4.0, Southeast Asia

Invisible Waves

2006 / Pen-Ek Ratanaruang > It’s hard to gauge if those who liked Last Life in the Universe will also like Invisible Waves. But those who have the patience for Pen-Ek’s multinational opus—with Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Thai stars represented and much of the dialogue in English—will be rewarded by the film’s ability to slowly but surely question the value of loyalty, self-worth and happiness.

Not surprisingly, the film is also absolutely gorgeous thanks to the hands and eyes of cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Its pacing is a little skewed, with each third of the film speeding up at twice the pace of the previous. And while this causes the film to start slowly, it successfully mimics the protagonist’s mindset so that we feel the similar type of rush in the latter third as he does. The dialogue in Invisible Waves is seemingly simple, but always struck certain chords, however small. Similar to its predecessor, it’s somewhat hard to explain exactly why I enjoyed it so much. But I did, and for that I can do little but to recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who’s willing and able.

Standard