The Arbor

What emerges is a curious mix of avant-garde technique and social-realist case study, equally indebted to Barnard's art-world-video background and Dunbar's own close-to-the-bone writing.

Documentaries often toy with the conventions of non-fiction storytelling to the detriment of their content, but Clio Barnard's innovative The Arbor provides a welcome exception to the norm.

Numerous celluloid experiments have fudged reality and fiction lately, but few are as formally inventive or socially revelatory as The Arbor.

Such a conceit could easily turn gimmicky, but in the case of The Arbor, the chasm between performance, recital, and lived reality (retold), can fit a whole world.