Nostalgia for the Night
Oh, the allure of looking back and reminiscing for better days gone by… Nostalgia develops in us sentimental creatures for a multitude of reasons, be it dissatisfaction of the present, an impending doom for the future, or the painful realisation of past mistakes. The most poignant form of nostalgia materialises when the present has passed the point of no return. Force majeure and the ones that got away. Films on the list captured distinct era in the personal or societal past, that shine light on our inescapable present, for better or worse. Might we become better beings when we come out from the other side. “If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play, Time will say nothing but I told you so.” If I Could Tell You - W.H. Auden
8 films
Dream in Silence
The Edge of Night
KJ: Music and Life
Letter to the Young Intellectuals of Hong Kong
Grandma's Hairpin
Before the Box Gets Emptied
The Sea Within
Su Beng, the Revolutionist
Popular
Those irreversible slices of life
Recently, in a novel I've come to love, I found myself grasping the weight of life's slices. In the story, there is a wicked sorcerer who freezes people in the instant just before tragedy strikes—suspending everything, sealing it into a crystal ball, and building an entire museum from these frozen moments. And isn't film, in its own way, just as cruel? As viewers, we are little more than instruments for collecting tissue slices—slipping into a character's world for a single fleeting moment, wandering through it in passing, only to return, in the blink of an eye, to the reality that is our own.