Movies seen in 2014

Over a series of industrial and rural images of Britain, a narrator tells the story of his conception and birth, weaving in a mythic history of the formation of the world and its early inhabitants.

Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern physics teacher, watches his life unravel over multiple sudden incidents. Despite seeking meaning and answers amidst his turmoils, he seems to keep sinking.

Hilarious satire on a man who takes on a second and subsequently third wife and the events surrounding the two marriages. Things get more chaotic when the three wives start befriending each other.

Four independent stories set in modern China about random acts of violence.

What if suddenly the water supply runs dry in Singapore? This fusion of documentary and fiction narrative depicts the lives of foreign migrants as an impending water crisis begins to seep into their lives. With water, or the lack of it, becoming the central motif, this two-part feature length film takes us on a journey across 8 interweaved stories and 10 languages, as the protagonists, consisting of non-professional actors, grapple with this hopefully temporary discomfort, amidst their dalliance with human foibles, and their fantasies of everlasting loves and broken romances. This aberration is a memento mori as the narratives grazed across the vague impressions of the racial tensions lingering past the 1997 riots in Indonesia, World War II, ritual beliefs, and ethnic discrimination in Southeast Asia which has been ingrained over generations and transported along with the migrant communities. Nonetheless, amidst the sporadic ventures into death and violence, sexual relations and sexualities, these are the lines of division that bind us to each other, in one way or another, as people survive through their crises.

A week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961.

In the near future, a lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with an operating system designed to meet his every need.

In 1971, a young and disoriented British soldier is accidentally abandoned by his unit following a riot on the deadly streets of Belfast.

40 Days of Silence is the story of four women in Central Asia in key moments of their lives, discovered through their different ages. It is a trip into an unconscious and intimate female world; it is an attempt to portray broken identities and women who confront their own will to choose and decide.

As Eastern Anatolian village tradition requires, 27-year-old Medine must serve oven-roasted lamb at her 5-year-old son Mert's circumcision feast.

LAST HIJACK is a true tale of survival in Somalia told from the pirate's perspective. Combining animation with documentary storytelling, the film takes an innovative hybrid approach to explore how one Somali pirate - Mohamed - came to live such a brutal and dangerous existence. Animated re-enactments exploring Mohamed's memories, dreams and fears from his point of view are juxtaposed with raw footage from his everyday life in an original non-fiction narrative. Somalia is the worldwide capital of piracy, and Mohamed is one of Somalia's most experienced pirates. But in his homeland, a failed state, Mohamed is just another middle-aged man trying to make ends meet. Far removed from the glamour and adventure of the pirates of books and movies, Somali pirates face increasing scrutiny and stigmatization both at home and abroad. Now Mohamed is engaged and both his parents and his in-laws pressure him to change his ways before the big wedding day. Mohamed senses that the golden age of piracy may be coming to an end, and with pressure mounting to provide for his loved ones, he must decide whether to risk everything for one last hijack.

A love story comes to an end when a woman sets out in search of a shamanic god. Director Kelvin Kyung Kun Park takes the trauma of a spurned lover as the starting point for his own search for a god. He makes several finds across various narrative strands - among whales in the sea, in a shipyard, at a steelworks. All of them are giants of their respective times: vast, sublime, godlike. Park's imagery also evokes the divine: embers and steel, sparks and fire; people dwarfed by huge cogwheels, robbed of their individuality. A brave new world in which workers produce modern industrial goods, even as the industry has long since been producing the modern worker. Work is a god we have submitted to. Yet every existence is temporary and fleeting, which applies in equal measure to both relationships and gods.

Weaving together several notorious, and seemingly unrelated, episodes from 1980s and 1990s South Korea, this deft exploration of crime and punishment illuminates the power structure and cultural awakening of the country as it emerged into democracy.

On Christmas Day, DAVID, 15, finds out that his boyfriend, JONATHAN, 17, has taken another lover. The discovery leads him on the brink of depression making him think of ways to have him back at all cost. He has invited Jonathan to see him on this day for the last time. And through the frenzy of his preparations prior to meeting Jonathan, we will discover his traits and personality; the 'worlds' he lives in - virtual and real; and, we will witness how he prepares for his most unique shout-out that he will make not only on his Facebook wall, but, in his life.

A self-diagnosed nymphomaniac recounts her erotic experiences to the man who saved her after a beating.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Singaporeans, who were activists, student leaders or Communists were exiled from their country. Fifty years later, despite resettling in countries such as the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Thailand, it is clear that the diaspora still holds Singapore and the idea of returning home in their hearts and minds. TO SINGAPORE, WITH LOVE follows the exiled protagonists in the film, as they undertake a trip to Singapore's closest neighbor, Malaysia, where they attend reunions, memorials and stay in a hotel that overlooks their homeland.

When an old factory worker opens his tiny home to his daughter and her baby, it creates unexpected changes in their relationship.

In Burma-China border, a homecoming woman and a motorcycle driver turn to Crystal Meth to escape crushing poverty and boredom.

A day in the life of four adult film performers in the San Fernando Valley.

Tsai Ming-liang returns with this latest entry in his Walker series, in which his monk acquires an unexpected acolyte in the form of Denis Lavant as he makes his way through the streets of a sun-dappled Marseille.

Years have passed and the former class-mates have now grown up. The two adults meet and while the women seem pleasant and the situation normal enough there is more lurking beneath the surface than meets the eye. What should have been a small reunion instead turns out to be a big plot for revenge.

Twenty minutes into his mesmerizing, formally inventive portrait of the legendary Romanian writer Norman Manea-a survivor of the concentration camps as a child who escaped the Ceausescu regime in 1986 and now lives in the U.S.-René Frolke does what few cinematic biographers dare to do: put their subjects' texts on screen. The inclusion of a complete story from Manea, which we read piecemeal throughout, is just one of the many playful moves Frolke makes in this collage-like, ceaselessly surprising, and deeply moving film. A study of the day-to-day business of intellectual life (panels, book signings, interviews), Le Beau Danger is also a sensitive meditation on the experience of exile.

A journey through airports across the globe.

The rivalry between the manipulative boss of an advertising agency and her talented protégée escalates from stealing credit to public humiliation to murder.

A documentary which challenges former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.