Directed by Terry Gilliam • 2013 • 107 min

In The Zero Theorem, Christoph Waltz plays Qohen Leth, a reclusive, middle-aged man trying to make sense of a future that is far too chaotic, colourful, and youthful for him. Working for the mysterious Mancom corporation, he is a number cruncher. What this means is comically unclear - Qohen describes working with “esoteric data.” Tasked with cracking the Zero Theorem, Qohen embarks on a mission to prove that everything amounts to zero. That the world and everything in it is for naught, as the universe will end as it started, as nothingness.

The film explores a number of Gilliam’s usual interests: the eccentric hermit, the old vs. the new, the endless tediousness of bureaucracy. Mostly, The Zero Theorem captures a critical moment in one man’s mid-life crisis. Qohen searches desperately for meaning, and he struggles against a society that has...

Directed by Richard Linklater • 2014 • 165 min

One of cinema’s defining features is its ability to capture duration. Unlike the photograph, giving us a snapshot of a single moment, film provides a record of the passing of time. We acknowledge this every time we look to the news for truth or watch a home movie nostalgically. Their perceived value comes from the documentary quality of freezing the unfolding of events. Richard Linklater has explored this facet of the cinema across his career, pushing it, testing its limits. In his feature debut Slacker, he used a quasi-real-time approach, allowing us to meander with his characters. With his Before series, he checked in, roughly every ten years, on a man and woman’s developing romance, seemingly meant to continue unfulfilled until the (perhaps) final installment, Before Midnight, in 2013.

In Boyhood, he is much more deliberate and...

Directed by Bong Joon Ho • 2013 • 126 min

Having largely taken over for the Western, Science Fiction offers new, futuristic frontiers, reframing reality to provide us with a twisted mirror image of the present day. In Snowpiercer, Korean director Bong Joon Ho propels income inequality into a dystopic future, where climate change has frozen the Earth. The last of humanity is forced to live on a train, perpetually moving around the globe. At the front of the train are the upper classes, living in the lap of luxury, while at the tail end the poor struggle for survival. The social order is threatened when Curtis (Chris Evans) leads a group of would-be revolutionaries forward one car at a time. They will take control of the train’s front engine or die trying.

Snowpiercer is visually stunning. A rich, almost overwhelming spectrum of shades and colours is slowly unveiled as our heroes...

Directed by Ari Folman • 2013 • 122 mins

In 2008, Ari Folman explored his own memories and the trauma of war in Waltz with Bashir. Using stunning rotoscope animation, he created a subjective experience of the 1982 Lebanon War through a blend of harsh realism and fantasy. In The Congress, he again looks inward, this time at the film industry itself, oscillating between a sharp denunciation of Hollywood and a celebration of cinema and all of its potential.

At the centre of The Congress is Robin Wright playing a fictional version of herself. With her career dwindling and her son slowly losing his vision and hearing, Robin is offered her final contract: the chance to sell her star persona to the fictional Miramount Pictures. Through advanced motion capture technology, actors become characters to be used however the studio chooses. The discomfort that we feel is palpable as Robin is...