Vancouver 09: NYMPH Review
[Our thanks to Teresa Nieman for the following review.]
I'm not sure how to feel about Nymph. Part of me feels like it's a lyrically dazzling, slow-burn tone poem that is perhaps deserving of more praise then I'm willing to give it. But mostly I think director Pen-ek Ratanaruang--who bowled me over with both Last Life in the Universe and Ploy--lost his way a little bit here. The film has so many alluring images and potentially fascinating tangents, but none of them add up the masterpiece they could have.
Our protagonists are May and Nop, a married couple that are now mere silhouettes of any domestic bliss they might have had in the past. May has been engaging in an office romance with her boss, and Nop drowns himself in the escapism of his photography career. Together they travel into the jungle, for Nop to take some pictures, and maybe for the two of them to reconnect with each other. As it turns out, the latter is a lost cause.
While the couple wanders through the dense thicket of the forest (independently, I should add) they become more and more distanced from each other. Ratanaruang utilizes the setting well, and milks it for all its worth with tracking shot after tracking shot of gnarled vines, murky rivers and majestic trees. One tree in particular enchants Nop, and draws him into its grasp--first figuratively, then literally.
When May realizes Nop has gone missing, and doesn't turn up after a few days despite help from park officials, her reaction is to retreat home. There she is fretted with guilt and finds herself still in love with (or in love with anew) Nop. We always want what we can't have, or alternatively, you don't know what you've got til it's gone. Either statement applies to May's situation, and while she's empathetic and very human, she's also being unfair and selfish. Now that it's convenient for her, but too late for him, she desperately wants Nop's forgiveness and attention. She doesn't want to admit that it was her own actions that drove Nop into the woods, and away from her.
The story is moving, and the three central characters are gracefully, assuredly portrayed. But while the initial idea behind Nymph (the crumbling marriage, and the fact that Nop's tree is really the spirit of a woman he falls in love with) packs a lot of potential and promise, it really never becomes more than that: an idea.
Ratanaruang does a wonderful job mingling fantasy with reality, and much of the movie has a dreamy, disconnected feel that makes it a pleasure to watch. That's why it's all the more disappointing that the themes here don't really go any deeper than the surface. It would have worked beautifully as a short film, but at just over 90 minutes long, it feels like without the padding of the forest footage, it would have been more obvious how lacking Nymph is in substance.
I think, again, I'm being harsher than I need to be on this movie because of the director. I saw some films this year by unknown helmers that may have technically been inferior, and responded to them much more positively. That is to say, I'm grading on a curve. I was dying to see this for months, and gushing to everyone I knew about how much they need to see Ploy, and Nymph had no choice but to knock my socks off. It didn't, and maybe I'll rewatch it on DVD and kick myself for giving it a middling review. I hope that's the case, in fact. For now, the movie is frequently good, usually okay, and never quite great.
Review by Teresa Nieman
I'm not sure how to feel about Nymph. Part of me feels like it's a lyrically dazzling, slow-burn tone poem that is perhaps deserving of more praise then I'm willing to give it. But mostly I think director Pen-ek Ratanaruang--who bowled me over with both Last Life in the Universe and Ploy--lost his way a little bit here. The film has so many alluring images and potentially fascinating tangents, but none of them add up the masterpiece they could have.
Our protagonists are May and Nop, a married couple that are now mere silhouettes of any domestic bliss they might have had in the past. May has been engaging in an office romance with her boss, and Nop drowns himself in the escapism of his photography career. Together they travel into the jungle, for Nop to take some pictures, and maybe for the two of them to reconnect with each other. As it turns out, the latter is a lost cause.
While the couple wanders through the dense thicket of the forest (independently, I should add) they become more and more distanced from each other. Ratanaruang utilizes the setting well, and milks it for all its worth with tracking shot after tracking shot of gnarled vines, murky rivers and majestic trees. One tree in particular enchants Nop, and draws him into its grasp--first figuratively, then literally.
When May realizes Nop has gone missing, and doesn't turn up after a few days despite help from park officials, her reaction is to retreat home. There she is fretted with guilt and finds herself still in love with (or in love with anew) Nop. We always want what we can't have, or alternatively, you don't know what you've got til it's gone. Either statement applies to May's situation, and while she's empathetic and very human, she's also being unfair and selfish. Now that it's convenient for her, but too late for him, she desperately wants Nop's forgiveness and attention. She doesn't want to admit that it was her own actions that drove Nop into the woods, and away from her.
The story is moving, and the three central characters are gracefully, assuredly portrayed. But while the initial idea behind Nymph (the crumbling marriage, and the fact that Nop's tree is really the spirit of a woman he falls in love with) packs a lot of potential and promise, it really never becomes more than that: an idea.
Ratanaruang does a wonderful job mingling fantasy with reality, and much of the movie has a dreamy, disconnected feel that makes it a pleasure to watch. That's why it's all the more disappointing that the themes here don't really go any deeper than the surface. It would have worked beautifully as a short film, but at just over 90 minutes long, it feels like without the padding of the forest footage, it would have been more obvious how lacking Nymph is in substance.
I think, again, I'm being harsher than I need to be on this movie because of the director. I saw some films this year by unknown helmers that may have technically been inferior, and responded to them much more positively. That is to say, I'm grading on a curve. I was dying to see this for months, and gushing to everyone I knew about how much they need to see Ploy, and Nymph had no choice but to knock my socks off. It didn't, and maybe I'll rewatch it on DVD and kick myself for giving it a middling review. I hope that's the case, in fact. For now, the movie is frequently good, usually okay, and never quite great.
Review by Teresa Nieman
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