A primary school boy stands on the rooftop of a building, staring into nowhere with fear and determination. He slowly walks forward, climbs the parapet, and jumps. This shocking scene begins Time Still Turns the Pages, a film which poetically reveals the cruel fact of academic stress and teenage suicide in Hong Kong, and leaves the audience with a long bitter aftertaste.
★★★★★
Directed by Nick Cheuk, who recently won best director at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards, Time Still Turns the Pages is a sensitive and depressing movie about family trauma and student suicide. The protagonist, high school teacher Mr. Cheng, discovers an anonymous suicide note in the classroom. The investigation into the note not only lets him know more about his students, but also brings him to the story of Eli, a young boy writing a diary every day. Not academically talented, Eli is constantly compared to his smart brother and violently punished by his parents. The connection between Mr. Cheng and Eli, the key of this film, is gradually revealed through an effective use of flashbacks as the plot develops.
Time Still Turns the Pages is very disturbing. One of Mr. Cheng’s students calmly shows her self-harm scars, while the vice-chancellor makes fun of the suicide note saying that the student “is a good writer”. Eli hands over a feather duster and lets his dad beat him, and his mum coldly says that he does not deserve to be her son if he cannot get a better grade. All these scenes are humbly shot with basic cinematography and authentic location sounds. There are no sophisticated visual and sound effects, but the simplicity makes the scenes terrifyingly realistic. The audience is absorbed in the scenes and directly hit by the violence. It seems that domestic abuse and the school’s negligence of students’ wellbeing are norms seen in the city every day.
The abnormal levels of academic stress seen in the film are indeed normal across Southeast Asia. Under the notoriously exam-oriented education system, students have been inculcated with the ideology that academic excellence is the greatest accomplishment in life. Most parents force their children to study incessantly to be the best in class, and society often judges students’ value by their academic results.
With most students already feeling overwhelmed by the suffocating pressure, their parents bombard them with the rhetoric that they will be a loser if they perform poorly in school. Many of them also tell their kids that forcing them to study is an act of love. Some have criticised that the violence of Eli’s parents is exaggerated, but this ‘lovingly’ authoritarian parenting is demonstrated by Eli’s parents in the film. Together with the public taboo of mental illness, many teenagers blame themselves and tolerate the stress without seeking help. Ironically, this filmwas released in Hong Kong at the peak of student suicide.
Time Still Turns the Pages is not the only film criticising Asian education, but its heartbreaking illustration of the cycle of trauma differentiates it. Through the use of the diary and multiple timelines, it artistically highlights how childhood trauma affects a person’s long-term mentality and brings cross-generational impacts. The original film title in Chinese is ‘Youth Diary’, suggesting how crucial ‘diary’ is in the film. It connects Eli and Mr. Cheng, two seemingly irrelevant characters. It gives Eli a safe space to heal himself through writing. Although Eli never feels happy, he carries on with his life as time goes by. He just keeps on writing and turns pages of his diary every day.
Time moves forward for Eli, but it moves backward for Mr. Cheng. Flipping through the diary, Mr. Cheng resists the natural movement of time and reviews Eli’s childhood. Eli’s everyday life is parallel to Mr. Cheng’s struggle as an adult. He does not know how to handle the relationship with his students, dad, and divorced wife. His adulthood shows the detrimental long-term effects of childhood trauma. Lacking a loving family life, many children who suffer from domestic abuse have difficulty establishing normal interpersonal relationships when they grow up. Some of them also do not know how to raise their children properly, and problematic parenting may jeopardise the next generation. For those who have childhood trauma, time never moves forward and the pages never turn. They are locked in a diary of the past, struggling to get rid of the pain lingering throughout their lives and passed down through generations.
Time Still Turns the Pages is not a typical Hong Kong movie for many Western audiences. It neither captures urban glamour like ChungKing Express, nor showcases thrilling action scenes of police like Infernal Affairs. Yet, it epitomises how young filmmakers sensitively respond to controversial social issues despite tight budgets and intense censorship. They usually focus on the living experience of ‘ordinary people’ and subtly challenging social injustice. For example, Drifting (2021) and The Narrow Road (2022) talk about the plight of homeless people and cleaners respectively. These films may not win global fame like the 1980s exports, but their dedication to recording the city and its people realistically deserves our support.
“We will become the adults we want to be one day.” Eli always encourages himself with this quote from his favourite comic. Time Still Turns the Pages is heart-rending, but it warmly reminds the audience that it is okay not to become a perfect adult because of uncontrollable factors like childhood experience. Yet, at least be a kind person who cares about our friends and family. A simple hug can save a life.
The Verdict
Time Still Turns the Pages demonstrates the power of simplicity in filmmaking. Without an overly dramatic storyline or sophisticated cinematography, it illustrates the stressful reality many Asian students face and leaves the audience to reflect on the education system, the importance of parenting, and their own lives. It tells the story of people, provoking emotions and thoughts among audiences—which is exactly what a good movie should do.
Word by Angel Sun
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