SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY Director: 105 minutes| Thailand-France-Austria| 2006| Subtitled| Colour| 35mm Book cinema tickets Structured in two halves riddled with teasing correspondences, Apichatpong’s film sketches moments in the lives of two hospital doctors; the central characters are based on his own parents, before they married, but the film is nothing like a piece of imagined family history. Part One is set in a country hospital and focuses on a female doctor Toey, who is distracted from her work by memories of meetings with an orchid collector. We also see a singing dentist forming an intense bond with his patient, a Buddhist monk. Part Two is set in an urban, high-tech hospital and focuses on newly-employed ex-army doctor Nohng as he explores the premises and meets various colleagues and patients such as the doctor who hides liquor in the prosthetic limb store and the dangerous young man who has suffered carbon monoxide poisoning. This Buddhist-minded film invites us to reflect on time, memory, place and the attraction of opposites. Often funny, always mysterious. Director: 105 minutes| Thailand-France-Austria| 2006| Subtitled| Colour| 35mm