A lonely construction worker from China goes missing at a Singapore land reclamation site, and a sleepless police investigator must put himself in the mind of the migrant to uncover the truth beneath all that sand.... (Full plot summary below)
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A lonely construction worker from China goes missing at a Singapore land reclamation site, and a sleepless police investigator must put himself in the mind of the migrant to uncover the truth beneath all that sand.
Leave your thoughts about A Land Imagined.
| indieWireDavid EhrlichA Land Imagined is a film that’s intent on losing its own sense of self, a goal that Yeo fulfills by never allowing it to have one in the first place; he digs a rabbit-hole, and then falls right into it. It’s fascinating to watch Yeo tumble down into the depths, but eventually it starts to feel as though he’ll never hit the bottom. |
| Slant MagazineWes GreeneWriter-director Yeo Siew Hua suggests that becoming another person is as easy as dreaming it. |
| The Film StageRory O'ConnorCooked with a broth of a few too many ideas, A Land Imagined is a so-close-to-being-great Singapore neo-noir that does all the right things, but simply does too many of them in its snappy 95-minute running time. |
| Screen InternationalAllan HunterThe switch towards something more unexpected is initially disconcerting, but ultimately reveals an ambitious filmmaker striving to subvert expectations. |
| The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijYeo isn’t experienced enough to convincingly pull off genre acrobatics this complex, delivering a film that often feels derivative in terms of its style and that doesn’t have the storytelling goods to let all these different influences coalesce coherently. |
| VarietyJay Weissberg"Land” will feel overly familiar to those looking for more than well-intentioned musings on the horrendous treatment of guest workers. |
| Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinA Land Imagined never congeals into anything intriguing or compelling enough to earn our required patience. |
| User ReviewUnnecessaryCAsian cinema is, for me, always interesting and intriguing. It can't always be good, and this movie is certainly not. The plot doesn't really make sense, the narration is simply shredded, the characters are characterless. It seems like the director had so many ideas that he couldn't stick with one or two and develop them properly, but at least he had something in his mind... it think. Though it brings up a very serious problem in Singapore - we can see how bad immigrants are treated, how their disappearance doesn't make any difference, I'm disappointed that the director didn't put more clear, straight up emphasis on this. With better writing, simpler, not-that-symbolic storytelling it could be a great movie. |
