Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Blog Page 83

The Oxford Revue: A Room with Revue

Ralph Whitworth
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The Oxford Revue: A Room with Revue

I have a habit of steering away from live comedy. This is mostly out of a fear that it won’t be very good, and the excruciating awkwardness which would be the result. So it was only after intense encouragement from a number of sources that I agreed to see this year’s offering from the Oxford Revue. The production ran for two hours (including a short interval) – a great challenge, I thought, to be consistently funny for two hours. Yet they managed it admirably. This was a well executed barrel of laughs from start to finish.

A Room with Revue skillfully delivered a very modern approach to comedy. The production consisted of a series of sketches with no overriding theme or even links between them. In a similar way to the random streams of content which characterise today’s internet humour, the resulting chaos made the sketches themselves even funnier. Scripting was sharp, simple and often very clever, playing off highly relatable moments in everyday life like going shopping, watching adverts or asking for directions. The production also made hilarious use of a projected slideshow, including some sketches done entirely on video. It was this clever use of the varying themes, mediums and forms of sketches that meant the whole performance never got boring – you were always looking forward to whatever was coming next, and preparing to be surprised. It was lighthearted and very refreshing viewing.

Credit for this highly enjoyable show must be given in great part to the actors themselves. The cast seemed selected from a wide range of Oxford students with postgrads mixing with first-years in a huge variety of roles. The actors showed themselves highly capable of performing in this great range of characters and smoothly matched the production’s simple and quick-witted humour. The sketches worked best with multiple actors firing off of each other, and often stumbled the fewer people there were on stage – one-actor scenes tended to work less well. It also has to be admitted that there was a variation in funniness amongst the large cast, with some particularly standing out and dominating their scenes. But the general quality was very high, and there was nobody on stage who disappointed. Every actor was capable of generating many a laugh from the audience.

A special mention must go to the role of music in this production. A four-player band was on stage at all times and performed excellently. Their riffs and tunes were used throughout the production to introduce new scenes and to augment the humour of the sketches. The band was funny in their own right, and only got better in those instances where the cast themselves broke out into song – a risky ploy which can sometimes end badly, but played off to great success whenever it was used.
A Room with Revue was a simple and clever production which ranks as one of the most enjoyable shows I’ve seen all year. With sharp jokes, witty use of action, a solid cast and great musical backing, it rolled along hilariously for its two-hour course, and made me disappointed they hadn’t lengthened it to three. My fears and misconceptions about comedy definitively dispelled, I eagerly await the next offering from this impressive group.

SU launches groundbreaking Turnaround plan with help from University

Cherwell News
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SU launches groundbreaking Turnaround plan with help from University

Oxford Student Union (SU) has announced its new “Turnaround Plan” with help from the University aiming to “transform the governance and operations of the SU”. While the student council has been suspended in the interim, the SU will not be shutting down and will continue many of its regular activities. 

The plan comes after multiple controversies rocked the SU in Hilary term. The elections held in week five attracted controversy after many of the candidates alleged that a ‘secret slate’ had been campaigning together despite rules against it. This led to a wave of discontent against the SU, culminating in Corpus Christi College’s disaffiliation, which inspired similar motions in many other colleges. 

Another point of controversy was the Trustee Board’s decision to block two motions of no confidence meant to be chaired in the week seven student council. The decision led to the chair of the council, Isaac Chase-Rahman, resigning at the start of the meeting. In the meeting following his resignation, the council put forward a motion of no confidence against the entire Sabbatical Officer team for their conduct, which was also blocked by the Trustee Board.

The SU acknowledged concerns about “the SU’s ability to operate and represent the student body effectively” which also “created additional pressure on Sabbatical Officers.” This sentiment within the SU culminated in the Trustee Board’s decision to work on this urgent turnaround plan and ask for help from the university.

According to the SU website, the plan currently consists of: a review of student representation systems across the University and a review of the Union’s representation structures and operations, including staffing structures, people & culture, delivery and income generation. 

The plan will be implemented by a Transformation Committee that is co-chaired by the SU and the University in order to create a “more responsive student representation system”, one which “ better supports the Sabbatical Officers.” An additional goal is to improve “clarity among students about the SU’s purpose.”

While the SU will not be shutting down during this transition period, it will cease most student-facing activities and projects during this time. The Student Council will be dissolved and replaced with a “consultative body” to allow for student participation in the transformation planning. While charity and local community engagement efforts will be halted, the SU will continue to operate the Student Advice Service and facilitate student-led campaigns, student representation on University and college committees, and welfare provisions to colleges. 

The SU stated that “the current proposal is that Freshers Fair will take place in 2024.”  but did not outline a full timeline for the transformation. They have been contacted for comment.

Oxford Union tribunal upholds Hilary election after ruling on seven allegations of electoral malpractice

Cem Kozanoglu
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Oxford Union tribunal upholds Hilary election after ruling on seven allegations of electoral malpractice

The Oxford Union has released a report detailing the judgements of a tribunal that considered seven allegations of electoral malpractice. The tribunal upheld the results of the election and found no evidence of electoral interference by the Returning Officers (ROs). In the course of the investigations, both President-elect Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy and candidate Chris Collins were found guilty of making “vexatious claims” and fined £100. 

Last term’s election saw Osman-Mowafy elected Union President for Michaelmas Term 2024 with four more votes than the runner-up, Collins. Campaigning was especially fierce with three slates competing for votes under newly-instated rules that regulate online campaigning. 

The tribunal noted an increase in litigation, asserting that most previous elections have only led to two or fewer allegations. They attributed the high number of allegations in Hilary term to a rise in “vexatious claims” and continued that “the quantity of claims does not necessarily reflect any material change in the conduct of elections.”

In the first allegation, Mikael Toosy accused Alexandra Duckworth of abusing her powers as an RO in the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) to schedule its elections on the same day as the Union’s elections in order to benefit certain candidates. 

Toosy submitted a statement by OUCA President-elect Matty Brown as part of his evidence. Brown tried to retract his statement by claiming it was “procured through duress and deceit”, but the Tribunal found him guilty of making a submission “he knew to be untrue” and suspended his Union membership for Trinity Term. Duckworth was found not guilty.

Additionally, Toosy used case law to support his arguments which prompted the ROs to note: “Parties may be best served by reliance on the Panel’s understanding of straightforward and basic terminology in the English language” and further observed that “detailed references to criminal case law when a reference to the Oxford English Dictionary would perhaps suffice should be avoided.”

The second allegation was Osman-Mowafy accusing Deputy RO Adam Turner of a “motivated attempt to invalidate candidates”, referring to the initial disqualification of 21 candidates from his and Israr Khan’s slates.

The RO that made the relevant decision, Kit Newbold, testified that Turner’s advice to go ahead with the disqualifications had not hindered them in any way. Since Osman-Mowafy’s accusation was that he had hindered electoral officials, Turner was found not guilty.

Additionally, Osman-Mowafy accused Turner of ‘abusing the forms of house’ during a public business motion, but the tribunal accepted the defendant’s assertion that he had acted in accordance with the rules. Osman-Mowafy was found guilty of making vexatious claims and ordered to pay a fine of £100.

The report noted that they were “extremely concerned” that Mowafy brought forward a claim that was “so easily demonstrated to be incorrect” and further advised that the President-elect “makes a more detailed study of the forms of the institution over which he will ultimately preside.”

In the fifth allegation, Collins accused Newbold, who was in charge of the count, of misinterpreting (though in good faith) the rules of the Union which affected the election’s outcome. The Tribunal noted that the election had been exceptionally tight, with Osman Mowafy defeating Collins by three votes in the initial count and four votes in the final count. 

Collins argued that Newbold should have suspended the count and referred the matter to the Tribunal when they discovered that three unstamped ballots were cast. The tribunal found this to be an “impractical expectation.” He also argued that Newbold’s interpretations of certain contested ballots were unreasonable, which the tribunal rejected after taking a closer look at the 17 ballots in question. In fact, the re-examination found that Osman Mowafy had won by a difference of five votes rather than four.   

The Tribunal upheld the election results and found Newbold not guilty of any charges. 

In the seventh allegation, Collins accused Osman-Mowafy and others of conspiring to commit electoral malpractice by “making use of any electronic or online system” to solicit votes, and “[communicating] illicit statements”. The tribunal did not agree that the instances cited, including messaging on the Oxford Union Graduates group chat or holding a birthday party in the Union bar, violated their rules or amounted to a case. Furthermore, the tribunal noted that there was no evidence submitted to back up the charge of conspiracy and Osman-Mowafy described the allegation as “frivilous and malicious”. Collins was fined £100 for vexatious claims.

Ex-access officer Theo Sergiou filed the final allegation, which accused the entire RO team of neglecting to make the election accessible to those with disabilities. It was not considered by the Tribunal due to its submission after the deadline. 

Sergiou stated that elections were inaccessible for candidates due to compressed timelines and voters due to a lack of provisions for proxy voters and those with visual disabilities. 

The Panel did not discuss the allegation in detail as it was not submitted in time but stated that they are “assured that all such complaints are taken extremely seriously and are dealt with at the highest levels of the Society’s governance structures.”

When asked for comment on the proceedings as a whole, the Union responded: “We have full confidence in our disciplinary proceedings relating to the most recent election and look forward to putting on an exciting term card for our members in Trinity.”

Cherwell also notes that there were 3 additional allegations covered in the Tribunal’s proceedings which were not reported on because they were either in camera, too personal or not relevant to the public. The full report can be found at the Union’s notice board.  

To all the pubs we’ve loved before – Three Goats Heads

Susanna Elliott and Reka Sztaray
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To all the pubs we’ve loved before – Three Goats Heads

Week 7 – for the normal student, we are approaching the end of term, for the less normal; it is hack week on St Michael’s Street! For our last review therefore, we headed to the Three Goats Heads (conveniently right beside the Union). We visited here for Sunday lunch and found the pub to have a welcoming, vintage feel. The staff were really sweet and the food arrived incredibly quickly. In short – it was fantastic! The macaroni and cheese was delicious and the nachos were huge and had an exceptional amount of cheese (looking at you, Turf!). The chunky chips also deserve a shout out – they were the best we have had. For drinks, they had an extensive range of beer on tap, we of course had to try their bitters. Samuel Smith bitters was delicious with a buttery note, they even rivalled our favourite bitters at the Lamb and Flag! Our friend had the Alpine lager, claiming that it tasted like Staropranen (a popular Slovak beer – we will take her word for it). An impressive feature of this pub is their cocktail selection – quite rare to see in a pub but this place had it all, ranging from fruity classics to some more sophisticated flavours. Our friend had the Rob Roy and claimed it was the best cocktail he had tasted in a while! Overall, this pub is very quaint, has a great vibe and delicious food, and is particularly good if you don’t want to break the bank!

“Diesmal schweigen wir nicht!” (“We won’t be silent this time”)

Julia Hoffmann
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“Diesmal schweigen wir nicht!” (“We won’t be silent this time”)

Germany’s right-wing factions push forward

In another spectacular repeat of European history, a group of right-wing politicians met with an Austrian neo-Nazi last November in a small German town called Potsdam, known for being the seat of residence of Prussian kings and the German Emperor until 1918 The meeting ignited a national discussion on immigration policies, extremism, and the (re?)rise of far-right movements in the country. It was not just notorious figures such as the Austrian neo-Nazi Martin Sellner and representatives from Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party which it counted among its attendants; a number of middle class professionals  – doctors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs – were also present.

Sellner, known for his staunch and provocative anti-immigrant stance, took centre stage during the meeting. His speech focused on the concept of “re-migration”, a deceptively clinical term euphemizing the forceful mass deportation of migrants to their “countries of origin”, their possession of German citizenship disregarded. In particular, Sellner advocates for the expulsion of three distinct migrant categories: asylum seekers, non-Germans with residency rights, and what he calls “non-assimilated” German citizens, who, he claims,  “form aggressive, rapidly growing parallel societies”. These ideas resonated with representatives of the  AfD, a right-wing populist German parliamentary party that has gained significant traction in the last year.

Fuelled by a notable rise in support, particularly in Eastern regions of the country, the AfD established itself as a prominent political entity in 2023. Come September of the following year, the state legislatures of the German federal states, Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg will undergo fresh elections; presently, the AfD dominates the polls across all three states, commanding a significant lead with 34 – 35% support in Thuringia and Saxony. This surge of support comes against the backdrop of the ruling Ampelkoalition, a coalition consisting of the Social Democrats (red), the Liberals (yellow), and the Greens (green), falling to new record lows in public support, particularly for Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck (Greens), and for the Chancellor himself, Olaf Scholz.

Yet, the AfD is also under pressure domestically from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency. The agency has labelled the AfD branches in Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony as right-wing extremist groups. Additionally, the North Rhine-Westphalian AfD youth wing, Junge Alternative, was recently classified as a suspected extremist group; this decision was partly informed by the movement’s close ties to the Identitarian movement, its espousal of “ethno-nationalist” ideologies, and its “contempt for people with an immigrant background”. In response, the AfD maintains that its organisation is a legitimate political entity operating within legal boundaries; its official platform emphasises its dedication to the German nation and advocates for the equal treatment of all citizens, regardless of their background. However, the revelations from the Potsdam meeting have reignited discussions surrounding the influence of far-right ideologies in German politics. Within this climate, calls to ban the AfD have gained momentum, with a petition amassing over 800,000 signatures and initiatives in the Bundestag to outlaw the party.

The German public pushes back

Since the sinister topics of conversation at Potsdam came to light in January of this year, there have been over 870 demonstrations across Germany against the far right; and the protests show no signs of slowing down, with further events planned in cities such as Munich, Münster, Mühldorf am Inn, and numerous smaller towns. The largest demonstration so far took place on February 3rd in Berlin. According to the police, around 150,000 participants attended the rallies near the Reichstag, while organisers estimated that there were up to 300,000 participants. In Munich, hundreds of thousands of participants were counted by the police until the demonstration had to be aborted due to overcrowding. Based on police figures, nearly three million people nationwide have participated in demonstrations against the far right.

As a result, the AfD “appears highly unsettled by these demonstrations. The extreme right is in a state of panic. Attempts are being made to question these demonstrations as forgeries and as staged events”, says Matthias Quent, professor of sociology at Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences. While the protests are unlikely to reach or make an impression on “ideologically hardened segment of the AfD voter base”, Quent believes “there is also a reachable portion of the AfD voter base that can be unsettled by the protests and does not take the protective claims made by party leaders at face value.” While these protests may lead to further radicalization of some right-wing members in a time of increasing political polarisation, “people at work or in private circles [who] attend such demonstrations” in towns and cities across the country can help combat the polarisation of social media as undecided voters are convinced that broad swathes of the public are against the rise of the far right. On 14th of February, the AfD was polling at 18%, which is a loss of 4% points compared to the previous month. Having regularly achieved results of 20% or more towards the end of last year, this trend sees support for the AfD continuing to decline. Polling research leader, Robert Grimm, judged that in light of demonstrations for a “well-fortified democracy”, “moderate protest voters” find it difficult to continue sympathising with the AfD and their cause.

Germany’s Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser, has branded these protests as “an encouragement and a mandate” to act politically: “We want to break up right-wing extremist networks, cut their funding and take away their weapons”, Faeser said at the unveiling of her ministry’s new 13-point plan to fight right-wing extremism. This plan sees the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution taking on expanded powers for uncovering the financial sources of right-wing extremist networks. Through these proposed changes to the law, even a potential threat of far-right extremism would suffice to warrant actions such as freezing bank accounts. Faeseris also advocating for a change to the Basic Law, Germany’s constitution, in order to better protect the Federal Constitutional Court from the influence of those with anti-democratic tendencies,  particularly with relation to potential court judges. j The action plan also calls for progress on the stalled firearms law reform which aspired to tighten gun regulations and emphasises changes to the already approved disciplinary law reform, which aim to make it easier to remove “Verfassungsfeinde” or “enemies of the constitution” from public service. Additionally, local police and regulatory authorities, such as the trade and restaurant health and safety control, should be empowered to prohibit right-wing extremist events from taking place based on information from the intelligence services.Amidst the backdrop of rising far-right extremism across Europe, Germany finds itself at a critical juncture. The recent convergence of Austrian neo-Nazis, German right-wing politicians, and Alexander von Bismarck in Potsdam serves as a glaring indicator of the ideological challenges still facing the nation. However, in the face of this resurgence, Germany is not alone. From Austria to Spain to Sweden, the tendrils of far-right ideologies are entwining themselves with the fabric of European society,  directed most aggressively toward the most powerless in society, namely ethnic minority groups and asylum seekers. In light of this growing threat, the importance of anti-extremist action cannot be understated. All across the continent, citizens are rallying in opposition to such groups, against hate, discrimination, and intolerance. Over 870 recorded demonstrations against the rise of the far right in Germany underscore a tendency towards defending democratic values and safeguarding societal inclusivity. The struggle against far-right extremism is not confined to national borders; it is a shared challenge that demands a united response from all who cherish freedom, equality, and human dignity.

To all the pubs we’ve loved before: pitch(er) perfect

Susanna Elliott and Reka Sztaray
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To all the pubs we’ve loved before: pitch(er) perfect

The fifth week blues are hitting so we are combatting them with blue lagoons! Spoons
pitchers are a student staple for a reason, and week we decided to try out some new flavours.
This is our ranking of some of the Spoons pitchers, assisted by our expert friends.

  1. Bumbu Colada – this boasts a violent coconut flavour. Not to be touched unless you are a
    serious fan of Bountys. 2/10
  2. The Godfather – our friend described this as “pepsi and disappointment”. If you enjoy cola
    you might enjoy this but save your money and just order a vodka coke, it will taste the same. 3/10
  3. Blue Lagoon – “it tastes like chemicals”, “like eating a smurf”. Despite this, the blue
    lagoon is a fan favourite, our friend Kit said he could drink it “all night long baby”. 4/10
  4. Woo Woo – our friend says it tastes “like the colour red”. A bit like watery squash, but we
    love it. 6/10
  5. Mango Monster Mash – this drink tastes like a holiday. 7/10
  6. Bubblegin – this is our personal favourite. You can never go wrong with a bubblegin, it tastes like childhood and the glitter makes it even better. 9/10
  7. Candy Rosa – this is a new addition to the menu, and we were impressed. A very fruity cocktail, this arguably surpasses our love for bubblegin. It’s safe to say we have found a new favourite and we would seriously recommend you go down to Spoons to try one of these. 10/10

Oxford: A tale of two cities

Madelina Gordon
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Oxford: A tale of two cities

The first time I sat down to a formal dinner at Oxford I was bamboozled. Which fork… which knife… do I make my way outside-in, or inside-out? I was informed quite promptly by my tutor to assuredly not eat before the diners in front and to my sides had their meals in front of them. Although my college keeps it to a minimum, I know if I had to listen to five minutes of Latin at that point I would have been utterly dumbfounded. Alas, given I would have to wait until my ten minutes in the Sheldonian the following week to be introduced to incomprehensible Latin prose, I proceeded to eat my meal feeling amused, or pleasantly beguiled perhaps, by the gimmick of it all.

What baffled me as my time in Oxford continued, however, was that the ensemble of traditions Oxford had to offer were by no means a gimmick. I’m not pleading ignorance to the over 900 years of history to which these traditions owe their existence, but I was, and I still am, surprised by the sincerity, importance and integrity of these rituals to the university today. Dressed in a funny gown with a carnation pinned to my chest as I prepared to bleed onto my exam page, I struggled to take myself seriously.

Hilarious as some of the absurd, quirky and wonderful traditions Oxford has to offer are, their retention in Oxford today is a potentially unsettling reminder of what Oxford used to represent, which diametrically opposes the features of Oxford today that drew so many of us here.

On the one hand, Oxford is at the forefront of research and innovation, with swathes of resources both mental and financial supporting it. On the other, Oxford is a hub of discussion, progress, radical thought and critical theory. In the best way possible, Oxford certainly ascribes to what social conservatives associate with ‘woke culture’, if such is to represent self-reflexive thought about the socially constructed nature of structures that stratify individuals, or the critical questioning of existing institutions. Although there is no doubt significant progress to be made, discourse in student activist groups, overflowing attendance to feminist theory lectures, and the hiring of new critical theory scholars reflect the ‘left wing’, if you will, political and social consciousness that has developed within the university.

It is this consciousness that comes into head-on conflict with the culture and thought immortalised in Oxford’s traditions. Oxford was once a bastion of the British class system. It may not be a bastion as such today, but it is certainly still, symbolically or in the minds of some at least, an edifice of class, racial and gender discrimination as well as elitism. Glaring examples emerge by pointing to the Oxford Union and its far from accessible £300 joining fee, or otherwise Oriel College’s stone memorialisation of the godfather of the South African Apartheid. More covert examples are seen in the juxtaposition between the University’s extortionate wealth and the deprivation in local Oxfordshire, or the University and colleges’ failure to ensure not only an Oxford education, but participation in the university at large (joining sports clubs and attending balls come to mind) are accessible. The limited implementation of the foundation year scheme, dwindling number of Opportunity Oxford admissions, and the stigma directed towards students who’ve rusticated for ‘just not being able to cut it’, reflect further ways elitism is an active force. Chance encounters with those individuals, be it deans, principals or students, who very much choose to propagate the rhetoric that Oxford is indeed, elite, reveal that even in the university community, members are still seeking to uphold what Oxford once was in the face of the new. 

So amidst the spires, a struggle seems to be underway. There are two worlds at knuckleheads, grappling over Oxford’s identity. Whether these worlds can be reconciled whilst tradition and history are so pertinent to life in Oxford is an important question. I am unsure how much longer the university will be able to straddle the gaping divide between its past and its future.

Do not take me as arguing for the tradition’s demolition. Tradition is important. A legacy emphasising Oxford’s place as one of the oldest educational institutions in the world generates a spirit that worships and celebrates learning. There is tremendous value in this spirit. It motivates us to rethink and reconsider relics of the past, be it institutions or processes, to cohere with the new.

But I am dubious about the outcome of this internal struggle. As I have already mentioned, Oxford was a bastion of the English class system, and the English class system is very much alive and well. All I can hope is that reflexive and critical recharacterization of Oxford’s values will one day be sufficient to compete and confront a history of exclusion and elitism. The onus of reconciliation is on the present.

All Of Us Strangers Review – A Haunting Exploration of Love in all its Forms

Matthew Unwin
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All Of Us Strangers Review – A Haunting Exploration of Love in all its Forms

In All Of Us Strangers, writer-director Andrew Haigh leads us by the hand into a dreamlike, introspective world. The film begins with Andrew Scott’s Adam staring out of his window over London, watching the glittering lights of skyscrapers hovering in the darkness, like a constellation of stars, just out of reach.

Adam lives by himself in a faceless London apartment block. His life is routine, lonely: toiling away over his next manuscript, procrastinating, reheating leftover takeaway, falling asleep watching television. It quickly becomes apparent that Adam is one of the only people living in his building, with almost all the other rooms being empty. His only neighbour, Paul Mescal’s Harry, appears at his door one night with a bottle of whisky.

‘Japanese,’ Harry says. ‘It’s meant to be the best in the world, but I don’t know why.’

His eyes betray a kind of desperate loneliness that is perfectly mirrored in Scott’s. These are clearly two men trapped at the edge of society, yearning for connection, yet unable to find it. Of course, a tentative relationship begins to blossom between them.

Interwoven with this romance, this burgeoning connection between two strangers, is Adam’s experiences returning to his childhood home, as he pines for his lost connection with his parents. It is quickly established that Adam’s parents have died, but on returning to their old house, he begins to see them again, exactly as they were when they passed in the eighties. There is a wistful seam of nostalgia that runs throughout the film: Adam keeps his childhood toys under his bed and rifles through old photos of himself, and the soundtrack is filled with eighties tracks that Adam plays on his record player.

Watching the film, its emotional impact strikes most, gradually building over the course of the runtime to deliver itself like a gut punch in the film’s later scenes. The cast, chiefly Scott, achieves this with a remarkable tenderness. Especially affecting for me were the scenes between Scott, Claire Foy and Jamie Bell – who play Adam’s mum and dad respectively. The relationship between them and their son is rendered brilliantly. It would have surely been tempting to paint them as perfect parents, lacking any nuance in their characters, but they are portrayed entirely realistically, each with their own foibles. They may crack jokes with their son, and the three actors have such a brilliant chemistry together that you can believe they are a family, but they are not perfect parents. Both have flaws and regrets. Adam’s mother struggles to accept her son is gay, and Adam’s dad struggles with not being more supportive of their son.

Over the course of the film, their great regret at their struggles to raise their son, at chances missed, and ultimately their greatest regret, missing him grow up, simmers. At points, this bubbles to the surface. These are three people who deeply love each other, but who are chained to regret. And of course, they are all painfully aware that this reunion between parents and son – which to me has more the quality of a dream than a ghost story – is not permanent. Like all great dreams, it must end.

Adam and Harry’s relationship, delicately fitted between these scenes, is equally engaging. Both Scott and Mescal are subtle enough that they can pull off a relationship between them convincingly, and they have such a chemistry on screen that scenes between them never fail to engage. This is made even more impressive by the fact that most scenes between them take place only in Adam’s apartment, very rarely broken up by the couple going outside. There are few supporting cast members in the film; beyond Mescal, Scott, Foy and Bell, there are almost no other people. Most scenes have a narrow depth of field, so that anything that isn’t Scott or Mescal’s face is smushed into the background. Again, all this adds to the dreamy, trance-like feeling of the film, but it also means that most of the film rests on the performances of its four main stars. That they entirely live up to this task is nothing short of remarkable.

In addition to some superb performances, heavy lifting is also done by the delicate screenplay, excellent editing and a phenomenal soundtrack, with some great needle drops. In that way, it seems reminiscent of another Mescal film, Aftersun, which featured a needle drop of Under Pressure that sticks out as one of the most profoundly affecting moments in the film. Several moments in this film, often accompanied by similar needle drops, left me similarly raw.

It’s a phenomenal achievement: in All Of Us Strangers’ small-scale and dreamlike narrative is contained a sweeping portrait of both familial and romantic love – rendered in all its regret, heartbreak and, ultimately, joy.

Ode to a Nearly Beloved

Sophie Harrison
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Ode to a Nearly Beloved

Your name is a colour

I see the world in these days,

A tinted lens which deceives the eye,

Fills street corners with the shade of you.

As though through tracing paper,

I etch your features onto faces

Of strangers I’ll never know;

Now that’s what you’ve become.

Conversations echo, distorted by

Memory’s sleight of hand,

And recycled phrases I regurgitate,

Half-made up in the space of silence,

Until all meaning has leached away.

I’d still marvel at your poetry

Dissect each phrase, until it collapses

Into letters of unravelling form.

Are words just words?

Or is there something caught

In the snare of subtext

That would explain it all? 

Fill in the gaps left by things unsaid

To form a dot-to-dot picture

Consisting only of negative space,

Shaped like the distance between us?

You

Me

I know now not to analyse nothingness,

Now I know that’s what I’ve done all along.

So I’ve stopped conjuring your name onto

The pixelated screen of disappointment

Watched a firework fade into a piece 

Of sky in the jigsaw of the world,

My eyes tracing the pattern,

Though I know I’ll soon

forget.

‘Bittersweet, immersive and profoundly moving’ – Perfect Days Review

Grace Kyoko Wong
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‘Bittersweet, immersive and profoundly moving’ – Perfect Days Review

「今度は今度。今は今。」(“Next time is next time. Now is now.”)

So tells Hirayama (a masterful Koji Yakusho), the central character in Japanese-language film Perfect Days, to his runaway niece, Niko (Arisa Nakano), when he tells her that he won’t take her to the sea that day. But this phrase could just as well summarise the film itself; I don’t think I’ve ever felt so ‘in the moment’ while watching a film as I did with Perfect Days, with its documentary-style handheld shots and meditative pace. Far from worrying about the past or the future within a conventional plot, Perfect Days provides us with a rare opportunity to see the world through the eyes of someone who lives each day ‘as if it were an entire life’.

Directed by German director Wim Wenders, Perfect Days follows twelve days in the life of Hirayama, a cleaner of the architecturally striking and often high-tech public toilets in present-day Tokyo. Hirayama seems highly content with his solitary and minimalist daily routine, which he has followed for years. Waking up at dawn in a suburb by the Tokyo Skytree, he drives his blue Daihatsu minivan to work in Shibuya, takes pictures of trees in a park with his 35mm Olympus film camera, goes to the same bar in Asakusa subway station for dinner, and reads a book from the local second-hand bookstore – we see him reading Patricia Highsmith, William Faulkner and Aya Kōda – before going to sleep. While the film may initially seem repetitive, over time, it becomes clear that despite this apparently rigid routine, no two days in Hirayama’s life are the same; in fact, over these twelve days, we see the character experience the ultimate emotional highs and lows.

Hirayama is a man of few words, whose feelings and personality we come to understand partly through his choice of music: soft rock hits from the 60s and 70s (think Lou Reed, The Animals or Otis Redding), which he plays from cassette tapes during his drives to and from work. However, despite the relative lack of dialogue in the film, Yakusho manages to communicate, through just a single glance or change in facial expression, the profound empathy and tenderness of his character, as well as the possible pain in his past from which he may be shielding himself. This is particularly true in the final scene, when Hirayama is shown driving to Nina Simone’s Feeling Good (“It’s a new dawn / It’s a new day / It’s a new life”), with his expression rapidly switching between joy and sorrow, in what is perhaps the most impressive display of Yakusho’s acting in the whole film.

Perfect Days captures the joyful, humorous and poignant moments in Hirayama’s everyday interactions with people from all walks of life, from his lovelorn co-worker, Takashi (an almost caricaturish Tokio Emoto), to the hostess of the izakaya he frequents, Mama (Sayuri Ishikawa), to a homeless man (Min Tanaka) who is treated as invisible by everyone else around him. Although many of the comedic moments feel somewhat exaggerated – for instance, when Hirayama dashes down the staircase in his apartment to avoid being in front of Niko while she gets dressed – there are also some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, the chief one being when Takashi’s love interest Aya (a beguiling Aoi Yamada), who seems more interested in Hirayama’s cassette collection than in Takashi, says goodbye to a startled Hirayama with a kiss on the cheek.

Despite its generally whimsical tone, Perfect Days does not shy away from exploring darker themes, such as when Niko makes an off-hand remark to Hirayama that she “might end up like Victor”, the young boy in Highsmith’s short story Terrapin who is driven to murder his emotionally abusive mother, and also in the devastating climax, where Hirayama is confronted with the unbridgeable divide that has been created between him and another key character.

Franz Lustig’s precise cinematography greatly contributes to our understanding of Hirayama as a character: in one scene, the camera wordlessly scans across Hirayama’s large book collection in his otherwise austere apartment, prompting the audience to wonder whether there was ever more to Hirayama’s life than his current existence as a toilet cleaner. As someone who has spent a considerable amount of time in Japan, I also found the film’s visuals and soundscape thoroughly convincing: from hearing the ringing of the closing railway barriers signalling the incoming approach of a train, to glimpsing the red paper bag of renowned confectioner Kamakura Beniya, to sensing the palpable excitement in a bar as a Yomiuri Giants baseball game is broadcast, watching Perfect Days made me feel entirely transported to Tokyo.

The daytime scenes of the film are complemented by brief experimental, black-and-white dream sequences produced by Wenders’ wife, Donata Wenders, which offer glimpses into Hirayama’s subconscious; in particular, they reveal his fascination with komorebi, a Japanese concept describing the beautiful yet ephemeral way in which light filters through tree leaves, which in turn serves as a metaphor for the fleeting nature of life. While these sequences provide an intriguing addition to the otherwise realist nature of the film, this message could have been expressed more subtly: given the constant appearance of komorebi throughout the film, not just in Hirayama’s dreams but also in his everyday routine, the audience was left in no doubt about its significance from early on.

Overall, I found Perfect Days to be a bittersweet and profoundly moving film about living in the moment. While the steady pace and loose narrative of the film may not initially appeal to everyone, Yakusho’s standout performance and Lustig’s immersive cinematography make it well worth a watch.

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