Introduction
The 2021 Thai-South Korean film The Medium, directed by Banjong Pisanthanakun and produced by the notable Korean filmmaker Na Hong-jin, employs a documentary approach to tell the intricate and psychologically engaging tale of the family’s communion and its ties to the age-old tradition of mediumship the family embodies and the various responsibilities that such a lineage entails.
The film The Medium, set in the rural northeastern regions of Thailand, is sophisticated in its approach to the culture and art of Thailand, in addition to the traditions and complexities of Buddhism, which is mystical in its core. These features lead the audience to a deeper reflection of the belief in the tradition coupled with the surreal forces that lie beyond the depth of our own comprehension.
Cast and Crew
Director – Banjong Pisanthanakun
Producer – Na Hong-jin
Screenplay – Choi Cha-won, Chantavit Dhanasevi and Na Hong-jin
Director of – Naruphol Chokanapitak
Photography
Principal Cast
Narilya Gulmongkolpech as Mink
Sawanee Utoomma as Nim
Sirani Yankittikan as Noi
Yasaka Chaisorn as Manit
The rest of the cast, particularly Narilya Gulmongkolpech, has been complimented for the depth and nuances in the emotions that their performances portrayed.
Short Summary
A film crew travels to a village in the Isan region of Thailand to look at the life of Nim, a local woman who is said to be a spirit medium. Mediums are host to spirits, and Ba Yan, a spirit that the villagers regard as protective, chooses a woman from Nim’s family every generation to host her. Nim willingly accepted her role as a medium, as her sister Noi, who was supposed to take it, refused to do so years back.
Mink, who is the daughter of Noi, begins to show very strange symptoms. She is emotional, confused, and withdrawn, and shows a large degree of mental distress and disharmony. Nim, assuming the worst, believes Mink is destined to be the next medium, and is going through a spiritual transition in order to take her place. She prepares her “mink” as a woman destined to take the throne of the medium.
With time, it is clear that Mink’s condition is different from the rest, and something is wrong. Her unpredictable behavior and symptoms spiral out of control as the family is caught accepting the tradition versus the modern understanding of what is going. Mink’s mother, Noi is rather balanced as she fears for Mink’s condition rather than her spiritual path.
Determining the source of the problems requires the family to engage the services of a spiritual consultant. This expert suggests a form of a ‘healing’ ceremony to better ascertain what is troubling Mink. The ceremony suggests that the issue is more complicated than what they would like to imagine. It highlights family skeletons that have long been buried, along with unresolved historical matters, which may have created spiritual disarray.
As this problem spirals further, the family clashes in an attempt to conduct a major ritual to bring about Mink’s recovery and restore emotional balance with protective elements around him. While successful on the surface, the family’s attempt to restore and maintain balance leaves their lives profoundly changed and emotionally impacted. It highlights belief in family dynamics and shows a certain level of guardedness from other ontological elements.
Thematic Symbols and Motifs Embedded in ‘McKinsey’s’ Work
Cultural Heritage and Religion
Thailand and its regions have an extremely diversified form of spiritual practices. The film is no exception. It tackles, first and foremost, the matters of spiritual serving and the practice of mediumship. These form of religious practices are important in the character’s lives and the interactions around them. The more pressing matters revolve around the more recent forms of this practice. This paradigmatic shift makes the practices more susceptible to intentional and deceptive misunderstanding.
Family and Inheritance
One of the key ideas of the movie is the concept of inheritance—spiritual and, even more, emotional and psychological burdens. Mink’s experiences, for example, seem to reflect not only the spiritual side, but also the pressures and invisible conflicts that sorely exist on the family. ‘Perennial issues, the story suggests, often remain unresolved, only to rear their ugly heads in entirely unpredictable ways many generations down the line.
Faith vs. Doubt
The film shows the characters in a constant struggle between their faith in the spiritual world and the disbelief concerning what is happening. This struggle is nicely articulated and provides insight on how belief systems, at the high level and more so, the psychological, behavioral, and sociocultural dimensions, can be comforting, confusing, and even fearful, and when inappropriately contested and confronted by the realities of life, even risk their very existence.
The Unseen World
In a documentary form, the film obscures the line between the real and the supernatural, which, in a way, the audience is able to witness the narrative as real footage and so the mystique is heightened. What remains unresolved is whether the phenomena are spiritual, psychological, or a blend of both, and that, in fact, is the appeal of the narrative as it engenders certain artistic freedom.
The Reception and Ratings of the Movie on IMDb
Many movie critics and audiences lauded the emotional impact and the atmospheric direction and storytelling of the movie Medium. It continues to hold an IMDb rating, and many comment on the horror element of the movie and how horror, unlike other films, thoughtfully buried pro-culture traditions. Many learned how the film masterfully constructed suspense and gradual buildup of narrative and did not busy themselves with stingy-quick-shock-horrors.
The sturdy critic casts especially the lead actress and the cast in general as her strong performance blended documentary realism with authentic Thai spiritual practices. The combination of the first and second paradigm of storytelling and the different practices of Thai in Ji, sits down and focuses on her breath. This results in the viewer feeling grounded and enveloped into the film.
Some audiences in contrast thought the pacing of the movie was slow. Not every viewer enjoys a mockumentary. However, for the ones passionate with folklore, The Medium is a unique and thoughtful movie.
Your Conclusive Thoughts
The Medium breaks the conventional notion of horror films. It is richly layered with stories concerning the family, traditions as well as workings of the unseen. It explores the cultural practices of a secluded area in Thailand while simultaneously questioning on various issues of faith, responsibility and the unfulfilled burdens of the past.
Selecting a documentary style keeps the sense of realness throughout the film and anchors its themes to the audience. Regardless of the differing views regarding the existence of a soul or the symbolism buried within the narrative, the characters’ emotional pilgrimage is relatable to anyone who has dealt with the weight of family expectations, undergone a personal metamorphosis, or wrestled with the fragility of faith within turbulence.
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