apichatpong welcomes you into his world, takes you on a walk by the river, feeds you a home-cooked meal, and then tucks you in to sleep. the cinematic hospitality of this movie is unlike anything i've seen before. it took watching this movie for me to understand the healing power of the soporific. looking forward to watching more of his stuff for sure

this movie masterfully grapples with so many big themes in a way that feels juuuust accessible enough. don't get me wrong, it's bordering on inscrutable, but the emphasis here is on "bordering" - i think you can watch this movie 100 times and extract a different, significant truth from it each time. the way bergman matches scene cuts up with sound was super neat to me too (fantastic screenwriting all around). definitely a masterpiece

characters felt a bit flat to me. if Nora's ambition for writing is so central to what bonds her to arthur and alienates her (geographically and socially) from hae sung, why aren't we shown any of her passion up close? hae sung's relationship with the girl he meets in China is underexplored. idk, i think war kong wai does the "obstructed love" story better in a lot of places (especially in in the mood for love) tbh man