Syndromes and a Century [Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2007]

• split into halves like the previous Tropical Malady--but a significant improvement upon the style. Whereas Malady's second half was a brilliant idea drawn out for the sake of equidistance, Syndromes elaborates on its first half completely. We receive the opportunity to watch the same characters at the same age in two hospitals, one forty years earlier and the latter present day. The effects of modernization are subtle, implying both growth and reluctance [portrayed most in a scene in which a doctor replies with silence to the proposal of moving into a futuristic urban business center with his girlfriend].
• The sound, as in Malady, stands out. The film is mostly scored by birds chirping and the wind blowing through trees, but a slow love song that helps bridge the two narratives [or lackthereof] is especially affecting.
• The visuals of both nature and city life are astounding, the camera working in long takes both static and wandering. In the beginning, the camera wanders away from its characters and rests upon an open field, a more interesting subject to Weerasethakul. Later, a woman stares into the camera while a colleague attempts a spiritual healing method on a patient. With her long direct eye contact, the nurse seems to demand viewers to follow the instructions as well.
• The ending suggests further advancement in time; the small aerobic class of 40 years earlier performed static stretches, then in the second half a now larger class jogged down the halls, and then finally in the last shot, a group of fifty or so people perform caffeinated dance moves to a hyperactive techno track.

Experimental stuff is never easy. Let me dwell on it.