The International Film Festival Rotterdam showcases films from various countries during the dates of January 25 to February 4. Film enthusiasts and members of the film industry are cordially invited to attend the festival and marvel at the wide array of productions that will be screened in theatres. “Small Hours of the Night,” based on a historical event in Singapore, is one of them.
A face emerges from a theatrically gloomy scene, and as the man, the interrogator, ignites his cigarette behind his desk with his thoughtful eyes, an eerie woman’s voice pierces the stillness of the room. Words after words stream together to create a world of imagination. This is what Daniel Hui does masterfully in “Small Hours of the Night.” With the advent of glorious films, “Small Hours of the Night” can be a precious antique.
The world is a place of politicised lives in which many suffer day in and day out. We observe the huge amount of autocratic violence imposed on innocent people who do nothing but defend their absolute rights. Yes, it might be a repetitive narrative, but the cinematic aesthetic brings out something beyond the malevolent destiny of being sentenced to the death penalty. “Small Hours of the Night” reminds us that the ways we narrate the stories are hugely more important than the tales themselves. Rare among Singaporean political works, Hui’s film takes a stand against the authoritarian government’s stance on dissent in a unique way.
A man (Kasban Irfan) is interrogating a woman (Yanxuan Vicki Yang) in a room that is dark and set in the 1960s. Over the course of a single, drawn-out night, they begin to lose track of time and each other’s identities, while dreams blur the fine line between reality and imagination. In spite of Hui’s insistence on losing time and space, the film “Small Hours of the Night” is based on the Tan Chay Wa tombstone case, a court proceeding that transpired in 1983. Later that year, Tan’s brother faced a precedent-setting trial over the militant and revolutionary poetry that Tan wanted placed on his tomb stone. The brother was imprisoned for supporting conduct that threatened Singapore’s security.
Daniel Hui, the director of “Sanskrit” (2014), Eclipse (2011), and “The Demons” (2018), returns to IFFR with “Small Hours of the Night,” in which two artists deliver a compelling tale of Singapore’s political events in the 1970s and 1980s. “In this film, only two characters appear on screen. However, Vicki speaks for five people, four of whom are based on real-life figures from the Tan Chay Wa gravestone trial in 1983. None of them are identified by name, both for safety reasons and because they may be anyone,” Hui explains. According to Hui, Vicki herself is a fictional character, embodying the paranoia and terror that activists—then and now—must cope with. The terror and doubt could be vividly perceived in Vicki’s voice in less than half of the film, while she asks and answers with a sarcastic, aggressive, or hopeless tone. The recorder we see at the very beginning of the film is to illustrate the power of words and the voice that must be heard inevitably—the words that cannot be buried. Even the sounds of nature, like rain, water drops, or cricket from space, acknowledge the power of listening, through which we discover the world deeper and wiser.
“Small Hours of the Night” imprisons the audience with the infuence of lightening. The shadows and the movement of light on the wall and tiny objects like the ant are portraying a cell in which we may see the movement of time by light and nothing else. But from other aspects, the film liberates us with the power of human linguistic possibilities, whether a piece of poetry or existential questions depicted in dialogues between Vicki’s and the interrogator.
In the age of multimedia journalism, many can follow historical, political, and social circumstances in documentaries and get as much information as they need with the power of the internet. They are all achievable with some clicks, and by doing so, you can expand your knowledge of them. But Daniel Hui’s “Small Hours of the Night” takes the audience into the heart of dictatorship tyranny with an unconscious meditative dominance. With its masterful cinematography that is very similar to gazing at photos hanging on the wall of a gallery, “Small House of the Night” encourages us to contemplate the human agonies and his life at the hands of dictators—the narcissistic authorities who enslave their people to fulfil their own desires. The shots are contemplative, awakening, and demonstrative.
“With righteous anger in my chest/ I stand by the gallows……/ When will the gallows be destroyed to build a new world?” As Vicki reads the heroic poem, she discerns a redemptive path that can be traversed by the desires of individuals. Dictators rise thanks to the ignorance of the population but vanish solely due to the inspiration of valour and awareness fostered by the human will.
Over the course of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, “Small Hours of the Night” will be screened on Saturday, January 27.
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