This is a translation of what Warit Buranapattama wrote in Thai about
the film HSP: THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM THE TERRORS OF THE MIND (2013, Rouzbeh
Rashidi, Ireland, 120min):
It’s like watching the memory of a mask.
It’s full of images which appear in the mind of someone.
It’s as if that person shows us the images inside his head.
Images which are directionless, mixed, jumbled
Without stories
I came here because I wanted to see some interesting images.
And I found many interesting images.
Especially the images at the beginning of the story. The beautiful
light of the ticket booth?
Then the film cuts to the image of a ceiling fan, swirling around,
around, around.
The superimposition of these two images
Makes me think that it is like watching the ceiling of a room
and lying alone on the bed, reminiscing on some images in the
memory.
That man sits silently in the left screen.
That man talks endlessly in the right screen.
At first I think what happens on the left screen is what really
happens.
He sits silently, and puts on a mask
While the man in the right screen keeps on talking in his own mind.
But maybe the opposite is true: He is talking endlessly, while
thinking about himself sitting silently and putting on a mask.
Or maybe both screens show what really happens. We just see them
simultaneously.
Or maybe both are not real.
Many images appear.
People walk through a cemetery.
A woman walks aimlessly.
A man sits on a rock.
Stories which seem to have no stories
About people whose stories are unlikely to be told in other stories
Maybe they are just spirits who reside in another dimension of this
planet earth that we live in.
Or maybe they are spirits who get lost in a dream. Yes, they are like
images in dreams.
Walking slowly. Sitting still. Pondering. Looking at the camera and
talking to oneself.
Gazing in silence, as if remembering something in their minds
It’s like reviewing one’s own memory before departing to a new
beginning
Existing between this world and the next world
Before being reborn, you must leave every memory behind.
Everyone is reminiscing, and everyone is still a spirit wandering
in a world which knows no one and no one knows.
We start putting our own stories into the film.
The bespectacled man keeps talking about loneliness in front of a
camera.
Images continue to be superimposed on each other.
I like the superimposition of images
And the intention to avoid telling a story.
But we found a story which is told roughly. It is a story which
doesn’t narrate a story.
These are raw materials. It is like finding a lot of components
which can be assembled into a narrative.
It is like going to a market, buying many things. This film is full
of many things.
The director cooks some food which doesn’t exist on any menus in
front of our eyes. We imagine its taste differently.
The director only shows us the ingredients, how to cook, the songs
that he plays while cooking, the images in his head while cooking.
It seems like that.
Moving images in the memory of a story which makes me feel as if I
have no memory of it to tell to other people
It seems to possess some kinds of beauty, but only the people who
see it can experience it. People who are told about it cannot understand it.
It can be passed on to other people, but not by narrating a story.
It can be done only by watching it. The state of seeing is the most
important thing.
There is no story to be spoiled.
The film is full of things which look like stories, but we must
connect them by ourselves, or imagining them by ourselves.
It looks as if it has meanings
Things that you try to explain
With explanations
But all of its meanings
Exist beyond your explanations
0.
We will never know
The thoughts of a rock
By telling what the rock is thinking
1.
The chair
Which you used to sit on
Is thinking about you
2.
The persom whom you once loved
Is thinking about
Your love
The image of a man walking alone, and a woman walking alone
Meeting each other in the same place and walking together. They don’t
hold each other’s hands. They walk side by side.
It seems to have a story.
But then he walks in front of her, turning his face at her.
He also walks backwards, wearing his mask.
Each of them seems to walk
In a strange way.
(Then Warit wrote about BIRTH OF THE SEANÉMA, which was shown after
HSP: THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM THE TERRORS OF THE MIND. And then he wrote:)
To define what experimental cinema is
I feel as if I discover the realm of the word “others” in a questionnaire
From these two films.
The original Thai writing can be found here:
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