That Night’s Wife [その夜の妻/Sono Yo no Tsuma] (1930)

Darkest Before Dawn

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

Aeons before the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith or Edgar Wright, Yasujiro Ozu may be one of the earliest examples of a director to showcase his film buff credentials through his own work. The director’s early films, including his crime dramas and student comedies, are adorned with love for American films and frequently featured posters of Hollywood movies garnishing the walls. This expression of love for American film permeates That Night’s Wife. The film is almost entirely devoid of any Japanese iconography (with the one major exception being the titular wife in her kimono attire), even down to the point that there is no act of shoe removal when entering a home. From tall buildings with Greek pillars, men in fedoras, candlestick telephones, noir shadows or that Fritz Lang-esque shot of a handprint on the glass, this mixture of Americana and German expressionism creates an infectious pulp world. It’s this unabashed display of cinephilia which really makes me love Ozu’s crime trilogy alongside the pictures Walk Cheerfully and Dragnet Girl.

The premise of That Night’s Wife is very simple but highly effective. A father, Shuji Hashizume (Tokihiko Okada), robs an office to pay the medical expenses for his terminally ill daughter. The loving father, however, is not very convincing as a master criminal, appearing rather awkward as a bandana covers his visibly nervous face. This is further compounded by the sheer size of the urban space, the towering architecture and the army of police officers, all dwarfing the individual as he tries to evade the law after committing his crime. Rather, Shuji is an effete artist whose family of three appear to live in a bohemian, artist’s studio, covered in the aforementioned movie posters, travel souvenirs, and an abundance of paint cans scattered throughout, implying that Shuji is a starving painter (a graphic designer perhaps?).

Much of the runtime inside the apartment itself plays out in a series of shifting power dynamics and mind games (like a miniaturised version of the movie Sleuth), between the married couple and a taxi driver who turns out to be an undercover cop (Tōgō Yamamoto), most memorably during a sleep standoff between the wife (Emiko Yagumo) and the cop. The husband and wife are co-protagonists in the picture, in which the loyal wife ardently remains by her husband’s side despite objecting to his decision to steal money. There is a tender and intimate simplicity in watching a mother trying to keep this domestic situation together and caring for her ill child; after all, nobody does domesticity like Ozu.

That’s Night’s Wife is a film of simple moral dilemmas. The parents’ love for a child supersedes all else as a father willing to sacrifice himself and his future to ensure the survival of his daughter. He does make a run for it when the opportunity arises, but only for his conscience forcing him to return to the apartment and turn himself in (“I must obey the law and return my debt to society”). The cop, on the other hand, is a calm and compassionate guardian deeply moved by the family’s predicament but also knowing that the law must be served. – Is a man justified to steal money and hold others at gunpoint to save the life of his own kin because he can’t afford healthcare?

What the film doesn’t have in meaning primed to be deeply intellectualised, That Night’s Wife is a film buried in symbolism and visual metaphor. From the fish skeleton on a plate as a backdrop in the opening titles (an image of hunger, death and desperation), the pessimistic image of a flower dying in a half-empty glass of water (or is the glass half full?), to the recurring motif of the floppy doll on a toy swing (a visual representation of the daughter’s vulnerability?). But perhaps the most significant symbolism of all is the film’s passing of time. Set over the course of a single night, the film concludes with the daughter having survived her illness, after the sun has risen following a very long, tiring and difficult night. It’s always darkest before dawn.

3-Iron [빈집/Binjip] (2004)

A Little Less Conversation…

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

Is it harder to construct a film with little or no dialogue compared to the average parlance-filled production? While the general rule of filmmaking is “show, don’t tell”, dialogue is still an important tool for revealing character motivations, relationships, plot information, themes, emotional states, etc. Since the majority of movies in existence (barring silent pictures) are comprised of characters speaking to each other, to watch a movie with this tool stripped out, it really makes you consider all that goes into the art of storytelling through only visual means. 3-Iron (Binjip) is one of several productions in which (the late) director Kim Ki-duk excels at this very feat. 

Not a single word is spoken by the two leads in 3-Iron (almost), yet the film still creates compelling characters through only visual means. The film’s initially unnamed young protagonist (Jae Hee) (later revealed to be called Tae-Suk) is a drifter who enters and lives in people’s homes while they are on vacation. However, he is likely not a poor man. He is a well-groomed, pretty boy with an expensive motorcycle and a passion for golf (hence 3-Iron), suggesting that perhaps wealth aids this dangerous and unethical hobby of his.

This pastime is aided by his technical know-how. He can identify when no one is home by placing restaurant flyers on the doors of homes, and when the flyer hasn’t been taken down after a period of time, he picks the door lock and makes his way in (as well as listening to the messages on the answering machines inside). From there, he treats the dwelling like his own home (watching TV, taking a bath, self-pleasuring himself in bed). Tae-suk, however, is not a thief (at least not in the traditional sense). He keeps the homes he has broken into clean, does the laundry, waters plants and even fixes broken electronics, thus helping create empathy from the viewer. This, however, doesn’t undo the ethical dimension of his actions. In much of the world, the protection of private property is held as sacrosanct and for good reason. To have someone break into your house feels incredibly violatory and people even end up moving house because of it. Why does Tae-suk partake in this hobby? Is he simply a thrill seeker and/or mentally unwell (especially since he remains mute) or a perverted voyeurist (his collection of selfies taken alongside family portraits would suggest so)?

These sequences of Tae-suk scouting and then breaking into people’s homes feel very reminiscent of French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville. In particular, his seminal film Le Samouraï (1967), which, like 3-Iron, depicts lengthy dialogue-free sequences in which illegal activity is perpetrated in meticulous detail but with a sense of calm and harmony. From the quiet, empty scenes of the suburban streets of Seoul to the film’s wide showcase of Korean home design, 3-Iron has a sense of comforting domesticity. Likewise, the film even acts as a nostalgic representation of the pre-Internet of Things world with its array of early 2000’s tech. Although the most memorable filming location present in the film is Seoul’s famous Bukchon Hanok Village, a residential area comprised of picturesque traditional Korean houses known as Hanok. Having been there myself in 2025, I can say there is no way that the officials monitoring visitors would allow anyone to attach flyers to the doors nowadays (although I don’t know if that would have been the case either in 2004).

Tae-suk’s blurred world of fantasy vs reality comes to a head when he finds out he is not alone in the house of a wealthy businessman, when he meets his abused and black-eyed laden wife (Lee Seung-yun). Like Tae-suk, she is also mute but is able to portray a sense of torment through purely visual means. Not fearing Tae-suk, the two form a bond and leave the house together to escape her abusive marriage, all while, as a viewer, I ask myself if they will ever actually break their silence. The law, however, eventually catches up to the two delinquents, with Tae-suk thrown in prison and the wife returned to her abusive husband. 

Depending on how you choose to interpret the final act of 3-Iron, Tae-suk may have died during his incarceration and became a literal ghost (as indicated later by his weight scale reading of “0”), or through the stealth manovers he learnt during this period (to avoid the regular beatings of a corrupt officer), has escaped from prison and has had a metaphorical transformation into a ghost. The following portion of the film plays out like a semi-horror film in which, through a series of voyeuristic point-of-view shots (even feeling quite Michael Myers-esque), he gets revenge on a corrupt police officer who wronged him, with the 3-Iron and some golf balls as his weapon of choice.

Tae-suk returns to the house of the abused woman, where the blurring of fantasy and reality reaches its zenith. Tae-suk remains in the house in view of the wife, while the husband is unaware of his presence. The woman smiles for the first time and utters her only line in the movie, “I love you”. The husband thinks the line is directed at him, but it’s actually to Tae-suk standing behind him. All three characters are now living a lie, yet for perhaps the first time in the film, all three appear content. “It’s hard to tell the world we live in is either a reality or a dream”.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time [時をかける少女/Toki o Kakeru Shōjo](1983)

Absolute Anemoia

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

I only recently made a new addition to my vocabulary, “anemoia”; nostalgia for a time or place you’ve never known. A feeling I have experienced many a time before, but never had a word for until now. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (時をかける少女/Toki o Kakeru Shōjo) is encapsulated in this specific feeling. Shot in director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s hometown of Onomichi (as part of his Onomichi trilogy), the film’s real-world locations create a tranquil yet painfully nostalgic representation of Japan’s Showa era and for parochial, small-town living. The film’s unnamed dwelling is full of traditional architecture and narrow streets, and although it is an urban setting, there is still a strong presence of nature within the setting. The film is even set during the cherry blossom season as if it weren’t already beautiful enough (although it appears many of the cherry blossoms have been superimposed into the image). Even the classrooms with their chalkboards and the townspeople’s use of analogue technology compound this blissful feeling. The film’s cinematography has a washed-out, hazy, dreamlike look, which, coupled with a melancholic, downbeat music score, evokes a sheer emotional anemoia, of which the closest film I can compare it to would be Cinema Paradiso.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time combines many visual styles. Not to the extreme which Obayashi did in his more popular film House, but still to an extent which showcases him as a unique auteur. The film opens with a school skiing trip, shot in dreamy black & white with a 4:3 aspect ratio. The sequence perfectly captures that studio backlot look from the 1940’s in particular, bringing to mind snowy scenes from Citizen Kane, or It’s a Wonderful Life (helping me to suspend my disbelief that one student states on the top of the mountain that he forgot to bring his skis). By stark contrast, on the other hand, the film’s big special effects showcase comes in the form of a time-travelling montage which features extensive use of moving time lapses (which personally bring me back to the early days of YouTube content creation) and an amalgamation of practical effects resembling a 1980’s music video.

There is the irony that a movie which invokes such a feeling of longing for a different time and place is itself a movie about time travel. Kazuko Yoshiyama (Tomoyo Harada) unknowingly gets the ability to travel through time after exposure to lavender in the school science lab, to which she finds herself reliving Monday, 18th April (the time loop plot device was common in Japanese media before becoming popularised in the West through Groundhog Day). The in-universe logic of the film’s time travel mechanics is very vague, using lavender as a symbolic connection to the poppy field scene from The Wizard of Oz. These schematics are beside the point, however, as Kazuko has to use her knowledge of the day she has previously lived to save a friend from the danger (of that natural phenomenon etched into the Japanese physique), an earthquake. Likewise, in a particularly endearing if questionable scene, Kazuko travels back in time to witness a moment in which she and her childhood friend Fukimachi are playing when they accidentally cut their hands on the shards of a broken mirror. They immediately do the sensible thing and exchange bodily fluids via their open wounds. One interpretation of this moment is in relation to the Japanese idea of ketsuekigata, a widely popular belief system that blood type can be used to gauge compatibility between individuals. Either way, kids, don’t do this at home.

Harada’s youthful charm and ability to project a sense of innocent teenage romance within a love triangle help elevate the film above the two male leads, whom I do find very forgettable. The more significant of these two, Kazuko’s friend Fukimachi (Ryôichi Takayanagi), reveals he is from the year 2660, has a Ph.D pharmacy and informs us green planets will be scarce in the future due to an explosion in the population. This terrifying dystopian future, in which we rely on big pharma for our survival and hashtag, “Robert Malthus was right” is terrifying enough, but Kazuko is told all her childhood memories are all lies, created by Fukimachi. She is told she must lose her own feeling of anemoia (although the ending and her career choice would suggest this might not be the case).

This loops around to a piece of foreshadowing from the film’s beginning in which Kazuko states, “Science can be so unfeeling at times”. Fast forward to the future date of Saturday, April 16th 1994, and  Kazuko has become a pharmaceutical researcher, a rather dowdy-looking woman who chooses to dedicate herself to a field of research over a love life. Science may be unfeeling, but the ending of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is itself hard to stomach in its sheer melancholy. With her chosen path in life, it is stated that Kazuko turns down dates, never dresses up or wears make-up, and her mother even asks, “How can she be a bride if she keeps going like this?”. Even an unmistakably early 80’s, synth-heavy track as the final song over the fourth-wall-breaking end credits, doesn’t quite shake this feeling of sheer emotional weight.

One Week (1920)

The House That Love Built

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

Alongside such films as The High Sign and The Electric House, One Week follows in a line of Buster Keaton shorts which utilise aspects of engineering for comic effect. In the case of One Week, Keaton and his newly married wife (in contrast to the usual Keaton formula in which Keaton doesn’t typically begin a film already having the girl), receive a package from the Portable House Co, with their DIY dwelling inside. With the popularity of Ikea-style, flat-pack, ready-to-assemble furniture in the 21st century, this concept being expanded to a full-on house is particularly appealing to the contemporary viewer. At the same time, the short displays that 1920’s go-getter attitude, which paired with the romantic, domestic setting of newlyweds constructing and living in their new home, does make One Week feel endearing and sentimental. I do also find Keaton’s stoicism to be just as endearing in itself. His house is furiously rotating in a storm while the couple are soaking wet, yet there is no point complaining; let’s just sit here and wait until it’s over.

Once the newlyweds finish building their dwelling, it ends up looking like a set piece from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari due to sabotage from a jealous love interest. Yet the home is still full of clever, utilitarian innovations such as a retractable section of the wall for easy access, a patio banner which can be removed and double as a ladder, and a conveniently indented foot hole on the roof. Likewise, the two-dimensional presentation of certain shots even resembles a platforming video game. They also manage to throw in a meta, fourth-wall-breaking on-screen representation of censorship when the wife drops a bar of soap out of the tub and waits until someone’s hand is placed over the camera lens so she can lean out and retrieve it.

Keaton’s expertise with messing with the audience’s expectations is in full gear with One Week. In particular, the forced perspective shot near the short’s conclusion in which an incoming train appears as if it’s about to smash into their dwelling, only to narrowly miss (only for moments later does another train actually do just this). Keaton makes it look so easy, yet this ending still takes me by surprise when watching One Week again after several years. It might sound contradictory, but watching a short film like this, you can see all the ways in which the world has changed in over 100 years, yet there are ways in which things remain the same.

Stranger On The Third Floor (1940)

We Have Plenty Of Hearsay and Conjecture, Those Are Kinds Of Evidence

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

Peter Lorre appeared in several of the most important movies ever made. Most famously, Casablanca, but he also appeared in two movies instrumental to the film noir genre, Fritz Lang’s M and The Maltese Falcon. Then there is Stranger On The Third Floor, a film largely unknown yet often identified as the first film noir. Although it can be hard to identify a year-zero for the genre, with predating films featuring elements of what later became referred to as noir, Stranger On The Third Floor may be the closest a film can be bestowed with such an accolade. However, rather than just being a curio due to its esteemed status, Stranger On The Third Floor is, by its own merits, a great piece of cinematic artistry wrapped up in a thrilling single hour.

Stranger On The Third Floor contains many elements associated with noir. Deep shadows. Flashbacks. Voice-over narration. Low and diagonal camera angles. An urban jungle. The blinds motif. Late-night coffee shops. Cynical reporters. A falsely accused man, etc. When looking at the crew behind the film, starting with noted art director Van Nest Polglase, along with the European talent of Russian-born director Boris Ingster (reportedly an associate of Russian director Sergei Eisenstein, and with only three directing credits to his name) and Italian-born cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, it makes sense how this work of German expressionist imagery came to be.

Reporter Mike Ward (John McGuire) is the key witness in a murder trial after observing Joe Briggs (Elisha Cook Jr.) standing over the body of a dead man in a diner. This is instrumental in having Briggs found guilty and sentenced to the chair. For Mike, on the other hand, it gets him a big promotion at work and a story on the front page of his paper – “Star Reporter is Key Witness In Murder Case”. Mike isn’t the hero as seen in many Hollywood films at the time. He is not driven to do the right thing but rather acting in his own self-interest and to protect himself. He does not have much of a guilty conscience over his testimony sending a man to death, but instead, he is worried that his past actions will result in him being implicated in the murder. While John McGuire is a footnote in Hollywood history, his voiceover delivery is unmistakably noir with its thoughtful yet flat tone (his overthinking about his words being taken out of context is relatable to observe). Mike’s delirium-soaked nightmare sequence is the film’s crown jewel, proving it refuses to be confined by its B-movie budget. The sequence is full of unforgettable, surreal images and moments of hammy acting from Mike’s imagined arrest to his trial and eventual execution on the electric chair.

Despite being top billed, Peter Lorre only appears sparingly as the titular character. His role in the film is not too dissimilar to M, in which he lurks in the background before making a splash in the film’s climax. Whether or not this was intentional remains to be seen, as the story goes that Lorre’s involvement and limited screen time in the film came about as he owed RKO two more days in his contract. Lorre appears incredibly thin in Stranger On The Third Floor (especially compared to the more pudgy Lorre of earlier films), while the visible gaps in his teeth make him all the more unnerving. Likewise, his character is repeatedly seen throwing a scarf over his shoulder, a memorable little motif which does humanise him somewhat.  Elisha Cook Jr., on the other hand, was 37 years old in Stranger On The Third Floor, yet he looks like a teenager (which the movie itself comments upon – “he looks like a kid”). Upon hearing his guilty sentence, the innocent, wide-eyed, aw-shucks Cook is hair-raisingly brilliant as his echoing voice repeatedly utters “I didn’t kill him!”. The following year, both Cook and Lorre would star in The Maltese Falcon.

Mike and his fiancée Jane (Margaret Tallichet) are not entirely likeable characters. In the opening scene, Jane is hogging a spare seat in a busy diner to the open dismay of other customers, but that’s on the low end compared to Mike. He is seen during the film having a very confrontational relationship with both his landlady and his kind and elderly next-door neighbour (Charles Halton). He even goes as far as grabbing the old man by his bathrobe and threatening him, not to mention Jane herself sees him doing this and chooses to remain with him. Although it makes sense that the film has an unlikable protagonist since the film has a cynical outlook on his profession, questioning the morality of journalists profiting off crime. None of the reporters in the film are portrayed with endowing much sense of journalistic responsibility (“How do you know he did it?, Who cares, what a story, what a story!”). Likewise, in classic noir fashion, Stranger On The Third Floor is also critical of that other pillar of American society, the justice system. During the courtroom sequence, Joe Briggs is being tried on circumstantial evidence, the judge is clearly uninterested in the case, the lawyer on behalf of the accused is uninquisitive and there is even a juror who treats himself to a nap during proceedings. 

Stranger On The Third Floor concludes with Briggs now a free man and working as a cabbie, offering Mike and Jane a taxi ride on the house — a tidy resolution that feels almost suspicious in its optimism, although it could be argued that it is intentionally ironic. After all, Briggs is only free as a by-product of Mike’s self-interest and not out of any heroic deeds. The truth did not triumph; justice was merely accidental. Welcome to the shady, morally incongruent world of film noir.

Häxan [Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages] (1922)

Get Witch or Die Tryin’

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

Witchcraft as a subject matter wouldn’t normally be my cup of brew, yet with its unique combination of documentary and scripted drama, Häxan (pronounced as “heck-sun”) presents itself as interesting even to non-adherents. Häxan is a film which on the surface level looks like it would appeal to new age mystics or that one edgy goth kid in every school, however, in contradiction to its arcane visual presentation, Häxan is a film of scientific rationalism as established from the beginning (“The belief in evil spirits and witchcraft is connected with childish perceptions from the world of mysticism”) and one from the God of the Gaps school of thought (“When primitive man is faced with something incomprehensible, the explanation is always the same: witchcraft and evil spirits”).

The film’s first of seven chapters provides an overview of witchcraft throughout the ages (primarily the Middle Ages), featuring an array of astronomical diagrams from antiquity, as well as historical depictions of devils and demons. Many of these images are frightening to look at and are presented alongside such gruesome captions as “One devil pours the sulphur-reeking contents of a horn down a man’s throat”, speaking deeply to the fear present in the human condition. One of the film’s later documentary segments features the ever-popular topic of Medieval instruments of torture, with one particularly standout moment involving (as the film claims) one of the actresses volunteering to use a medieval thumb screw, although she is seen laughing on screen when using it (make of that what you will). Many of these displays feature an on-screen pointer being held by someone off-screen, yet they still retain a cinematic quality. As a viewer, you feel like you are being imparted with clandestine, forbidden knowledge rather than feeling like the 1920’s equivalent of a PowerPoint presentation.

Häxan has all the ingredients you would want from a 100+ year old, arcane, European movie. The sepia tinting, eerie music, haunting choirs, the sight of animal skulls and skeletons in the witch’s dwelling and even the Swedish title cards make it feel all the more unnerving and atmospheric. Likewise, during the trial section of the film (chapters 3 and 4), the close-up shots of the old woman’s face as she is forced to deal with Church inquisitors feel reminiscent of what would later be accomplished in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). The lady in question during these scenes, Maren Pedersen (as Maria the Weaver), in her only screen credit, was born in the year 1842. It’s amazing, penetrating close-up into the face of a woman whose birth predates the existence of cinema by decades. Häxan also features scenes with Satan himself (played by the director, Benjamin Christensen), as he gleefully shows off his forked tongue. Over the years, I have kept seeing this as an image of ridicule and parody; thus, my instant reaction when seeing it is to laugh. Likewise, as far as the more immature 12-year-old in me goes, many viewers may also be humoured to see the end credits card.

Witch hunts (whether literal or figurative) have one major paradox, as stated in Häxan: ”those who oppose the arrest of a witch are of course themselves witches”. Or as The Simpsons memorably put it in the episode Treehouse Of Horror VIII, “If you’re innocent, you will fall to an honourable Christian death. If, however, you are the Bride of Satan, you will surely fly your broom to safety. At that point, you will report back here for torture and beheading”. During Häxan, we see a deception of the pious man of the church as a glutton, comically feasting on huge pieces of bread and meat, before chasing his maiden for some hanky-panky. Regardless of whether or not the film has a deliberate anti-clerical or anti-religious angle, it still uses the phraseology in one of its intertitles of “the year of our Lord 1488”.

The final chapter of Häxan circles back to the demystified with a medicalised conclusion, of which the picture presents its central argument that women accused of being witches in the past would be diagnosed with hysteria or other medical conditions in the present day. It is presented in a thought-provoking and articulate manner, although if I were to give one criticism, it would be with the title card stating: “We no longer sit and stare in fright at the devil’s paintings on the church wall”. For starters, it annoys me in a lot of media, the use of pronoun “we” as the media in question thinks it is speaking on behalf of viewers, but additionally, the film contradicts this only moments later by stating “But superstition – doesn’t it still flourish among us?”, as well as with an earlier claim by the director that the actress who plays Maria the Weaver, states that she herself has seen the devil at her own bedside. Häxan presents itself as a work of scientific demystification, yet it cannot resist the same lurid imagery and superstition it claims to transcend. One might say, the devil is in the details.

Joint Security Area [공동경비구역 JSA] (2000)

Crossing The Rubicon

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

What would possess someone to willingly want to cross the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) from the safety, prosperity and freedom in the south to the communist, oppressive, hermit kingdom in the north? One such scene in Park Chan-wook’s Joint Security Area (JSA) shows the baseball cap of a tourist being blown off their head in the wind and into the northern side of the JSA (a portion within the wider DMZ), to which they naturally don’t even think about crossing that borderline to go and get it back. In the 21st century, the DMZ is the last remaining piece of the Iron Curtain, an international Rubicon, a seeming point of no return, a barrier one would never imagine wanting to cross from the southern side. Despite being set at one of the most volatile places on Earth, the story of Joint Security Area is localised and condensed to the relationship between a group of soldiers and the investigator sent to uncover the truth of their border crossing exploits.

Major Sophie Jean (Lee Young-ae) of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission, the Swiss investigator of Korean descent, is tasked with solving the whodunnit in a “perfectly neutral” manner alongside her Swedish partner (Herbert Ulrich). As the audience surrogate, she is soon provoked by southern authorities with such comments as “There are two types of people in this world, commie bastards and the commie bastard’s enemies”. The North Korean authorities, on the other hand, present her with a series of staged theatrics, including an apparent grieving North Korean family, to dealing with a deposition made and signed by a man in a coma. The first act of JSA follows the Rashomon model, in which a series of contradictory stories are presented. This act of the film also plays out as a procedural in classic CSI-like style with the man-woman duo interviewing witnesses and presenting their forensic findings to each other (with the film not holding back any punches with some very graphic gunshot wounds), with Young-ae bringing a feminine presence to an otherwise male-centric movie. The English present in the film does sound very unnatural, although one could argue this would be the case since none of the characters are native speakers of the language.

The middle portion of JSA pivots to a lengthy flashback, as two South Korean soldiers (Lee Byung-hun and Kim Tae-woo) come to befriend several soldiers from the North and start crossing the border every night simply to hang out with them. The bromance they share becomes endearing as they share southern contraband, including pop music tapes, cookies and Choco Pies, while also engaging in male bonding behaviour: looking at nudie mags, cracking jokes, giving playful jabs at each other and at one point, giving a fart as a present. There is still a real cinematic nature to these intimate moments, such as the use of two 360-degree shots during conversation, with Song Kang-ho delivering the standout performance among the soldiers as the North Korean Sgt. Oh Kyeong-pil, the domineering and alpha personality of the group. Joint Security Area was filmed on a mass recreation of the DMZ, and the sets never feel inauthentic and look indistinguishable from the real thing. I recommend watching the making-of documentary for JSA (included in the Arrow Blu-ray release) in which one of the film’s costume designers states that just a few years prior to the film’s production, he may have been breaking South Korean law by recreating North Korean military uniforms.

The partition of Korea is the division of a single ethnic group; thus, there is an understanding by many in South Korea that northerners are still their fellow Koreans. This can be seen symbolised by the scene in which the saliva from both a northern and southern soldier is mixed together at the borderline, as well as a prominent shot of the full moon as a soldier throws a package across to the north. In literature and K-dramas, the moon often evokes nostalgia or longing, especially for someone far away. This shared humanity across the border brings to mind historical events such as the football game during the Christmas Day truce in World War I. However, within the flashback of JSA, there is still an underlying suspicion that the northern soldiers are just trying to get the southern soldiers to defect, with a dose of Treasure of the Sierra Madre-style tension. If there is a main recurring theme in Joint Security Area, it is that of façades. Major Jean comes to learn that the real purpose of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission is to bury the truth on behalf of both sides, that neutrality is simply a façade. From fake grieving families, fake depositions, questionable friendships and apparent loyalty citizens claim that they hold to regimes, to even Jean herself removing her own father from a family photograph.

With the Korean DMZ being one of the final remnants of the Cold War, which still exists in the 21st century, Joint Security Area has a real old-school vibe (“Rice is communism”, proclaims an archaic billboard on the northern side of the divide). This sense of historical statis is just one of many reasons as to why of the 200-odd nations which inhabit this planet, none are quite so fascinating as The Democratic People’s Republic Of Korea (better known as North Korea). I am a North Korea obsessive (a North Koreaboo if you will) and will consume any bit of media which will increase my knowledge of NK lore. Needless to say, in April 2025, I fulfilled my dream of almost entering this hermit kingdom by visiting The Demilitarized Zone and getting (at closest) 140 metres from the Korean border. Unfortunately, I couldn’t visit the Joint Security Area itself, but could still bring some pieces of the JSA and wider DMZ back with me.

Four Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Apologise To A Cleaner For “Walking Over Their Clean Floor”

For several years of my life, I was employed as a cleaner, first in a factory and later in a care home. The latter of which labelled my job as a “Domestic Assistant”, essentially the cleaning equivalent of calling a Garbage Man a “Sanitation Officer”. Regardless, there is zero shame in being a cleaner. As a cleaner, you are providing an invaluable service in keeping the world a tidier and more pristine place.

Being a neat freak myself, I enjoy cleaning; it’s therapeutic, and it’s always satisfying to look over a freshly cleaned room or area. Since then, I have moved on to other things in my life. However, if there is one thing I look back upon my cleaning days with PTSD levels of horror, it’s those dreaded words (in a Northern Irish accent), “Oh gee, sorry lad. I’m walking all over your good clean floor”. Thus, I will provide 4 reasons why apologising to a cleaner for walking over the floorspace that they have cleaned or are in the process of cleaning is not only very annoying (as much as it might be a well-intentioned natural human reflex) but also lacks any basis in logic.

1. It’s Annoying

        When an individual says those infamous words or some variation of “sorry for walking over your clean floor”, it is usually said in a confident tone of voice as if the person in question has thought up of a really witty joke and can’t wait to tell their friends. In reality, to the cleaner, this is not a smart and witty piece of self-deprecating humour because they (without exaggeration) hear this multiple times every single day. You may potentially be the 7th person to have said this to the cleaner during the morning shift alone.

        2. The Action Itself Doesn’t Actually Cause Any Inconvenience

        Walking over a floor which is being cleaned or has just been cleaned doesn’t actually cause any uncleanliness to form. Unless someone is walking over the floor with dirt hanging off their footwear, now that’s different. However, the average sole of a shoe which has just come in after walking on a normal street, will not cause create any such mess.

        3. The Apology Is Directed At The Wrong Person

        The phrase “your floor” is illogical in itself, as the cleaner doesn’t actually own the floor in question; usually, it will belong to a company. Even if it were the case that walking over the floor caused uncleanliness, then apologising to the cleaner is a futile gesture. Rather, your apology should be directed at the owner of the establishment or if it’s a residential setting (care home, house share, etc), towards the residents.

        4. Not Walking Over A Clean Floor Would Cause Mass Disruption

        If every motor vehicle on the road were to reduce its speed by 10mph, it would save lives in terms of road accidents. However, as a society, we choose not to do that due to the economic damage and sheer inconvenience that would cause. The same logic applies to walking over a clean floor. Imagine how disruptive it would be if everyone had to wait for a floor to dry before walking over it. “Hey Bill, do you mind giving me a hand with this? Sure, John, in 5 minutes, when the floor between us has dried”.

        They often say “the road to hell is often paved with good intentions”; well, in this case, the road to hell is often cleaned with good intentions. Next time to see a hard-working man or woman ensuring the world is a tidier and more pleasant place to inhabit, give them a friendly smile and a “hello”, but for the love of God, do not apologise for walking over “their” clean floor.

        Gabriel Over the White House (1933)

        I Love Democracy…

        ***This Review Contains Spoilers***

        I do love the efficiency and streamlined nature of pre-code films. Within two minutes, the opening credits roll, followed by a montage of stock footage, and the story of Gabriel Over The White House is underway (unlike films today with a parade of 10 studio logos and a title screen that doesn’t appear until 40 minutes in).

        The newly elected President of the United States, Judson Hammond (Walter Huston), is sworn into office, yet behind closed doors, he and his inner circle treat the presidency as a joke. They engage in smarmy chatter and look down upon the populace (“When I think of all the promises I made to the people to get elected…by the time they realise you’re not going to keep them, your term will be over”). Hammond even takes the pen that Lincoln freed the slaves with and remarks, “Well, here it goes for Puerto Rican garbage”. To play up this disregard to an even greater degree, in a very unusual scene featuring a rare use of overlapping dialogue, the President and his nephew play a treasure hunt game in the Oval Office while the radio plays an activist speech. The audio from the dialogue between the President and his nephew becomes drawn out by that of the radio, as Hammond does not have a care in the world for what’s happening in the country. The only loyalty displayed by Hammond is towards what is simply referred to as “The Party” (“The party has a plan, I am just a member of the party”). Walter Huston has the look you would expect from a president from the early 20th century (not too dissimilar looking to Warren G. Harding or a clean-shaven William Howard Taft), while his sheer gravitas not only makes the hairs on your skin stand up, but he also prevents Hammond from coming off as just a caricature. Interestingly, however, he is a President without a First Lady, which would make him and James Buchanan the only unmarried presidents. 

        Following a racing accident, Hammond goes into a coma. However, upon his reawakening, Hammond is no longer the man he once was; rather, a populist figure is born. “God might have sent the angel Gabriel to do for Jud Hammond what he did for Daniel”, states the President’s secretary, Pendie Molloy (Karen Morley), as the film makes no secret of indicating that Hammond will be enacting the will of God himself. Many scenes from this point onwards have a softer, more dreamlike look, with a higher contrast between black and white. In one moment shortly after Hudson’s awakening, he stares up in awe at a bright heavenly light shining upon his face, or as Pendie describes it, “the presence of a third being in the room”. Many a beautiful shot populates the film, from the dramatic zoom shot on Hammond (even if it does go in and out of focus) to some stunning set design with the art deco set of the film’s court martial scene.

        The new Judson Hammond wastes no time getting things done with his newfound heavenly, populist political will. Right off the bat, he stops calling his staff nicknames and stands up to the members of his own party.

        “Now, be careful. I might resign on you.”

        “Your resignation is accepted.”

        “Oh, well now, wait a minute, Jud, I was only suggesting…”

        Hammond asks Congress to declare a state of national emergency to adjourn itself until normal conditions are restored, and during this period, he will assume full responsibility for the government. With the country under martial law, Hammond proceeds to tackle the issues of unemployment, mob rule, forcing over nations to pay their debts the US and by the film’s climax, literally enshrining world peace into a document signed by most nations in the world. Upon lending his own signature to the document, Hammond himself collapses and quickly passes away, lending further credence that he is enacting the will of God.

        The subplot of Hammond’s efforts to eliminate the mob is particularly interesting. He praises gangster Nick Diamond (of course, he has a scar on his face) directly for “getting rid of most of his own kind”, relating to the theory in criminology that allowing one single crime syndicate to operate results in an overall reduction of crime. Hammond proceeds to create a federal police force to eliminate the mob, leading to two of the oddest scenes in the film, the first in which the mob attempts to assassinate Hammond on the grounds of The White House itself (was this more plausible in 1933?). The latter is a sequence which I can best describe as resembling the climax of every episode of Takeshi’s Castle. Following the arrest of Nick Diamond and his men, they are executed by way of an old school firing shot with the Statue of Liberty in the background (I’ll let you decide what is the intended symbolism, if any, of such a shot).

        Is there a name for this kind of populist wish-fulfilment picture? The film which has the most striking similarities to Gabriel Over The White House is Ivan Reitman’s Dave (1993), in which an ineffective, uncaring president is replaced by a populist doppelganger who gets things done. Likewise, multiple sources online speak of an alternative European cut with 17 extra minutes, although such a cut has never been released on home video. Much is made of the fact that film was financed by media conglomerate William Randolph Hearst, although regardless of the agenda those behind the production may or may not have had (although it is worth noting that director Gregory LaCava would go on to direct the anti-New Deal May Man Godfrey in 1936), Gabriel Over The White House, whether by design or not, presents one central dilemma; should a nation be led by one all-powerful leader who can get things done, or have a system of checks and balances, which may be slow and inefficient? When watching Gabriel Over The White House, it’s easy to feel seduced by the temptation of having an all-powerful leader, a benevolent dictator, a king. Or once a crisis has abated, can we ever trust that a leader will lay down the powers given to him? History would say no, but Gabriel Over The White House allows the viewer to indulge in such a fantasy.

        The Son-Daughter (1932)

        Naaah Nah Nah Nah Naaah Naaah Nah Nah Naaah

        ***This Review Contains Spoilers***

        1911, The Xinhai Revolution, “China under the Manchu Emperors…three centuries of unspeakable oppression…then…rebellion of wretched, starving millions”. The Son-Daughter was released in 1932, in which the supporters of the Chinese nationalists are, by and large, the good guys while the defeated royalists of China’s last emperor are ruthless hatchet men who subject their enemies to neck-straining torture devices. The head of royalists is portrayed by a moustache-twirling Warner Oland, of whom his death through strangulation with his own traditional Chinese queue (pig tail), surely signifies the death of the old. You don’t want to upset the winning side and the current government of one of the world’s largest powers, I guess.

        The Son-Daughter follows an underground group of Chinese nationalists in San Francisco’s Chinatown running contraband to the Middle Kingdom, whom must raise $100,000 to release their latest ammunition ship from the wharf. The set and costume design are one of the picture’s biggest strengths, with exotic, smoke-filled rooms, noir-ish lighting and striking attention to detail. The meeting liar, seen 5 minutes into the picture, showcases a large number of extras and some stunning deep-focus cinematography; it’s a world that feels lived in and not an obvious Hollywood backlot. There’s just something fascinating about the world of a Chinatown with all its narrow corners and maze-like structure.

        Based on a play, a large amount of The Son-Daughter takes place inside the apartment of Dr Tong Wong (Lewis Stone). Wong is faced with the challenge of raising the money to release the ammunition boat from the wharf. Although only third billed in the cast, Lewis Stone is the picture’s most prominent star and delivers the film’s most standout performance, as the ageing patriarch who is navigating between tradition and modernity; the values of the old world vs the new world (“Your daughter was born in America, where a girl is left free to meet her own heart”). His daughter Lien (Helen Hayes) feels guilty for being born a lady, as she can’t help her people in the way a man could. She does propose to her father that “I could do what no son could do”, to which her father promptly scolds her. Yet it is this very thing which he is forced to do to raise the required funds for the ammunition ship. The auction scene in which Lien is being bid for a man’s hand in marriage is the most fascinating scene in the film. Fascinating on the one hand to watch a woman being treated like a commodity by older, unpleasant men, but she herself is fully invested in this auction, and she works to increase the men’s offers (“Am I not all Confucius demands in a wife?”); making such a sacrifice to something which you feel is greater than yourself.

        The Son-Daughter is a film in which its cast billing doesn’t accurately reflect the screen time of its stars. Second billed after Hayes is Ramon Novarro, who is actually absent for lengthy stretches of the film, but disappointingly, this is actually for the best. Novarro is the weakest aspect of the film, a great lover alongside the likes of Rudolph Valentino (thus his casting makes sense), but he is the weakest aspect of the film. He gives a very cheesy performance, but more importantly, he lacks any chemistry with Hayes. I can’t buy why she is head over heels in love with this man, and as a result, his scenes do cause the film to drag. The Son-Daughter is left as a flawed but intriguing gem in the treasure trove that is pre-code cinema.