He has the images to bolster the point, too, which leads The Medium to be one of the found footage subgenre’s lengthier examples at 130 minutes.
But just in case you don’t know the language, having the film’s director as Banjong Pisanthanakun, half of the duo behind genre hits Shutter and Alone, should signal you that being Ba Yan’s vessel will cause things to go hellish-south.Ĭlearly, Pisanthanakun, who wrote the screenplay, has fun fleshing out the lore-or making it functional within Thai culture (with previous collaborators Chantavit Dhanasevi and Siwawut Sewatanon each receiving a “story by” credit) from the original Korean one (from Na and Choi Cha-won). Although “Ma Tiam” is framed as an honour, Vietnamese speakers might doubt it upon realising the phrase, eerily, sounds so much like “mượn tạm” (or “to temporarily borrow”). According to the film, she makes her presence and powers known by “possessing”-or “Ma Tiam” in the local dialect-a chosen woman, a process that repeats itself in said woman’s subsequent generations. The final form of what started out as a spiritual (ha!) follow-up to 2016’s The Wailing from Korean filmmaker Na Hong-jin, who back then wanted to further explore the weaselly shaman character Il-gwang, The Medium presents itself as a window into the religious practice of interacting with spirits in northern Thailand-chief among them the Goddess Ba Yan. Rather fitting when you might need to do so too, to enjoy The Medium-or to see what’s enjoyable in it. Don’t think too much, to phrase it more succinctly. As tempting as it is, don’t question a medium’s conclusions, more so the methods they have applied to reach them.