Desire and Its Discontents

Life isn't a meaning, said Chaplin, but a desire. I may be quoting inaccurately, but given the sentiment, who cares? Chaplin was so precise in his art that he could roller-skate blindfolded to the edge of an abyss; and yet, true to his words, he seemed to love the audience's giddiness a little more than his own supreme poise, the image of an open road more than the certainty of "The End."

Giddiness, openness, poise, desire: These words may do as well as any to suggest the life you find everywhere in the inexplicable but wondrous Syndromes and a Century. Written and directed by Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul (or Joe, as he's often called in the West), Syndromes and a Century is a work of immaculate craftsmanship, but one that is impossible to summarize, any more than a wind-sown arboreal orchid (one of the film's main props) could be brought to ground. All you might say, in a pinch, is that the movie consists of scenes in and around two present-day hospitals, one somewhere in the countryside and the other in Bangkok.

o story links these two places; and since a separate stretch of movie is dedicated to each--first the rural hospital, then the urban one--you might even say that the running time sets them apart. Nothing crosses this divide except a Cheshire-cat smile. A woman called Dr. Toey (Nantarat Sawaddikul) and a man called Dr. Nohng (Jaruchai Iamaram) appear in both halves of the film, but I can't say whether these figures are meant to be the same people working in different places or whether the hospitals are staffed by identically named look-alikes. Incidents recur, too--a soldier awkwardly declares his love for Dr. Toey, an elderly monk recounts a troubling dream about a chicken, a young monk undergoes dental treatment--but with variations that alter the tone of each encounter. (The outcomes can't be changed because there aren't any, cause and effect having been suspended as airily as the orchid.) On a higher level of variation, motifs including exercise classes, public recreations and renditions of pop music are enacted in rural and urban versions, cheerfully but to no apparent purpose.

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.