Nigerian twin brothers and filmmakers Arie Esiri and Chuko Esiri offer a contemporary adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, boldly transposing it from twentieth-century London to twenty-first-century Lagos, Nigeria. While retaining the original’s form - a portrait of an era and a narrative of memory unfolding through stream of consciousness, centered on a single day in the life of the upper-class woman Clarissa - the film adds layers of new historical contexts concerning colonialism and postcolonialism, class and identity. As old friends gather one by one at Clarissa’s house in preparation for a party that night, choices and loves from long ago, along with lost possibilities and bonds from the past, surface through the cracks of time. Clarissa’s grand residence transforms into a vast stage reflecting contemporary African society, and the camera, following the course of a single night’s party, captures the subtle contours of intimate emotions drifting between the characters. The elegantly restrained long takes and the mise-en-scene, stripped of artifice, leave a strong impression. (LEE Juhyun)