Parky At the Pictures (24/4/2026)

(Reviews of Rose of Nevada; Exit 8; Gioia mia; The North; and London's Last Wilderness)

ROSE OF NEVADA.

Even for its most ardent admirers, Enys Men (2022) felt anticlimactic after the brilliance of Mark Jenkin's debut feature, Bait (2019). The Cornish auteur continues to put his distinctive artisanal avant-garde stamp on genre cinema with Rose of Nevada, on which he serves as his own writer, 16mm cinematographer, editor, composer, and post-production sound designer. Working with established stars, as well as familiar faces from his local ensemble, Jenkin blends sci-fi and social realism to compelling effect, in a manner that is entirely unique to himself, a claim that few film-makers can make in this age of CEO- and CGI-driven identicalism.

Following a montage of close-ups of rust, rope, and encrustation that epitomise the sense of decay that has overtaken a declining Cornish fishing village, Mike (Edward Rowe) spots a trawler in the harbour. This wouldn't be unusual, apart from the fact that `Rose of Nevada' went missing at sea in 1993, with its shorthanded crew of two being presumed lost.

With a barometer reading `unsettled', Nick Dyer (George MacKay) collects a box from the food bank and brings Mrs Richards (Mary Woodvine) in from the rain and wife Emily (Mae Voogd) dries her off while opening a chocolate biscuit for her young daughter. As Nick puts the washing-up bowl on the floor to catch a drip from the cracked ceiling, Mrs Richards whispers that her boy is coming home.

Meanwhile, husband Billy (Adrian Rawlins) lays a bunch of flowers on the cliff edge from which their son, Luke, had thrown himself out of guilt at missing Rose of Nevada's ill-fated voyage. Mike goes to see Tina (Rosalind Eleazar), who had lost her husband at sea, and they agree to find a crew to get the boat working again. She tells daughter, Linsey (Yana Penrose), who is a new mother herself, that he would have been proud of her. Sister Jess (also Penrose) is sitting in the pub when Mike gives her the red baseball cap that her father had worn on the boat.

Billy comes to collect his wife and tells Nick about how different the village had been in its heyday. However, he insists there's no point dwelling on the past, as the only way is forward, although Nick isn't so sure, having climbed up to the roof and made the hole worse with his clumsy fumbling. So, having fallen through into the kitchen when trying to patch the roof, Nick signs up to crew the boat (whose name plate has been removed and chucked into the harbour) with skipper Murgey (Frances Magee) and Liam (Callum Turner), a drifter who had wandered into the village and flirted with Jess in the pub. As he leaves, Nick runs into Mrs Richards, who mistakes him for Luke and reminds him about the burden he bears for leaving the crew shorthanded back in 1993 before warning him about going out in a cursed vessel.

Nick is almost in a trance as he comes aboard and Mike waves them off. With its white cabin atop a red hull, the boat looks tiny, as it bobs out of the harbour, with Mrs Richards watching from her bedroom window. As he unpacks his bag, Nick finds the words, `Get Off the Boat Now' carved into the wood of his bunk. He watches Murgey wind the nets out and helps Liam gut the fish when they make a bumper catch. Somewhere along the line, however, the name plate returns and Murgey starts to look a little younger. Nick hears a whisper about the boat that never came back, but is too busy to take notice and slumps back on his bunk after they fill the hold with boxes of iced fish, like in the good old days.

Waking from a nap, Nick notices the carved warning has disappeared. But he seems oblivious to the fact that the harbour is a hive of activity when NC73 lands, with other boats loading their crates into trucks. Even the lighthouse has regained its red-and-white hoops, while sign for The Ship looks glossy, instead of faded. The post office is back where the food bank had been and the house in which he lived with Emily is empty and up for sale. Billy and Mike bundle him into the Richards house and look askance when he claims to be Nick not Luke. But he sees the date on the local paper is 1993 (three years before he was born) and he is baffled how he has managed to slip through time. His mother tries to calm Luke down, while Mike wonders if Denver hadn't worked them too hard on the voyage.

Liam seems less bothered about being called `Alan' by Tina, who orders him away from the heaving pub to come home with their daughter, Jess. He decides not to spend the night, but gives Tina his pay when he bumps into her while buying provisions for the next trip and Nick looks on bemused as they kiss. Unsure what to do, he agrees to go out on the boat again, in the hope it will deposit him back in 2023. Once again, they land a bumper catch and Nick works hard filling the hold with 27 boxes. Nick also cooks supper and the skipper is appeciative. When Nick asks whether he's called Murgey or Denver, he proves evasive, as he does with their names. But he reminds Nick to keep his wits about him, as every man at sea has five people relying on his on the land and he puts his back into landing the last haul before they head `home to mother'.

Confused as to why Liam seems content to accept their fate, Nick has a bad dream before being woken by the skipper because a storm is brewing. It proves rough and they have to haul Murgey back on desk after he's washed overboard. But they survive by cutting the line to a tangled net and head home without a catch. Lying on his bunk, Nick carves `Get Off the Boat Now' into the wood and puts the cash he's been paid into an envelope in which his daughter had left him a note saying she loves him. He posts this and takes refuge in the empty house next door, despite the Richards knocking to ask for his housekeeping. He has another dream, in which the skipper has changed to the one Nick had seen in a photo in Luke's old room. He turns to see Liam on the deck and wakes wondering whether he had just been on Rose of Nevada the night she lost her crew.

When Liam had tried to tell Tina about what is going on, she shuts him down, as she's happy with the way things are. But he's pleased to see her when they dock and he punchs Nick when he reminds him what had happened to the original crew. Mike takes a picture of Nick and Liam on the deck and the former realises that they are being held here because they have brought the other fishermen luck, as they only catch fish when they do. He wants to get back to Emily, but knows if he leaves, he will leave NC73 shorthanded and history will repeat itself and he will have to live with the knowledge. Finding the envelope on the doorstep, Nick goes to the cliffs and contemplates jumping before he sees the flowers that Billy had left. Crying because he feels he no longer knows who or where he is, Nick returns to breakfast with the Richards. Leaving them some cash, he tells them that they'll be okay as long as the sun comes up in the morning and repeats Billy's words about the futility of looking backwards.

Arriving at the harbour, Nick agrees to come back aboard, as Mike and Murgey tease Liam about the fact that he's failed to link Tina being sick with her being pregnant. As the boat is about to leave, he sees Emily standing beside him with their daughter. He goes to reach out a hand, but she whispers, `There's no time,' as Mike throws his bag on the deck and he jumps down as they cast off. Rose of Nevade chugs away, as Nick look up from the deck, feeling trapped by his sacrifice.

Although the storyline of this timeslip saga is no more sophisticated than an average episode of The Twilight Zone, plentiful compensation is available elsewhere. As we have come to expect from Mark Jenkin, the visuals are fascinating, with light and colour flares popping occasionally among the studious close-ups of objects and faces, the evocative views of the Cornish landscape, and the telltale physical reminders that we are watching a piece of film. The contrasts between the time frames are deftly achieved by production designer Felicity Hickson and costumier Jo Thompson, and help Jenkin identify the `then and now' points that give the film its socio-political potency.

Unlike many, Jenkin resists sandbagging the audience with his thematic references, even allowing a clip of Christopher Walken from David Cronenberg's The Dead Zone (1983) to explore the pivotal notions of time, memory, and our inability to change the past. But, each meticulously composed shot has something to say, if you can hear it above the immersively cacophonous sound of the clanking chains, winding ropes, and spluttering chugs of the fishing boat. Even ticking clocks thud ominously to reinforce the irresistible impingement of time and the unsettling effects it can have on things like Liam's relationship with Jess and the sense of community that can see everyone chipping in to repair a torn net in 1993 and barely giving each other the time of day in 2023.

Wisely, Jenkin makes no attempt to explain how the lost boat has returned or why the rootless Liam opts to settle down as Alan, while Nick is unable to get back to Emily. Such ambiguity also enables the viewer to regard Nick's plight as either a noble gesture or a conspiratorial plot on behalf of the villagers past to keep him as a sort of lucky charm, who is sacrificed (like Edward Woodward's cop in The Wicker Man, 1973) for the greater good. However, Jenkin is also reminding us that, while we indulge our fetishistic approach to nostalgia, we are also playing fast and loose with the future, with our refusal to heed warnings about climate change and the consequences of non-stop consumption and gratification.

Often required to look puzzled in unrelenting close-up, George MacKay does more heavy lifting plotwise than Callum Turner, whose transformation from footloose chancer to family man is rather shortchanged. But each sheds his stellar aura in order to catch the idiosyncratic tone that Jenkin demands of his performers. As for the director, he continues to carve his cinematic circumbendibus with an analogue singularity that will leave many curious to see where his route will bend next.

EXIT 8.

The winner of the Best Poster Design at the Cannes Film Festival (where it received an eight-minute ovation), Genki Kawamura's Exit 8 is based on a video game produced by Kotake Create. However, Kawamura and co-writer Hirase Kentaro have added a few tweaks of their own to a walking simulator scenario that says much about the mindset of the protagonist and a milieu that reflects the preoccupations and provocations of modern life back at the audience.

At 9:37, while riding on a packed Tokyo subway train on which a salaryman is berating a young mother for failing to stop her baby from crying, Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya) ignores a call from his ex-girlfriend. He stares at his reflection in the window and feels guilty about not intervening and he continues to hear the baby bawling when he reaches his stop and climbs the stairs from the platform.

Navigating his way through men in identical suits heading to work, Lost Man picks up when his ex calls again and informs him that she's at the hospital because she's pregnant. She asks how he feels about the situation and he starts wheezing so badly that he requires his inhaler. Someone bumps into him from behind and he drops his phone, as his ex accuses him of being indecisive. The signal fades and he loses the line, having promised to take time off from his temp job to meet her. Breathing heavily, he follows the brightly lit, white-tiled corridor and passes some lockers and a photo-me booth. After several turns, he notes a yellow poster with a `0' on it and sees a white-shirted, balding men with a suitcase coming towards him.

As The Walking Man (Yamato Kochi) comes into view for a second time, a cut shows the direction sign to Exit 8 and the first-person perspective is dropped to focus on Lost Man, as he begins to realise that he can't make his way out of the station. Wearing a grey coat and hoodie, with a backpack over his shoulders, he becomes spooked when he turns to see Walking Man standing behind him with a rictus grin. Turning back on himself, Lost Man tries pushing a fire hydrant button to no avail and finds a couple of adjoining doors locked. Pausing for breath, he sees a poster for M.C. Escher's `Mobius Strip II' (depicting ants crawling over a number 8) and feels blood dripping from the ceiling overhead.

Turning again, Lost Man runs and discovers Walking Man standing in a corridor, looking at his phone. He also sees that the `0' has been replaced by a `1' on the yellow poster and he stops to read a sign informing him to keep his eye out for anomalies and to turn back the moment he sees one. By following these rules, he will reach Exit 8.

Repeating the rubric, Lost Man finds himself back at `0' after having asked Walking Man for directions. Taking pictures of the posters, the air vents, and anything else he sees, Lost Man finds himself back at `1' on the yellow poster. When he starts the next circuit, however, the pictures have been wiped from his phone and he falls in trying to flee Walking Man, who keeps creeping up behind him. On reaching the yellow poster, he is puzzled to see it now reads `2' and approaches the lockers with caution when he hears a baby crying. The noise stops when he opens one of the lockers, but it suddenly starts again with multiple howlings and he runs away to discover Walking Man staring at his phone near the poster that now reads `3'.

Wandering past the posters relating to a dentist, Escher, a judicial scrivener, cosmetic surgery, a high-paying job, and subway manners, Lost Man notices that the eyes have changed on a security camera sign and only realises that this is an anomaly when he pauses to use his inhaler. Doubling back, he finds a `4' on the yellow poster and, despite no really understanding how he is succeeding, he reassures himself that he's making progress.

As he reaches `5', however, his phone rings and he sees the avatar of his girlfriend and her black cat. She rings again and he tries to explain why he hasn't reached her at the hospital. Tearful when she reveals that she hasn't made up her mind about what to do, he tells her about chickening out of defending the mother on the train. Unexpectedly, we see two shots of her (Nana Komatsu) listening to him. She even appears behind him in a blurry distance on the corridor. But the encounter distracts him and Lost Man is dismayed to see he has slipped back to `0'.

Having had a tantrum on a now yellowish corridor, Lost Man hurls his haversack to the floor and lies still in frustration. He regains his composure, however, and (leaving his bag and its spilled contents) retraces his steps, whispering that things are okay. The poster has returned to `1' and he feels relieved. Around the next corner, though, he sees a small boy (Naru Asanuma) standing alone. He has a red mark on his left cheek and Lost Man asks if he needs help. The Boy runs away and stops to point at Walking Man, as he goes past.

At that moment, the focus shifts on to him, as he passes `5' on the poster and tells the Boy to keep an eye out for anomalies. They see a High School Girl (Kotone Hanase) coming towards them and Walking Man is taken aback when she speaks to him. She admits to also being lost and wonders whether they are dead and in Purgatory or Hell. When she asks Walking Man if he has anything to feel guilty about, he flinches in denial. But he agrees to walk with the girl and takes the boy by the hand. Before they've gone far, she stops and asks Walking Man why he wants to escape when it would be much nicer if they stayed together in the loop. Freaked when her voice changes, as she becomes increasingly insistent, Walking Man runs away and exhales deeply on reaching `6' on the yellow poster.

On the next circuit, Walking Man calls High School Girl a monster and ignores the fact the Boy is staring at the sign on one of the doors opposite the ad posters. Grabbing his hand, Walking Man rushes the child along the corridor, only to discover he has returned to `0'. Hurling his briefcase to the floor, he rips the instructions sign off the wall and slips on it, as he rages against his predicament. Realising he has scared the Boy, Walking Man tries to reassure him that they will be fine if they stick together. But the kid in his grey pullover and short pants refuses to follow Walking Man up a staircase near the Exit 8 sign. The red mark returns to his cheek, but he is justified when he sees he is at `1' on his own yellow poster. Turning the corner, he sees Walking Man coming towards him, but he ignores the Boy and resists when he tries to pull him back from his course. Deciding sticking with him is a mistake, the lad scoots off and runs into Lost Man on the corridor.

They team up, with Lost Man (who has lost his backpack) deciding that Walking Man is no longer human. Having returned to `0' again, Lost Man thinks he sees an anomaly in the Escher poster, but the Boy runs back the other way and an exasperated Lost Man follows, only to find his companion standing before the yellow poster bearing a No.1. Pressing on, the Boy stops in front of one of the doors and Lost Man goes back for him, having overlooked the anomaly.

As they reach the poster proclaiming `2', however, the lights go out and Lost Man hears wings flapping and a baby crying. Using his phone torch, he checks on the Boy before noticing that a vent had fallen down. Shining the beam on the Exit 8 sign, he sees several large, hairless rats teetering above him and one has a mouthful of teeth howling in its side. Recoiling as the light goes off, Lost Man panics, but takes the boy's hand, as they pass Walking Man and stay together until the lights come back on.

Finding they're up to three, the pair push on. A black cat runs along the long corridor and Lost Man is surprised to see the Woman standing in a white dress. The Boy calls her `Mama' and tries to run to her, but Lost Man holds him back and the kid faints in the struggle. He is rewarded with `4' on the poster and they sit for a while for the Boy (whose red mark has returned) to rest. Lost Man asks if he has been separated from his mother and the Boy says he went missing on purpose to force her to look for him. Smiling, Lost Man admits he had done something similar, even though his mother could be scary when she was angry. United by the fact that neither has ever met his father, the duo plod on and the Boy spots that the number is upside down on the Exit 8 sign.

This takes them to `5' on the poster and they turn the next corner to reach the familiar run of posters. As Walking Man strides past, one of the doors creaks open and Lost Man peers inside. In the distance, he hears a baby cry and sees himself turning away from the mother on the train and stare at himself in the window. He closes the door and they return to the poster to reach `6'. Around the next bend, the Boy offers Lost Man a conch shell and he is about to take it when they hear the sound of rushing water. A flood engulfs them and Lost Man turns to pluck the Boy off the tiles. However, he finds himself at the beach with the Woman, who asks he has reached his decision, as they watch the boy paddle at the tideline. Unconvinced by the Woman's assurances that he is a good dad, Lost Man is touched when the Boy hands him a conch shell and he recognises the significance of the gesture, as he returns to the corridor, as he hangs down from the Exit 8 sign to reach the Boy in the torrent.

The Boy wakes in a corridor full of detritus. He picks his way through it and walks down the yellow line in the middle of the corridor floor. As the Walking Man passes him, he stops to look into the lens before venturing off. Lost Man also emerges from the debris to see `8' and a downward arrow on the poster. Commuters pass him, as he makes his way down the steps. Pausing to buy a bottle of water from a vending machine, he heads back to the platform to catch a train to the hospital. He calls to tell his ex that he's on his way, as he boards a crowded commuter train with his buds in. Nevertheless, he hears a baby crying and looks round to see the floppy-haired salaryman shouting at the mother. Tears well up in Lost Man's eyes, but we don't know whether he intervenes or disembarks, as the screen turns yellow and Maurice Ravcl's `Bolero' rises up to play through the credits to a final shot of the Exit 8 sign over the long corridor..

A potential companion in a double bill wit Mark Jenkin's Rose of Nevada, Genki Kawamura's sophomore feature contains echoes of his debut short, Duality (2018), in which a mother takes a son who has never met his father to a railway station, where he has to make a number of choices that will shape his future. This Cannes hit only lasted 14 minutes, but Kawamura has a further 80 to fill in his second feature after A Hundred Flowers (2022), which also considers the theme of parenting and the lasting impact that decisions can have.

He had examined ideas along the same lines in his bestselling first novel, If Cats Disappeared from the World (2012), in which a 30 year-old postman diagnosed with a brain tumour cuts a deal with the Devil to prolong his life, only for something to disappear from his world for each extra day he lives. Indeed, Kawamura's work as a producer has mined similar territory, whether in live-action items like Tetsuya Nakashim's Confessions (2010) and Hirokazu Kore-eda's Monster (2023) or such acclaimed animes as Mamoru Hosoda's The Boy and the Beast (2015) and Belle (2021) and Makoto Shinkai's Your Name (2016), Weathering With You (2019), and Suzume (2022).

Although Kawamura and co-scenarist Kentaro Hirase have added a few strands to pad out the action, they have wisely followed the example of Vicenzo Natali'ss Cube (1997) and Hitoshi Matsumoto's Symbol (2009) in retaining the essential `game' look and feel of the action. For this, the director is indebted to production designer Ryo Sugimoto, who makes the corridors look everyday and sinister, as well as cinematographer Keisuke Imamura who retains a consistent.y hyperreal lighting scheme that makes the tiles distract and disorientate, as the viewer's eye tries to find the anomalies before the characters. The soundscape created by Masahito Yano and Masaya Kitada similarly prevents the viewer from settling, as do the deft cuts made by editor Sakura Seya, who keeps shifting perspectives and forcing onlookers to regain their bearings within the fiendishly compact labyrinth.

J-pop star Kazunari Ninomiya does well enough, as the man lurching between determination and desperation while on the horns of a dilemma that evidently drives his plight. Yet, for all his wheezing and tearing up, Lost Man is little more than a chess piece being moved between the points on the route that become familiar with each iteration. Coaxed into playing Spot the Difference, viewers will keep expecting one of the posters to change or something to happen with the photo booth (which apparently it did in a scene that Kawamura ultimately decided to cut). As there's no logic to any of the developments, however, the director can make things up as he goes along without needing to justify them. Hence, the hiatus that sees Yamato Kochi's Walking Man take over as the protagonist and it's interesting that the Boy first appears in this segment rather than in one of Ninomiya's. He becomes pivotal to Lost Man's shifting attitudes, although the tidal wave feels more than a bit random, while the sun-dappled beach episode drips with the same sentimentality that had melodramatised A Hundred Flowers. For all its teasing engrossement, however, the film's lack of character depth and philosophical and socio-political complexity means that its spell breaks with the returning strains of Bolero, leaving little to ruminate on afterwards.

GIOIA MIA.

Born in Palermo, but raised in Rome, Margherita Spampinato worked as a production secretary and a casting director on around 30 features while directing the shorts, Tommasina (2009) and Segreti (2011). She has now made her feautre bow and Gioia mia/Sweetheart is the latest little gem unearthed by CinemaItaliaUK.

Heartbroken because babysitter Violetta (Camille Dugay) has returned to Paris to get married, tweenager Nico (Marco Fiore) is dispatched from Milan to Sicily to stay with his Great-Aunt Gela (Aurora Quattrocchi). She lives in an apartment building that is supposedly haunted, but the priest won't come to exorcise it, even though they drive Gela's dog, Frank, to distraction. Dismayed by the lack of Wi-Fi, the old-fashioned food, and a spooky Sacred Heart picture on his bedroom wall, Nico reluctantly tries on his new pyjamas for an afternoon nap after Gela ticks him off for wearing nail polish and for playing video games on his phone.

When they go for a stroll, Gela tells Nico about his grandmother, Adele, who died giving birth to Agostino, who also failed to survive. Nico's father had promised to name his son after his lost brother, but he hadn't kept his word. Bored waiting while Gela talks to the priest, Nico refuses to play football with some local children after Rosa (Martina Ziami) gives him a long, hard stare. Instead, he comes home to play with his phone and complain to his mother that she has sent him back to the Dark Ages.

Despite his frustrations, Nico is intrigued by the way Frank barks when he senses something in the room and he notices the light fitting swaying gently, as though in a draft. However, he gets scared when he hears him in the night and Gela has to get out a camp bed so he can sleep in her room. When it starts to thunder, Nico helps her bring in the sheets drying on the balcony and he bridles when she says they have to iron them. Feeling too hot to sleep, Nico asks if they can chat and Gela blames Violetta for teaching him a bad habit. He asks why she doesn't have children and wonders if it was because she was ugly. Snorting, Gela claims to have had lots of suitors, although she is reluctant to reply when Nico demands to know if she has ever kissed anyone on the lips. Tutting, she suggests that Nico lulls himself to sleep by thinking of all the kisses he will share.

Waking to find that Gela has gone out, Nico makes a mess trying to cook eggs and heat milk, As Gela tells him off, he smashes a vase that had been an heirloom and she marches him downstairs to play with Rosa when she goes to church. Blindfolding him, Rosa and three younger boys taunt Nico in the courtyard and pour water over his legs. Stomping off, he sits by Gela's door until she returns and gets cross because he had missed a call from his dad. She calls him a `wuss' for being bested by smaller kids and he despairs of her because she always insists on having the last word.

Bored enough to help with the ironing, Nico turns down an invitation from Masuccia (Clara Salvo) to join the others at the beach. Gela teaches him to play Briscola and vows to keep hold of his phone until he beats her. But she has to go out and Nico finds the phone after a prolonged search and pleads with Violetta to call him. Instead, Rosa comes to the door and pushes her way inside. She wants to know why he won't come out and tells him that the shivers he feels are caused by passing spirits. Impressed that Nico has a phone, she asks if she can play the zombie game and they sit together on the sofa.

Gela teaches Nico how to make his bed and cook some simple dishes. She is wary, however, when he wanders in to find her using Tarot cards with Mariula (Concetta Ingrassia) and Lia (Renata Sajeva). They ask Nico to pick a card and they tell Gela that The Eyeless Lady is crucial to removing the spirits from the building, as her secret needs to be revealed. Curious, but confused, Nico asks Rosa to play bricola when Gela goes out. However, she wants to see what's inside a box on the old lady's wardrobe and they find a camera and lots of monochrome photographs of Gela and Adele and Rosa comes to the conclusion that both women were in love with the photographer.

Joining the boys in the courtyard, Rosa suggests that the venture into the abandoned apartment. But they decide to sneak into Mrs Halfdead's rooms and dress up in her clothes and bounce on the bed before they hear a noise and beat a hasty retreat. Nico asks Rosa about the spirits and she teases him about being scared. He protests, but is nervous about going into the empty apartment across from Gela.

Cross with Gela for not returning his phone when he beats her at Briscola, Nico calls her a liar and tells her that he has found the photos of Adele. He wants to know why she keeps them hidden when the other old ladies have frames galore in their rooms. Gela informs him that it's none of his business and he flounces off to play with Rosa. The other boys taunt him for being too afraid to enter the abandoned apartment, but he insists he's game and Rosa cuts him some slack when he lets her believe that he's only in Sicily because Violetta had died.

The next day, Rosa shows Nico how to use her grandma's x-ray to open the latch and they explore the abandoned rooms by torchlight. He feels exhilarated, yet panics when he momentarily can't find her. But he's relieved when they slip out and he returns to find Gela looking through her photos. She explains that she and Adele took the pictures of each other and confides that, when someone dies, they take a little piece of you with them that can never be replaced. They go for a walk and Geli tells Nico how people had accused her and Adele of being lovers because they were so close. Her brother had taken her away and she never saw Adele again because she died in childbirth. As he feels bereaved because he'll never see Violetta again, Nico says he understands and is pleased that he is the only person Gela has ever told about Adele.

He keeps finding Frank asleep on his bed in the morning and no longer thinks he's a stupid dog. Rosa calls with the x-ray and they break into Mrs Halfdead's rooms. They play with her Zimmer frame and wrap themselves in the billowing curtains until they hear a hacking cough and see Mrs Halfdead make her way to the kitchen using a wooden chair for support and they realise this was the noise they had taken for spirits scraping. They play tick among the sheets drying on the roof until they hear someone calling because Frank has died. Nico runs down to console Gela, but she doesn't even notice him, as she walks past with her beloved pet wrapped in a blanket.

Nico cooks one of the dishes that Gela had taught him and lays the table for a surprise supper. But she refuses to leave her bed and the other grandmas explain that she will need a grief cookie when she stops feeling so sad. He leaves a tray beside her bed, but Gela is too distraught to notice. Returning to his room, Nico lies on the bed and smiles quietly to himself when he hears the chair scraping the floor in the apartment above.

The next day, Nico does the ironing and attempts to sweep the floor. He brings Gela a fresh handkerchief, only for his phone to ring. It's Violetta calling to say she misses him and confirm that they probably won't meet again after she marries. Trying to be brave, Nico opens the door to find Rosa with a meal cooked by her grandma. She hugs him and says it must be hard coping with the memories of Violetta while Gela is mourning Frank. He leans into her and promises to join the others when he feels better.

Feeling part of the gang for the first time, Nico joins in the game of football. But he catches Rosa's eye when Gela comes on to the balcony and calls down that Violetta is on the phone for him. He races after her, as she runs away feeling foolish for believing his lie. He bangs on her door, but Masuccia tells him off and he comes home to throw the contents of a jar over the floor in frustration. Still locked in her room, Gela asks him to tell her a joke and she comes out to help him clear up.

Ready to face the world again, Gela takes Nico to the beach. The grandmas and the kids greet them both, but Rosa turns her nose up at him. He sits with his great-aunt and watches the others play. Eventually, Masuccia turfs him out of his deckchair and makes him sit on the sand. She calls Rosa over and talks Nico through a proper apology. After making him suffer, Rosa accepts and they scamper off to play hide and seek. As they're crouching down behind a parked car, Nico gives Rosa a little peck on the mouth and she smiles as he runs off to touch base before he's caught. She runs after him and, as `The Blue Danube' starts up on the soundtrack, they run into the sea and start splashing, as Nico turns to check that Gela is okay nattering with her friends.

Although Margherita Spampinato based her screenplay partly on her memories of Sicilian holidays with her two maiden aunts and partly on the things she had overheard her young son discussing with his friends, this marvellous first feature also contains echoes of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, Carla Simón's Summer 1993 (2007), and Gianni Di Gregorio's Mid-August Lunch (2008). The blend works like a charm, as Nico comes to reconcile his secular preoccupations with Gela's faith and realise that they have more in common than he had first imagined.

Using her casting nous, Spampinato knew instinctively that Marco Fiore was right for the sulkily self-pitying tweenager plunged into a milieu that makes no sense because his cosseted background and reliance on his phone have robbed him of the sense of curiosity that his great-aunt revives with her no-nonsense conviction in her own way of doing things and her recognition that Nico is as fragile as his father had been when she had raised him. Relishing a role written with her in mind, Aurora Quattrocchi excels as the soft-hearted martinent with a secret agony of her own and she thoroughly deserved her Golden Leopard for the Best Performance at the Locarno Film Festival.

Martina Ziami, Clara Salvo, and King the dog all make vital contributions, as do production designer Marinora Ferrandes, composer Alice Zecchinelli, and cinematographer Claudio Cofrancesco, who just happens to be married to the director and the veteran of over 150 films, and whose handheld imagery lends the action an affecting intimacy and immediacy. Spampinato also wrote and edited the film, which wisely doesn't delve too deeply into the themes raised, as an adolescent boy wouldn't overthink them, even while trying to make sense of them. The odd scene comes right out of the rite-of-passage playbook, but Spampinato roots everything so convincingly in an atmosphere she knows well that it's impossible to resist the odd contrivance, let along begrudge it. Moreover, she eschews condescension and sentimentality in showing how Nico finds a way to mend his broken heart, while also gaining an invaluable insight into the mysteries of the grown-up world.

THE NORTH.

Having already followed Jamie Bouwmeester across 500km of Arctic wilderness in Human Nature, Dutch director Bart Schrijver confirms himself the current king of the hiking movie with The North, which joins two estranged friends on a 600km catch-up along Scotland's West Highland Way and Cape Wrath Trail. This niche genre took a bit of a pummelling after contested revelations in The Observer damaged the reputation of Marianne Elliott's The Salt Path (2024). But, without reinventing the form or delving too deeply into the backstories of its protagonists. this perambulatory variation on Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy (2006), dusts the hiking flick down and points it back in the right direction.

No explanation is given as to why old pals Chris (Bart Harder) and Lluis (Carles Pulido) have decided to get together for an epic Scottish hike after a decade-long silence.As they set off from Milngavie, Chris tries to catch-up by how Lluis's wedding video business is going and sharing that he and girlfriend Sara are keen to start a family. However, the Dutchman gets little back from his Latino companion, who would rather focus on the task in hand and looks frustrated when Chris takes a work call from a colleague needing him to check some figures because they're busy (and his month-long absence is clearly an inconvenience).

Chris feels frustrated when Lluis shows little interest in the spectacular scenery from Conic Hill and doesn't want to send any pictures to his parents, while the latter resents having to put the tent up while Chris fields another call. Lluis is also stand-offish when Chris chats to people they meet en route and has no objection to Stewart (Jacob Smyth) camping alongside them for a night. Forced to wear headnets against the midges, they have to walk in a circle while they eat, although the pair get to enjoy a game of Chase the Ace once they're in the tent.

Despite each feeling the pace, they put in a macho sprint to the top of the Devil's Staircase and Chris teases Lluis about his refusal to accept the fact they are getting older. But he lags behind on the next stretch and refuses to join in when he finds Chris nattering to other walkers at the rendezvous. Making the aches and pains worse, Lluis realises he has a leak in his inflatable mattress. When they reach Fort William, however, Lluis asks if they can rest for a couple of days, as his knees are creaking. As Chris is getting pressure to return to work as soon as possible, he is reluctant to fall behind schedule and suggest that he presses on while Lluis follows by bus when he's ready.

Dismissing the idea because he wants to walk every step, Lluis snaps that he's had to wait years for Chris to be free for the hike and can't understand why he can't cut him some slack. Clearly nettled by the remark, Chris sets off alone into rough terrain and has to overcome a moment of self-doubt before reminding himself that he's on the walk of a lifetime and needs to soak up the stunning views.

The pair clasp hands when they meet up at a remote bothy and Lluis suggests that they ditch the GPS on their phones and rely solely on maps for the remainder of the expedition. Chris has misgivings, as neither is an expert map reader, but he goes along with it and persuades Lluis to allow Emma (Gráinne Blumenthal) to join them when she crosses their path. Tagging along, she senses that Lluis isn't the chatty type and she takes him aback when they are surveying the scene from a lofty vantage point and she suddenly screams into the distance. She insists it's therapeutic, but the friends aren't convinved.

Arriving at the next bothy, they find Richard (Olly Bassi) already in residence and he explains that he's on a charity walk to raise funds and awareness after losing his older brother to testicular cancer. Chris is shocked when Lluis divulges that he survived a bout two years ago and knows what Richard means when he laments that he realised at the funeral that his siblings friends knew more about him than he did. Yet, despite feeling guilty for not having kept in better touch, Chris still argues with Lluis when they get caught in heavy rain and struggle to put up the tent. Refusing to accept he's impulsive, Lluis accuses Chris of always knowing best. However, they wind up getting the giggles over another hand of cards.

Sheltering in a nearby bothy, Lluis tease Chris about being wedded to his job after he is sent some urgent spreadsheets. He admits that he doesn't have a life plan and that his goals are always changing, but Lluis insists that a bad day in the great outdoors will always be better than a good day in an office. Happy to work hard because it means he can afford a nice house and a decent lifestyle, Chris mocks Lluis when he opines that he would like to become a park ranger, even though he has never been one for putting down roots.

Arriving in Ullapool, Lluis goes in search of supplies and Chris fails to see him return while he's on the phone to Sara. He is hurt that Lluis hadn't told him about his illness and criticises him for not having a game plan well into his thirties. Stomping off alone, Lluis says nothing. But the mood is tense when they venture back into the wilds. Chris takes another work call and Lluis holds his mattress down in a stream to find the leak after another poor night's sleep. Insisting they keep moving, Lluis again ignores the scenery and he reminds Chris that they are on a mission and are not tourists. Exasperated, Chris asks Lluis what's eating him and he wonders why he's suddenly interested after such a prolonged interval. Barking that he's used to doing things on his own, Lluis orders Chris to take his stuff out of the tent when he suggests taking a diversion to see some waterfalls he has found online.

Once again, feeling the strain on an ascent, Lluis has to don a head torch when darkness falls and he nearly misses Chris at the arranged meeting point. Brushing away an extended hand and an apology, he stalks past and nothing more is said about the latest spat when they set off next morning. Chris is surrounded by a flock of sheep, as they close in on their objective. But Lluis is lagging behind him and Chris walks along with Jack (McQuiston John), a 69 year-old Scot who is walking the coast with his wife following him in a support van. He can't understand why his friends and family are baffled by his expedition, as he has spent 55 years working every day and is now free to go where he wants. Jack confides that you learn more about yourself alone in Nature than you will ever do in a town and Chris feels a pang of envy when he waves Jack off, as he toddles over to his wife in the car park.

Alone on the beach, Chris is bombarded by suppressed thoughts about his life choices, his relationship with Sara, and his neglect of Lluis. Discarding his backpack, he chokes back sobs as he staggers across the sand. But he regains his composure and collects his load before heading towards the end of the trail.

Lluis is waiting for him inside the tent, miffed because he couldn't cook because Chris had the stove. Nevertheless, they clasp hands on reaching the lighthouse the next day and, while Chris savours the sea view, Lluis makes an awkward call to his father, whose eager requests for news are met with excuses about poor signals and oncoming rain. It does begin to pour and rather than wait for the bus, the pair decide to spend a last night at a nearby bothy. Chris stays back to cook, while Lluis walks on the beach. For the first time, he takes in the view and allows himself a quiet smile. Suddenly, he starts to yell and he is screaming in anguish by the time Chris finds him. He wraps him in a bear hug, as Lluis lets out his pent-up emotions and the tide laps around their boots as they hug.

After a last game of cards, they head off for the bus the next morning, leaving the audience to wonder whether they will make a better job of keeping in touch or whether they will return to their engulfing lives and the hike will just become a distant memory. It's unlikely the cast and crew will forget the experience in a hurry, however, as they did the 350-mile hike themselves in the course of making the film. Having explored the West Highland Way and Cape Wrath Trail on a solo trek in April 2024, Bart Schrijver decided that retracing his steps in July and August was the only way to make an authentic record of the scenic shifts, mood swings, abrupt changes in weather conditions, and the sheer physical toil of getting from A to B.

In addition to acting, therefore, Bart Harder and Carles Pulido doubled as packhorses, as did Schrijver himself, who helped carry tents, supplies, and filming equipment with two camera operators and a sound engineer. Even though they had two vans providing back-up, the sextet camped rough each night and put in the miles between takes in order to convey the toll taken by the terrain and the effort to traverse it.

Shooting chronologically, with Schrijver rewriting the script in his tent at night, the shoot was dictated by the environment, with the director being happy to relinquish control in exchange for spontaneity and authenticity. The gambit pays off, as cinematographer Twan Peeters does the land, sea, and mountainscapes full justice, while the actors convey the arduous nature of the assignment.

Some may be frustrated that more is not revealed about the characters and their backstories, as they pretty much remain strangers to the audience throughout. But the emphasis falls firmly on the experiential and the existential rather anything more exegetial and, as a consequence, the viewer is expected to be an active travelling companion rather than a passive spectator. Of course, it would be nice to know how Chris and Lluis became friends, why they drifted apart, and what brought them back together again. But this is a study of two men living in the moment and confronting inner truths, as they lug their psychological baggage along with their haversacks across country that is as taxing and capricious as it is spectacular. Taken on those terms, The North succeeds entirely - although it would be interesting to see the `making of' documentary.

LONDON'S LAST WILDERNESS.

Shortly after Dorothy Leiper made The Living Thames (2018), Pablo Behrens started work on his own documentary about the estuary that has long fascinated writers and film-makers (it also features in Chris Petit and Iain Sinclair's London Orbital, 2002). Running just 60 minutes, London's Last Wilderness, could easily have been another eco-lament for lost places, spaces, and species. But, even though it's a little self-indulgent at times, this is a celebration of a distinctive area of wetland that refuses to be dictated to by those who dwell on its banks.

Opening captions suggest an extra-terrestrial has returned to Earth to follow up on a previous mission. Towering drone shots of the Thames Estuary, with its tributaries jagging through the mudflats, are accompanied by intercom chatter giving co-ordinates and opining about the nature of the place and its dependent eco-system. A flock of birds rise above the water in a mass take-off that fills the air with the sound of flapping wings.

A pause to gaze at a full moon is followed by the descent of a white mist that obscures everything until a pale sun comes up. A magic hour montage of red-streaked skies and glowing orbs follows before the visitor ventures out to sea to watch vessels gliding through the waves and to pick out the shapes that the water has carved into the estuary floor. Captions flash up data that disappears before its import can be digested, while the crackling map references begin to grate because the spaceman conceit feels so distractingly bogus, especially when he relates that the most powerful forces in the universe come together in such places to exert total control.

The photography remains exceptional, however, so it's still possible to marvel at the views of locales like Stangate Peak on the Medway. Off Whitstable, we see a clutch of stilted Second World War Maunsell forts, which prompt the visitor to claim, `Several structures made it clear to me that this region had sustained a prolonged war.' Glimpses are also seen of a Martello Tower from the Napoleonic era, but they are flown over without comment, along with other more elaborate installations that have long since been abandoned to the elements.

He is even more shaken by the exposed coffins and bones visible on Deadman's Island, the last resting place of prisoners from the Thames prison hulks that had operated from the 18th century. Claiming difficulty in differentiating between the real and the imagined, the spectator deduces that the remains must have come for a war of the worlds of such magnitude that it would almost certainly have compromised the survival of the species.

Flying on to Paglesham Reach on the River Roach, the aeronaut spots lots of wrecks in the muddy water. Coming further inland, he spies pleasure craft at anchor and is warned by mission control against approaching the humans enjoying the beach and funfair at Canvey Island. The next set of views chart a region where `the sea moves silently in no ordinary meeting of land and water but in full contact with the Universe'. Apparently.

A drop in at Leigh Creek, with its moored boats and crying gulls, prompts the observations, `A land that swallows the sea' and `a portal forgotten by time' before the traveller notes that it's possible to be taken by a place before knowing anything about it. Aerial shots reveal a remarkable topography pocked with abrupt indentations, sinuous detours, and dried clumps, as birds fly undisturbed and a lone boat bobs in the channel.

Having emerged from a dense fog at The Swale, the voyager reports to base that something dreadful is going to happen unless humans react to the readings he has taken from the sea. A rough tide crashes in and concerns are raised about whether sea walls would be able to withstand high water in what are called the seas of `human failures'. A poster for Sheerness (promising `you'll have a blast') is juxtaposed with data about the SS Richard Montgomery, a US Liberty ship that sank in 1944 and is known as `The Doomsday Wreck' because it contains 1400 tonnes of unexploded munitions. Other risks are noted around Tankerton and the Isle of Grain, as we see container ships and storage tanks en route to what the alien calls, `The Citadel'.

This, of course, is London and its towers jut into the sky with an arrogance that had been absence from the tour thus far. In drab, grey light, it looks what it is. Beating a hasty retreat, the visitor declares that it's impossible to cross the sea simply by staring at the water. He takes a last voyage, in order to discover `secrets too ancient to be spoken'. Buffeted by a storm, he claims to have `got the message', as the film ends with a recommendation to see strange lands with new eyes.

`They all have a lot of thinking to do,' the traveller insists during his brief sojourn in the capital. He's not wrong and Pablo Behrens borrows quotations from Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, Rabindranath Tagore, and Marcel Proust in order to underscore his own points. The textual blend doesn't always come off, unfortunately, with some of the pronouncements sounding like Iain Sinclair had hooked up with Yoko Ono at her most fanciful rather than Rachel Lichtenstein. The whole spaceman came travelling conceit feels specious and the imagery would be no less impressive without it. Behrens deserves credit for the photography and the sound design he created with Brendan Feeney, while Bartosz Szpak's score adeptly combines ethereality and urgency to complement the rhythms of Behrens and Alex Ochman's editing. Yet, while it's an ambitious bid to present problems and spark debate, this never packs a punch to match the likes of Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky's Watermark (2013) or Jennifer Peedom's River (2021).