A Land Imagined

Set on the surreal industrial byways of Singapore, Yeo Siew Hua’s A LAND IMAGINED is at once a neon-lit film noir, an intimate story of friendship between men, and a trenchant critique of land reclamation and migrant labor on the peripheries of the city-state’s economic miracle. Lok, a world-weary detective attempts to track down Wang, a missing Chinese worker, who has vanished after a worksite accident. While slowly peeling back the layers of corruption and exploitation, Lok also wanders into a labyrinthine cybercafé where he finds an alternate dimension, a place where past and present fold back on each other, and space itself becomes virtual. There, as the detective uncovers Wang’s relationships with Bangladeshi co-worker Ajit and cybercafé girl Mindy, the stories of the detective and his quarry seem to merge into one another against the backdrop of deliriously fluid cityscape. Through a deft balance of genre and political commentary, Yeo’s film effortlessly reveals the human cost of exile and migration, even as it unfolds a twisting and seductive tale steeped in mystery. (Leo Goldsmith)

In the presence of Yeo Siew Hua.