Beguiling if also bewildering, this newly-restored pre-’79 Iranian rarity is ultimately elusive and muddling in its thematic exploration of paranoia, traditions and taboos, as a mysterious wounded man drifts ashore on a boat.
Tong’s long-gestating new film is a work of poise, as much a lament for the ‘lost’ Chinese-educated generation who found difficulty existing in English-prioritised Singapore in the late ‘70s, as it is a pining for simpler times and simpler truths.
A charming delight as this Oscar-nominated live-action/stop-motion animation hybrid centers on the exploits and feelings of a talking mollusc shell who lives with his granny, shot as a self-aware ‘documentary’.
One of the most underrated gems of the year as a Romanian construction worker encounters a Belgian-Chinese doctoral student of moss, with Devos’ exceptional sensitivity towards the audiovisual experience affording us a sense of quietude and calm quite rarely felt in today’s European cinema.
Works almost like a satirical comedy, this pleasant sophomore feature from the ‘Lunana’ director explores the Bhutanese way of life in light of the country’s modernisation of culture and politics.
Several men make it their life’s mission to save lives as the Syrian war escalates in this harrowing documentary that is somewhat too reliant on cloyingly manipulative music to deliver the emotions.
Tsukamoto’s latest is somewhat a mixed oddity, set in the torrid aftermath of WWII and centering on several characters who must eke out a survival while confronting personal trauma, shot in a handheld style with a digital indie look.
This haunting debut feature about a group of schoolgirls shielded from the modern world is best described as ‘Dogtooth’ meets ‘Petite Maman’, marked by an unsettling sound design and an acute sense of false normalcy.
Women bare their bodies and souls in this excellent intimate, inward-looking Estonian documentary set in a private smoke sauna.
A widow’s anxiety and frustration over a feisty inheritance tussle reflects entrenched patriarchal thinking in both domestic and legal arenas in this fine debut feature, which is also the first film from Jordan to compete at Cannes.
Eternality Tan 