The world is Jean's oyster – but only seemingly. After spending three years in Sweden, she is coming back to open her studio in Bangkok. However, putting ideas into practice turns out to be more complicated than she could even expect. First of all, she has to convince her family to turn their old, cluttered house into a modern and minimalistic interior, and hence to get rid of all the objects they have gathered over the years.
“Minimalism is like a Buddhist philosophy – it is all about letting go,” says Jean in the opening scene. What sounds so clear in theory, does not necessarily apply to real life that easily – especially when your family is frozen deep in time, your house looks rather like a prehistoric storeroom full of dusty trash, and on top of that some unwanted memories start hunting you. Jean has no intention of giving up though. She equips herself with a large pile of trash bags and starts a battle for the new better life, which is definitely not only about throwing away some old stuff.
Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit's last film is a tender and charmingly sentimental story about dealing with memories and setting yourself free. He eagerly comes back to his favourite motif, which is re-discovering one's past through photography and objects. A similar idea was used for instance in his feature debut film “36”. However, this time Thamrongrattanarit gives up the formal experiments in favour of more classical narrative, which results in bringing us closer to his characters.
Undoubtedly, “Happy Old Year” is Thamrongrattanarit's most moving and complete work. Never before has he created such an intimate atmosphere that would let us experience the emotions along with the characters. And those are precisely the characters that deserve particular attention and credit. Created with great sensitivity and empathy, the protagonists seem to be people of flesh and blood with their weaknesses and strengths. However, their strongest emotions reveal themselves mostly between the lines, through the small gestures, quick looks or thrifty dialogues, and thus the film is fortunately far from being dramatic. Furthermore, Thamrongrattanarit manages to keep his rather frugal yet tasteful style and charming sense of humour, which all add up to his absolutely genuine filmmaking.
“Happy Old Year” shows the ambiguity of life and emotions in a world dominated by Marie Kondo, digital files, and instant solutions, but also brings out the responsibility we all should take for ourselves. Thamrongrattanarit reveals in his bittersweet story that there are no simple answers, which correlates with the Buddhist philosophy mentioned at the beginning of the film. Maybe the only wise answer is then to accept the pain and let things go.
