Weerasethakul’s debut feature is like a living folk tale, a radical blend of documentary and fiction, shaped through the surrealist ‘exquisite corpse’ method as ordinary Thais collectively spin an evolving story.
Bong’s directorial feature debut is already a solid showcase of his trademark tonal control, effortlessly alternating between light and dark humour, and peppered with dramatic tension, as a married but unemployed scholar wants to get rid of an annoying barking dog in his estate.
Structured around the Chinese wedding, baby shower and funeral, Yang’s final masterpiece dissects the relationships surrounding one extended middle-class family as life’s endless wisdoms grace and elude them.
A migrant cyborg is sent out into the world to record moving images of random human encounters in Tsangari’s rather prescient if sometimes incoherent debut feature that distils the sense of obliviousness to the new anxieties at the turn of the millennium.
This Venice Golden Lion winner is a powerful treatise on the plight of women in Iran, told through a refreshing bead-like narrative and shot in neorealist style.
A film that flaunts its Korean-ness, from the classic tale of a governor’s son who secretly marries a courtesan’s daughter, to the use of pansori (traditional musical storytelling with a singer and drummer), all pegged to the effortless pacing of a master director.
Not particularly satisfying overall, but Huppert’s always fantastic playing characters with dark, ulterior motives in this psychological drama from Chabrol.
One of Tarr’s best-known works as a quiet Hungarian town experiences an unprecedented disruption when a mysterious attraction arrives, in what appears to be a potent political and moral allegory on the evil that lurks within peoples and systems.
One of the most important works of Mexican cinema to emerge at the turn of the century, this is still Inarritu’s finest achievement as separate narrative threads collide (literally), sparking a thought-provoking treatise on life, love and loss.
Students are forced to kill each other by law in this Asian Extreme cult classic par excellence, still as provocative more than 20 years on in its themes about youth, rebellion and authoritarianism.
Eternality Tan 