Syndromes and a Century
Sang Sattawat
credits:
Director: Apichatpong WeerasethakulProducer: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Writer: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Cast: Nantarat Sawaddikul, Jaruchai Iamaram, Saphon Pukanuk, Jenjira Pongpas
Thailand/Austria/France 2006 | 104 mins | 35mm | Thai w/E.S.
Commissioned as part of the New Crowned Hope project to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, Apichatpong “Joe” Weerasethakul’s SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY continues the poetics and startling dualities of his previous award-winning feature TROPICAL MALADY. Imaginatively experimenting with narrative nuances rarely seen in mainstream fare, Apichatpong divides his new work neatly into two sections, each providing a cohesive reason and resonance to the other to reflect on love, memory and the abiding attachment to place.
SYNDROMES tells two love stories 40 years apart, both set in hospitals, seemingly separate, though mutually referential. In the first, the doctors Toey and Nohng (vaguely based on Weerasethakul’s recollections of his parents) are drawn to each other as if through karmic dalliance. In the second, a monk who dreams of being a rock deejay and a dentist who favors rural love songs act out an ancient attraction, as if through reprised associations.
The two-part structure of SYNDROMES suggests many things, such as the tension between the past and the present, female and male, the rural and the urban, the traditional and the modern, memory and history, but in Apichatpong’s graceful direction these dichotomies are soon becalmed by something far more mysterious and everlasting. “Rather,” as the London Film Festival wrote, “this Buddhistminded film invites us to reflect on time, memory, place and the attraction of opposites. It’s sometimes very funny, and always deeply, seductively mysterious.”
—Michael Guillén
