On the surface, it seems that Moon and Parque Vía-two of the standout films in the World Cinema section of this year's programme-are worlds apart. One (I'll let you guess which is which) is a UK production about an astronaut on a mission to oversee the mining of a new fuel; the other is a Mexican film about a servant to a wealthy family who, for decades it seems, has been acting as the caretaker to one of the family homes while it has stood idle on the market. Both are exceedingly accomplished and arrestingly original films from first-time feature directors, but the similarities run beyond both films' being impressive débuts, extending to the form and content of the films themselves.

Moon finds us following the routine of Sam Bell, who is in the final weeks of a three-year contract as the sole inhabitant of a lunar base from which he oversees the mining of Helium 3, the answer to the world's energy crisis. Sam's life is one of routine. He files reports on the yield and condition of the enormous machines tilling the lunar desert, he runs on the treadmill, he eats, he sleeps, he painstakingly adds detail to the model he has been building since his arrival. He's desperately lonely. The communication satellite is malfunctioning, and real-time conversations between earth and the moon are no longer possible. He records messages for his family and waits achingly for the all-too-infrequent replies.

Parque Vía's Beto is also a creature of habit, even more so than Sam. He eats, he showers, he irons his shirts and starches his collars. He dutifully readies the house for the occasional inspection, which seems always to end with the potential buyers walking away dissatisfied, which seems to suit Beto just fine. Like Sam, Beto is largely dependent on technology for a dialogue with the outside world. He watches the news every evening: sensational stories about kidnappings, riots, and decapitations from around the globe.

Both Parque Vía and Moon present the lives of indentured workers who are to varying degrees damaged by the conditions under which they must make their living. Sam seems to be on the brink of madness when we first meet him, nearly broken after three years' isolation from society and family. He may be hallucinating. Still, we feel Sam's salvation is only a short space-shuttle ride away. For Beto the situation is more complex. Although he resides on earth, the atmosphere outside the mansion he maintains is as airless to Beto as the atmosphere outside the lunar base is to Sam. Beto has become completely institutionalised. All Sam wants is to go home. He clings to sanity by counting the minutes until his contract is up. Beto is home: he relishes his routine, and his menial tasks have become the totality of his existence. Of course, narrative and dramatic logic dictates that Sam will find his contract extended, and Beto will find his abruptly terminated.

The point of these comparisons is not to suggest that you could get both of these films out of your system by seeing one of the two. Far from it! Moon has a sinister robot voiced by Kevin Spacey, a character that would look very out of place in Parque Vía. Similarly, Parque Vía has an overweight, solemn Mexican prostitute, something you don't generally see on an itemised list of the contents of a lunar base. Both films abound with delights that are entirely their own, and each touches on issues that the other does not. What's interesting about this, as with all world-cinema programmes, is that two ostensibly different films could share so many concerns. It seems that regardless of whether we are British or Mexican, caretakers or astronauts, we are both concerned with the same fundamental questions: What are the responsibilities of an employer to their employee? How do we engage with one another in a society divided by class and capital? Is technology humanising or dehumanising? I wonder what unexpected common threads unite other seemingly polar opposite ‘World Cinema' films this year. I suppose I'll just have to see them all with everyone else and find out.

By Huw Walmsley-Evans