She is, perhaps understandably, withdrawn and reticent and does not seek out people or seem interested in deepening the relationship with her sister or her sister’s family. In spite of this attitude she is slowly drawn into the life of the family and into the lives of others in the neighbourhood.

The main interest here is Kristin Scott Thomas, who puts in what is quite probably her finest screen performance. She is one of those actresses who can tell a tale with a wrinkle of her forehead or the blink of an eye. The film itself is, above all, a vehicle for an actress, and Scott Thomas gives it everything she has, though in an understated, minimalist way. She is supported admirably by the direction of Claudel and the other actors, especially Elsa Zylberstein as her sister and Frédéric Pierrot as the policeman. I honestly do not expect to see a better performance from another actress this year, and if she is not recognised in the available honours she will have been robbed.

The film itself is something else. It begins as a moody piece, trembling with tension, and for three quarters of the time it is running I was completely spell-bound by the images and concepts it throws up. With the aid of Scott Thomas we are given a portrait of a woman without any usable inner animation, someone whose soul has been allowed to wither and die. An alienated being who mirrors many of our own individual horrors and suspicions about the true nature of being and identity.

And then, inexplicably, towards the end, Claudel seems to lose his courage, or perhaps find his own feet of clay, and the film dies as he allows predictability to claim the day and seeks out a wholly unworthy ‘closure’ for the Scott Thomas character, and the sense of a happy ending for everyone else involved.

Do see it, though, there is an enormous amount to enjoy. But you might get a better film if you can bear to live without the ending.

It’s an expressionistic piece, minimally drawn in black and white, featuring the life of a young Iranian girl. On one level a coming-of-age story, it is outspokenly political, showing the hopes of everyday people for the Iranian revolution, and the ways in which those hopes have disintegrated in the face of the reality of life ordered by a tiny group of fundamentalists.

The film is based on Marjane Satrapi’s series of graphic novels and her childhood experiences in Iran, where she survived ‘traumatic encounters with schoolteachers bent on denying her expression, policemen determined to deny her freedom and Iraqi bombs intended to take her life.’ I found the film moving, though it seemed over-long at around 90 minutes. Although it depicts one woman’s struggle against oppression, her life stands for that of many others. Persepolis shared the jury prize at Cannes in 2007.

The title “Persepolis” comes from the Persian capital founded in the 6th century BC by Darius I, later destroyed by Alexander the Great. It’s a reminder that there’s an old civilization, besieged by waves of invaders but carrying on through millennia, that is deeper and more complex than the current-day view of Iran as a monoculture of fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism.

“It’s about one person who talks and one who doesn’t, and they compare hands and get all mingled up in one another. It will be a very small film, so it needn’t cost much”. Ingmar Bergman

Alma gradually reveals more and more of herself in the face of Elizabeth’s silence. She relates intimate experiences, obviously beginning to feel safe in the company of the silent actress. Then she reads a letter the actress has written implying that Alma is an interesting case-study. The two women seem to exchange identities, or to fuse or slide into a single identity. Elizabeth’s husband comes to visit and regards Alma as his wife.

There is a story about the sliding together of the two faces; Bergman tells us:

“When I received the double-copied film from the laboratory, i asked Liv and Bibi to come to the editing room; Bibi exclaimed in surprise: “But Liv, you look so strange!”. And Liv said: “No, it’s you, Bibi, you look very strange!”. Spontaneously they denied their own less-than-good facial half”.

The film ends with Alma, back in her nurse’s uniform, closing up the cottage and boarding a bus to return home. But is it Alma, or is it the fusion of the two of them?

Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 film, Persona, therefore leaves us with many questions.

The opening and closing imagery is very difficult. We are shown pictures of hands, of aged, probably dead bodies, an erect penis, a lamb having its throat cut. We watch nails being driven into the palm of the Christ, there are some cartoon characters, and a young boy explores, with his fingers, the hazy face of a woman on a cinema screen.

Throughout the action of the film the two women come close together and break apart, they seem to share and to love and also to argue, to harbour resentments and plot revenge. As a viewer we feel that the film is working but cannot see why it is working, what technique Bergman is using to infuse his film with magic. The feeling is that the film is saying something about the ‘double’ and about the ‘mask’; that Elizabeth’s silence is an echo of the silence of the creator.

For Elizabeth, the actress, to choose silence is to voluntarily give up her part as a role player. She chooses only to play herself. Alma, her double, her nurturing half is revealed to her and eventually the two halves reunite into a single identity.

The film is a visual and intellectual treat. The two women playing the main parts carry much of the responsibility for the film’s success. The photographer, Sven Nykvist, takes us away from reality into a world undreamed of. Just let it swallow you whole.

PS. There is an interesting parallel between this film and Arthur Miller’s 1994 play, Broken Glass. In both cases the female leads are crippled in some way when attending to apparently unconnected business out in the world. Both the play and the film use the imagery of broken glass to help convey their message, and both are concerned with the subjects of identity and denial.

There’s a band headed by a woman with a voice, Linda Moon. There’s a group of gangsta rappers. There’s a low life pimp with a huge body-guard who has a record for throwing people out of hotel windows. And the professionals, the police, the record and movie industry movers and shakers all come in as supporting cast.

Elmore Leonard is a master of his craft and could probably write a novel like this in his sleep. It is unlikely that that was how Be Cool was produced, but from time to time an innocent reader could be forgiven for thinking so. This is a great pity, because Be Cool is a sequel to Get Shorty, which was one of the writer’s best novels.

Chilli Palmer, the central character, movie maker, now a recording industry mogul, and an ex loan-shark with extensive connections among the criminal fraternity is, without doubt, a cool guy. Unfortunately, this time around, he has got himself stuck between the pages of a less-than-average novel.