Lee Chang-dong’s glorious new film is a major step forward for an already accomplished Korean director. Whereas his previous films are dominated by harrowing psychic and linguistic breakdowns, Poetry involves emotional restraint and a profoundly moving emphasis on eloquence.

The head of a snorting horse juts into view and is abruptly jerked upwards by its as-yet-unseen rider. The camera, traveling at a galloping pace that matches the animal’s, pulls back to reveal the cart the horse is pulling while its owner (János Derzsi), an elderly man, unforgivingly wields his whip.

Like Sergei Eisenstein’s Strike (1925), Alexander Dovzhenko’s Zvenigora (1928) is an amazing early work that dropped out of sight for many years.

The 40th annual New Directors/New Films festival at the Museum of Modern Art and Film Society at Lincoln Center (March 23–April 3) brought together a pair of features from Egypt, telling tales of two cities and two sexes on the edge of a volcano.

FEATURES: Films of the Year, 2010; An Interview with Apichatpong Weerasethakul; and a survey of contemporary German director Fatih Akin.

READ: Into the Past, Egyptian Stories, Dovzhenko: Folk Tale and Revolution, and Edge of Darkness.