Imagina

The infamous Death Railway winds its way through western Thailand and on into Burma. Four friends in their mid-twenties set off on a trip into the jungle where tens of thousands of lives were extinguished during World War II; the dense vegetation in this place also harbours other secrets. Produced on a modest budget, the Thai experimenter’s film throws down the gauntlet to the most fastidious of movie buffs, who won’t be spooked even by a radical cinematic cipher.

In this zen picture about devotion, of fleeting intimacy in the heart of the anonymous urban jungle, and our continuous fusion with the present, Taiwanese master Tsai Ming-liang demonstrates utmost tenderness as he films the body of his long-time partner Lee Kang-sheng. Days is a work which refreshes the senses and invites us to radically slow down the pace and sharpen our perception of ourselves and the world around us.

Jóhann Jóhannsson’s experimental audiovisual sci-fi poem is set in the distant future, when humanity finds itself on the edge of extinction. The film offers a unique experience that defies the familiar concepts of time and space. The majestic black-and-white visuals echo with the Icelander’s characteristic resonant sound design and, together with a recitative from Tilda Swinton, make for a compelling creation.

Are we able to gaze up into the universe yet ignore the ground we’re standing on? Flowing like lava, this essayistic piece reveals something of the colonial burden of Western science while, at the same time, eclectically interweaving rational arguments with performative sequences. The film also considers the indigenous perspective, set in vivid contrast to the dehumanised shots of modern machinery and imposing compositions of the Hawaiian landscape.

The weirdest film to appear this spring came out of Vietnam. The story of Bassley, a Nigerian footballer, begins in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City. A bizarre set of events, however, takes him away from his depressing surroundings and he is now given the chance to experience a primal coexistence within an unlikely community. Self-taught director Lê Bảo combined the raw and the aestheticised in a decidedly offbeat manner, prompting the British daily The Guardian to salute Taste as “best arthouse UFO” at the Berlin IFF.