WHEN THE TENTH MONTH COMES (VIETNAM/1984/ĐẶNG NHẬT MINH)

Duyen (the radiant Lê Vân) is a young mother in post-war Vietnam, struggling to cope with the mounting grief and responsibility surrounding the death of her husband. In trying to disguise the tragic news from her son and bedridden father-in-law, she ends up calling upon the help of Zhang, a local schoolteacher, who forges a series of letters from the husband to prolong this façade. Their close collaboration leads to forbidden feelings, and the stress of concealing another emotion forces Duyen into a theatrical fantasy world whenever she is overwhelmed with guilt. Before long, the entire charade is despoiled by the return of a soldier who knew Duyen's husband.

As tragic and involving as it may be, When The Tenth Month Comes is far from the overt anti-American statement one would have anticipated in such a political clime. Đặng Nhật Minh, the film’s director and writer, refuses to point fingers, preferring to magnify the feelings of grief and guilt in the individuals upon whom the injustices were perpetrated. He also defiantly revels in the complexities of Vietnamese culture, and this is even reflected in the enigmatic title (which refers to the time when spirits purportedly return to their loved ones for forgiveness). The theme of escapism is present, but limited. Duyen's dramatic daydreams are exactly that - even her fantasy world is a play, wherein everyone acts, lies and pretends. It’s a daring, unpredictable style of filmmaking, but Lê Vân’s immaculate performance ensures that there isn’t a single wasted frame.

INUUJJUTIKSAQ (CANADA/2008/BENOÎT PILON)

It’s the 1950s, and an epidemic of tuberculosis is hitting the northern Inuit communities in Canada. When Tivii, a world-weary family man and deft hunter, is struck particularly hard by the illness, he is taken away from his family and sent off to Québéc City to convalesce in quarantine. The experience is bewildering for him, every aspect of city life holding his attention in a childlike stupor. His time at the sanatorium is exacerbated by his inability to speak the native tongue, resulting in an unspoken social exclusion from the other patients, and a constant longing for the open-air landscapes of his home community. Noticing his isolation, nurse Carole brings him a young bilingual patient named Kaki, through whom he regains a sense of identity and builds a vital rapport.

It’s a pleasant enough story, and with no unnecessary complications, it should appeal to everyone. Lead actor Natar Ungalaaq has a wonderfully weathered face filled with expression, inviting predictable comparisons to David Gulpilil, another famed ‘native’ actor. Director Benoît Pilon and writer Bernard Émond do a decent job of exploring the titular concept with enthusiasm, and Tivii’s struggle for acceptance is a magnetising theme. Unfortunately, it’s improbable that people will remember this in the near future, given its familiar story arc and gentle pace. Those looking for a more comprehensive study on the culture of Canadian Inuits would do better to check out Zacharias Kunuk’s exceptional drama Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, a film in which Ugalaaq also played the lead.

THE HOUSEMAID (SOUTH KOREA/1960/KIM KI-YOUNG)

Frequently named as one of the best Korean films of all time, Kim Ki-Young’s The Housemaid tells a tempestuous story of family values, betrayal and repressed sexuality. An earnest composer and choirmaster, seeing his wife exhausted by her work as a seamstress, asks one of his students to arrange for a housemaid to come round occasionally. Mere moments after her entrance, the young maid raises more than a few eyebrows with her dotty behaviour, and suspicions are soon confirmed when she blackmails the composer into sex. After discovering she is pregnant by him, her behaviour becomes increasingly sinister, manipulating the entire family into pandering to her twisted desires until each member completely breaks down.

While it’s not the most uplifting experience, The Housemaid is an exceptional find, simultaneously applying Hitchcock’s Freudian undercurrents, Douglas Sirk’s woozy melodrama and Yasuzo Masumura’s breathy sensuality. Perhaps it is too over-stimulated by its cinematic successors, but it nonetheless feels new, even watching it almost fifty years after its release (the West’s first exposure to the film was in the late nineties). The character of the maid is one of film history’s best and most effective female villains, a precocious femme fatale well versed in the callous practice of sexual blackmail, a woman with absolutely no compassion. Her first seduction of the composer is an unforgettable scene, her body easily overpowering his despite her comparative daintiness. Some may grimace at the breaking of the fourth wall, but this does nothing to hamper the film’s disturbing impact.

HUMAN NATURE (USA/2001/MICHEL GONDRY)

Before working together on Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, acclaimed screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and music video veteran Michel Gondry created this light-hearted comedy. Told through the confessions of its three protagonists, the film concerns a very unusual love triangle between three people who represent a gamut of innate primitivism. Lila (Patricia Arquette) has a hormonal imbalance which leaves her body festooned with hair. After stints as a sideshow act, she changes her life by moving to the great outdoors, living at one with nature until she yearns for the touch of a man. Through a friend she meets Nathan (Tim Robbins), an anal-retentive psychologist whose latest project sees him transferring the disciplinarian manner of his mother to the behaviour of mice. The two have a volatile relationship, pushed to the brink when Lila falls for Rhys Ifan’s libidinous simian Puff, whom Nathan takes under his wing for etiquette training.

Kaufman’s script isn’t in the same league as his best known work, its characters a little underdeveloped for such a farfetched story. Some scenes are almost identical to those in Gondry’s music videos, and this overreliance on the immediacy of music video language is hardly surprising regarding his artistic track record. Nonetheless, it’s a sufficiently entertaining feature with some genuine sweetness. Puff is the only true innocent, the other characters embroiled in the mechanics of infidelity, and his triumphant march at the end of the film rounds off the slightly convoluted story with an invigorating sense of completion and justice.

JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES (BELGIUM/1975/CHANTAL AKERMAN)

One of the more testing cinematic experiments, Chantal Akerman’s magnum opus concerns Jeanne Dielman, a woman who simultaneously fulfils all three “feminine roles”: the virgin, the mother and the whore. By day, Jeanne is the paradigmatic housewife, silently and dutifully going about her chores, a near-colourless cardigan primly draped around her shoulders. Later in the day, we see her interact with her adolescent son, mostly feeding him and assisting with his homework, but also patiently answering some personal questions. In the evenings, we learn that she is prostituting herself from home as a means of income. During these diverse errands, Jeanne gives away almost nothing of her emotional state. After witnessing a few days of this routine, we start to see the influences that upset and liberate this seemingly unshakable structure.

Those expecting this film to succumb to the conventions of cinema may be bitterly disappointed. At 201 minutes, each shot lasting several minutes and the camera never moving, it requires more than a little patience and broadmindedness. Akerman revels in the muted dramas of woman’s existence, creating from them not a story but a diorama. Throughout the film, an electric blue light flickers on reflective surfaces, reminiscent of a static television, or a police light. This conjures ideas of surveillance and objectification, two activities in which we as viewers are complicit. It’s an exceptionally brave and influential piece – Michael Haneke surely picked up a few lessons on suspense from it – but sadly unlikely to touch the people it should.