Belfast (PG13)

98 minutes, opens Feb 3, 4 stars

Many autobiographical movies spring from the film-maker's desire to explain the past to themselves. It is a form of art therapy - some might call it exorcism - that can result in excellent films.

In Singaporean director Anthony Chen's Ilo Ilo (2013) and Mexican director's Alfonso Cuaron's Oscar-winning Roma (2018), the film-makers look at their parents sympathetically - through lenses that can now see what they were going through.

British actor and director Kenneth Branagh - who has built a career deploying his perfect received pronunciation in films such as the Shakespeare adaptations Henry V (1989) and Hamlet (1996) - reveals a boyhood spent across the water, in the Northern Irish city of the film's title.

It is 1969 and Buddy (Jude Hill), nine, is the youngest in a financially strapped Protestant family. Pa (Jamie Dornan) has a job in England, so he is away most of the time. Ma (Caitriona Balfe) is left to run daily affairs by herself, as sectarian violence between Protestants and Catholics rages in the street.

Unlike Cuaron or Chen, who turned their stories into dramas, Branagh's film, which he also wrote, is a drama-comedy.

He handles it with typical finesse. There are bleak jokes about patriots who in reality seek an outlet for their hate, as well as rueful observations about being born in a land that drives so many of its people away - to places where, as Buddy observes, their accents will be mocked.

It is a cheeky reference to Branagh's own transformation - from bullied Northern Irish immigrant to quintessentially English actor.

This is a warm, approachable story, with strong comedic beats and a Hollywood-style relatability reinforced by the use of songs from Northern Irish rock icon Van Morrison.

Screenings in Singapore will carry English subtitles as the accents, as mentioned, are thick.

Yuni (NC16)

95 minutes, opens Feb 3 exclusively at The Projector, 4 stars

Yuni (Arawinda Kirana) is a 16-year-old with a bright future - she is smart and popular, and on her way to college.

But like many Indonesian girls, she is faced with a dilemma. Should she take up one of several offers of marriage or follow her college dream and remain a burden on her financially disadvantaged family?

Writer-director Kamila Andini's coming-of-age drama won the Platform Prize at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival, which is awarded to works of artistic merit and directorial vision. The film was also a nominee for Best Asian Feature at the 2021 Singapore International Film Festival.

Andini shows Yuni trying to wrest control of her body from a society that sees unmarried daughters as a financial liability. A social one, too, if they are found to be sexually "impure".

With the help of a sympathetic teacher, the bright student tries to maintain her grades while dealing with guilt, shame and her own hormonal urges.

Andini's straightforward but moving account moves quietly, with an emphasis on emotional and social realism.

An undercurrent of desperation runs beneath Yuni's calm exterior. Through no fault of her own, Yuni is in an impossible situation, but she will not accept her fate without a fight.

The Falls (PG13)

129 minutes, now on Netflix, 4 stars

This drama from Taiwanese film-maker Chung Mong-hong picked up several prizes at the 2021 Golden Horse Awards, including for Best Feature Film. It was just added to the streaming service, where it sits alongside his other acclaimed drama, A Sun (2019).

Both films, directed and co-written by Chung, put a focus on family bonds, especially the one between parents and their teenage children. It is a period fraught with tension, a time when the ties of duty and love between adults and their offspring are at their most strained.

In the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, a divorced mother and her teenage daughter are quarantined at home. Mother Pin-wen (Alyssa Chia) is facing pay cuts at work as the economy worsens, while daughter Xiao Jing (Gingle Wang) adds more stress at home with her inexplicably peevish behaviour. As the lockdown drags on, the strain on Pin-wen begins to exact an emotional toll.

A couple of lockdown movies have been released by film-makers looking to make sense of a difficult time. Last year, the anthology The Year Of The Everlasting Storm framed the pandemic in several ways, including - like Chung's story - looking at a family forced to live in close proximity for weeks.

This moving, often harrowing drama features strong performances from Chia and Wang as the mother and daughter trying to come to terms with each other's issues.

Chung' sensitive writing addresses the idea of post-pandemic psychological trauma directly: As the medical disaster ebbs away, leaving destruction in its wake, viewers are asked to see that some families will emerge from the crisis permanently marked by invisible damage.