Anocha Suwichakornpong, Mundane History, 2009, courtesy Anocha Suwichakornpong, film still
Directed by Anocha Suwichakornpong, in Thai with English subtitles, TH, 82′
The feature-length film Mundane History (2009) by independent Thai filmmaker Anocha Suwichakornpong follows developments in the relationship between a young man, who has suffered a recent accident and is paralyzed from the waist down, and his male nurse. The uneasy interactions between the two, traversing class divisions and generational difference, slowly give way to a much more complicated scenario that conflates aspects of Buddhist philosophy, cosmological experience, family ties and self-actualization. The occurring emotions start to unveil other possibilities of consciousness, as well as a renewed sense of one’s very own presence in the world. Larger political issues are brought into the film allegorically, crafting narratives from personal lives as references to Thailand’s recent history.