magnusdickerson

Rak ti Khon Kaen (2015)

Be Prepared to Have Your Perceptions Altered!

Such a beautiful film visually, but also because of it's humanity and compassion.

From the opening scene, which is not a scene at all but a blank screen with no sound for over a minute, then there is sound, then there is light - an extremely mundane scene in an ordinary but beautiful landscape, our senses and conceptions are being manipulated and influenced. The opening frames the most basic theme in the movie to me: sound. For so much of the movie there is no dialogue but sound. Sight and sound: the natural ambient sound of whatever environment is being depicted at the moment. Your sub or subtle consciousness is constantly invited out.

The beauty, aura, serenity and power of the mundane, even to the "ordinariness" of the people inhabiting this commonplace realm of dirt, backhoes, work, chickens, weeds, children, parks, shrines, struggle, etc ... , penetrates. The juxtaposition and contradiction of the surreal sleeping soldiers and the world of Kings and Emperors at war they inhabit as they sleep, highlight the depth of the day to day ordinary. Here, the commonplace is just lived, with longing and bewilderment, automatically deferring to the greatness of that other world in the numerous ways it manifests, but more majestic and profound than anything the other-world has to offer. I guess it's not too profound to observe the symbolism of the soldiers living in a dreamworld of exalted beings and affairs, but asleep in this one.

The emphasis on the senses, ambiance, atmosphere stays with you. When I left the theater, I stood in front for at least 30 minutes not walking or talking, but just observing the world anew, but especially 'listening.' It was like coming out of a week long silent meditation retreat where one's senses are so highly attuned and all the gates of perception seem open and new.

The everyday people of the world depicted here are sad, and see themselves as insignificant and lowly. And, it's sad they don't realize, as this movie shows us, they are everything!