In my opinion Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's supernaturally tinged drama Nymph bears roughly the same relationship to his previous film Ploy as his Invisible Waves did to Last Life In The Universe. Both Last Life and Ploy marked first forays into a new style of film, forays quickly followed up by second movements meant - at least in part - to push deeper into that style of film making, with several key elements and the basic style of shooting repeated. But, unfortunately, the second shot at the new style in both Invisible Waves and Nymph is just simply not as successful as the first steps were.
Like Ploy, Nymph revolves around a relationship in trouble - in this case the marriage of May and Nop which seems to have nothing left but inertia to hold it together at this point. The two barely speak to one another and May has been involved in an affair with her boss for months. As little as they speak to one another, signs of physical affection are still more rare. And yet, despite the emotional distance between them, May decides to accompany Nop on a photography trip in the deep forest, a part of the forest where some time before two young men were mysteriously struck dead while attempted to rape a woman. Nobody has ever been able to sort out what happened, but Nop cannot help but feel a certain attraction to a tree near where the incident occurred and then one night he simply disappears.
To call Nymph a languidly paced film is to put it mildly. Once you get past the opening sequence - a stunning, virtuoso single take shot that tracks the would-be rape through the forest on what appears to be a blend of dolly, steadicam and crane work - Ratanaruang is beyond deliberate in his pacing of things. Given that the film revolves around two characters who barely speak to one another the film moves through long stretches of total silence, a silence reinforced by the complete lack of any sort of score whatsoever, the only sound being dialogue and ambient noise. Ratanaruang has certainly never been scared of silence in his films but this takes that impulse to an entirely different level and, as a result, many will find the first two thirds of the film somewhat difficult to make it through before things pick up a bit in the home stretch.
As already stated, the similarities to Ploy are obvious but another striking point of comparison would be the work of countryman Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Ratanaruang trying on a number of techniques and themes here that Weerasethakul has employed consistently throughout his career, particularly in Tropical Malady and Syndromes and a Century. Unfortunately Nymph lacks the sort of subtle playfulness that Weerasethakul uses to keep his audience engaged. Though very well acted and clearly well constructed, Nymph is certainly the least commercial film of Ratanaruang's career.