Syndromes and a Century

A female doctor (Nantarat Sawaddikul) in a small country hospital interviews an army doctor (Jaruchai Iamaram) with such questions as, "Do you prefer triangles, circles or squares?" Halfway through the film, after a meandering series of placid scenes and gentle conversations in and around this sleepy little complex, it begins all over again with the same interview and same cast, but this time in the white rooms and fluorescent lights of a modern urban medical center. Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul has described the film as his attempt to capture the quality of memory and, like his previous films, it's a work of formal experimentation and sensory textures. His quiet sense of humor and colorful characters (like a dentist who sings Thai country music and a doctor who gets tipsy before going on TV) are endearing, but the pleasures are less in the abstract story than the flow of his moods and the shades of his atmospheres. In Thai with English subtitles.