MUNDANE HISTORY

Ake is young, comes from a well-off family in Bangkok and has been paraplegic and in a wheelchair since an accident. Pun, his new carer, comes from Isan in the north-east of the country. In the once-grand house, where the father barely appears and the staff communicate in hushed tones, a closeness slowly develops between the two men – rejection turns into habit, habit into something like friendship. Anocha Suwichakornpong’s “Mundane History” (Thailand 2009, original title “Jao nok krajok”) tells this non-chronologically: six blocks drift back and forth in time, and the house becomes an image of a country in which the order of both class and family is beginning to crumble.

A debut that breaks out of its chamber-piece setting with images from the cosmos and a birth scene, widening its gaze. At the International Film Festival Rotterdam it won the Tiger Award in 2010. “Mundane History” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2010.

Shown at the 2010 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2010 · Film Archive