Director Lee Shulman follows Parr around some of his favourite haunts in a documentary that’s kinder than its subject sometimes is

There is one main criticism that’s often levelled at Martin Parr, the 72-year-old photographer whose closeup, colour-saturated images have become synonymous with the iconography of Britain: that he looks down on his working-class subjects with a cruel, satirical eye.

This affectionate tribute of a documentary answers this, partly by its positioning of Parr. Here he is, walking along the pier at New Brighton, or eating a 99 Flake, just like the holidaymakers snapped for his breakthrough 1986 collection, The Last Resort. But director Lee Shulman’s camera does not study Parr’s face with the same merciless ferocity that Parr turned on his own subjects, instead hovering behind his shoulder, looking at wherever he’s looking at.

In UK and Irish cinemas