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A portrait of a nomadic musician Thom Assajan-Jakgawan. In the film, he appears as a fictionalized version of himself living in a fragile state, a collapsed country. He solitarily confines himself in an unoccupied room, continuing the meditative rhythms of his music.
The word ‘mare lu ze=i’ is not a real word. Thom accidentally heard it from the repetitive layers of the loop of his sounds. It slips out of nowhere and makes its own sound, in his head, which he then utters, a mantra for protection transporting him into a meditative trance. This is all part of his project, Sap (bewitched).
After getting together to make music since they were young, the bandmates of Bangkok rock band Assajan Jakgawan took a break and went different directions. One of the bandmates also passed away. But Thom, one of the members, continues to make music through his personal projects and live performances under Thom AJ Madson. His performances, with marvelous rhythms and melody, utilize guitars, a microphone, a loop, delayed pedal, and sometimes objects. Currently, Thom is working on the project Sap (‘bewitched’) and another project Vimutti (‘liberation’ in the Pali language).
Shine bright. Portraits of a nomadic musician and an animatedly-perverse single father butt up against a simulacrum of the Middle East and a tactile inquiry into the natural world. Taken together, expressions of personal, political, spiritual, mystical and sexual agency provide powerful statements of either resistance to or complicity in an increasingly commodified world.
