Mundane History

Director: Anocha Suwichakornpong

2009 / 82min / DCP

Suwichakornpong’s transfixing feature debut opens with Pun (Arkaney Cherkam), a male nurse from Thailand’s rural northeast, taking on a new job looking after the paraplegic son of a well-off Bangkok family, with their initially fraught relationship gradually developing into something like a friendship. Appearing at first as a fairly straightforward chamber drama, with the regular incursion of virtuoso passages of pure cinematic lyricism—editing and sound design are by Apichatpong Weerasethakul regulars Lee Chatametikool and Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, respectively—Mundane History develops into something far more abstract and cosmic in scope, evidently the work of a gifted and ambitious filmmaker who rankles at any sign of formal and narrative complacency.

Distributor: Electric Eel Films

Introduction and Q&A with director Anocha Suwichakornpong moderated by writer Sam Ishii-Gonzales on Sunday, March 1st

Part of The Films of Anocha Suwichakornpong