-directed with Tina Taylor (who goes uncredited here).

In German cinema, Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) sparked a new way of presenting dream imagery on screen. Wiene used painted sets to create atmosphere, but few copied the technique, preferring like F.W. Murnau in Nosferatu (1922) to create photographic effects. A decade later, Carl Theodor Dreyer did much the same in Vampyr (1932), which employed a subjective camera to show the perspective of a dead man in a windowed coffin. In Waxworks (1924), Paul Leni combines expressionism and realism in the Jack the Ripper sequence, while Murnau employs an unchained camera in conveying the doorman's drunken dream in The Last Laugh (1924). Freder's vision of the subterranean industrial complex as the Canaanite deity, Moloch, is just one of the dream elements of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926), with another being the fake Maria's dance for the drooling men that drives Freder to distraction.

René Clair took the surrealist route to depicting a nightmare in Le Voyage imaginaire (1925), which infamously included a scene of a dog being guillotined. Charlie Chaplin also added a `dreamland' sequence to The Kid (1921), in which he uses angels and feathers to show the Little Fellow coping badly with the loss of his small friend. He would depict the delirium of a hungry prospector by having the Tramp turn into a chicken in The Gold Rush (1925). Buster Keaton framed the entire scenario as a dream after a projectionist falls asleep on the job in Sherlock, Jr. (1924). Somehow, we leap from this to the lens distortions Alfred Hitchcock used to convey a boxer's disorientation on being knocked out in The Ring (1927) and to the gambits employed by Teinosuke Kinugasa in A Page of Madness (1926), which was long-thought lost until the director found a copy in a sake barrel in a Kyoto shed in 1971. Apart from a passing mention of swish pans, however, Petrić tells us nothing of the techniques Kinugasa used or the film's impact on others.

Instead, he leaps to the Soviet Union to discuss the montagists of the revolutionary era. We see the pounding of a sewing machine needle bringing back memories of machine guns for former soldier Filimonov in Fridrikh Ermler's A Fragment of Empire (1929), but there's no mention of the technique of associational montage. Similarly, we hear nothing about Constructivism, as we see a montage of hand-held and machine tools being used to suggest the toil of the workers and the dynamism they bring to society. We see the dream sequence from Sergei Eisenstein's The General Line (1929), in which he exploited polyphonic montage to `stimulate psycho-physiological vibrations' in the viewer. Rather bizarrely, Fox has his Petrić stand-in rock in his seat in an empty cinema to mimic the movements that Eisenstein had noticed among the audience mesmerised by the rhythms of the montage while watching the `dance of the tractors' sequence. However, the most pervasive use of dream structure in Soviet cinema is, apparently, to be found in Oleksandr Dovzhenko's Zvenigora (1928), but Petrić doesn't really tell us what it is, how it was made, or how it works on the mind, as we see the sword sequence from a grandfather's retelling of an ancient Ukrainian legend.

Made in Germany by the Hungarian-born Ernő Metzner, Accident (1928) uses canted angles and distorting mirrors to convey a man's hallucinations. Petrić notes that the film being banned for being demoralisingly brutal, but doesn't say why. Instead, he moves on to the even more controversial, Un chien andalou (1929), which was co-directed by Spaniards Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí to examine the illogical spacio-temporal structure of dreams. The 17-minute short was inspired by their actual dreams about the razor-slicing of an eyeball and a handful of ants (and Fox gamely reproduces each shot, even though the comparison is not flattering). Buñuel believed that dreams were a prototype for cinema and agreed with his compatriot that no image in their film should have a rational explanation. This attitude had prompted his fall-out with Epstein, who included a dream sequence of a wedding party being drown in Gold of the Seas (1933).

Petrić informs us that slow motion was often used to disorienate audiences and he shows the famous example from Jean Vigo's Zéro de conduite (1933), which was followed by L'Atalante (1934), with its underwater sequence. Maya Deren similiarly used slo-mo to generate unease in Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) and a hypnagogic sensation in Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946). Fox inserts his own version of the stair sequence from the former, as Petrić casually drops in that Deren borrowed from Freudian theories of dreams and Jungian assertions on archetypes in an effort to evoke transcendence by purely cinematic means. But, of course she did. He then concludes with a list of directors who inherited the cine-oneiric tradition in their efforts to present a truly sensorial experience: Orson Welles, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Alain Resnais. and Andrei Tarkovsky.

Closing captions offer a little more information about Vlada Petrić, who died in 2019 and has been paid handsome tribute in this heartfelt film. Gerald Fox and co-editor Dasha Cowley have chosen their clips with care and they look resplendently restored in a collage that you really can't take your eyes off, as it celebrates the technical ingenuity and intellectual audacity of the silent masters who created them. Anyone seeking an introduction to an artistic era that is now beyond living memory could do worse than to take notes and seek out the mix of masterpieces and cult curios that has been assembled to a bold score by Alan Snelling. Perhaps they could also track down David Gill's Kenneth Branagh-narrated Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood (1995), which places the films discussed in a wider context.

There are some caveats, however. Despite adopting a basically chronological structure, Fox has produced a rather scattershot survey that lacks thematic unity and the kind of philosophical depth that someone like Slovenian critic Slavoj Žižek might have imparted. There's also an elitist feel to the focus on art films when there are plentiful examples of dream sequences in commercial cinema, as the codes of representation in the silent era were quickly copied and assimilated.

Fox (and/or Petrić) also get a few dates wrong. Robert Wiene was still shooting The Cabinet of Dr Caligari in January 1920, so it can't be dated 1919 (no matter what the BFI and other databases might say). Similarly, The General Line was started in 1927 and released in September 1929 not 1928. There's also a lack of consistency in the use of titles in their original language or in translation, with Fox sometimes using the former when the latter is in common currency and mistitling others, such as Stiller's The Blizzard.

Not everyone will welcome the recurring appearances of Goran Kostic, especially when such intrusions are occasionally indistinguishable from the clip under review. But the real problem is the commentary, with Fox's faux accent alternatively making him sound like a fifth-rate Bela Lugosi impersonator or Alexander Meerkat from the Compare the Market ads. He so frequently mangles names and titles that it feels like folly not to have shelled out a few extra quid on some on-screen labels. Nonetheless, this is a labour of love for which all cinéastes should be grateful.

TIME HOPPERS: THE SILK ROAD.

Having previously worked exclusively for the small screen, as the co-founder of MuslimKids TV, Flordeliza Dayrit wanted her feature debut to be something that would inspire young Muslims to take pride in their heritage. Converting to the faith after leaving the Philippines for Canada when she was 15, Dayrit has done a splendid job in Time Hoppers: The Silk Road of drawing attention to the contribution made to science (and, by dint, modern-day living) by Islamic scientists. Unfortunately, the film itself is rather underwhelming, as the CGI animation lacks charm, while the storytelling is often cumbersome and trite.

Still coming to terms with the loss of her mother in Seattle in 2050, Layla (Jayce McKenzie) is forced to flee with her computer whizz father, Habib (Omar Regan), when their house is invaded by ninja-types from the sinister Zoola, Inc. Seeking refuge in Vancouver with Layla's aunt, Hafsa (Aliyah Harris), she joins cousin Khalid (Tareek Talati) at the Aqli Academy, where she is befriended by his pals, the hijab-wearing Aysha (Angel Haven Rey) and Abdullah (Emily Gin). They discover that Habib and Hafsa have been working on a time-travelling programme and they are asked if they would like to participate in an experiment, because adults are unable to jaunt.

Eagerly, the kids take hold of their Go Watches and find themselves transported to Baghdad in 825 CE during the Abbasid Caliphate. Here they come across Fasid (Morris Seng) trying to convince people that he is a genius, only for his theories to be exposed as bunk by Al-Khwarizmi (Alhusain Hadidi). The bookish Khalid recognises this timid man as the father of algebra and he insists on freeing him from prison before they return to their own time. However, in fleeing from Fasid, Abdullah drops his Go Watch and Layla decides it's too risky to go back and retrieve it.

Fasid takes possession of the device and he realises that he can travel through time and confound progress by eliminating all the Islamic thinkers whose ideas are transforming the world. He projects himself to 1327 and arrives in Timbuktu during the Mali Empire. Deducing where the villain has gone, the kids follow and, after a bumpy cart chase, Khalid recognises that they are in one of the mosques buily by Mansa Musa (Ahmad Harris) that will form part of a great university. They venture into the palace, where they see Fasid trying to con the ruler who was famed for his prodigious wealth. However, he was also a cultured man and Fasid spots the kids and passes them off as his friends. Musa offers them places at his new madrassa and Khalid is tempted to stay and benefit from the marvellous library. But Layla and Aysha remind him that their task is to recover the Go Watch and head home. Despite Fasid being distracted by Musa's gold store, the friends fail to snatch the device and return to the control room.

Habib and Hafsa are concerned about the danger the children are facing with each trip. But Khalid points out that Fasid poses an active threat to the historical timeline and could jeopardise the future of science and mathematics unless he's stopped. Twigging he has landed in Cairo in 1000 during the Fatmid Caliphate, the pals follow and see Fasid flattering Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who is unhappy with the way his nose has been depicted in a new portrait. He is worried that the Nile will flood the city and orders stuttering mathematician and astronomer Ibn Al-Haytham (Ali Ardekani) to show his plans. When he admits to being stumped, Fasid steals the plans and boasts that he could save the day. Realising that Al-Haytham is the father of optics, Khalid insists that they rescue him from prison. However, they struggle to find him and it's only when Aysha makes a small hole in the wall to eavesdrop that they find him. He is reluctant to leave, however, as he has noticed that the light emanating from the hole is casting an inverted image of the outside scene on to the opposite wall of his cell. He shows his drawings to the caliph and assures him that his camera obscura could help artists achieve more life-life portraits.

Pleased with their work, but still unable to get their hands on the Go Watch, the kids realise that Abdullah is missing and they follow Fasid to Aleppo in the Hamdanid Amirate of Syria in 950 CE. Fasid discovers that a handsome prize is on offer in an astrolabe competition and he latches on to master maker al-`Ijliyy (Anwar Arafat). Abdullah has discovered that his young daughter, Maryam (Jenna Abu Tineh), is a talented astronomer in her own right and he leads Layla, Aysha, and Khalid to her home. On the day of the contest, Fasid steals al-`Ijliyy's design and he is about to win the prize. But Aysha races back to the workshop to fetch Maryam's astrolabe and her father is proud to let her win the prize. Layla wishes her own father would show the same faith in her, while Abdullah demands to know what an astrolabe is. There's no need to linger, however, as the kids have recovered the Go Watch using a giant magnet of Khalid's design and they not only give Fasid the slip, but also the Zoola agents who have followed them. All ends well, with Habib and Hafsa being proud of the quartet and excited by the possibilities that their apparatus could unlock.

While it packs in plenty about teamwork, trust, courage, and friendship, the film has surprisingly little to say about the Islamic Golden Age or the pioneers it engendered. The background designs for Baghdad, Timbuktu, Cairo, and Aleppo are disappointingly drab and miss the opportunity to dazzle younger viewers with the ingenuity and beauty of the architecture of each place. Admittedly, the budget was tight, but this feels like a major abnegation, as does the reluctance to discuss the achievements of the various scholars and inventors in any depth. For a film with the laudable aim of sparking curiosity, the makers seem averse to taking complex ideas and making them accessible and exciting. The significance of the Silk Road goes unmentioned, while there's nothing about the role of Islam in the societies shown.

This is a huge shame, as this should have been a unique selling point for a project that is linked to a series of e-books and a video game. Dayrit and co-scenarist Sakina Fakhri have come up with a decent premise, but the individual episodes lack incident and tension, while the Zoola sub-plot has a MacGuffinish feel to it, even though there's a climactic hint that Fasid is somehow behind it all. The depiction of Al-Khwarizmi, Mansa Musa, Al-Haytham, and Al-`Ijliyyah bint al-`Ijliyy does little to inspire viewers to scurry off in search of further information, especially as two are presented as timid bumblers. It scarcely helps that the voiceover work is rather undistinguished, with Omar Regan's choices for Habib being peculiar to say the least. The character design is similarly lacklustre, with the four kids lacking personality and the supposedly villainous Fasid being bereft of malice and menace. It's a nice idea and there's an amusing running gag during the Aleppo sequence that has a guard telling his mate some jokes about Muslims during Ramadan. But an engaging and entertaining film needs more than technical competence and good intentions.