26 February 2019

Wonder Women

Wonder Women
Karma
By the Time It Gets Dark
The Island Funeral
To celebrate International Women's Day on 8th March, the Thai Film Archive will be showing a month of movies from female directors. The Wonder Women (เมื่อผู้หญิงทำหนัง) season's highlights are the first and last days' screenings: Kanittha Kwunyoo's Karma (อาบัติ) on 1st March, and Anocha Suwichakornpong's By the Time It Gets Dark (ดาวคะนอง) and Pimpaka Towira's The Island Funeral (มหาสมุทรและสุสาน) on 31st March. All screenings are free.

25 February 2019

Clouzot Retrospective

Clouzot Retrospective
The Mystery of Picasso
The Wages of Fear
Diabolique
Several venues have teamed up to organise a season of films directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. The Clouzot Retrospective begins on 5th March and runs until 17th March, and includes his documentary The Mystery of Picasso (Le mystère Picasso), his suspense thriller The Wages of Fear (Le salaire de la peur), and his horror classic Diabolique (Les diaboliques).

The Mystery of Picasso will be shown at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya on 10th March. It will have an extended run at Warehouse 30's Doc Club Theater, screening on 8th, 10th, 14th, 16th, 19th, 22nd, 25th, 29th, and 31st March; 1st, 5th, 10th, 12th, 13th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 25th, and 29th April; and 3rd and 10th May. (It played last week at Smalls, and in 2013 at TCDC.) The Wages of Fear will be screened on 9th March at two venues: the Thai Film Archive and Cinema Oasis. (It was also shown at the Archive last year, and at Alliance Française in 2017.) Diabolique is at the Thai Film Archive on 10th March and at Bangkok Screening Room on 13th March. (It was screened at Alliance Française last year.)

20 February 2019

“The most hateful song in Thai political history...”


The Nation

Army chief Apirat Kongsompong invoked arguably the darkest period in Thailand’s history earlier this week, when he recommended a song associated with violence and intolerance. At a press conference on 18th February, General Apirat was asked to comment on the Pheu Thai party’s manifesto pledge to reduce military spending after the 24th March election. In response, he said that they should listen to หนักแผ่นดิน (‘burden of the land’). He then issued an order for military radio stations to play the song, though the directive was rescinded shortly afterwards.

หนักแผ่นดิน, composed by Boonsong Hakritsuk in 1975, denounces anyone not affirming their loyalty to the nation, religion, and monarchy as traitorous ‘scum of the earth’. This ultranationalist song fomented anti-Communist violence when it was repeatedly broadcast in the days before the 6th October 1976 massacre. In an editorial today, the Bangkok Post accuses Apirat of “reviving the most hateful song in Thai political history”.

The song was also the theme tune to a film of the same name, directed by Sombat Methanee in 1977. The Village Scouts, a paramilitary group that instigated the 1976 massacre, are the heroes in this anti-Communist propaganda movie, and หนักแผ่นดิน is their anthem. (Rachel V. Harrison discusses this and similar films in a chapter of Cultures at War.) Apirat’s invocation of หนักแผ่นดิน despite (or because of) its incendiary legacy sends a disturbing signal that the army has barely changed in the past forty years. (Apirat’s father, General Sunthorn, led the coup that resulted in the 1992 ‘Black May’ massacre. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.)

Apirat’s resurrection of such a divisive song has overshadowed the issue of military spending that Pheu Thai highlighted. As The Nation reveals today, the military’s budget has increased by almost a quarter since the 2014 coup. Much of this money has been spent on sophisticated equipment that is largely redundant. (Paul Chambers and Napisa Waitoolkiat discuss military expenditure and corruption in Khaki Capital.)

19 February 2019

“Such action must be deemed transgression...”


Democracy Monument

8th February was one of the most extraordinary days in Thailand’s political history. That morning, in the first of the day’s unprecedented developments, the Thai Raksa Chart party formally nominated Princess Ubolratana as its candidate for prime minister ahead of the 24th March election.

The nomination caused an immediate sensation, as it indicated an apparent deal between Ubolratana (and, by extension, the royal family) and Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin is loathed by Thai royalists, and Ubolratana’s association with Thai Raksa Chart, a party linked to Thaksin, caused profound shock. Prime Minister and coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha had long been expected to contest the election himself, and Ubolratana's nomination immediately put his political ambitions in doubt.

The junta’s constitution allows the military to appoint all 250 members of the Senate, gives senators the right to vote for the prime minister, and permits a non-politician to be PM. With 250 votes from the Senate, Prayut would require only 126 additional votes from the 500 elected MPs. The constitution also introduced a proportional representation system, designed to prevent a single party (namely, Thaksin’s Pheu Thai) from achieving a landslide.

Parties controlled by Thaksin have won every election since 2001. The 2006 and 2014 coups were both launched with the express purpose of eradicating his influence, though Pheu Thai remains one of the main contenders in the upcoming election. Thai Raksa Chart, led by former Pheu Thai politicians backed by Thaksin, was created as part of a pincer movement: a potential Pheu Thai and Thai Raksa Chart coalition that could subvert the constitution’s restrictions on an absolute Pheu Thai majority.

Even if Thaksin’s strategy had succeeded, the Senate votes would almost certainly ensure that Prayut remained PM. Hence the remarkable nomination of Princess Ubolratana: Thaksin recognised that Prayut could not be seen to challenge a member of the royal family. (Ubolratana became a commoner in 1972 in order to marry an American. After their divorce, she resumed her royal engagements, albeit without a formal title.)

At first, the bombshell announcement seemed like a masterstroke. However, by the evening, it looked more like political suicide. King Vajiralongkorn, Ubolratana’s brother, issued a written statement confirming his unequivocal disapproval of her nomination: “Any attempt to involve a high-level member of the Royal Family in the political process—by whatever means, would be tantamount to breaching time-honoured royal traditions, customs and national culture. Such action must be deemed transgression and most inappropriate.”

The King’s intervention was as unprecedented and unexpected as Ubolratana’s. In addition to instantly terminating the nomination, it publicly signalled that Thaksin remained persona non grata. (The statement also noted that legal immunity, constitutionally granted only to the King, could apparently be extended at his discretion: “Such provisions should no doubt apply to the Queen, the heir to the throne, and those members of the Royal Family close to the person of the Monarch”.)

Following the King’s statement, the Election Commission recommended that the Constitutional Court dissolve Thai Raksa Chart. The court is currently considering the case, though it has previously dissolved two other parties run by Thaksin (Thai Rak Thai and the People Power Party).

12 February 2019

The Mystery of Picasso


The Mystery of Picasso

Henri-Georges Clouzot's documentary The Mystery of Picasso (Le mystère Picasso) will be shown on 17th February at Smalls. The screening, on the rooftop of the Bangkok bar, is free of charge. The documentary was previously shown at TCDC, and Clouzot also directed the classic suspense thriller Les diaboliques.

06 February 2019

World Class Cinema

World Class Cinema
The Seventh Seal
Some Like It Hot
The Thai Film Archive's World Class Cinema season continues this year with Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet) on 17th March, and Billy Wilder's classic comedy Some Like It Hot on 16th June. As in 2017 and 2018, screenings will take place at Bangkok's Scala cinema.

04 February 2019

BKKSR Cinémathèque


Bangkok Screening Room

This week, Bangkok Screening Room is launching BKKSR Cinémathèque, a monthly programme of classic French films. The inaugural film is François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups), showing on 7th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 13th, 15th, 16th, and 17th February.

02 February 2019

"The secret life of Melania..."

The Telegraph Magazine
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph has paid "substantial damages" to Melania Trump in settlement of a defamation lawsuit filed by the First Lady last week. The newspaper printed a correction on 26th January (on page two), apologising for "a number of false statements which we accept should not have been published."

The lawsuit relates to the cover story from The Telegraph Magazine, published on 19th January. The article, by Nina Burleigh, appeared on pages fourteen to twenty, and was based on her book Golden Handcuffs: The Secret History of Trump's Women, which was released in the US last year. (The book's publishers avoided a lawsuit, as American libel law requires proof of 'actual malice', a high bar intended to protect freedom of speech.)

The article was reprinted by the Irish Sunday Independent on 20th January, on page twenty. It has since been deleted from the Telegraph and Independent's websites, and is "suppressed for editorial and/or legal reasons" on the PressReader digital archive.

Ironically, following the Telegraph's retraction, Burleigh has also filed a defamation case against the newspaper, claiming that its apology damaged her journalistic reputation. Yesterday, in a letter to the Telegraph Media Group (TMG), her lawyer argued that "fear of Mrs Trump's lawyer Mr Harder, "the Gawker slayer", caused TMG to capitulate abjectly". This is a reference to Charles Harder, who represented Hulk Hogan in a privacy lawsuit that bankrupted the Gawker website. Harder also won $3 million in damages from the Daily Mail in a previous Melania Trump defamation case.

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01 February 2019

Bencharong

Bencharong
Bencharong: Chinese Porcelain for Siam, by Thai ceramics expert Dawn F. Rooney, is a guide to Bencharong, enamelled Chinese porcelain made for export to Thailand. As the author writes in her preface, it's the first book to provide a general survey of Bencharong porcelain: "Bencharong as an art form has received little attention and few details about its origins, production, and symbolism have been published. This book addresses that gap."

The first chapter is a largely unnecessary account of Thailand's early development and Sino-Thai relations. Chapter two describes the origins of Bencharong, and chapter three explains the technical aspects of its production. The book's main interest lies in chapters four, five, and six: illustrated examples of a wide range of Bencharong decorative motifs and objects, with extended captions.

26 January 2019

Touch of Evil

Touch of Evil
Touch of Evil
Touch of Evil, the classic Orson Welles film noir, will be shown at Smalls tomorrow. The screening, on the rooftop of the Bangkok bar, is free of charge.

22 January 2019

More or Less

More or Less
More or Less
More or Less
More or Less
Miguel Januário's exhibition More or Less opened at Bangkok's WTF Gallery on 14th December last year, and runs until 19th February. The exhibition includes an interactive installation commenting on Thailand's political situation since the 2014 coup: a simulated polling station, complete with ballot papers, a pen, and a ballot box.

On closer inspection, the ballot papers are a parody of recent Thai political factions, and a Thai flag backdrop is overlaid with army camouflage to indicate the military's pervasive influence over the country. Also, the ballot box has no bottom, so ballot papers fall straight onto the floor, symbolising the futility of elections that are often invalidated (as in 2006 and 2014) or postponed. According to the junta, a return to democracy is always on the horizon, and elections are perpetually due 'next year'. In the meantime, gallery visitors can vote via Januário's ballot papers.

A month after the coup, on 28th June 2014, Prayut Chan-o-cha promised an election by October 2015. On 9th February 2015, he committed to an election by February 2016. On 9th August 2016, he announced that an election would take place by November 2017. On 10th October 2017, he gave assurances that an election would happen by November 2018. On 27th February 2018, he pledged an election by February 2019, though another delay seems inevitable.

صح النوم

A presenter on an Egyptian satellite television station has been jailed for a year, after being found guilty of inciting immorality. Mohamed al-Ghiety's talk show, صح النوم, featured a gay man discussing his sex life in an episode transmitted on 5th August last year. (The man's face was blurred to disguise his identity.) The broadcaster, LTC TV, was suspended for a fortnight after the programme was aired.

20 January 2019

Monstrous Phenomenon

Monstrous Phenomenon
Monstrous Phenomenon No. 7
Monstrous Phenomenon No. 10
Ruangsak Anuwatwimon's exhibition Monstrous Phenomenon opened yesterday in Bangkok. Ruangsak's art examines the anthropocene and its consequences, and last year he visited Japan to observe the ecological effects of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor meltdown.

A four-leaf clover is considered lucky, though five-leaf ones certainly aren't: they are genetic mutations caused by nuclear radiation. The exhibition features these and other plant and animal specimens from contaminated sites in Fukushima prefecture, including a bee from Minamisoma and a bovine lumbar vertebra from Namie.

Monstrous Phenomenon runs until 19th March at 1Projects. Ruangsak's sculpture 'Transformations' was included in ห้องเรียนวาฬไทย at HOF Art Space, and his 'Ash Heart Project' installation was part of the Dialogues exhibition at BACC.

18 January 2019

McJesus

McJesus
McJesus, a sculpture depicting the crucifixion of Ronald McDonald, has been removed from an exhibition at a modern art gallery in Israel. The sculpture, by Jani Leinonen, was first exhibited in 2015, and had been on show at the Haifa Museum of Art since 4th August 2018.

Last week, the gallery was firebombed, and police fired tear gas at hundreds of demonstrators who accused the artist of blasphemy. The exhibition, Sacred Goods, is due to close on 17th February.

Jake and Dinos Chapman caused controversy with a similar sculpture in 2012. Their Unholy McTrinity, which also featured a crucified Ronald McDonald, was shown at the Hermitage in Russia.

15 January 2019

After the Coup

After the Coup
After the Coup: The National Council for Peace and Order Era and the Future of Thailand, edited by Michael J. Montesano, Terence Chong, and Mark Heng, is a collection of essays on Thailand's political situation since the 2014 coup. Contributors include influential commentators such as Duncan McCargo, Thongchai Winichakul, and Puangthong Pawakapan. (Montesano previously co-edited Bangkok, May 2010 and contributed to Divided over Thaksin.)

The political affiliations of Thais from the middle class, the south, the north, and the northeast are examined in four chapters. Middle-class and southern interviewees discuss their reasons for joining the PAD and PDRC, notably their devotion to Rama IX and their anger at Thaksin Shinawatra's "alleged disloyalty to King Bhumibol. Most interviewees cited this issue as a decisive factor in turning them against Thaksin." The book also confirms a widespread and patronising sense of middle-class superiority: "All interviewees stressed a lack of education among Thaksin's supporters as evidence that elections in Thailand lack legitimacy; the uneducated simply succumb to vote buying."

In contrast, two chapters on the north and northeast focus on the red-shirt movement and the UDD, asking two pertinent questions: "Why was there so little resistance to the coup? Why were there so few Red Shirt protests in the twelve months following the coup?" The junta's intimidation tactics provide the answer: red-shirts are closely monitored and coerced into renouncing all political activity, including one interviewee who "had to promise not to wear a red shirt, or even a checked shirt containing red in the pattern."

Other chapters have a broader focus. Prajak Kongkirati expands his earlier essay on the 2014 election (in Military, Monarchy and Repression) to analyse forty years of election-related violence. Surachart Bamrungsuk provides a potted history of Thai coups, demonstrating that, for the military, practice makes perfect: "The absence of external security challenges has left the army free to involve itself in political affairs and to become more skilled in political manipulation." Thongchai Winichakul (updating his essay in "Good Coup" Gone Bad) examines the prospects for royalist hegemony following the succession.

There are two especially interesting chapters on mass media and politics. Aim Sinpeng and Wimonsiri Hemtanon highlight the 'filter bubble' effect caused by Thailand's partisan media, though their essay includes an unfortunate instance of self-censorship. They discuss a 1995 Thai Rath (ไทยรัฐ) corruption exposé "involving a high-profile member of the prime minister's Democrat Party" without naming the politician involved. (Duncan McCargo previously identified Suthep Thaugsuban as "the figure at the centre of the scandal" in his book Politics and the Press in Thailand.)

Puangthong Pawakapan surveys international media coverage of the monarchy since the 1960s, noting how critical reporting has increased since the 2006 coup: "The foreign press was instrumental in constructing a benign image of King Bhumibol in the international arena, and was thus complicit in entrenching the power of the monarchy. However, the political coverage of Thailand changed after 2006. The foreign press began to see the monarchy... as a crucial factor in the conflict that now engulfed Thailand."

11 January 2019

100 Ideas that Changed Design

100 Ideas that Changed Design, by Charlotte and Peter Fiell, is the latest in the 100 Ideas that Changed... series, published by Laurence King. Other titles include Art, Advertising, Photography, Film, Architecture, and Graphic Design.

Like the other books in the series, 100 Ideas that Changed Design features 100 chapters, each with a single-page essay and a few well-chosen illustrations. There is also a wide-ranging bibliography.

The selected design ideas include broad concepts (such as style and taste), elements of the production process (such as mass production and quality control), practical considerations (such as ergonomics and safety), design philosophies (such as functionalism and design art), and well-known aphorisms (such as form follows function and less is more). Aesthetic trends and other stylistic 'isms' are excluded.

Charlotte and Peter Fiell are experts on product and furniture design. Their other books include The Story of Design, Plastic Dreams, Design of the 20th Century, A-Z of Design and Designers, Modern Furniture Classics, and Industrial Design A-Z.

Isan Creative Festival 2019

Isan Creative Festival 2019
Isan Creative Festival 2019
Isan Creative Festival 2019
The inaugural Isan Creative Festival (อีสาน ครีเอทีฟ เฟสติวัล) opened yesterday at TCDC in Khon Kaen. The three-day event began with directors Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Surasak Pongson discussing their films made in the Isaan region.

Apichatpong grew up in Khon Kaen, and his most recent feature, Cemetery of Splendour, was filmed in the city. (It's Thai title, รักที่ขอนแก่น, translates as 'Love in Khon Kaen'.) Song of the City, his segment of the portmanteau film Ten Years Thailand, was also filmed in Khon Kaen.

Still in his twenties, Surasak is already one of the most important figures in the Isaan film industry, thanks to the commercial success of his Thibaan comedies. His latest film, Thibaan: The Series 2.2 (ไทบ้านเดอะซีรีส์ 2.2), hit the headlines after shots of a crying monk were censored. It was shown at a free open-air screening last night, along with Ten Years Thailand, on Isan Creative Festival's opening night.

10 January 2019

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

This evening, Apichatpong Weerasethakul took part in a Q&A at the Isan Creative Festival (อีสาน ครีเอทีฟ เฟสติวัล) in Khon Kaen. Before the event, I did some sightseeing around the city, including a visit to a statue of Sarit Thanarat. (Sarit was a Cold War-era dictator, and his statue is an ominous presence in Song of the City, Apichatpong's segment of the portmanteau film Ten Years Thailand.) By coincidence, while I was photographing the statue, Apichatpong was driving past it, and he photographed me.

09 January 2019

Khonkaen Manifesto:
Flashy Flashes No. 1


Khonkaen Manifesto Red Faces

Khonkaen Manifesto (ขอนแก่น แมนิเฟสโต้), an exhibition of political art, opened on 6th October last year. 6th October is, of course, infamous in Thailand, as a massacre took place at Thammasat University on 6th October 1976.

One of the installations in the exhibition, Nutdanai Jitbunjong’s A Massacre, referred directly to that event: it consisted of a folding chair hanging from a noose, in reference to Neal Ulevich’s photograph of a corpse being battered with a folding chair. Visitors to the exhibition were greeted by two girl scouts, an allusion to the Village Scouts militia group that took part in the massacre. (Ten Years Thailand also features children in scout uniforms, another reference to the Village Scout vigilantes.)

Other works in the exhibition also made reference to instances of state violence. Zakariya Amataya’s installation Report from a Partitioned Village (รายงานจากหมู่บ้านที่ถูกปิดล้อม) included a list of victims of the 2004 Tak Bai massacre. For his Red Faces series, Tawan Wattuya painted portraits of eighteen people killed on 10th April 2010, with red watercolour symbolising the blood of the victims.

Naturally, such politically sensitive subjects drew the attention of the military, and junta officials made regular visits to the exhibition in the days before and after it opened. As a result of this intimidation, a portrait of lèse-majesté convict Jatupat Boonpattararaksa was removed. (The painting, by Sermsilp Pairin, was part of a triptych, the others being portraits of politician Pridi Banomyong and writer Chit Phumisak.)

Junta Connection Junta Connection

Some of the exhibition’s remaining works were self-censored. For example, Junta Connection (‘วิ่งผลัดเผด็จการ’), a mural by the Guerrilla Boys, originally depicted Sarit Thanarat passing his (literal) baton of dictatorship to Prayut Chan-o-cha, though the work was later modified to obscure their faces.

Khonkaen Manifesto ran from 6th to 26th October 2018 at the GF Building in Khon Kaen. (The theme for this inaugural event was Flashy Flashes No. 1.) Previous exhibitions in Thailand have also been censored for political reasons: photographs were removed from Rupture (หมายเหตุ ๕/๒๕๕๓) in 2010 and Whitewash (ไร้มลทิน) in 2017.

06 January 2019

2562++

Bangkok Art Biennale 2018
2562++
2562++
Patipat Chaiwitesh's taxidermy installation 2562++ is a dystopian commentary on the future consequences of plastic waste. He has posed various marine animals with disposable plastic products, to highlight the problem of water pollution. (2562 in the Buddhist calendar is equivalent to 2019.)

The installation is on show at the former offices of the East Asiatic Company, a colonial building now in a state of disrepair. It opened on 19th October last year, as part of the inaugural Bangkok Art Biennale (บางกอก อาร์ต เบียนนาเล่), and runs until 3rd February.

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2019:
The Future


Akira
Blade Runner

2019: The Future is the theme for this month’s Jam Ciné Club, at Bangkok’s Jam Café, with screenings of dystopian science-fiction films set in a futuristic 2019. The season’s highlights are Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira (アキラ) on 16th January and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner on 30th January.

03 January 2019

Thai Film Archive

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Syndromes and a Century
Blissfully Yours
Paradoxocracy
Ten Years Thailand
The Thai Film Archive at Salaya will be screening several films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul this month, to celebrate his recent FIAF Award. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ) will be screened on 5th January, Syndromes and a Century (แสงศตวรรษ) on 20th January, and Blissfully Yours (สุดเสน่หา) on 27th January. (Blissfully Yours will be shown in 35mm.)

Next month's highlights at the Archive include Pen-ek Ratanaruang's documentary Paradoxocracy (ประชาธิป'ไทย) on 23rd February, and the portmanteau film Ten Years Thailand on 24th February. All screenings are free.