That was 2004. Now it was 2007. Somchai’s left arm was a roadmap of scar tissue, numb from the elbow down. He couldn’t hold a camera steady anymore. He couldn’t even hold his newborn daughter without using his right arm alone.
The twist, which the subtitles tried so hard to convey, was that the father was dead. Had been for years. The son was haunting himself. The blood was guilt, made manifest.
Somchai closed his eyes. He remembered the actual Thai he’d whispered, his face half in shadow, the single bulb flickering overhead. He’d said: “I don’t want to be him. But I don’t know how to be me.” blood (2004 english subtitles)
He reached for the remote. He didn’t turn off the film. He turned off the subtitles.
[Sound of water dripping. A knife clatters on tile.] That was 2004
He hit play again. The subtitles resumed.
The film was simple: a son returns to his village to find his estranged father dead under mysterious circumstances. He doesn't mourn. He suspects. The blood of the title wasn't the father's. It was the son's. Every night, the son dreams of a different death—drowning, burning, a fall from a great height—and wakes with a small, real wound. A cut on his palm. A nosebleed. A bruise shaped like a hand. He couldn’t hold a camera steady anymore
Son (subtitled): “If I bleed long enough, I will become someone else.”