SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY (SANG SATTAWAT)

Thailand, 2006, 105 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Syndromes and a Century was written and directed by Apichatpong Weeresethakaul, the director of the Cannes film festival award winner, Tropical Malady. As with Tropical Malady, this is a film which is difficult to decipher.

The film moves around in time, explores memory, is particularly subjective in its approach to dreams and memories. The film is abstract but emotional. The director said it is about recollections of his parents who were doctors.

The film is in fragments, difficult to put in linear time. There are snippets of memories that move from one to another. There are various strange characters including a dentist who wants to become a singer, infatuated with one of his parents. There is a Buddhist monk who wants to become a disc jockey. Another doctor proclaims his love, and Doctor Toey, the woman doctor at the hospital, explains a story about her love for an orchid expert and her visit to his farm. Another woman doctor hides liquor inside a limb. And another monk tells the doctor of dreams he has been having about chickens. There is also a young patient with carbon monoxide poisoning who hits tennis balls along the corridor of the hospital.

The film also focuses on a doctor interviewing a young medic who comes from the army who also wants to work in the hospital. These two are the representatives of the director’s parents.

The film was funded, along with a number of films from Asia, by the city of Vienna for the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Mozart.

1. An interesting film? Stylised? From Thailand, eastern sensibilities? For western sensibilities?

2. The location, the hospital, the town, the fair, the musical performance? The visual style of the film, the fixed camera – and the rare tracking shots? The overall impact – a touch static? The musical score?

3. The structure of the film, the initial interviews, the later repetition? The patterns, the discussion about reincarnation and repetition? The Buddhist and eastern style of the structure of the film?

4. A range of characters, the military situation, the doctor interviewing the applicants, the life in the hospital? The world of the dentist, his singing? The world of the monks? The world of the doctors, their relationships? The world of the woman doctor, the plants, her attraction towards the flower expert? How well did the film mingle these stories?

5. The themes of healing and illness? Syndromes? In the patients, in the doctors? Their various expertise, pharmacy, surgery, haematology? The dentist?

6. The images at the end, the industrialisation of the world, the pollution of the world? The contrast with optimism, the aerobics exercises? Relationships?

7. The woman doctor, her interviews, her role in the hospital, making tea for the client, her going out, the flowers, the man selling the flowers, the orchids, her going into the area with the trees?

8. The men doctors, their military background, their careers, their work? With patients? The doctor with the women who were haematologists, the discussions? Their relationships? Sexual?

9. The dentist, his clients, the monk? His singing career and the CD?

10. The monks, their world, isolation? At the doctor, at the dentist? The young monk and his discussions with the dentist? The old monk and his ailments?

11. The range of background characters, in the hospital, the elderly women and their role, on TV, the drink? The discussions about illness and blood?

12. The Thai background, particularly Thai – or universal? The overall impact of the film, emotionally, intellectually?