The true story of the Tham Luang cave rescue is prime movie material. Tom Waller's The Cave takes the perspective of the rescuers, civilians and normal folk involved with the rescue, a huge international effort that included the expertise of several countries.
Waller takes a western, almost Hollywood approach to the film, but contrary to expectations, the film doesn't elicit much tension or urgency. Much of it is lost as the film decides to meander with procedures and minutiae instead. Since the film focuses on so many characters, there is little time for emotional involvement with any of them: one exception being the farmers who sacrificed their land in order to drain the flood waters accumulating in the cave.
Similar to Clint Eastwood's The 15:17 to Paris (2018), Waller has some of the real life divers behind the rescue play themselves in this film. This shares the same problems as Eastwood's movie: while these people are some of the best in the world at what they do (diving), they're not exactly the best actors in the world, and skilled actors are what this film needs to bring some punch to the proceedings. The Cave deserves some points for trying, but it didn't do a lot for me.
Films serve many functions: to entertain, to tell a story, to send a message, to serve as protest or political statement. In the case of Puangsoi Aksornsawang's Nakorn-sawan, film is also used as a means of therapy and introspection.
The film interweaves two threads, creating a hybrid of documentary and fiction: in one, a woman sends off her mother in a river ceremony, meeting old friends and family members along the way. In the other thread, Puangsoi shows home video footage of her mother and family.
Both narrative threads mix seamlessly, as the border between them is not always felt: both of its 'protagonists' studied in film in another country, and both deal with tragedy and loss, albeit in different ways. They are echoes of each other, reality and fiction mingling with other, shaping and reshaping each others' form, perhaps also doubling as commentary on how great art comes from great pain.
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