The Medium

Director – Banjong Pisanthanakun

2021, Thailand – South Korea

Writers – Chantavit Dhanasevi (story by), Na Hong-jin (original story by), Banjong Pisanthanakun

Stars – Narilya Gulmongkolpech, Sawanee Utoomma, Sirani Yankittikan

Takes the aesthetic of an unconvincing pseudo-documentary focusing on the eponymous medium, Nim (Sawanee Utoomma) who claims she is the vessel of a female spirit. But this is really about Mink (Narilya Gulmongkolpech), her niece who becomes possessed.

It is clear within the first half hour what this will be, so perhaps you’ll be wondering (a) will there be a twist? and (b) this is over two hours long, so surely it won’t go on like this? But there won’t be, and it does. It lasts long enough for unintentional humour to seep in. Mink is soon doing her best Sadako impression as things go a little ‘Paranormal Activity’ with night vision etc. In the tradition of mockumentaries, it is otherwise handheld camera and talking heads with the occasional intertitle saying the crew have decided to believe all this, for example. Wait, how many cameramen are there? How many angles? Did her workplace just allow a film crew to stand around filming and to film in the toilets? But there is satisfaction in the crew actually stepping in once or twice, becoming increasingly visible and targeted (although we don’t care because they are unknowns). But mostly they just film hysteria and assaults with no one confronting them. When Mink turns on them, it’s a pleasure to see her retaliating against her disintegration and issues being filmed all the time. Ostensibly, it seems to have started out as an investigation of Nim the Medium – and it makes for a traditional horror title – but this is soon abandoned to focus on Mink.

 As far as the possession goes, this is initially dealt with by being draped in string with a finger in a glass of water. For bonus entertainment, as many comments suggest, you can play at taking a drink every time characters say “Mink!”, but you’re likely to be drunk before the pyrotechnics of the last act of the ceremony.  

The ceremony finale involves lots of string, incense, a bull’s severed head (this film won’t win over any dog lovers either), yelling and the obligatory chanting, and bashing some homemade arts-and-crafts. It’s here where things get lively after ninety minutes of Mink acting out. "Mink! Mink? Mink! MINK?!" Of course, at the heart of this, as with so many possession narratives, is a young person being rebellious, going against the strictures of culture. And if the somewhat excessive and somewhat spurious nature of the rituals are anything to go by, there is a lot of rules and strictures to kick back against. Mink becomes antisocial, confrontational, promiscuous, secretive, giving everyone hooded looks or/and creepy grins. Gulmongkolpech is certainly game and having fun and less comical when acting “Evil” than many. This stuff can often drift into amateur dramatics if the context doesn’t support, and ‘The Medium’ does that too, but this is a case where the central actor jerking and leering possession is probably better than the surrounding film. Despite the novelty of the local colour, some flashes of genuine nastiness, and the convincing naturalism of the performers, it is the same old thing.

Yet beneath it all is a more interesting, barely explored tale of this families’ relationship to an ancestral Goddess and how it has affected the filial bond – one sister rejecting the spirit and the other accepting seemingly as a way of obtaining meaning and status. And when at the end it is revealed that Nim isn’t even sure she’s a conduit, in a coda that is meant to make you reassess what’s gone before, it’s obvious that a more fleshed-out domestic tale about women, faith, legacy, this Isan culture, etc., would have provided more weight and distinguishing features.