Who's in It: Jaruchai Iamaram, Nantarat Sawaddikul, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Arkanae Cherkam
The Basics: A film in two parts, but lacking a traditional narrative structure, it's based on the lives of Thailand's best-named director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's parents in the days before they fell in love. The first half focuses on his mother, the second half his father. Both were doctors, and the contrast lies in the differences between the rural and the urban, the past and the present, the slow and the fast (or, rather, the not-quite-as-slow). You're introduced to country-music-singing dentists, monks who want to be DJs, doctors who hide their booze in prosthetic legs and a happy nation of people bouncing around to Thai aerobics, but they're all just part of the landscape of Weerasethakul's slide show of gentle childhood memories.
What's the Deal? If you've grown up on a diet of American films where "down time" is considered the enemy of storytelling, then you're going to have an adjustment to make while watching this one. Weerasethakul's favorite pace is definitely "at rest." Long scenes play out with very little action and long shots of statues, trees, ventilation ducts and hallways bookend those long scenes of very little action. It's a beautiful and, at times, a sad movie about falling in love, plus, the loss of the past, but prepare to have your heart rate slowed down whether you want it to or not.
Talent Pool: Weerasethakul uses nonprofessional actors. His leads are a tollbooth collector, a freelance web designer, a hair stylist, the owner of a jewelry shop, a former monk (if you saw the director's last movie Tropical Malady, the monk in this one is the same guy who starred in that) and the graphic designer who wound up designing this film's poster. And they're all so natural that it makes me wonder why Hollywood even bothers throwing millions of dollars around on people like Lindsay Lohan.
Because I Have the Press Notes and You Don't: That means I can explain the title to you. Even after watching it, I was kind of baffled. In Thai, the title is Sang sattawat, and it means "Light of the Century," which is appropriate because the "mother" half of the movie is visually based on sunlight and the "father" half takes place in a fluorescently lit hospital. The English title, according to Weerasethakul, alludes to human behavior — the "Syndromes" — and the dualities of male and female, the repetition of life and to the belief in reincarnation. The "Century" refers to the passing of time and "the sense of moving forward."
Dear Thai Government Bureaucrats, Please Stop Being Jerks: The Thai government wants this to be censored by cutting scenes of a monk playing a guitar (something they're apparently not allowed to do), of an older female doctor getting slightly drunk and, presumably, of a man and woman kissing to the point of the camera focusing on the man's pants-on erection. Weeraskethul has pretty much thrown down the gauntlet, saying that he refuses to "mutilate" the film and if forced to cut it, then "there is no reason for one to continue making art."