Imagine Woody Allen, at his most playful, making a film in Arirang, South Korea, about struggling theatre actors striving to make it, while also trying to decipher their dreams after sleep. Gently surreal and drily funny, has the narrative intricacies of an early Hong Sangsoo. A detective, who has a gift for interpreting dreams, bumps into the budding thespians and sheds enlightenment. Career and romantic frustrations plague the characters, and the film aims to decode modern day dejection. Dextrous, and with the lightest of touches, signals a new talent to watch out for in writer-director Lee Kwang-kuk. Humorous melancholy has a new champion.

By Hemanth Kissoon