Daniel Hui’s whimsically harrowing black-and-white, closed-form film is a brilliant testament to the poetics of cinematic time, expressed wonderfully through the analogue, velvety precision of 16mm. Drawing on real-life events, factual socio-temporal and political coordinates, the film is evocative of sombre and tumultuous events in Singapore’s political past.

More importantly though, of the multiple ways in which elements and common features that allude to our human experience reside in those events, and can be found in the past, present and possible futures, as Hui himself told me during our conversation after the UK premiere of the film at the 68th BFI London International Film Festival and, unbeknownst to both of us, days before the film’s ban in Singapore.

Small Hours of The Night (2024) comprise the kaleidoscopic exploration of an incident closely connected with the figuration of the newly independent country’s political expression. Set in the 1960s, the film explores retroactively a series of events that played an important role in the historico-political figuration of the country, the nuanced circumstances and characteristics that led to it, as well as its aftermath. A woman is being questioned by a police intelligence officer in a stuffy interrogation room. She is clearly upset, under emotional distress. Rather than a terrible experience or a series of challenging circumstances however, the reason for the unsettled state she finds herself in, lies in haunting visions, voices and an unsettling sentiment set in the future. She channels voices, perspectives, states of being in connection to the specific historical and socio-political circumstances they are associated with. The interrogation itself is fictional, yet it serves as a prescient political sentiment emerging through events and actual statements made in what the woman’s testimony describes as a potentially dystopian future. Yet, the actions, events, incidents, people, places and things she refers to are anchored to an actual, linear timeline and comprise documented actions and incidents.

Blending transcripts from interrogations of political dissidents in the ‘70s and ‘80s to inform the compelling dialogue, Hui expands beyond a poetic exploration of a tumultuous political past. While historically and socio-politically situated, Hui’s doric film world reflects a future in the past, a past in the present, and expressions of a present in a potential or alternative future. The shots and slow-paced sequences that comprise the 112 minutes of its linear time, the camera that lingers on the protagonists and their actions, the aesthetics that liven up the 16mm gauge throughout its length, encourage us to place ourselves amidst claustrophobic shots, stay with timelessness and trouble to make the associations we wish and fill in the gaps that we shall. So little is shown, but so much is included in Hui’s unique sense of cinematic time; the plasticity of actions that could have been but didn’t, the lingering aspirations and wants that remain unmet, the trajectory that should not have been followed, yet it still somehow makes sense. Looking factual, but feeling avant-garde, experimental, Hui’s film is nuanced and precious; evoking affect politely, gently without demanding our sentiment. And this, in my opinion, is what makes it stand out as a powerful and beautiful work.

Closed form. Chiaroscuro. A close-up to a male face followed by shots of a desk, a tape recorder and an astray full of cigarette buds. Everything on his desk seems orderly and carefully selected to serve a specific purpose. The tape recorder to record what interviewees say, the fixed phone to communicate with other colleagues or receive information about a plan of action, the ashtray to mark time as nights become days in the small interrogation room. This alluring mélange of suspense being built, implications of resistance and resilience reconfigures objects and symbols that act as significant plot points, while exploring their meanings in profound ways. A cigarette is still burning. The interrogator’s hand pulls it away nervously and brings it to his mouth. His face is lit only partially, as if illuminated from within, revealing only his profile at the completely dark background. It appears soft and finessed but hard, porcelain-like, resistant to anything attempting to go through it.

We do anticipate something to happen when the camera turns to Vicky, the female interviewee who sits on the other side of the table. Her face, soft, graceful, pale, exudes its own light; it makes her features and particularly her expressive eyes stand out from the grey background. Her gaze shifts from blank to a restrained, composed intensity as her thoughts and memories are probably racing, her feelings are being stirred as she is asked to recount events, actions, and state her beliefs and political affiliations.

Vicky’s testimony, set in the 1960s, is based on prescient visions of the future. She is asked to elaborate on a tombstone and her associations with the people who are thought to have inscribed on it. There are both direct and subtle references to the tumultuous events that followed the intricate inscription of the tombstone. The latter was created in honour of the memory of a political dissident who protested the conditions or circumstances under which the country’s independence was solidified. He was among the group of political activists who questioned the extent to which the country’s independence was equitable for all the people in the country. He reportedly fled the country but was identified, caught, extradited back many years later, where he died. The intricately crafted, infamous tombstone was created to honour his memory but was considered controversial by the authorities at the time, as it was considered to bear evidence of dedication to communist ideas and their dissemination. What does Vicki know about the inscription that seems to have served as a form of political protest? Was she aware of who wrote what at the time? Why is she supporting them, even though they seem to have abandoned her in a cold, dimly lit cell? Does she know what the implications may be for her? And what about spirituality; the traditions and beliefs associated with the spirit world, that seems to be casting a shadow on the rational disentanglement of all the above? Rather than a continuous flow of statements, elicited responses and declarations, however, the dialogue curves, folds and shreds its component pieces in a deliberate disintegration of its narrative cohesion. There are multiple threads that comprise it, with Vicki articulating the experiences, anxieties and agonies of different personas or even people that may at times appear complimentary, or contradicting. While the sequences and intersubjective accounts overlap, there is a sense of blurring of the boundaries of individuation processes so much so that at times it feels that Vicki herself embodies and gives voice to multiple people simultaneously.

A variety of under-expressed or underrepresented perspectives overlap in a powerful combination. While certain incidents and events can be identified in actions that have been well documented, Vicki doesn’t seem to be bound to their historical or contextual specificity. Her dignified stoicism subtly acknowledges what knowledge already exists around them, as the identifiable incidents which are met with widespread international coverage. Yet, she transcends them. She seems to neither accept the role of the victim, nor offer a victimised account of what she and others suffered. She stands strong in dignity while narrating what happened to her, not reduced to what others may assume the potential impact of events might have been on her. Beautifully played by Yang Yanxuan Vicki, she carries the pathos gracefully, with measured, composed expressions that allow the testimonies; the facts and painful circumstances referring to other people’s lives to respectfully emerge. Sometimes oscillating between numbness or the evidence of emotional and psychological exhaustion and unavoidable emotional outbursts, Vicki simultaneously acknowledges the affective imprint of those experiences and the duty, or the responsibility of her expressing them in an effective manner. She chooses how to responsibly articulate her own and others' stories in a way that accurately describes and accounts for what happened, without being consumed by what preceded or what she foresees happening in the near and distant future. The mere act of speaking, or not speaking, choosing when to pause, when to talk fast, narrate with apathy, or give an impassionate speech lends itself to an empowered narrative that acts in itself as a thoughtful action. One that interweaves, facts, their impact and her determination to channel the personalities behind the story, in a manner that is very close to a notion of equity, fairness, dignity and citizenship. One that culminates in a powerful scene where Vicki deconstructs what was previously recorded and identified as an official narrative, assigning specific roles and placing expectations upon people. In doing so she deconstructs her identity and role by taking the tape with the recording of her voice out of the tape recorder. A thought process, disposition and set of actions that is also found in the moral necessity that drives other heroines in similar situations, such as Antigone in the ancient Sophoclean drama, as Hui tells me (link to interview). She makes a conscious choice to transcend he fear, any obstacles and restrictions based on emotional pain to honour the memory of her dead brother in a manner that seems appropriate, even if it is a defiance and protest of the status quo. Hui’s protagonist operates in a similar plateau and seems to respectfully borrow the actual testimonies and statements acquired by people during a process of interrogation, as well as the fearlessness, mental and emotional clarity of the intertextual heroine who emerges amidst an abyss of immense physical, mental and psychological pain, in a manner that is simultaneously timeless, personal and political.

Acting as the uncanny interlocutor, the interrogator is mirroring or responding to that multiplicity, by embodying and expressing different perspectives, identities, personalities. Irfan Kashban gives depth and a tranquil sense of genuine inquisitiveness or even empathy at times, breaking in-between moments of fatigue or exhaustion that naturally occur during the lengthy interrogation and his concentrated effort to stay in his sombre and distrusting demeanour. His expressionlessness gradually gives rise to an occasionally reserved contemplation on what is being revealed to him, while Vicki’s words flow out with little or no coherence, effortlessly creating images, scenes and evoking sentiments which are difficult to contain. This allows different types of connections to form between the two, with the interrogator seemingly switching between identities, roles and approaches. The harsh stranger who demands a response satisfying his criteria of truthfulness, appears at times as the embodiment of some of the people in Vicki’s accounts, forming connections with her in more ways than the obvious or expected ones. Somebody she used to know, who disappeared and re-appeared in the small interrogation room, somebody who might be potentially related to her or even, somebody who, in my opinion comes across at times as an unseen chorus, operating in a way similar to the ancient Greek theatre. Acting as a collective voice, he seems to go beyond the who, where and when to ponder over why; why did she engage in the activities she engaged, form connections with certain the people in her life, act or not act in the moment?

As the disintegrated dialogue reveals, getting an answer will not suffice in the context, of perhaps in any context. It is not about the answer per se, but in my opinion, the skilful dismantling of what an answer or any answer would imply for the questions asked. To assess the answer is also a process of examining the question. And this is one of the most appealing features in Hui’s fragmented, deconstructed, hallucinatory even dialogue. The testimonies and verbatim lines that Vicki speaks, do not define a bounded context for her relationship with the interrogator or even the matter of the questioning that itself matters; rather, with them being expanded to multiple possibilities, mixed in narrative threads and expressed in an uneasy but captivating way, they act as a question addressed indirectly to all of us, through the interrogator. What is the rationale of the questions that elicits these answers and what is the rationale of this exchange to be had? How can this constricted or narrow form of associations or exchanges be re-conceptualised? Potentially a new premise can be sought where having these dialogues, questions and answers expands beyond them being defined by a politically charged or affect-ridden verisimilitude, of a confined space and time. As Hui powerfully showcases, a mere premise of events documented as real-life acts, recorded testimonies and a finite determination of space and time can lead to a space of exploring allegorically the substance of resistance. 

That substance, however, is not finite or defined by space and time. Echoing elements of the Deleuzian concept of any-space-whatevers, as he tells me our conversation, Hui’s film world bends linear time, space and form. This forms and re-forms, in my opinion, a poetic cinematic experience that serves, as a timeless homage to acts of resistance and dissidence, illuminating the space in which past, present and future converge in the human strive for dignity and equity. The thoughtful cinematography, use of light, choreography of close-ups and medium shots, unfolding naturally in the slow pace of the night, exude a unique aesthetic plasticity that transcends politically charged spaces in time. This transcendence serves as a timeless capsule maintaining expressions of citizenship and political protest through acts of the quotidian experience; the ways in which actions come to be ritualised habits owing to values, principles and approaches to the lived experience. In their full expression though, they can become also acts of political expression and resistance to a status quo. Hui, however, doesn’t crystallise time in a certain expression of these approaches. On the contrary, he invites connections between disparate timelines, expressions and figures.

There is a strong sense of claustrophobia, but also haunting whimsicality that comes only during the small hours of the night – the eeriness of the still night, lingering fragments of what has passed and an anticipation of what is to come at dawn; the possibility of a new beginning. This is the essence of the film that expresses beautifully the plasticity of cinematic time with the aim of cutting through timelines in an abstraction of continuous single takes in lieu of montage. Expressed through the continuity of time in a form that stretches, bends and folds, Small Hours of the Night have their own rhythm that is slow, gentle, following the characters to the extent they permit this. So much is included and so much is left unsaid during the moments in which the camera lingers on Vicki’s face or resting body. One minute is enough to include an entire lifetime but equally how this can change and begin anew. A beautiful dream or a nightmare that was actually not a dream but may be a reflection of reality. And it is this expansion and contraction of cinematic time that is expressed beautifully alongside all that is included or implied in it, that makes this film such a remarkable piece of cinematic work.

Review by Eirini Nikopoulou.