Pinstriped bully boy Mr TV is a Berlusconi-like megalomaniac who controls the televison network which feeds The City a constant diet of propaganda.

The Inventor is clumsily kind, divorced dad who is employed as a minor cog buried deep in the all-conquering mechanism of Mr TV's ruthless empire.

They are brought together when Mr TV wants to recruit the siren-like The Voice to seduce the city's consumers into mass consumption of his wares from soap powder to biscuits.

It so happens that The Voice and her blind son are neighbours of The Inventor's ex-wife and his daughter…and they become inextricably drawn into Mr TV's plans for total control.

What director Esteban Sapir's beguiling story - which owes a generous debt to Fritz Lang and Eistentstein - loses in budget it more than makes up for in sparkling invention.

Adopting a 1950s retro feel and shot in black and white, it's very much of the Blue Peter school of make-do and mend yet loses nothing when set against movies with tens times the budget.

It's the classic struggle of the common man against the corporate despot and is distiguished by surreal flourishes that bring to mind Metropolis crossed with Bagpuss. And in a good way.

Standouts include a villainous henchman who has something of Roland Rat and The Elephant Man about him and some visually astonishng backdrops of a pop-up book Buenos Aires swirling in snow.

Ariel find.

Tim Evans