- A visual atom bomb from Weerasethakul—his most accomplished and formally magnificent film to date. If you combine all the most gorgeous images from this, Tropical Malady and Blissfully Yours— 8 of the 10 from Syndromes and a Century
- A series of paintings constructed formally- you have a very stark sterile hospital vs a tropical green paradise outside—in many ways it’s the same short film repeated twice
- An ethereal romance
- Opens on a tree in the wind
- Weerasethakul’s obsession with medicine and then naturalism and greens
- Monks talking about their dreams—reincarnation
- Like almost all his films Weerasethakul is almost daring you to keep watching in the beginning of the film with slow starts
- The reflection shot in the window is a stunner- we’re at 24 minutes and it’s really the first beautiful shot- and then it’s on- minutes 24-50 are a series of stunning mise-en-scenes set sea of greens. Medium-long shots of foliage, again and again- unrelenting- much of the story is a flashback here—he clearly knows what he’s doing with mise-en-scene- a master, Hou Hsiao-Hsien feels like a name to invoke
- And then he reshoots the job interview but this time with whites no longer set in the country. Stunning white set design- contrast—highly experimental
- Man-made statues as a statement
- An almost Cronenberg-like eeriness with machines- ethereal score long shot of a white vacuum sucking up life/air
- Don’t fully understand the people exercising in the park coda—perhaps a statement (from Tropical Malady as well but not as big a focal point) of the how we’re a caged animal- instead of being in nature we’re having to force ourselves to exercise in the park and look ridiculous
- Masterpiece. In the mix after Children of Men for best of 2006
[…] Syndromes and a Century – Weerasethakul […]