I must have watched this film before, but can’t recall anything about it.
Camera as still and as in repose as a Buddha, waiting; very few pans, trackings, or zoomings in or out. Few close-ups, reaction shots, or fast cuts.
Director is a Buddhist. So some gentle fun being poked at Buddhist monks. What we reincarnate from and to and in. The film his impressionist recreation of how his mom and dad doctors first met in hospital.
Film ticks along gently, unruffled, not too exciting, a steady pleasance to it. I do keep glancing down at the time left slider though. For first half an hour I’m restful. For second half an hour I’m listless. For last half an hour I’ve become restless and bored.
I ought to have been liking this more than I actually have. I mean, auteur directors – like Weerasethakul – don’t lay junk food on paper plates for you to conveniently chow down and quickly swallow. You have to work your watching through at slow chew, salting in your own mental musings, peppering from an internal store of associative memories and meanings.
But I couldn’t associate or connect very much of what was happening in this film with anything very meaningful in my life. I have the Buddhist tendencies to make the connections, but not the same autobiographical experiences (of being a doctor, of being Thai, living in Thailand etc)
So most of this film sort of passed me by, like floating static, slipping away without enough of a sharp edge or handy angle to hang onto.
Well, at least now I know why i couldn’t recall anything about it. Must have fell into a meditative trance. Or possibly I fell asleep.
Dir: Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand
5.5/10
Windows on the World 