2019 vision… illuminating a year in the dark.

Who knows where the time goes eh? The centenary of 1919 passed by with brutal speed leaving me reeling in its wake trying to grab hold of something solid to make sense of it all. This was the year of going with the flow; a mad dash from Italy to Korea to Leicester and back to Italy via a Weimar Germany that increasingly felt uncomfortably familiar.

There’s no respite, strong rumours suggest that the Twenties are about to be re-booted and we can only hope that means a return of style and ambition across every walk of life. So, in no particular order, and with sincerest thanks to everyone who programmed, introduced, projected and played along with the 120+ silent films I saw in cinema… here we go: fourteen favourites but it could have been forty.

Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway...

1.       The Lodger (1927), Neil Brand score, Ben Palmer conducting Orchestra San Marco, Pordenone

My third year at Le Giornate and to get through eight days of cultural and social excess – those Aperols won’t Spritz themselves - and still find myself watching this film with such alert glee, says so much about Hitchcock’s visuals and Neil Brand’s score. In my first year I’d nodded off for Lubitsch’s Student Prince of Old Heidelberg (sorry Ernst) but watching this most re-watchable of silent films with Neil’s score sinking in even more, I felt fully connected in this cinematic home from home.

There is just so much to process in Pordenone with up to 14 hours of film a day. It was a good year for William S Hart – with a retrospective showing how his bad-to-good man, with the love of a good woman, themes evolved – Estonian silents and a delightful Marion Davis film, Beverly of Graustark (1926), which proved a cross-dressing delight! Read all about it in my daily posts here.

You know who it is.

2.       Brooksie on the big screen: It's the Old Army Game (1926), with European Silent Screen Virtuosi, Bristol Old Vic, Slapstick Festival also Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), BFI

There aren’t that many Louise Brooks’ films but I want to see them all on the big screen and this year I added two more and was not disappointed. Louise is fresh as a daisy alongside an occasionally tiresome WC Fields in Army Game, her gleeful reactions just beautiful to watch especially in a room full of people experiencing the same thing. Diary is at another level as a film and I’ve waited years to see it on screen eschewing my multiples DVDs and Blu-rays… with a smashing intro from Pabstspert Pamela Hutchison unseen Louise filled the screen almost as powerfully as for Pandora.

At the Crossroads

3.       Crossroads of Youth (1934), with Lee Jinwook and Cho Hee Bong, BFI Early Korean Cinema

2019 was the centenary of Korean Cinema with a season featuring what remains of the very earliest films made under Japanese occupation as well as an excellent 14^th edition of the Korean Film Festival later in the year.

Crossroads is the only silent survivor of this turbulent period and had been painstakingly reconstructed to establish narrative and visual sense. This was a silent film screening unlike any other I’ve ever witnessed, in addition to a Korean Byeonsa – a more active version of a Japanese Benshi – performed with gleeful energy by Cho Hee Bong, we had two actors, Hwang Minsu and Park Hee-von who sang parts echoing the central love story with West-end panache. Accompaniment was provided by composer Lee Jinwook on keyboards, Shin Jia on accordion, Oh Seung Hee on double-bass and Sim Jeongeun on violin an ear-popping combination of styles that seamlessly supported the narrative on and off screen.

The Miller and the Sweep (1897)

4.       Screening the Victorians, with Bryony Dixon and Stephen Horne, BFI

This was another marvellous trip through the oldest BFI archives accompanied by curator Bryony Dixon and Stephen Horne and it featured some of the most impressive footage from the Victorian cinema era, 1896 to 1901. We’d seen glimpses of Queen Victoria before but this screening of Queen Victoria’s Last Visit to Ireland (1900) from a print held by MOMA, was the clearest glimpse yet of the Empress as she greeted Dublin crowds smiling and wearing sunglasses – yes, smiling!

5.       Happy Birthday, Mr Paul!, with Ian Christie and John Sweeney, BFI

It was a good year all round for Victorian film with Ian Christie giving two thoroughly entertaining show and tells at the BFI and the Bioscope on RW Paul, the father of British cinema.

During his ten years of peak activity, Paul undoubtedly advance the art of cinema as both a technical innovator and an artistic one: bringing both together in forms of new expression. The World’s first two-scene film was (probably) Paul’s Come Along, Do (1898) which has now had a fragment of its long-lost second scene - inside the art gallery - restored from one of his illustrated catalogues, another innovation in marketing terms – take that Mr Edison or more specifically, William Dickson who did the work the Big E was happy to patent!

It was good to fill out the backstory of this key figure and Christie’s book, Robert Paul and the Origins of British Cinema (Chicago University Press) will be on many a list this Christmas.

Valeska Gert in Joyless mood.

6.       The Joyless Street (1925) with John Sweeney, BFI Weimar Season

The BFI spoiled us with some excellent strands this year, I loved the Antonioni season and of course we have the ongoing musicals season which covers a huge amount of ground from the Hollywood greats to fantastic British and French films: First a Girl and Les Umbrellas de Cherbourg being two standouts. For me though the Weimar Cinema season curated by Margaret Deriaz was not only the best of the year but also for many years, from a silent perspective at least.

Between 1919 and 1933, Germany produced over 3,500 films, second only to Hollywood in scale and productivity and it was a delight to see some of the cream of what remains: from the madness of Opium (1919) to the hard-hitting politics of Kuhle Wampe (1932) and Mother Krause’s Journey to Happiness (1931) via so many “key texts” such as Der Golem (1920), Dr Mabuse (1922) and The Student of Prague (1926).

It's impossible to pick a favourite so I will opt for Pabst’s Joyless Street illuminated by Queen Asta Neilsen and Princess Greta Garbo along with King John Sweeney’s unstinting improvisation and utterly controlled musical narrative.

Another joyless street

7.       Sylvester (1923), Frank Bockius and Stephen Horne, Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna

It was hot, hot, hot in Bologna with the usual bewildering range of choices and memorable outdoor screenings in the Piazza Maggiore of my favourite Keaton with a restored The Cameraman (1928) followed by Charlie’s turn with The Circus (1927), a film I’d not seen and yet which was one of the funniest I’ve seen all year.

There was no escaping Germany though and Frank Bockius and Stephen Horne’s accompaniment for Lupe Pick’s grim Sylvester (1923) under the stars with the Piazzetta Pasolini’s carbon-arc projector revealed an horrific family struggle taking place in the backroom of a bar on a street filled with New Year’s revelry. The two accompanists took turns in carrying the line and it was fascinating to hear a percussion-led musical narrative.

Our Betty Balfour

8.       Love, Life and Laughter (1923), with Meg Morley, London Film Festival Archive Gala

Unseen since 1923, recovered by a cinema owner in Holland and restored by a multi-national team, this was one of those screenings when you walk out onto the Southbank with a spring in your step, cracking a wonky smile with a shard of bliss warming your core courtesy of Britain’s Queen of Happiness and Australia’s Princess of the Pianoforte. Music and movie combining in a genuinely soulful way to utterly change my mood on a rotten Brexit Thursday… forget all that, let’s have a laugh; let’s live a little… is precisely what Betty Balfour urged.

Ita means it.

9.       Tonka of the Gallows (1930), with Stephen Horne, Phoenix Cinema

This film was one of the hits of this year’s San Francisco Silent Film Festival and understandably drew a substantial audience of the capital’s silent cineastes to the Finchley Phoenix. We’d come to see the serene Slovenian Ita Rina who’s delicate beauty underpinned her quite staggering performance in this film. Add in Stephen Horne’s alchemical accompaniment (he also played for it in San Francisco) and we were lost in that mystical meld of sound, vision and venue which leaves you at the mercy of your own emotional response.

10.       The Cat and the Canary (1927), with Jeff Rapsis, Kennington Bioscope

One of so many excellent screenings from the National Treasure that is the Cinema Museum. Here we were treated to a watch of Kevin Brownlow’s own 35mm – I know! - one that resulted from his own restoration for Photoplay. We also got an introduction full of the insider jokes and insights from the man who – nearly – met them all, capturing silent stars on tape from the fifties to the eighties and preserving the oral history of the birth of film.

Guest pianist Jeff Rapsis had flown over from Boston in the morning and was full of praise for the Bioscope – and it’s (thankfully) ongoing contribution to keeping alive the art of improvised accompaniment for which a live audience is just essential. “I have no sheet music, I have nothing prepared I just go with the film and the audience…” and, in front of our very eyes, he performed the magic.

Lady Eleanor

11.       Souls for Sale (1923) with Meg Morley, Kennington Bioscope Silent Weekender

I have a well-publicized soft spot for Eleanor Boardman and also love films about films of which Souls is one of the very first. The glimpses behind the scenes are precious, with Erich von Stroheim seen directing Greed, giving Jean Hersholt instructions, and Charlie Chaplin playing along by over-actively directing Mem/Eleanor in a “scene” from Woman of Paris. Elsewhere you can glimpse Hobart Bosworth, Barbara Bedford, Chester Conklin, Raymond Griffith, June Mathis, Marshall Neilan, Claire Windsor & many more! William Haines is also in there, his first credited appearance, as Pinky the assistant director to Richard Dix’s square-jawed Frank Claymore.

Kevin Brownlow introduced on his birthday and explained that the film was partly a PR exercise to show that after numerous scandals, Hollywood wasn’t a bad place, full of upstanding professionals. Meg Morley accompanied in fine style matching the epic with the intimate with trace elements of Liszt amongst the jazzed assurance!

Asta catches a tram and a man.

12.   Claire (1924)/ Afgrunden (1910) with John Sweeney and Colin Sell, Kennington Bioscope

Two films that showed how women’s stories were front and centre of the new medium in Weimar Germany and Denmark. Claire is convoluted fun and John Sweeney enlightened the narrative with romantic flourishes and dramatic interventions that ensured we were firmly focused on the extraordinary expressiveness of Lya de Puti. Michell Facey introduced and told of the Hungarian actress’ success in Germany – including Variety and her off-screen/in-trailer relationship with Emil Jannings – before she tried her (bad) luck in Hollywood…

No misgivings about the quality and significance of the first of the films, Afgrunden (1910) staring the uncannily naturalistic Asta Nielsen who is undeniably one of the inventors of screen acting and her ability to express cinematically – nuanced and naturalistic – is something to behold. As Angela Dalle Vacche has said, seemed to anticipate the close-up's subliminal impact.

The alternate title for this film is The Woman Always Pays and even as early as 1910, Asta was questioning why this should be with a character who is dependent on male patronage and who cannot be free of the “male passions” that plague Lya too. Colin Sell accompanied with remarkably steady hands despite the mounting on-screen excitement of Asta’s raunchy dance round a ranch hand in the most figure-hugging dress in the World.

Ghost of a chance

13.   The Phantom of the Moulin Rouge (Le fantôme du Moulin Rouge) (1925) with Elizabeth-Jane Baldry and Stephen Horne, British Silent Film Festival

This was the UK premier of Lobster films restoration of René Clair’s first feature and, as with his earlier short film, Paris qui dort, it is a science fantasy film in which the human drama is magnified rather than obscured as is so often the case. The dynamic duo of Baldry and Horne provided yet another sublime combination taking it in turns to wring unexpected sounds and sumptuous lines as we floated through this strange adventure.

"Life's a walking shadow, nah-nah-na-nah-nah!"

14.   He Who Gets Slapped (1924), with Taz Modi and Fraser Bowles, Barbican

To see this film projected from a 35mm print is a special treat and all praise to the Barbican team for sourcing this copy from a private collection in France. He Who Gets Slapped has not been digitally restored, which is a crime given its qualities, and probably has not been screened like this for many a year in the UK.

Not all sonic experiments from the Barbican work but I enjoyed the mesmeric and wistful score from Taz Modi who plays a kind of hybrid-jazz, accompanied by expressive cello from Fraser Bowles. Taz’s piano figures weaved patterns over the narrative rather than matching specific events; a tonal rather than a harmonised duet and which, in the context of such a powerfully visual and humane film, worked very well. More please Barbican!

So, just to be clear:

1.       The Christmas we get we deserve.

2.       I (therefore do not) wish it could be Christmas every day.

3.       All I want for Christmas is a screening of Gosta Berling...

See you in The New Twenties!

Silent Seoul… Crossroads of Youth (1934), BFI Early Korean Cinema launch with director Kim Tae Yong

This was the opening of a BFI season subtitled “Lost films of the Japanese colonial period” and none was more nearly lost than Crossroads of Youth the only silent film remaining from this period, one that was badly damaged and not even a finished edit when it was rediscovered in 2007.

I talked to restoration director Kim Tae Yong (director of Memento Mori, Family Ties and Late Autumn) before the screening and he explained how he’d been invited onto the restoration project to re-edit as well as complete the edit on a film that didn’t quite make sense on first viewing. There are no inter-titles and he ended up watching it over a hundred times in order to establish plot and character. With one clear male hero and two female leads, it was only through lip-reading one of the characters calling lead actor Lee Won-yong her “brother” that he realised the relationship between the two. There a narrative looseness which is only fully appreciated when you see the film screened live when the importance of his editing and scripting is also clear.

Sin Il-seon

This was a silent film screening unlike any other I’ve ever witnessed, in addition to a Korean Byeonsa – a more active version of a Japanese Benshi – performed with gleeful energy by Cho Hee Bong, we had two actors, Hwang Minsu and Park Hee-von (who began with K-Pop combo M.I.L.K.) who sang parts echoing the central love story with West-end panache. Accompaniment was provided by composer Lee Jinwook on keyboards, Shin Jia on accordion, Oh Seung Hee on double-bass and Sim Jeongeun on violin an ear-popping combination of styles that seamlessly supported the narrative on and off screen.

The film has been screened several times and Tae Yong confirms that the overlaid narrative continues to evolve with a constant stream of commentary from Cho Hee Bong, all in Korean and veering from the daft to laugh-out loud hilarious. This is not silent film by “the rules”; the Byeonsa narration is invasive, commenting on our hero’s eye make-up, lascivious shots of the women and generally adding a third-party perspective dressed in a pith helmet with a pot of hot tea at his side. But this is not a Western silent film and for this last survivor this is an absolutely-joyful celebration of Korean culture and it’s as close as you can get to Silent Seoul as is possible without an eleven-hour plane flight (and a Tardis).

Lee Won-yong, Sin Il-seon and Kim Yeong-sil

This unique mix suited their silent style and Tae Yong says Byeonsa were more popular than actors with the audience wanting to see them as much if not more than the film for the added value they added to intensely emotive cinema, “...a narrator is the best way to tell a very sentimental story they can show their emotions they can deliver…”.

Tonight our Byeonsa was on flamboyant form as he introduced a tale “from the old days” as a train works its way along the tracks to Gyeongseong Station – now Seoul – symbolising the arrival of “youth” to the capital in search of opportunity and perhaps love… we see Yeong-bok (Lee Won-yong) a young “handsome fellow” among the crowd, a railway porter. He helps a young woman and her mother off the train even though he knows they can’t tip him…

Yeong-bok stares into the middle distance, the screen goes out of focus and we have the oldest surviving flashback in Korean cinema as the camera re-focuses on some lovely shots of the Korean countryside from cinematographer Lee Myeong-woo, including a tracking shot of our hero entering the village. Many filmmakers had been trained in Japan and had seen a broader range of western cinema too and the shots are well made if a little raw.

Depth of field: Yeong-ok is out of focus and unsure but bad-guy Gae Cheol knows what he wants

Yeong-bok is promised to Bong Seon and has been earning her hand in marriage living with her family for seven years, but things will not work out and the Byeonsa fills us in on the details from the lost footage – a rich man came in with a better offer whisking Bong Seon away. Yeong-bok headed for the city leaving his mother and sister Yeong-ok (Sin Il-seon) behind.

Back in the present, a “modern man” and a loan shark Gae Cheol greets Ju Myeong Gu who, surprise, is the very same rich man from the country who whisked Bong Seon away from Yeong-bok. Now he has come to the city for some “action” in the company of his dodgy mate. The two head to a bar/brothel where the madame introduces them to a young woman sitting at the bar, mourning her recently-passed mother, it is, of course, Yeong-ok who has come in search of her brother…

Kim Yeong-sil

Talking of which, we meet Yeong-bok’s new girl, Gye Soon (Kim Yeong-sil) a petrol station “gas girl”, who puts up with his drunken disinterest as he wastes away his days with his two pals. Sweet Gye Soon looks after her sister and ailing father who has fallen deeply in debt to the loan sharks and, unless she can find a better paid job, will be forced to marry her off. Heartbroken, she writes to Yeong-bok and the two have a poignant discussion at a well where they wonder if life is worth living and whether they should try to escape… serious stuff this melodrama, as the Byeonsa might say.

The baddies take Yeong-ok and the club madame to the golf club for a weekend of fore-play. Gae Cheol is pursuing and will not take no for an answer… the morning after, the focus literally moves out from Yeong-ok, devastated after having given in, then back in on Gye Soon who is thinking of Yeong-bok. Ahn Jong-Hwa's direction has many delicate touches.

Gye Soon bumps into Madame and is properly introduced to Yeong-ok – unbeknownst to her, her lover’s brother now attached to another… they take her for a meal and soon she become drawn into their world. The commentary has this as her first ever trip in a lift, there’s a theme of modernity as well as western ways changing society… the contrast between the rural idyll and the impact of money on happiness… and with money comes beer and other western temptations. The baddies get wasted in smart suits and prey on the women in ways both clear and startling, Hays would have had kittens.

It’s a worthy of a Victorian novel but a classic set up and even though you know where all of this will probably lead the narrative is well controlled. Once all the pieces of the tragedy are in place and the three heroes could hardly sink any lower there is an absolute stormer of a finish that is dynamic and very satisfying: you can’t fail to be carried away and this is irresistible, communal, cinema.

“He is no longer the tamed ox, he marches like a tiger!”

The acting is impressive across the board with Lee Won-yong an exceptional leading man – handsome and deftly expressive. Sin Il-seon is equally impressive as his forlorn sister and Jong-Hwa is especially fond of close-ups showing her emotional transitions as he is of Kim Yeong-sil, so capable also of sophisticated expression. It is a shame there is not more available to see these professionals further work but that makes this film even more precious.

I couldn’t sort out who plays what (there’s no cast list identification apart from the above) from the following performers Park Yeon, Moon Kyeong-sim, Park Je-haeng and Choy Myeong Hwa but who ever played Gae Cheol deserves special mention; a truly memorable baddie with a most excellent moustache!

Lee Won-yong

Returning to my discussion with director Kim Tae Yong, he feels that the narrator is the best way of expressing the emotions of what is a very complicated story. He compares the film to a soap opera in its complexity and, after the film was discovered in 2007, he watched it hundreds of times to work out the story, characters and their relationships. Certainly, the film is different to contemporary Japanese silents and Tae Yong identifies a need to smuggle in Korean sensibilities under the watchful gaze of the occupying Japanese. This would explain the sense of humour so powerfully in evidence; a coded comedy of emotional solidarity.

The film was last screened in London at the Barbican in 2012 and. Whilst the source material is unchanged, the narrative and performance has evolved with Tae Yong seeing new meanings as he tries to connect with the original intensions of Ahn Jong-Hwa stressing that “…this is not my film I need to find his way”.

The big finale

As the Japanese occupation drew on there were more restrictions on film makers, the first Korean film was made in 1919 in relative freedom although the director of film the Sin Il-seon made in 1926 was arrested. She married and left the business until her return for this film under the direction of Jong-Hwa, who was not a “politically dangerous” film-maker and more focused on action movies. The Thirties were a period of relative stability in Korea but as the decade progressed the pressure to make more propagandist films increased as the BFI series will show.

After liberation and the Korean war, Tae Yong says that the film makers from this era found their way more in television than films with the output of the fifties and sixties and beyond founded in the same style of sentimental melodrama. Which makes this amazing mixture of his direction, live performance and silent film even more poignant: after so much disruption, national creative character proves indomitable.

Details of the season are on the BFI site as well as the Korean Culture Centre’s – screenings being split across the two.

An interview with KCC UK’s Hyun Jin Cho - Early Korean Cinema, BFI & KCCUK season 7th-28th February

Hyun Jin Cho is the film curator of the Korean Cultural Centre and she has played a major role in the programming of the BFI’s new season of rare Korean films, cinema few will have been familiar with but which opens the windows on a period of unexpectedly rich cultural output. I met with her at the Korean Cultural Centre in London to discuss the series.

The Japanese took charge of Korea in 1910 and it was only in 1945 after Second World War that they left; a period in which it’s hard not to look for parallels with say the British and India. The films in this series cover the period from 1934, Korea’s oldest surviving film Crossroads of Youth (1934) to the liberation with Hurrah! For Freedom (1946), the first film after independence, and Korea (1946) which details the fight against the occupiers. That film’s director, Choi In-gyu, had previously worked on propaganda films for the Japanese, and there are some of those included in the season too; as with film from other cultures under military and totalitarian rule, creativity inevitably wins through and what remains is a powerful testimony to the independent spirit of Korea during this time

Mun Ye-bong in Sweet Dream

Initially the idea was proposed by Kate Taylor-Jones of the University of Sheffield who has written extensively on colonial East Asian colonial cinema and, whose book, DivineWork, Japanese Colonial Cinema and its Legacy, has just been published. She worked with Jin and the KCC to programme the series which is an unprecedented compilation of recoved films from a dark time in the country's history.

The Korean Film Archive were involved in not only restoring the films but also finding them and the series includes everything that is available that has been archived… just eleven films out of the 157 made between 1910 and 1945. But there is still time to discover more and as Tuition was only discovered as recently as 2014, there is hope.

That said, in addition to the usual perilous state of film, pretty much the whole country was destroyed  in the Korean War years and preserving film was obviously not a priority at a time when nitrate prints were cut up to make hats. Now people’s perception of archiving has changed… as it has all round the World and we are very lucky to be able to view this diverse and fascinating glimpse into life between 1934 and liberation.

Having seen Crossroads of Youth (1934), the earliest of these films, I was impressed by the technique and the direction; it’s a lovely film with naturalistic acting and confident camerawork. Like others, the director Ahn Jong-hwa was exposed to the Japanese cinema technique and technology, as well as the influence from early Hollywood. Some of the film crew were either Japanese or Japanese trained; as with Britain and its empire the mother country wanted to expand to cultural dominance as well.

Japan wanted Korea to effectively be as part of the country, and a number of films of these films reflect this and not just obvious propaganda films like Military Train (1938) and Volunteer (1941) but even in seemingly innocent films like Tuition (1940).

Tuition (1940) 

Based on a story written by an eleven-year old boy, who submitted it to a competition aimed at celebrating the Japanese occupation, Tuition shows a boy’s efforts to overcome poverty in order to educate himself. It’s another charming film and with strong, naturalistic performances. Originally scripted in Japanese, the “official” language of occupied Korea, the film used Korean for the domestic settings, a reflection of reality, and Japanese in the more formal environs of school, just about as far as you could go and, as Hyun Jin Cho notes “…some kind of small resistance.”

 Given the circumstances protests such as this were subtle and, not dissimilar to the smuggled subtexts of soviet cinema but this series is more about the chance to see the skills of the film-makers as well as the social context they provide on a little-seen cinematic culture.

They want you as a new recruit...

Not that people weren’t keeping score… Choi In-gyu, who co-directed Tuition co-operated with the Japanese – a lot of people did, of course - but even directing Korea (1946) after liberation, he was not forgiven; as Jin says “people didn’t buy into it … and he didn’t work very much in Korea after this.” He ended up moving to another country.

I ask the obvious question about which films are Jin’s favourites but she stresses the need to see the whole series. Many seasons focus on a Director or a genre but this one is all about a time and a place and across the eleven titles it is hoped that it will give the viewer an idea of what Korean society was like and how they lived: “…because it’s a sequence of history, the whole thing tells a bit of the story you have to piece together.”

In this way Angels on the Street (1914) – one of the first realistic films and showing at the KCCUK on 12^th February (link here) – is as telling as Japanese propaganda films are in terms of revealing the bigger picture or the more melodramatic Sweet Dream (1936) which follows a bored housewife as she abandons her family to search for love and excitement in Seoul. There’s a similar story for Fisherman’s Fire in which a young woman is seduced away from her poor fishing village only to become a bar girl (gisaeng) in the city.

Spring on the Korean Peninsula (1941)

Then there is Spring on the Korean Peninsula (1941) which offers a fascinating insight into the Korean film industry of the period. The film saw a young filmmaker and his crew struggle to bring the famous Korean story of Chunghyang (the most famous Korean pansori, a traditional narrative song) to the big screen. There are also short films with a more purely propagandist aim such as Patriots Day in Joseon and Japanese Chronicles.

Taken together they create a powerful sense of place and time and you’ll just have to see as many screenings as possible to get the picture. It’s going to be a special series of films and one to treasure.

It all begins with the sold-out spectacular of Crossroads of Youth (1934) the only silent film and one which is presented with Benshi-style narrators along with Korean musicians. It reflects a performance tradition not dissimilar to Japans and Chinas and also the beginnings of all cinema where films were always mixed-media entertainments in theatres, circus and fairs… People were less literate than in the West and so perhaps more explanation was required; it is one of the highlights of the series and it’s a shame they couldn’t run it again. The narrator is a very well-known actor in Korea and they were also lucky to be able to bring the original group of musicians too.

Crossroads of Youth (1934)

“It’s a going to be very big production!” Jin smiles, aware of how surprised and delighted London is about to be by this aspect of her country’s newly-recovered cultural past.

Full details of the season are on the BFI and KCCUK websites.