'Memory'

Memory is a Thai movie that debuted on May this year, and this is about all I know as facts are concerned. The movie ins't listed on most databases online (at least not the ones in English. I can't speak for the Thai ones) and seemingly hasn't received much attention. (thank you to the good people at Bloody Asia for pointing it out) While I do believe many people would freely call this a horror flick (and it was officially listed as Mystery / Pyschological Thriller in several sources), I find it not scary but quite interesting. In it, a young psychiatrist named Krit (Ananda Everingham) is given the task to find out what in Hell is going on with Phrae, a little girl suspect of being a victim of abuse by her mother, Ingorn (Mai Charoenpura, highly acclaimed Thai sweethwart). While Ingorn is in her right to deny that her daughter is consulted by a physician, she can't deny that Phrae sees a psychiatrist, and slowly Krit starts peeling away the several layers of screw-up that compose the psyche of both mother and daughter, while at the same time falling dangerously in love with the mother. While the last seven words of the previous sentence would be enough to disencourage me from watching it (I can't stand soaps) and frankly the movie could do well without it, it still managed to keep my attention for the most part of it.

As usual, spoilers will be distributed for free, so go ahead and grab yours.

There are points in Memory that I like a lot, I really do. There are also points in Memory whose guts I hate, I really do. See they had a good solid base for a nice thriller, and the mix is old and proved righ: a little girl is being disturbed by a ghost, only there is no ghost at all, what happens is, her mother is giving her Hell. Remember how bad Hide and Seek (2005) was? Well this is the same sort, only done better, and without Dakota Fanning. Then you add your usual caregiver / psychiatrist with a few skeletons in the closet on his personal life that make him worry about his patient at a personal level. (where did I see this before? Could it be, oh, Fragiles (2005), with Calista Flockhart as a doped-up, depressive nurse?) You have two nice plotlines ruined in two different filmes right there (the only problems with Fragiles were that Flockhart didn't die and the dialog made you cringe, otherwise it wasn't so bad).

At a point, Memory also attempts to make you see Ingorn's sisde of the story. Sure, she's a cow that makes her daughter's life into living Hell, she twists her arms and rips off her hair, (also, Phrae is actually a boy at the end of the flick, so dressing her kid up as the opposite gender for a lifetime is perhaps both the most ridiculous and humilliating thing a mother could think of doing), but all she wants is her best... besides, Ingorn may not be in her right mind, she was raped by her father, it's her and Phrae against the world and all, yadda yadda yadda. Get outta here. Ingorn is a stupid bitch and anyone who watches this will agree. Anyone who will break a boy's head on grounds they don't want their son or daughter playing with him, is absolutely off in the brains. And tossing yourself off a building with your kid? And killing people with arsenic? She lost the "victim" status as soon as she poisoned that cup of coffee. (on a more personal level, for crow's sake, if you're gonna poison someone, give them coco or something! Who in their right mind soils a nice cup of coffee like that?!)

And of course, you also get your daily dose of bullshit. Your share of bull, part of a balanced breakfast or midnight snack, comes in the form of a "dream within a dream" sequence, and the mellowest, most gut-wrenching dramatic moment of the flick. The first occurs right after Krit sleeps with Ingorn. Which, by the by, we're not positive he did. At the end of the movie he speaks about two realites: one that is "real" and one we imagine to make us happy, and most of you will agree, bedding Ingorn is probably a fantasy. Both because they return to being formal right the next scene and because Ingorn effin hates men. What happens is, Krit awakens from the sex (fantasy) into a dream where Ingorn is approaching him with a razor, then wakes up from that dream into another one where she's shaving him and slits his throat. Then he really wakes up. There is nothing half as facepalm inducing as these stupid sequences. They were the shit back in the day, movies had them by the gallon. They were dead for nowadays, why the fuck would someone want to bring them back?

The gut-wrenching drama is at the end of the movie, shortly before Ingorn tries to check if cookie people can fly. Krit chased her up a building and says everything will be alright, and he's gonna take care of her and Phrae, and Ingorn is an inch away of accepting. The camera swirls around them showing him, and her, then him, then her, then him, and then her, and then her feet as she moves forward, and then the shit hits the fan. When I saw this, I actually thought it'd end here and thus classifyable as a hideous effin ending. For some reason I can't ascertain asian cinema has a lot of this stuff.

And since we're adressing this sequence, let me tell you producers were in a rush to finish the movie. Either that, or script writers messed up bad and decided to fast forward to the tragic ending to get the flick off their backs as soon as possible. Ingorn attempts to poison Krit. He miraculously survives. And I understand why this is needed: for us to learn what sort of secrets make Krit so clingy to this woman and her daughter, for us to learn Ingorn didn't leave her husband, she killed him, and a series other dark little secrets. It's too fast, though. In the same ten minutes, Krit nearly dies, recovers from the poison, remembers the girlfriend he's been talking to is part of his imagination because she's dead, learns Ingorn was abused as a child, that she killed her husband and moves on to catch her. Ten minutes! You take your eyes from the screen to find where you left your beverage and you don't know what the heck's happening anymore!

Well. That pretty much wraps up the plot. It has nice stuff, but a good deal of bull as well. Reminds me of American flicks, somehow.

As acting is concerned, I did some browsing around and found out that Ananda Everingham is pretty much the Thai Johnny Depp. Seriously, google his name for images and tell me he isn't being promoted a la Depp. Plus, he featured four movies last year and five this year. Someone's awfully popular. He was good in this part, I can't really tell if he's really like Johnny Depp and pretty much plays some weird version of himself on every movie, because I'd never heard about him until a few days ago. Or rather, I watched a movie with him, Shutter (2004) but frankly it was a good while ago and I didn't even notice it was him. So my task for the following weeks is finding a decent link to Shutter and go check it out. I can tell even less for Mai Charoenpura, though I liked her part in this very much. My five Rs go to the kid playing Phrae, whose name I couldn't find anywhere. Movie had a lot of baggage for a little kid, and seeing as he spends 99% of the movie dressed as a girl and convincing the audience he is one, tell me this wasn't a Hell of a role.

Music is a little cut out here, doesn't add or take anything from the flick. It's the "meh" kind of soundtrack. You hardly notice it apart from this or that dramatic tune. Dialog was pretty good, I usually expect worse from this sort of film, but I have to say this was kind of decent.

Overall, it's a nice movie to watch when you have nothing to do, if you don't expect to be wow'd. I'd recommend it to those who don't mind the romance getting in the way of, and often drifting attention from, the plot at hand.