His films obsessively explore displacement, memory, and the psychological scars of diaspora, particularly in works like 'Calendar' and 'Ararat' which grapple with Armenian identity and lost homelands.

His meditative cinema captures the melancholy of exile and dislocation, with 'A City of Sadness' and 'Flowers of Shanghai' examining loss through Taiwan's complex historical relationship with mainland China.

His metaphysical approach to alienation and spiritual homelessness permeates works like 'Stalker' and 'Nostalgia,' where characters yearn for unreachable worlds and lost origins.