Latest news with #Jean-PaulSartre

Our summer remedy: A chill down the spine

Korea Herald

28-06-2025

Entertainment
Korea Herald

Our summer remedy: A chill down the spine

Scream away the heat with these chilling horror series. From short, easily digestible anthologies to adaptations of hit webtoons, these shows may be just what you need to binge on these hot, sleepless summer nights. 'Hell Is Other People' on Tving, Disney+ Based on the hit Naver Webtoon of the same name, "Hell Is Other People" brings to life Jean-Paul Sartre's famous aphorism: the torment of being trapped under the gaze and judgment of others. The story follows Jong-woo, a young man slowly unraveling as he moves to a hostel with disturbing residents. Im Si-wan, playing Jong-woo, immaculately captures the character's slow descent into paranoia and fear, while the supporting cast, with characters that closely mirror their creepy webtoon counterparts, deepen the sense of unease. This slow-burn horror story probes a question at the core of the human psyche — what does it mean to live alongside people who are completely foreign to us? 'Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities' on Netflix From visionary filmmaker Guillermo del Toro comes "Cabinet of Curiosities," a macabre anthology series that blends visual craftsmanship with classic horror storytelling. Each of the eight standalone episodes offers wildly imaginative scenarios, coupled with Del Toro's signature cinematic elegance. The series makes for an easy watch, with straightforward storylines that aren't overly cerebral. Still, it delivers some thematic messages that linger after the credits have rolled. Thanks to its short episodes and tight pacing, the series is highly bingeable, although it should be noted that it has received mixed reviews due to its graphic content. "American Horror Stories" on Disney+ A spinoff of the popular "American Horror Story," "American Horror Stories" delivers quick-hit horror through an anthology format. Spanning three seasons, each episode tells a self-contained story, allowing for a fast-paced and varied viewing experience. The episodes explore unsettling ideas ranging from internet folklore, such as the Backrooms, to modern themes such as clone robots. If you're looking for themes and concepts rarely seen in live-action series, these creative horror tales are the ones to dive into. yoonseo.3348@

Every word has a consequence. Every silence too.

Time of India

23-06-2025

Business
Time of India

Every word has a consequence. Every silence too.

As the Business Head for The Times of India, I lead strategic initiatives and drive growth for one of the nation's most influential media organisations. My journalist friends believe I've crossed over to the proverbial dark side. Living on the edges of a dynamic newsroom, I dabble infrequently into these times that we live and believe in the spectatorial axiom – 'distance provides perspective'. LESS ... MORE Some mornings, I wake up and feel like I've wandered into a Beckett play with bad lighting. The coffee's still bitter, the headlines still absurd, and the world still insists on its commitment to performative collapse. NASA, in its usual quietly panicked way, says droughts and floods have doubled. Not nudged, not nudging—doubled. It's the sort of data that should prompt emergency sessions, maybe a global reckoning or two. Instead, we get hashtags, panel discussions, and climate ministers giving interviews from fossil-fuel-sponsored lounges. Britain, meanwhile, is crisping. 32 degrees in southeast England. '100 times more likely,' say the models, thanks to climate change. One imagines Queen Victoria rising from the grave just to slap the thermostat. And yet, we carry on—browsing weekend getaways, debating air conditioner brands—while pretending this is normal. But what's truly deafening is the silence. The bureaucratic stillness. The studied inaction. Albert Camus wrote of the absurd as 'a confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.' But I'd argue the world is no longer silent. It's shrieking. The unreasonable silence now lies squarely on our end. Then there's Trump, of course. Authorising 'Operation Midnight Hammer'—because nothing says sober diplomacy like a Tom Clancy fever dream. Seven stealth bombers, a strike on Iran's nuclear facility, and suddenly foreign policy reads like rejected Top Gun fan fiction. Maverick, but with midterms. Markets react like they always do: panicked, posturing, and pretending to understand. Oil flirted with $80. The European Central Bank cut rates. The Fed stood still, as if still figuring out whether it's managing inflation or mood swings. Somewhere in all this, Jean-Paul Sartre might have whispered, 'Man is condemned to be free.' Yes. And central banks are condemned to be late. The G7 met in Alberta and produced a flurry of statements on 'shared prosperity' and 'climate resilience'—terms now so hollow they echo when spoken. It's like watching a piano recital on the Titanic. We are awash in vocabulary, but bone-dry on courage. That's when the words hit me—more urgent, more distilled than anything I could write: 'Every word has a consequence. Every silence too.' — Jean-Paul Sartre It's not just philosophical embroidery. It's the diagnosis. We are not dying from what is said, but from what is left unsaid. From the global pauses. The quiet vetoes. The waiting-for-someone-else-to-move. And still, we scroll, we post, we like. We remain astonishingly fluent in denial. The world is not ending with a bang, but a buffer wheel. So yes—every word has a consequence. And every silence too. And every time we pretend otherwise, we're not avoiding the fire. We're fanning it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to find sunscreen with a warning label that says: 'May not protect against existential dread.' Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.

NZ Herald

05-06-2025

NZ Herald

Jane Clifton: Blood on the tracks

New Zealanders may envy Londoners and Parisians their extensive commuter train networks, but the glories of mass transport come with a culture of seething resentment. Had Jean-Paul Sartre lived to experience today's Metro, he would have elaborated on 'Hell is other people', adding '… and their braying cellphone conversations, their

'Exit 8' is an Exceptional Liminal Thriller and the Best Video Game Adaptation Ever Made [Cannes 2025 Review]

Business Mayor

24-05-2025

Entertainment
Business Mayor

'Exit 8' is an Exceptional Liminal Thriller and the Best Video Game Adaptation Ever Made [Cannes 2025 Review]

I've long been fascinated by what I call No Exit Horror , a term I've coined for a sub-genre rooted in existential dread, where characters are trapped in singular, oppressive spaces they cannot escape. Think of such liminal space thrillers as Cube , Dead End , Pontypool , or even The Shining . I took the name from French writer/philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, of course, and like his play No Exit , these films trap their characters not just in rooms but in loops of self-denial, regret, or moral indecision. Genki Kawamura's masterful Exit 8 , which just had its eerie and unforgettable premiere in the Cannes Midnight Screenings section, uses this trope so effectively that it might just be the most exceptional video game adaptation ever made. Adapted from a cult Japanese video game, Exit 8 follows 'The Lost Man,' played with raw and adorable restraint by Kazunari Ninomiya ( Letters from Iwo Jima , Gantz ). On a tedious underground commute home from his desk job, he quickly finds himself trapped in an endless underground subway corridor, forced to detect subtle anomalies, glitches in reality, that signal whether it's safe to proceed to the next exit, aka level. He loops back to the beginning if he misses something out of place. It's the perfect metaphor for the paralysis of modern professional life, trapped in the endless maze designed by the evils of capitalism: the hallway, sterile and endless, is less a location than a state of mind. He is, quite literally, going nowhere. And I'm sure most of us can find it relatable on some level . Exit 8 is more than just a stylish horror experiment or the astute staging of a unique and inexpensive IP. It's a tragic and intimate character study following a broken hero's journey where the monster isn't lurking around a corner. The Lost Man is on his way home from a job he clearly loathes. He's exhausted, emotionally disconnected, and stuck in the passive inertia of a life he never truly chose. And then, suddenly, fatherhood looms. Read More BioWare restructures around Mass Effect The great twist of Exit 8 is that its horror and drama are mostly emotional, not supernatural or sci-fi. Kawamura has crafted a film about the terror of becoming a parent before you're ready. About accepting love when you're not sure you're worthy. The anomaly in this man's life isn't a shadowy figure or an off-kilter passageway. Instead, it's the terrifying prospect of loving someone more than yourself. And being loved in return. The hallway becomes purgatory for a man who can't admit he's scared—scared of responsibility, commitment, and growing up. Ninomiya's performance is essential here. It's not flashy, but it's deep. He expertly plays emotional numbness, with shoulders sloped under decades of unspoken guilt and generational/gender expectation. There's a quiet beauty in how little he says and how much he shows. When change finally comes, it's not triumphant. It's terrifying. And it's earned. As The Lost Man repeats the corridor again and again, each loop becomes a step along a fractured, nonlinear path toward emotional accountability. He isn't trying to escape. He's trying to accept. He's trying to become someone capable of being loved, and of loving in return. And that might be the scariest journey a horror movie has ever asked of a man. And he's not alone. The eerie and quick introduction of 'The Walking Man' is frightening, then tragic. A perfect side quest during an already pristine mainline story. The atmosphere in Exit 8 draws on a similar liminal energy felt in brilliant liminal horror projects like P.T. and The Backrooms, but where those stories revel in abstract terror, Kawamura's film weaponises drama and character study with a teaspoon of hope. Ultimately, there isn't a clear resolution. But it does provide reflection. It asks what happens to those of us who live on autopilot. Those who accept careers we hate, relationships we don't nurture, and the futures we never chose. It's about how modern men inherit silence and mistake it for strength. And how love … real, scary, adult love … demands presence and vulnerability. It demands that you exit the loop. With Exit 8 , Genki Kawamura has crafted a haunting cautionary tale for the emotionally paralysed. It's a masterpiece of 'No Exit Horror': intimate, tragic, and impressively human. Forget boss battles, this is a video game adaptation where the final level is fatherhood, and like the process of being born, the only way out is through. Summary Genki Kawamura's masterful 'Exit 8' expertly draws on a liminal horror, character study, and realist drama to craft the best video game adaptation of all time. Tags: Cannes 2025 Exit 8 Featured Post Genki Kawamura Categorized:News Reviews

That sound you're hearing is public nuisance capitalism

New Statesman

07-05-2025

Politics
New Statesman

That sound you're hearing is public nuisance capitalism

Illustration by Charlotte Trounce Every commuter knows the dismay of realising, after the brief elation of having secured a seat on the bus or the train, that the person next to them has decided to use their phone to play music, or make a video call, or play clips from the bottomless cesspool of internet junk. L'enfer, c'est les autres sur l'autobus avec le TikTok, as Jean-Paul Sartre would have written if he'd ever had to take the N68 to East Croydon. The normal, British reaction to this behaviour is to quietly press one's teeth together harder and harder until they explode like porcelain in a meat grinder. An even more extreme reaction, such as asking the offender to wear headphones, is occasionally suggested. In the run-up to the local elections, the Liberal Democrats proposed a policy in which 'headphone dodgers' would be fined up to £1,000. In one sense this is the archetypal Lib Dem policy: hilariously impractical, totally uncosted, designed only to produce headlines. It's also the opposite of liberal, but it was popular – a YouGov poll found 60 per cent support. When Keir Starmer was asked to support the policy at Prime Minister's Questions on 30 April, he took it seriously, and lambasted Tories who laughed at the idea. They were right to laugh, because it is a risible policy. But it is also indicative of a wider tendency in which businesses profit from providing the means for antisocial behaviour – a tendency we might call 'public nuisance capitalism'. The principle of public nuisance capitalism is that the less companies are regulated, the more they create the means for one person's liberty as a consumer to impinge on someone else's as a citizen. No government wants to intervene in the freedom of companies to sell everyone a miniature loudspeaker connected to an inexhaustible library of noise. So, public transport is filled with cacophony, and unserious politicians suggest fining people for using their devices in exactly the way they're designed to be used. Nor does the government want to intervene in the freedom of car manufacturers to sell (to pick one example) an SUV that weighs three tonnes and can reach 193 miles per hour. It is up to the consumer to make sure they do not misuse the enormous power of the machine, although having spent a lot of money buying that power, that is obviously what they're planning to do. The police, the health service and the pothole-fillers must face consequences of a choice the consumer should never have been able to make. This creates whole consumer sectors that are abhorrent to other people: the TikTok loudspeaker guy, the careless Lime bike rider, the playground vape dragon, the fast-fashion addict, the SUV speeder, the wood-burning stove devotee. These people have not only been allowed to create a public nuisance, they have been sold the means to do so by a lightly regulated market. The nuisances (pollution, danger) are what economists call 'externalities'; the public nuisance capitalism model is that the profits are private, but the externalities are public. This is socially divisive. Going by the coverage of 'headphone dodgers' in certain newspapers, Mrs Woodburner is not just annoyed but morally offended by Barry TikTok's lack of decorum on the train (she's a hypocrite, though – her public nuisance is far more damaging than his). Public nuisance capitalism is not a new problem. For more than a century, the American gun lobby has claimed that 'guns don't kill people; people do'. A more accurate version would read: 'gun companies aren't held responsible for shootings; gun consumers are'. But it is now being applied more widely, as technology amplifies everything we do, giving us an ever greater capacity for antisocial behaviour: to blast music and opinions at each other; to use each other as disposable labour or for brief, insincere relationships; to speed through the world with little thought for those who might get in our way. Businesses recognise this – which is why so many companies are 'platforms' or 'communities' in which responsibility is shared, if not abdicated – but politicians, it seems, do not. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe [See also: The English rebel] Related