Directed by: Sampot Chidgasornpongse
Distributed by: TBA
Written by Eric Zhu
60/100
Like his documentary “Railway Sleepers,” Sampot Chidgasornpongse’s first narrative feature, “9 Temples to Heaven,” initially takes a panoramic look at contemporary Thailand through a predefined structure. Told that the family matriarch may pass away before her upcoming birthday if she doesn’t make merit at nine temples over the course of a day, three generations of the Sirikritichai family converge for an extended pilgrimage.
The first half of “9 Temples” broadly adheres to realism, the journey from temple to temple a pretense for the characters to tour a wide expanse of Thai architecture and discuss a broad range of issues. The feeling that the characters are mouthpieces for their specific generational backgrounds is often clunky, and improves as it becomes more observational and sensual. Spirituality is central as Sakol, whose boss convinced him to gather the family for this pilgrimage, inevitably clashes with his agnostic son, Tor, who refuses to take part in the Buddhist ceremonies. Since Grandma has little desire to visit the temples herself, Tor spends the film convincing the family to go home. When Sakol compares an incomplete journey to Grandma refusing to take her medicine, Chidgasornpongse expands the issue of spirituality to one of East vs. West, ancient vs modern.
These tensions surface in the merit ceremonies, where some temples have been refashioned to appeal to a modern audience and nearly all leverage spirituality as a means to earn donations. At the second temple, a monk stresses the importance of mindfulness, warning against the temptations of a wandering mind while the camera glides upwards to marvel at the architecture. As if calling out the film itself, the monk asks if the group has drifted off, citing their behavior as the reason to pay for his new summer camps. These longueurs subvert the realist veneer, knocked loose by another of the grandchildren who breaks the fourth wall after confessing that private meditation clarified this world’s unreality.
From there, time and space begin to stretch. An extended shot of the sun being smothered by dark clouds invokes “Syndromes and a Century,” and in the scrambled day/night cycles, there are sensual pleasures abound. Chidgasornpongse spends ample time watching iridescent doorways, gold leaf fluttering in the wind and farm animals passing through the night, the richness of the ambient noise and the stretching of time displaying Chidgasornpongse’s experience as Apichatpong’s longtime Assistant Director. At key moments, he pauses on close-ups of hands, stopping the film in its tracks to pinpoint moments of familial support. The film is ultimately unresolved about its spiritual quandaries, but Chidgasornpongse’s “9 Temples to Heaven” is ultimately character-based and succeeds in introducing us to this familial cross-section of Thailand and the intersecting forces governing their lives.
You can follow more of Eric’s thoughts on film on Letterboxd, X, and The Insert