VANISHING POINT

A journalist at a crime scene observes a bizarre reconstruction of the rape and murder of a schoolgirl. A fifty-yearold owner of a condom factory appears distant at home with his wife and daughter, but carries on a passionate affair with his young accountant. A Buddhist monk is haunted by sex dreams in which he slips into other people’s skin. Following parallel paths taken by three men with different obsessions, director Jakrawal Nilthamrong’s first feature film is imbued with a unique tone and stunningly original narrative structure. Nilthamrong’s painful memories of the car crash that severely injured his parents serve as the film’s premise, which won three Hivos Tiger Awards at this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam. Marked by tonal shifts and long tracking shots that discreetly follow its multiple protagonists, Vanishing Point calls to mind the work of another Thai filmmaker (Apitchatpong Weerasethakul, whose Cemetery of Splendour is also screening this year), proclaiming that ghosts, monks and the living coexist and form an indivisible whole. Undeniably Zen.