ALSO SHOWING...

MISLEADINGLY sold as a horror film, this involving, if not exactly pacy, debut from William McGregor plays like The Hunger Games. That is to say, it’s about being starvedarved to death by the ruling elite.

In a remote nook of 19th-century Snowdonia, Elen (Maxine Peake, above) is trying to keep her small farm and raise her two girls including teenager Gwen (Eleanor Worthington-Cox). But the family’s existence becomes increasingly nightmarish as Elen’s epilepsy worsens, their animals are mysteriously slaughtered and a key character takes to secret blood-letting. McGregor has an arty streak but the best scenes couldn’t be simpler. In one, Elen, allowing herself to be soft for a second, dries her daughter’s hair and Gwen’s response (a blissed-out smile) is devastating. In another, Elen’s face crumples as she says: “Steal a lamb and they take your hand, steal a mountain, and they make you a lord.” You could drown in her pain. IN WHICH gorgeous New Wave pixie Agnès Varda talks us through her quixotic career in a way that is often frustrating (the links are somewhat tenuous) but never dull. Especially gripping is her mea culpa to the star of Vagabond, Sandrine Bonnaire, whose desire to please

(at the time) cut no ice with the directordirector. The actress earned blisteblisters ploughing. All these yeayears later, Varda, sitting wwith Bonnaire in a field, mmurmurs, “I should have lilicked your blisters in ththanks!” In between mmusing on feminism anand her love for husband JacqJacques Demy, Varda also shareshares her eco-friendly take on existexistence. She died in March this year.y It’s hard to imagine such a vibrant individual resting in peace. Recycling in peace? That’s more her style. ONE of those awkward adaptations of an acclaimed play from a veteran theatre director keen to branch out. Three different encounters involving strangers touched by war occur in 1944, 1982 and 1996. In each case director Dominic Dromgoole fails to do anything special with the camera. Worse still, in the first and last segments he accidentally exposes the flaws in Robert Holman’s writing.

Despite sterling work from Luke Thompson, left, and Deborah Findlay, crucial characters now seem like fantasy figures: sexy Quaker Oliver; healing Holocaust survivor Helene. Their epiphanies feel phoney and rushed. Thank goodness Matthew Tennyson as a selfconscious, flighty, young writer has more to work with, as does Joanne Howarth as a seething, discombobulated mother. You want to spend more time with these flawed creatures.