「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.
Emma Jeffries: Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
It’s rare that I find non-fiction to be such a page-turner, but Tara Westover’s autobiography was just that. It reads more like a novel than biography, but the exciting passages of prose are interspersed with Westover’s reflections on the experiences she went through and her wider message about the importance of education in forming an individual. Despite being published in 2018, it is already a classic of our time; it was instantly a #1 New York Times Bestseller, as well as being positively reviewed by a number of major publications
Westover grew up in the mountains of Idaho to survivalist Mormon parents, and was the youngest of their seven children. Her parents did not believe in public schooling, modern medicine, or the government, and it is these fundamental beliefs that shaped Westover’s life. Throughout, she also understands that her memories are clouded by her upbringing and beliefs, as well as the emotions that she ascribes to her experiences. She therefore provides a non-sensationalist account of her life with a nuanced understanding of how abuse, mental health problems, and emotional response altered her whole family’s recollection of her childhood.
Westover is a long way from rural Buck’s Peak now. She graduated with honours from Brigham Young University in 2008, after being admitted there on a scholarship despite having no high school diploma. She went on to earn a Master’s degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 2010 she was a visiting fellow at Harvard University. She earned her doctorate in intellectual history in 2014, returning to Trinity College, Cambridge, and is now working at Harvard University as a Senior Research Fellow as well as writing for The New York Times and BBC News.
Westover’s unusual path to success in academia resonated with me in particular as a current undergraduate student at Oxford University. Reading this over the Christmas vacation motivated me to get on with my reading (!), but also put into perspective my own privilege. Education, as Westover’s title Educated suggests, was one of the defining features of her life which allowed her to escape the abusive environment of her Mormon upbringing. Access to education, particularly the education as provided at top academic institutions like Oxford and Cambridge, allowed Westover to change her future and take control of her life, as well as give her the platform to write about and share her experiences with others. It was also education that allowed her to relate to the world around her and understand the world she was in.
Educated would be a great read if it were a work of fiction, but its real-world applications and resonances make it a truly brilliant book that highlights the importance of education in our world today, and makes me more seriously understand the extent of inequality and diversity of background present at my own university.
Georgia Campbell: The President’s Hat by Antoine Laurain
Antoine Laurain is not a name I had heard before coming across The President’s Hat in my local bookshop, but it is certainly not one I have forgotten since.
Described by its author as ‘a modern fairytale for adults’, the 2012 novel was inspired by Laurain’s own imaginings of the second life his hat might be enjoying on the head of someone else after he left it in a café in France. It traces the lives of four people: an accountant, an aspiring and love-lorn poet, a gifted perfumier, and a Parisian socialite, all of whom are transformed for the better following their discovery of the hat of then-President of France, François Mitterrand.
The novel is loosely episodic: the life of each character picks up where the hat is left- in a restaurant, train, or park bench- and with each change-of-hands Laurain paints a Parisian portrait more endearing than the last.
It is certainly not what could be described as a ‘difficult’ book, but throughout Laurain subtly reminds us of the powers of self-perception to alter the trajectory of our lives. Whether the hat is actually magic, as Laurain once suggested in an interview, or simply prompts its wearers to view themselves in a new light is left ambiguous, but the book is no less enchanting either way.
After reading, I was struck by how rare it is to find a book so resolutely life-affirming: in a world filled with online echo chambers and an increasingly individualistic ethos, the book suggests that our lives- whether we realise it or not- are always intersecting those of others. The stories of four radically different figures all become bound together by a single felt hat, and it is hard not to feel that- through the widespread popularity of the book itself- Laurain has fostered a new web of connections among an international audience.
At just 200 pages long, The President’s Hat is a quick, charming read that might be just the ticket after all the chaos of an intense Hilary term. It is full to the brim with character, connection, and all the delight of a certain French je ne sais quoi. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Adam Saxon: The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
“Sometimes one has suffered enough to have the right to say: I am happy”.
You almost undoubtedly will have heard of other works by Dumas Peré such as The Three Musketeers or The Count of Monte Cristo. Admittedly, the latter was the first work of his that I read; still today it is my favourite of the books I have read in recent years. Despite such enjoyment, it took me far too long to pick up another of Dumas’ works, but when I finally did over the summer, I am glad it was The Black Tulip.
A much lighter (and shorter) read than the works he is primarily known for, The Black Tulip follows the story of a tulip grower during the tulip mania that occurred during the 17th century in the Netherlands. We follow our hero Cornelius as he becomes caught up in the cut-throat politics of the time as a harmless man whose sole desire is to grow the elusive ‘black tulip’. It is a story of jealousy, love, and greed, tied together in unsurprisingly fantastic style by the excellent Dumas. While extravagant and far-fetched at times, it is a fun story that I would recommend as a gateway into the works of Dumas, as it gives a good taste of his writing style.
While a good introduction to his style, The Black Tulip is not a typical Dumas Story. Works like The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo are known for their adventurous plots, with a certain level of mystery that is required to make such long books interesting. This recommendation is not that. However, it has other features that make it an underrated part of Dumas’ works, as a hilarious romantic comedy that is also a tale of betrayal and deception. The characters are lovable (in part due to their overbearing romanticism), and the slight insanity of the plot amplifies this further. It also explores love in a more serious way, however, and the lengths one is willing to go to in helping those whom they love. While I wouldn’t recommend it as a book for anyone fond of entirely realistic plots, The Black Tulip is an incredibly enjoyable read, and certainly an accessible classic, especially by Dumas’ standards.
Eager hands reach toward the ceiling as children at the Ismail Qemali school in Mitrovica, northern Kosovo, desperately try to attract the attention of an author who has come to talk to the pupils about her new book. They want to know more about the central character – a young refugee who finds herself in a strange new country – and about how to be a good writer.
Such a scene was unthinkable before The Library Project began its work in the region, building new libraries, bringing books into schools for the first time, training teachers in new methods, and implementing ‘Reading Hour’, an activity in which the entire class participates in a discussion of a book’s themes, plot and characters. The NGO’s overall aim is to use group literacy activities to instil a love of reading and among children and young adults in Kosovo. This collective approach, which has collaboration, engagement and discussion at its heart, contrasts to the divisions and alienation which have hung over the region since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.
Last April, ethnic Serbs boycotted the Kosovan mayoral elections in a protest over broken promises of autonomy; in July the hospital in Mitrovica faced shortages in medical supplies due to the closure of border crossings; and by September four men had lost their lives in a confrontation between Serbian paramilitaries and Kosovan police. Symbolically, this last conflagration had taken place in an Orthodox monastery only twenty minutes away from the Ismail Qemali school in Mitrovica.
I came across The Library Project whilst desperately trying to understand what has been going on between Kosovo and Serbia over the last twelve months. Frustrated by my ignorance, which I sheepishly blame on a school history syllabus that rarely strayed further into the contemporary period than the 1980s, I plunged down an internet search hole.
By the end of my Wikipedia spiral, I came to the rather obvious conclusion that the legacies of the ethnic tensions and consequent wars which defined the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s refuse to disappear.
In fact, The Library Project itself was born from the founder’s experience of the Serbia-Kosovo conflict, in which campaigns led by convicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic resulted in the displacement of over one million Albanian Kosovans, and the deaths of thousands.
Safete Binaku was one of those forced to flee, moving to Sweden aged 13. Memories of her school days are not filled with novels and the opportunity to discuss literature, but of being taught in separate classrooms to the ethnic Serbs, and not being allowed to play with them at breaktime, before finally leaving Kosovo. She describes her flight in terms that convey the chaos, pessimism and tragedy of the era: “as we left everything burned down behind us, there was no return”.
Fittingly for someone who runs a NGO based on the power of books, she explains that the brutality of the 1990s was a consequence of the fact that Serbs and Kosovans had “two completely different stories”, and neither group sought to understand the other’s. It was partly her desire to make sure that today’s young Kosovans are able to engage and understand others’ stories, experiences, and opinions, that encouraged her to set up The Library Project in 2017 with some friends in Stockholm.
The charity’s overall aim is to use group literacy activities to instil a love of reading and among children and young adults in Kosovo. This collective approach, which has collaboration, engagement and discussion at its heart, contrasts to the divisions and alienation which have hung over the region since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.
But she also insists that this crisis of mutual ignorance isn’t limited to northern Kosovo, but palpable in many of the conflicts we see today, cautioning that by “not reading, ever, that story of the other group, that is the easiest way to shut them off”.
Owing to her promotion of tolerance and dialogue, I wanted to know if her experience of the famed culture of acceptance in Sweden had also played a role in the establishment of her NGO. Her answer is nuanced.
On the one hand, she describes how proud she was to associate herself with Sweden up until 2015, recounting how she signed up to volunteer with Syrian refugees but didn’t get a spot because so many people had put themselves forward.
However, like in much of Europe, the country’s right-wing populist party has seen significant gains in recent years, and in 2022 it became part of a government coalition for the first time in its history. The innocuously-named Swedish Democrats’ doubt the viability of multiculturalism and often point to the situation in Malmo, a city with a 35% foreign born population, which has long suffered with high crime rates and has been described as having ‘no go zones’ for police.
Safete laments the rising trend of politicians laying the blame on immigrants, but feels that Sweden still has a “very giving culture”, highlighting that it is currently the fifth biggest donor to Kosovo.
But she also directly credits her experience of the Swedish education system as inspiration for the NGO, citing the injustice she felt when she was helped to pick out a book at secondary school, knowing that Kosovan children didn’t receive the same attention as she did. Understanding the transformative potential of a single book, she wanted to bring that empowerment to her homeland.
Safete believes that part of the value of being a lifelong reader is becoming comfortable with perspectives that challenge your own. She tells me how Wonder, a book about a boy with a facial deformity, and the orphaned Oliver Twist, have had a particularly strong impact on the Kosovan children who have received books thanks to The Library Project.
Nonetheless, Suzana, a teacher and Safete’s co-founder, highlights the children’s “hunger for more stories that speak to them”, a desire that is being met by The Project’s drive to get more Kosovan literature into the classroom. By seeing their own childhoods reflected on the pages of books, it is hoped that pupils will also gain the tools to articulate their own experiences to others.
‘Reading Hour’, similar to activities like ‘class reader’ in the UK, is unlike anything Safete experienced at school in Kosovo in the 90s, when the education system was strongly grounded in strict discipline and rote learning. In fact, today’s Kosovan children struggle with the concept initially as a result of comprehension and analysis skills still being completely left off the Kosovan curriculum. They are often uncomfortable with the concept of debate, answering questions intended to elicit their opinions with memorised paragraphs of the book, but soon begin to passionately advocate for or critique the central characters in every story.
All the books are handpicked by the Project, based on their ability to generate discussion on a pressing theme, whether that’s friendship, LGBTQ+ issues, or bullying. Some of the themes even allow teachers to tackle taboo topics in Kosovan society, and Safete explains how Anne Frank’s diary provided a surprising example.
“They didn’t know that you could talk about having a negative relationship with a parent”, she says, describing the shock the children felt when Anne expresses less than generous thoughts about her mother. It is not part of Kosovan culture to talk about feelings openly, especially any sentiments that might betray disrespect to one’s elders, and so it is unsurprising that several children told their teacher that they were going to start a private diary. For their sake, I hope their parents don’t read them..
Another female protagonist that proved inspirational was Kosse, who is based on real-life footballer Kosovare Asllani, who scored Sweden’s winning goal in the bronze medal match of the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Asllani, like Safete, is part of the large Kosovan diaspora who lives in Sweden, and her story – which revolves around her brothers not letting her play with them – prompted several female pupils to ask indignantly, “why don’t we play more football?”.
But the impact of the project is felt far beyond the conversations during ‘Reading Hour’. In the absence of a clearly defined curriculum, Kosovan teachers are often left with little guidance on how to educate the children, a difficulty compounded by the scarcity of resources written in Albanian. One of the first ways that The Library Project sought to make a change in Kosovan classrooms was by training educators in small sessions, before sending them back to their respective schools and asking them to spread the new methods amongst their colleagues.
“We’re trying to put the system in place and then hand it over”, Safete explains, a philosophy which reflects the sense of independence, creativity, and initiative that she is trying to instil in the children themselves.
Image credits: The Library Project via Instagram (@libraryproject.kosova)
Testimonies all attest to the impact the project has had on educators’ professional and personal lives, with teachers Ermira, Donita and Merita all commenting on how it has revolutionised the children’s learning and their own approach to all subjects, and Naime – the very first teacher to receive the training – saying that Reading Hour, loved by the children, “has become very dear” to her as well.
But scrolling through the NGO’s Instagram account, it is striking that almost all the pictures of the teacher training sessions include only women. Though empowering the female educators the project works with, Safete admits that male teachers are often more resistant to learning new techniques.
This is only one of the challenges they face, the greatest of all being the scepticism exhibited by children, headteachers and parents when approached by the NGO.
“Kosovan kids are not like the Swedish kids”. “You are never going to manage to build us a library”. “They don’t read that way”.
The second of these statements of doubt was uttered by Ardian, a ninth-grader who was incredulous at the prospect of his run-down school having its own library.
A few years later, Safete was in a café in Kosovo and Ardian bounded up to her, excitedly telling her that although he had now graduated, his younger siblings were using the newly built library at the school.
Such success stories as this will fuel the project’s current plans, which will involve more teacher training and setting up a library in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital. Like the other facilities set up by the NGO, it will have a rotating collection, so local schools will be able to take out a full set of books to run ‘Reading Hour’, and when they come back for their next set, their previous loan will be passed on to another school to borrow.
The plans are ambitious, but there are a huge number of people across Sweden and Kosovo propelling the NGO forward. Safete has never had to advertise for volunteers because people somehow find the NGO, something which she says was particularly surprising when it came to the building phase of several of the libraries, for which many unemployed Kosovans offered their help.
One of the volunteers, Leurita, says one of the most memorable moments was when she was able to personally deliver books to the children. Merely “seeing the joy in the children’s eyes” was what inspired her commitment to TLPK.
Last September’s escalation of violence perforates this sense of optimism, but also re-asserts why The Library Project’s work is so crucial. Serbian children still learn a different version of history to their Kosovan counterparts across the border, and without a mutual understanding of one another, it is difficult to imagine a context in which the two groups might be able to live in relative harmony. With 200 new UK soldiers joining the 4,000-strong NATO task force based in the region, and the US accepting Kosovo’s application to buy Javelin anti-tank missiles only two weeks ago, 2024 could see tensions boil over again.
Amidst this dark, uncertain backdrop, Safete insists she is no hero. But The Library Project’s mission, articulated by co-founder Suzana as using books to pave “the way to a brighter future for children and young people in Kosovo” certainly seems heroic.
Image credits: The Library Project via Instagram (@libraryproject.kosova)
Whilst it’s no surprise that AI has been an imminently looming threat for some time, few truly envisioned its extensive capabilities until OpenAI’s recent release of ‘Sora’, the extraordinary text-to-video AI model, which has sent waves of apprehension through the creative industry. I do apologise if AI articles are, by now, a bit of a bore, but for those of you who haven’t already stumbled across this particular technology, it truly is a spectacle I urge you to investigate. Essentially, ‘Sora’ transforms simple text prompts of visual descriptions such as ‘A movie trailer featuring the adventures of the 30 year old space man wearing a red wool knitted motorcycle helmet, blue sky, salt desert, cinematic style, shot on 35mm film, vivid colors’ into one-minute long, HD moving pictures, almost (scarily!) flawlessly depicting the description inputted. A quick Google search will demonstrate the vast variety of other scenes that this technology is capable of generating, ranging from intricate animations to close-up nature shots and historical footage. The possibilities are endless. And almost perfectly executed.
Currently, the model is not in the public domain and is only available to a limited number of technological professionals, visual artists and filmmakers for feedback purposes, however, it’s certainly possible that OpenAI have released these developments as a warning of their capabilities. This technology may be all well and good if used innocently from the comfort of one’s bedroom, but, as always, the implications don’t end there.
So with the release of ‘Sora’, the question on everyone’s lips is: is this the end? The end of special effects teams? The end of video creation? The end of filmmaking? Let me start by reassuring you – this stance is somewhat dramatic. The release of ‘Sora’, whilst impressive, does not necessarily merit an existential crisis of the end of filmmaking altogether. There are, however, still some (slightly less extreme, yet crucial) concerns. These worries are evidently sweeping through Hollywood. Filmmaker Tyler Perry has put his studio expansions of $800 million on hold, and James Hawes, UK director, predicts that within five years AI will be capable of generating entire television series such as soap operas, with complexity and emotional depth indistinguishable from human creation. The most likely fields to suffer from such technology, therefore, are those that produce easily replicable, fungible content. As Hawes predicts, this consists of media such as advertisements, or soap operas, or Marvel films, which, whilst taking lengthy processes to write and produce, are, in reality, rather formulaic. It will, therefore, be mid-market entertainment which is lost to this technology, since, I can’t imagine it likely for AI to be able to produce the next Godfather. So whilst huge Hollywood studios aren’t necessarily in trouble, partially due to AI’s current limitations, and partially on account of capitalism’s rapacious nature causing huge studios to likely harness these tools for their own economic benefit, this so-called fungible content may be. Of course, equally, ‘Sora’ won’t be able to produce the eleventh season of Friends with the click of a button any time soon. But I can certainly foresee a world in the near future in which AI will, from the input of a handful of ‘Friends’ episodes, be capable of producing an entire AI-generated episode following formulaically from the input, to an almost identical level. And as for, for example, car advertisements, I seriously doubt these will ever be manually produced again. One look at ‘Sora’s video generation from the prompt ‘the camera follows behind a white vintage SUV with a black roof rack as it speeds up a steep dirt road’ makes this abundantly clear. Similarly, one might say the same for the extraordinary animation produced from the prompt ‘animated scene features a close-up of a short fluffy monster kneeling beside a melting red candle’.
But the impacts won’t start with the replacement of entire industries. Rather, overexposure and overproduction of these media forms mean that animators, soap producers and videographers alike, unfortunately, may need to either seriously up their game, diversify, or harness these AI tools in order to not be outcompeted by the industry’s very own survival of the fittest. Concerns regarding this arise, however, not only in the creative abandonment of middle-market shows and production but also in the loss of vital training opportunities which these foster. Mid-market series such as the BBC’s ‘Doctors’, whereby so many renowned actors first broke into the industry, provide hands-on experience and opportunities for entry for newcomers. With only world-famous acting and directing talent remaining in the industry – how might one break in?
In an attempt to avoid sugarcoating this; post-’Sora’, filmmaking will never be the same. The impacts will be profound. The loss of jobs, experiences and skill in filmmaking may be catastrophic to the industry and will likely result in a disparity between those who utilise AI, and those who disregard it. Perhaps an overlooked impact of such technology, however, and for me, arguably one of the most widespread, is the erosion of culture. Throughout our lifetime, we have experienced the exponential demise of physical media, with the likes of physical DVDs and boxsets replaced by streaming services, CDs replaced by Spotify, and newspapers replaced by online articles (ironically). But AI takes this to a whole new level, by completely removing the element of humanity. Just the concept of reading an AI-generated article, or watching an AI-generated film, with a complete absence of human interaction and production, is, to me, terrifying. But equally, huge production companies are never going to reject such an opportunity to save time and save money. Maybe I’m naive in my idealistic romanticising of the manual process of film creation, but the abandonment of such authenticity feels somewhat like a betrayal of cultural integrity, value and true talent.
For others, perhaps ‘Sora’ is less menacing. For those in our positions as students and young creators, ‘Sora’ poses an exciting opportunity for the expansion of cinema and new talent, and a revolutionary way of content creation. To be able to understand and utilise this technology to create fascinating independent films in a way which has never before been possible will soon be an invaluable skill sought by every recruiter in the industry. Why would one not take advantage of this?
This article is by no means an attempt at fear-mongering. Upon looking at the bigger picture for a moment, it’s evident that this technology is not flawless. ‘Sora’ itself warrants little concern on account of its current abilities, and it is only when we jump to the conclusions of its potential use in Hollywood that issues arise. But a somewhat comforting assertion is that these consequences seem a long way off. Currently, ‘Sora’ is only capable of creating one-minute-long videos, and in order to produce more threatening, lengthy films, this would require the generation of thousands of AI chips, which, in turn, is expensive. And so unless Sam Altman happens to stumble across $7 trillion, Hollywood is safe for now.
Personally, I remain somewhat optimistic. I think that the fundamental thing fuelling this optimism is the human desire for genuine talent and creativity. As a society, the cultural erosion I discussed is, generally, unattractive and undesirable. I would hope that, after the novelty of AI visual generation wears off, the human need for creativity and promotion of art will, at least to an extent, trump our persistent need to technologically advance. Ultimately, this unknown territory into which we are venturing is just that. It’s unknown. And so whilst such threats may, on the surface, be frightening, this is by no means the demise of Hollywood.
For the classier among us, sometimes pubs and pints aren’t always what you’re looking for. This week, we decided to escape witness protection (it’s a long story) and treat ourselves and go to one of Oxford’s favourite cocktail spots. The House can be found beside the Bear Pub, making it an ideal location for those who, like us, rarely ever leave the city centre. The atmosphere here is amazing, classy but not intimidating, and the staff are always very friendly and helpful. Réka’s favourite is the Appletini or the White Lady and Suzy usually opts for the Raspberry Collins. If you are a fan of fruity cocktails, House is perfect, especially if you’d like to try something different from the usual Pornstar Martini. While drinks can be on the pricy side, they have a discount for Union Members and happy hours are 5-9 on Tuesday-Thursday, 5-8 on Friday and 4-8 on Sunday which makes a big difference. Even though it’s just a cocktail bar, they do have some bar snacks and one of our friends has even tried their nachos. Overall, we are always really impressed with House, the atmosphere and staff are wonderful, and the cocktails are delicious. For those with a vibrant social life, the upstairs can even be rented out for events, so it’s definitely a contender for your birthday!
All-in-all, we wouldn’t hesitate to recommend House to any who haven’t been or for your next date!
He was a student when Myanmar’s military launched a coup against its sitting government in 2021 and has since had to flee after protesting against military rule. He currently volunteers with the charity Asylum Welcome and is seeking to raise awareness of the ongoing violence and human rights abuses perpetrated by the present regime in Myanmar.
In spring of 2021, Jack was in his third year of university studying psychology. On the 1st February 2021, Myanmar’s parliament was scheduled to meet for the first time since the election in November 2020, in which the incumbent National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi won in a landslide victory. Instead, to the surprise of many living in Myanmar including Jack, the military seized power from the civilian government on that day in a coup, bringing to an abrupt halt a decade-long transition away from full military rule towards democracy.
Jack woke up that morning and turned on the television to find that all channels were out of operation except the military channel which was broadcasting propaganda. The coup marked a return to military rule which Myanmar has been subject to since 1962. The November election was only the second general election held in the country since an end was brought to full military rule in 2011 after years of insurgencies and civil protests by the Burmese people.
The military justified the coup by alleging widespread fraud in the 2020 election and declaring a subsequent state of emergency, though a number of independent observers have rejected the claims of widespread election fraud. For young people like Jack, democracy had become the new norm and they had little memory of the decades of military rule that had dictated Burmese politics for much of the period since its independence. Having only known life under a democracy, he was completely taken aback by the announcement of the coup. He mentioned that when he first saw the broadcasts, he partially hoped the whole thing was some sort of joke, not quite believing what was happening, though the bleak reality of the situation soon set in.
Thousands took to the streets in cities across Myanmar in the months that followed to reject the coup and call for the elected government to be returned to power. Amongst them were Jack and his friends who organised the first non-violent demonstration in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-biggest city, attended by hundreds of people. The initial response to the coup, which mostly constituted a peaceful civil disobedience movement made up of health workers, students and other civilians was met with a brutal crackdown. The military began its ongoing campaign of terror; quashing dissent with violent tactics, raiding homes, arresting and in some cases executing activists and those suspected of supporting democracy.
Jack recounts hearing about the first person, Mya Thwe Thwe Khaing, who was shot at with a live bullet at a peaceful demonstration in the city of Naypyidaw on February 4th as the police attempted to clear protestors. Despite contrary evidence from filmed footage of the incident, the military claimed only rubber bullets were used that day. She died in hospital on February 19th from her wounds. She was just 19 years old. After those first few days, Jack remembers dispersal tactics only becoming more brutal, with tear gas, water cannons and live bullets being deployed regularly at subsequent protests. He described scenes of burnt tires, roads filled with rubbish and sounds of gunshots resonating through the city of Mandalay for the first time in his memory.
When schools and universities were reopened later in 2021 and in early 2022 after many months of closure due to COVID-19 alongside many other students refused to return to education in protest. Faced with gloomy prospects for the return of a democratic government and disgruntled at the state of the curriculum, shaped by what he found to be an intentionally exclusionary narrative, Jack continued his strike action. He received a number of letters from his university stating that if he didn’t attend, he would be arrested. As his situation became increasingly unsafe, he made the difficult decision to leave his home and come to the UK to seek asylum.
Speaking about his experiences seeking asylum in the UK, he says that he is at once grateful for the people he has met in Oxford and frustrated with some of his interactions with the immigration system. Though the Home Office web site suggests that it usually takes six months to get an asylum decision after interview, Jack has found this to be unrealistic in his and others’ experience. This reflects a national trend of growing appeal backlogs, resulting in longer average waiting times for decisions on asylum cases. According to the Migration Observatory, whereas 87% of applications received an initial decision within six months in Q2 2014, just 10% did so in the same time period in 2022. In 2021, UK asylum applications took an average of around 20 months to receive an initial Home Office decision.
As he awaits a decision, he has been staying in government accommodation on the outskirts of Oxford. He talks about how friendly and supportive many of the people he has met in Oxford have been. Since asylum seekers do not have the right to work whilst their claim is being considered, Jack has taken up volunteering with the charity Asylum Welcome, attends a local church and has sought ways to continue his studies and keep up his love of music.
He does so despite many barriers; unable to earn an income he can only access a government stipend of £8.86 a week- with a single bus fare into town from his accommodation costing £2, the possibilities of accessing any facilities or community spaces in town are extremely limited. There are also practical barriers to engaging with the local community- for one, despite relative proficiency in English, the language barrier can make meeting and getting to know people difficult as he found when he first joined his local congregation. In some cases, revealing his asylum background has provoked coldness or intrusive questioning, though there are still many who are welcoming and warm. He mentions that this is particularly true of those he’s met through local music groups, with music often providing a common language himself and local musicians and enthusiasts can all share in.
Despite having his life upheaved almost overnight, forced to flee his home and living in a state of constant uncertainty, Jack is resolved to make the best of his situation. When asked what he thinks there is for us to do as students he stresses the importance of staying informed about the situation in Myanmar. Some assume it is safe for Burmese asylum seekers like Jack to return home, questioning their right to seek asylum here. Jack finds this to be a reflection of a general lack of awareness about the ongoing brutality being inflicted by Myanmar’s government on its people, particularly minorities like the Chin people, of which Jack is a part, who are not a part of the Buddhist-Bamar ethno-religious majority. Jack suggests that part of the problem is that media blackouts and widespread dissemination of propaganda by the military regime have limited channels for spreading information regarding the situation in Myanmar. At the same time, the fate of Myanmar is that of many countries stricken by violence and humanitarian crises – after a few months of taking up headlines, it lost the attention of the international community.
When Jack talks to us about the situation in Myanmar as it is today, the air around him seems to change; his sunny optimism seems to give way to a certain graveness and urgency. Reports from organisations including the UN suggest violence and repression in the state is only intensifying as the ethno-nationalist government faces various military challenges from armed groups in various states across the country. More than 2 million people have been displaced since the coup and the UN has noted the use of indiscriminate air attacks and scorched earth tactics by the military against opposition which constitute war crimes as well as uses of torture, intimidation and arbitrary detainment and killing of civilians.
Jack could have never imagined the turns his life would take all of a sudden in his third year of university. He retains a great deal of hope and determination and continues to advocate for awareness of the plight of the Burmese people and freedom against repression and violence at the hands of its military dictatorship so that his people can live free from the threat of violence and he might one day be able to return to the place he once called home.
It doesn’t take a sommelier to identify when a wine has corked. It smells damp, unappealing, maybe a bit like wet dog, and tastes even worse. This occurs in around 10% of all bottles, when bacteria is transferred to the wine on the cork. The process is irreversible, and if you were banking on that bottle for a cosy night in, it could even be devastating.
Good wine vendors – such as our friends at Oxford Wine Company – are happy to exchange the affected bottle in this unfortunate circumstance. But what do you do if you are stuck with wine gone bad? I found myself in this situation when I returned to Oxford after the vac – cheap wine, opened and left in the kitchen far too long. I am always loath to pour wine away, so I let it sit until I decided what to do.
These bottles sat in the kitchen, abandoned and forlorn until inspiration struck – or perhaps madness. Ok, it was neither; I just hate putting away laundry so decided to spice it up by dyeing my shirts using, you guessed it, old red wine. I could pretend I thought this through, or at least googled in advance. Instead I shoved the shirts in a large bowl, poured two bottles of red over them, and kneaded the fabric with my hands like Bacchae at a midnight ritual.
I then let it sit on a shelf for three days. Why? Because that was how long it took me to be bothered to do something about it again. The next logical step was to wring out the wine and wash the shirts. This was something of a cathartic process, though I wish the blood red of the wine had been retained in the fabric. Instead they were a dusky shade of pink.
This could not be said when they came out of the washing machine. My shirts had turned grey. A nice grey, and one that in truth I’m more likely to wear than their original pink, but a baffling, dark, almost blueish, grey. My flatmates, it turned out, had googled dying shirts with wine; you’re supposed to heat it to get the colour to stick. This still doesn’t explain the grey.
Regardless, my brief foray into insanity was fruitful – if you’ll pardon the pun. I was grapeful that it was. I found a use for the wine, I have a new look, and my peers regard me as more insane than ever. Bacchus would be proud. I’ve also learned not to be afraid of a little spilled wine on my collar – soak the whole shirt and you’ll be turning heads.
Poor Things takes place in a world only Yorgos Lanthimos could create. Like the rest of his oeuvre, the film is full of whimsy, wonder and taboo. It is fundamentally a world that you know, with cities you recognise by name, yet it is also distinctly unfamiliar. Free from time; Victorian yet alien in its technology and science, the London Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) inhabits is not the London you know all too well. Neither is Paris, Lisbon or Alexandria, where the rich live atop the hill and the city is stained a dusty orange. But these labyrinthine streets are not supposed to evoke realism; nothing about the story Lanthimos presents to his audience is real, at least visually.
Poor Things charts the course of the second life of Bella Baxter. We watch her first life come to an end abruptly as the film begins. Slowly we are introduced to our curious cast of characters: Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) a Dr Frankenstein character who looks more like the Monster; Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) Godwin’s meek and mild protégé and Ducan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) the slimy lawyer come Casanova whom both cast and audience come to pity by the story’s end. Alongside this rag-tag bunch of characters, Bella navigates the world, both literally as she travels alongside an array of companions, and in the sense that she comes to understand the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly and her position within all of this mess.
Through the fisheye lens of cinematographer Robbie Ryan we watch as the world expands for Bella, observing something that feels as though it is not to be observed. We peek into Bella’s life as she learns rapidly and matures over the course of the story. Yet other than ‘God’ nobody truly understands the extent of her naivety. Her body is an illusion; to those around her she is a grown women, yet in actuality she is a baby, then a toddler, a teenager and so on. Literally the mind of a baby is transplanted into her head, by her father figure Godwin. In restoring her to life, Godwin must fend off those who are unaware of Bella’s true nature. As Bella navigates her physical form she finds pleasure, yet those around her find taboo. Her scandalous naivety does not protect her from the outsider world which expects her to be prim and proper. But as Bella seeks etiquette and education, she loses the childish personality which made her so alluring to the men around her. Lanthimos has the ability to make all his characters, no matter how heinous they are, somewhat likeable, often by making them so quirky you cannot help but feel warmth towards them. Take Godwin: his surgeries would not be out of place in a horror film, yet the relationship he fosters with Bella is so nurturing and eventually free that you forget what he did to create such a life to begin with.
There are endless examples of craftsmanship throughout the film, Lanthimos’ films never fail to stun visually both when it comes to set and costume. If you thought the costumes in The Favourite were pompous, you aren’t ready for the frill and frocks in Poor Things. From sick-green nightgowns to collars fit for royalty, every character, every extra is decked out in the finest of fine threads no matter the occasion adding to the whimsy.
With awards seasons around the corner, Poor Things stands out as a bolshy frontrunner in nearly all the categories. From Sound to Cinematography, Lanthimos and his crew stand a great chance at ending the season on a high, and for good reason. By pushing the boat out and leaning into the chaos, Yorgos Lanthimos has managed to craft a story unlike anything else you will see this year. Each element adds to the eerie realism despite each component being fundamentally cooky. All in all a marvel, and Lanthimos’ most original work to date.
Few modern comic heroes align with our distinctive age – an age which Dickens’s famous opening, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’, would easily resonate, and an age in which progress and innovation coexist with existential threats. Jeff Kinney’s literary forebears, those of the disillusioned and hubristic comic hero tradition, lie firmly in the twentieth century: the gloriously self-important Mr Poots, Orwell’s ostracised bookseller Gordon Comstock, the ever-exasperated academic Jim Dixon, and the acne-riddled Middle-England poet Adrian Mole.
Greg represents all of the hubris and ‘self-irony’ of this literary tradition, and this is where the series’ comic appeal lies. For instance, his constant belittlement of his best friend Rowley Jefferson, and pretensions of grandeur by comparison, is confounded when Greg’s paranoia leads their mutual date, Abigail, into Rowley’s arms in The Third Wheel. Yet in his distinctive ‘David Brent’ mould Greg’s heroism is consistently balanced with some pretty unsavoury characteristics. Between his disregard for Rowley when he breaks his arm in the original book and his failure to take responsibility for wrecking his Dad’s car in Old School, we do not find a particularly noble or virtuous character in Jeff Kinney’s volumes.
But is that what we want when we turn to comedy? Probably not. Rather, it is the passages of ironic brilliance, that elude self-realisation, that resonate with us and make us laugh. Just as Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole fails to recognise the shortcomings of his ultra pretentious avant-garde literary style, Greg’s comic strip is superseded by Rowley’s genuinely funny Zoo Wee Mama! comic in the school newspaper. In a quest for popularity that does not dissipate throughout the series, Greg also demonstrates his shallowness. After becoming the most popular kid in school for being able to tell the time at his terrible new school in No Brainer, his newly bestowed title of “Time Lord” beautifully characterises his self-delusion – or maybe reflects a sense of pragmatism that, if he becomes popular based on being able to tell the time, so be it.
The twenty-first century could well be perfect for the sense of disillusionment which pervades every volume and affects Greg’s actions so decisively. And through its engagement with deeply contemporary issues, the series explores being a teenager in an age which should have everything, yet in which there are new and troubling challenges. His battle with his anti-technology mother at the beginning of Old School pits the generations firmly against one another – an Arkady bringing the modernising Bazarov to the sceptical older generation.
But it is the trip to a tropical resort in The Getaway that most embodies our ambiguous and sometimes pessimistic age: his high expectations of paradise are confounded by what has become the epitome of modern tacky commercialism. If his parents are Adam and Eve going back to their prelapsarian nirvana, then Greg is the voice of their fallen descendants, wrestling with the snake of disappointment. He must reckon with the frustrations of modern life, just as Orwell’s neurotic Gordon rails against the modern “Money God” that conspires against his relationships and writings.
Yet, between the dating failures and the strains of family life, there remains in Greg a profoundly human capacity for kindness and humility. This provides a heartfelt, necessary counterpoint, and reminds the modern reader of the possibility and everyday reality of goodness in our times. His reconciliation with the recently broken-up Rowley in Hard Luck allows Greg to bury the hatchet with his oldest friend; when the proposed Heffley house move in Wrecking Ball threatens to break the friendship apart again, and does not materialise at the eleventh hour, the final scene of them reunited reminds the reader of the tenderness of relationships forged over many years.
Here Greg experiences a rare and cathartic moment of self-realisation: his friendship with Rowley is more important than any new house. The dichotomy between constant self-delusion, and self-realisation in the critical moments, provides the reader both with searing humour at Greg’s expense, and yet the final recognition that he can overcome his flawed personality and relationships to preserve what matters – so the bumbling David Brent reconciles with his Wernham Hogg colleagues in The Office’s dying moments. The 3-pointer Greg accidentally makes at the end of Big Shot, having been traded off his basketball team by his own mother, emphasises this unlikely heroism. Happiness in an uncertain world may come from unexpected places. It is his unimpressive ability to tell the time, rather than any self-deluded attempts at romance, that finally gets him a girlfriend in No Brainer (if only for a few pages). And if the perennially under-achieving Greg can find success, so can we all.
The last month has too frequently left me wondering what the obsession with revivals and reunions is all about. We know that die-hard fans beg for reboots or prequels, and arguably this is a fine enough justification, but what is interesting is that far too often they end up being disappointing. For me, the nail in the coffin was the failed revival of two parts of pop culture that I hold in high esteem: The Hunger Games and The Beatles.
I’ve always slightly cringed at band reunions and movie remakes. After a while, you wonder how many more Star Wars movies can be released, or how many times The Spice Girls can go on a reunion tour. There are countless examples of media reboots that have flopped and failed to add anything to their franchises, even when it wasn’t necessary. Just a few include the 2019 Charlie’s Angels movie, the 2011 Mean Girls 2 sequel, or the band All Saints 2006 reunion wherein the band members soon after claimed (falsely) that they would never reunite again. You might think I sound cynical as these releases seem to be in good taste or ‘for the fans’. But when historically these revivals never live up to the original, you’re left thinking: who or what was that really for?
When thinking about it, most of my favourite shows or movies have been the ones that didn’t milk their potential. Whilst it’s painful we’ll never get another season of Phoebe Waller Bridge’s Fleabag, or Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s British edition of The Office, their brilliance partially lies in the fact we are left wanting more. We don’t know everything there is to know about all the characters, and their storylines are not tightly wrapped up. This makes returning to them even more enjoyable, as it feels like you are constantly learning something new about beloved characters. But what a prequel like The Ballad of the Songbirds and Snakes or a song such as Now and Then does, is it ruins their sacredness. Too much is revealed, and we lose interest in its legacy. We are let it on John Lennon’s private demos, and the question as to whether revolutionary music was left unreleased is partially resolved. Equally, when the origins of The Hunger Games are over-explained, our excitement or intrigue is pacified. And so, the franchises become less interesting, despite the fact the intention is the opposite.
Considering The Beatles are the bestselling artists in history and The Hunger Games trilogy is the third highest-grossing movie based on a young adult book of all time, I have felt further confused about the motivation for the revivals. Clearly, there is no argument that either of the brands would need something to keep up interest or lengthen their legacy. On top of this, both are avidly critically acclaimed. It’s not then as if there was an undiscovered masterpiece that would change the whole perception of either’s reputation. So, what we are left with is two majorly mediocre pieces of work that are not only distasteful for the lack of artistic integrity and poor quality but also clear examples of greed.
Also, on a simpler level, it was hard not to feel offended by how bad both revivals were. Whilst contrasting in content, The Beatles’ Now and Then, and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes represent the same issue. They fell into the trap of being lazy and underdeveloped. What happens is we see money-grabbing studios and producers convinced that the brand’s legacy and loyal fanbase justify them releasing anything as long as it’s new; regardless of the quality. And, to an extent, they aren’t wholly wrong. I still bought tickets to see the movie, and I still streamed the song. But the difference was I came out of both experiences confused by what I had just seen and heard. I came out having lost respect for both franchises, knowing how brilliant the work that had come before had been, and knowing that this is how a new generation would perceive both things. And I’m not the only one to think this.
Before George Harrison’s death in the ‘90s, The Beatles had already attempted to release Now and Then. However, the technology at the time wasn’t good enough, and Lennon’s voice could not be separated adequately to clearly hear the lyrics. In the twelve-minute documentary released about the making of the song, Paul McCartney revealed Harrison said the original attempt at the demo was “fucking rubbish” and that he hoped “someone does this to all my crap demos after I’m dead – turn them into hit songs”. McCartney’s case for releasing the song was that it was in memory of his friends. However, when one of said friends, who is now dead, actively challenged its release, you’ve got to wonder how true this is. Not only does this comment made by Harrison confirm my lacklustre feelings towards the track, but it also poses a moral question about releasing work by someone who can no longer consent. Whilst it isn’t for me to decide, it does add another layer of discomfort in knowing we can’t be sure that this is what George Harrison or John Lennon would have wanted.
Of course, there will always be examples that break the mould. Toy Story 4 was a beautiful homage to the original movies, and ABBA’s Voyage Show continues to receive rave reviews. But this doesn’t make up for the countless awful remakes, sequels, prequels, and revivals that tarnish what once were remarkable pieces of work. Because ultimately, what the half–baked reboots do is leave you wondering if the thing you so cherished to begin with, was ever really that good.
