Happy Old Year was released in 2019. It is a Thailand movie starring Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying, who gained her fame through another hit Bad Genius, and Sunny Suwanmethanont.
Chutimon is Jean, a young woman who starts to be obsessed with minimalism. Getting back from abroad, she has learnt a lot about the way of living, to the point that she wanted all her life aspects to go in-line with it. This includes decluttering of things that (she thinks) she no longer needs. Little does she know, throwing things away is not merely an action to make things disappear. We have to also deal with the memories they hold, impressions they bring.
Sunny is Aim, Jean’s ex-boyfriend. While the setting mainly takes place in Jean’s house, I believe the relation between these two is the actual main plot of the movie. Their first encounter was shown very simple, but awkward. Their first conversations after some time is so straightforward, though their expressions and gesture may implicitly tell us that there has to be something, still, between them.
I like how the movie tries to come up with the idea of minimalism very beautifully. At times, the scenes are displayed in close-ups to portray the intense between the actors. Another point to praise is its video and music styles, which overall focus on simple things: static graphic, nature sounds, and flowy dialogues.
If we pay more attention to the movie, Jean is really the epitome of minimalism. At first.
She always wears monochromatic fits to show how she thinks very simply. She packs, sends off and banish things only because she wants her life to be freed from anything unnecessary. She thinks, it is the best for her and it should be too for anyone around her. In the end, she turned into someone emotional after meeting Aim, a person who once was so important to here. That is all about living with minimalism.
The things that we think we longer need may still be
memorable for others as they carry meanings, feelings. If we want to
simply cut them off from our lives, we have to come clear first that we are
always related to many other things, that most of the times we just can’t
decide what should be in our lives by ourselves.
Overall, Happy Old Year is a very enjoyable movie, and it is eye-opening. Before moving on, we have to look back. We may want to live based on tools and techniques, but there is one inevitable factor that’s always involved in it: people.