A brief history of the universe

A brief history of the universe

Ambitious new Thai film opens World Film Festival, plus other highlights

• Published: 6/11/2009 at 12:00 AM
• Newspaper section: Realtime

Jao Nok Krajok (Mundane History) Screening tonight at 8pm (invitation only) and Nov 12 at 9:45pm, Paragon Cineplex

Mundane History is a family drama with a cosmic aspiration.

Every history is mundane because life is mundane, repetitive, ephemeral, predestined to fall apart and evaporate, just like the brightest of stars, before they are born again to pay off their karma in this cyclical inevitability. Or so it goes, with a touch of benign nihilism and supernova spiritualism, in Anocha Suwichakornpong's Jao Nok Krajok (Mundane History), manifestly the most ambitious feature debut from a Thai director this year. Following its world premiere in Pusan last month, the movie is opening the World Film Festival of Bangkok tonight at 8pm, with another screening on Nov 12.

Anocha's seemingly ordinary, astutely structured family drama slowly reveals its cosmic aspiration, as she frames life and politics in an astronomical similitude that will both astound and bewilder the audience. Written over three years, Anocha's story takes place mostly in the confines of a house inhabited by a paralysed son, his elusive father, and the male nurse hired to take care of the wheelchair-bound son. Downstairs, the servants exchange gossip about their masters. The silent hatred that the estranged son bears against his uncommunicative father is witnessed by the nurse, an outsider, and the dynamic of this failed family (failed state?) and broken embraces seem to be the movie's primary concern.

Until the narrative of the film itself is ruptured: then Mundane History morphs and loops into a metaphor of the human condition and the helplessness that every person - every country, every civilisation, every universe - must face as a part of our karmic roulette and evolutionary cycle.

As the film suggests, this human condition is biological, sociological, sci-fi and, yes, political. The movie, in an oblique way that will, again, perplex sections of viewers, offers its reflection on our recent political chaos. To many though, this move will only seem natural, since politics has proved its power to condition the daily lives in this country during the past few years, and it's our primary-coloured politics of late (blue included) that has stirred in our hearts the unspoken fear of total collapse - of the End, the apocalypse now. In its blueprint, Mundane History begins as a family history and then flirts with the possibility of becoming a history of the country, then of the entire universe. It's somewhat overreaching, sure, but such boldness is as bracing as it is difficult to grasp. For a first film, the headlong plunge into conceptual adventure is taken with a good mix of self-belief and gambling spirit by the filmmaker.

If Mundane History is flawed, it is in the writer-director's attempt to curdle her inspirations and ideas into a piece that's also emotionally involving. The film, in parts, is wrapped in coldness and academicism, even in the final sequence that aims for a strangely uplifting message. I only wish that had the film felt warmer and more intimate, especially in the relationship between the frustrated son and his nurse, the allegory would feel less distant and more powerful; in short, that would make us more connected to the characters. That way, we would feel that even when all is lost, when all stars burst into cosmic dust, feelings that are closer to our hearts still remain, and still make us human.

Shall we also discuss the fact that the film includes a shot of male frontal nudity? This by a female film director, in an atmosphere that most male directors at work are meek, to say the least? That's a moot point actually, since the shot is inseparably relevant to the essence of the film, and only perverts and morons would find it erotic in any way.

When the film festival organisers submitted the film to the censorship board, or the subcommittee of the rating board, to make them sound more human, their concern was divided equally in part about the movie's nudity and in part about the politics. Yet after a round of explanation (or explanations), the board let it pass with a severe 20-plus rating (ID checks at the entrance). What a chapter of mundane history would it be had they not? Like the movie suggests, at the end everything will be gone. But at least while they last, some films should be watched and thought about. This is certainly one of them.