Power and corruption

Democracy gives us the leaders we deserve, supposedly, but that neat equation doesn't allow for ingrained power or corruption, as John Malkovich's powerful directorial debut demonstrates. It's no dry political treatise, however.

Set in a non-specific Latin American country, the story follows a police officer's search for the head of a terrorist organisation, his investigation more often than not running against the wishes of his governmental superiors. Rejas (Javier Bardem) wants justice to prevail, where the government wants to keep its monopoly of control, and justice be damned. Bardem's beautiful face is still like a snake's, but lacks the careful impassivity of calculation.

We know what he feels even before we watch him fall gracefully in love with his daughter's ballet teacher Yolande (Laura Morante, pictured with Bardem), an extra-marital passion this sophisticated film wisely refuses to criticise. The action unfolds slowly (sometimes too slowly) but with riveting intensity, as Rejas wades against the tide of common support for terrorist Ezequiel (Abel Folk), who is, arguably, no worse than the bureaucrats opposing him. Bardem is magnificent, and the story - based on Nicholas Shakespeare's novel about Peru's Shining Path guerillas - astutely balances its examination of the contradictions of power, whether legislative or popular, against the heart-rending tale of a good man embattled: needled less by corrupt superiors than by love and the dictates of his own conscience.

The Dancer Upstairs
Cert: cert15