Delusional

Delusional (หลงผิด), featuring new works by Manit Sriwanichpoom and Akkara Naktamna, opened yesterday at West Eden in Bangkok. The exhibition is the first in the gallery’s Shadow Archives series, and it runs until 12th April.

Delusional examines “the suffocating realities of life” in a quasi-democratic system. Manit takes that description literally, with a series of photographs of people with bags covering their heads, titled Portraits of Thai Citizen (ภาพเหมือนบุคคลพลเมืองไทย). The bags have red, white, and blue stripes, the colours of the Thai flag.

Beyond their metaphorical meaning, Manit’s images also refer to corrupt police chief Thitisan Utthanaphon, who murdered drug suspect Jeerapong Thanapat by suffocating him during an interrogation. The exhibition includes a CCTV video of the incident, which made headlines in 2021. The killing also inspired a powerful cartoon by Arun Watcharasawad in Matichon Weekly (มติชนสุดสัปดาห์; vol. 42, no. 2142).

The Thitisan case has previously been referenced in two very different films. In the audacious opening sequence of Nontawat Numbenchapol’s Doi Boy (ดอยบอย), a cop with a guilty conscience has flashbacks of himself suffocating an anti-government protester. In contrast, Poj Arnon’s Oh My Ghost! 8 (หอแต๋วแตกแหก โควิดปังปุริเย่) includes a tasteless and offensive scene in which the suffocation is played for laughs by a group of aristocratic women.

Delusional also features Akkara’s Failing Dreams (ล้มฝัน) and Felling Dreams (ฝันล้ม). Failing Dreams is a series of thirteen photographs of Democracy Monument, the images distorted due to interference in a television signal. The implication is that tapping the TV set would briefly rectify the picture, just as protests and elections attempt to restore democracy.

There have been thirteen successful coups in Thailand, and Felling Dreams features photos of the thirteen coup leaders shown on a TV screen. This not only hints at the source of the interference from Failing Dreams, it also refers to television as the traditional medium used to announce Thai coups. (Natthapol Kitwarasai’s short film Coup d’état also includes photos of each coup leader.)

Beyond the Border

Nontawat Numbenchapol’s documentary Boundary (ฟ้าต่ำแผ่นดินสูง) will be shown tomorrow at Kasetsart University’s Faculty of Social Sciences in Bangkok. The screening is part of an event titled Beyond the Border, and will be followed by discussion with Nontawat on the subject of ประเด็นพื้นที่ชายแดนไทย-กัมพูชาในบริบทการเมืองไทยร่วมสมัย (‘the issue of the Thai-Cambodian border in the context of contemporary politics’).

Boundary documents the 2008 conflict between Thailand and Cambodia when the disputed Preah Vihear Temple was exploited for nationalist political gain. But it remains a topical film, as another border dispute between the two countries took place last year, and the issue was a significant factor in Bhumjaithai’s election victory last week.

Anutin Charnvirakul:“Nationalism is in the heart of everybody in Bhumjaithai...”

Anutin Charnvirakul’s Bhumjaithai party achieved an unexpected election win yesterday, with an increase of more than 100 seats since the last vote in 2023. More predictably, Pheu Thai suffered a significant decline, losing almost half of their seats. The People’s Party, which won the last election, lost almost a quarter of their seats, finishing in second place.

At a press conference last night, Anutin said (in English): “Nationalism is in the heart of everybody in Bhumjaithai party.” This goes a long way to explain his election victory, as the defence of the country — following last year’s border war with Cambodia — was central to his campaign. This was in stark contrast to Pheu Thai, whose former leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra was dismissed as prime minister following her obsequious phone call with former Cambodian PM Hun Sen.

Since he became PM last September, following Paetongtarn’s dismissal, Anutin has increased his power base, with dozens of MPs (including fifty from United Thai Nation) defecting from other parties to join Bhumjaithai. The People’s Party must now be bitterly regretting their confidence-and-supply agreement with Anutin, which — from their perspective — has backfired spectacularly. Their only consolation is that they achieved a clean sweep in Bangkok, winning all thirty-three constituencies in the capital.

There are numerous reasons for Pheu Thai’s losses. They ran a campaign that was even more blatantly populist than usual, promising to hold daily lotteries with ฿1 million prizes. Their de facto leader, Thaksin Shinawatra, is in jail, yet the party is still reliant on Thaksin family members — this time, his nephew Yodchanan Wongsawat — for its prime-ministerial candidates. And Pheu Thai have surely lost considerable support since 2023, after breaking their pledge not to form a coalition with pro-military parties.

Yesterday’s votes also included a preliminary referendum asking whether the constitution should be rewritten. There was a majority in favour of a new constitution, with a striking north/south divide: almost all constituencies in northern and central Thailand voted in favour, while almost all constituencies in the south voted against. With the conservative Bhumjaithai in power, any changes to the constitution are likely to be limited.

Petal Camera

The Petal camera was released in Japan in 1948. This minuscule device is barely larger than a coin, though its chrome-plated brass body is reassuringly heavy.

The Petal’s disc-shaped film has six exposures, each only 6mm in diameter, which could be enlarged — into ‘petalargements’ — when processed. The camera has a fixed-focus lens.

It was manufactured by St. Peter Optical, primarily for export, and it was distributed in the US by Mycro Camera in 1949. The original circular Petal was followed by the Everax A (engraved with a floral motif) and a slightly larger Sakura Petal octagonal version.

The Petal is the world’s smallest film camera. It’s significantly smaller than the more famous Minox spy cameras from Latvia and Germany. It’s also smaller and more advanced than the Hit cameras made by Tougodo, which became a generic term for all Japanese post-war subminiature cameras.

Other smallest-ever analogue cameras include:

• Bolsey 8 — the smallest cine camera
• Sony Ruvi — the smallest video camera
• Polaroid iZone 200 — the smallest instant camera

Press Start:The History of Video Gaming

Erwan Cario’s Press Start: The History of Video Gaming was originally published in French as Start! La grande histoire des jeux vidéo in 2011, and its updated English translation was published last year. The back cover describes it as “the most comprehensive history of video gaming ever”, though that distinction really belongs to Tristan Donovan’s Replay.

While Press Start isn’t the most comprehensive video game history, it does have better illustrations than its rivals (except for purely visual surveys like Stephan Gunzel’s Push > Start). The book covers the most significant video games, consoles, and designers, from the experimental oscilloscope game Tennis for Two in 1958 onwards.

Cario describes Shigeru Miyamoto as “the greatest designer of all time”, and argues that Ocarina of Time, from Miyamoto’s Legend of Zelda series, is “considered by many players to be the greatest video game in history.” He writes that Space Invaders was “unquestionably the first title to have a lasting impact on video games and popular culture”, and describes that game’s 8-bit alien character as “the universal symbol of video games.”

Leonard Herman’s Phoenix was the first book on the history of the gaming industry, and Steven Poole’s Trigger Happy was the first analysis of the aesthetics of video games. Thumb Candy, from Channel 4, is the best documentary on the subject.

100 Years of Anime

100 Years of Anime, by Matthieu Pinon and Philippe Bunel, was first published in French (Un siècle d’animation japonaise) in 2017, to mark the centenary of anime (Japanese animation). The book’s English translation was published last year.

Jonathan Clements wrote the definitive history of anime in 2013. 100 Years of Anime is nothing like as scholarly as the Clements book — it has no footnotes, and only a very brief annotated bibliography — but it is better illustrated, with colour photographs on almost every page. Pinon and Bunel are also the only other authors, besides Clements, to write a complete 100-year history of anime.

Clements also co-wrote The Anime Encyclopedia, a uniquely comprehensive guide to thousands of anime titles. His co-author Helen McCarthy wrote the first English-language book on the subject, Anime! A Beginner’s Guide to Japanese Animation.

Watercolor: A History

Marie-Pierre Salé’s Watercolor: A History was published in 2020, translated from the French edition (L’Aquarelle). The publisher, Abbeville, described it in superlative terms: “The most comprehensive and best-illustrated history of watercolour painting ever published.” It’s certainly the best-illustrated history of the subject, and it was printed on premium Munken paper from Switzerland to showcase its 300 watercolour reproductions.

Prior to Salé’s Watercolor, the most recent book on the topic was A History of Watercolor, by Bernard Brett, published more than thirty years earlier in 1984. Brett’s book was nowhere near as lavish as Salé’s, though it was more international in scope, with chapters such as Watercolor Painting in the Far East and Islamic and Indian Miniatures. Salé, on the other hand, covers “the development of watercolor in the West”. (The first book on the topic, A Concise History of Watercolours by Graham Reynolds, was published in 1971.)

Salé, chief curator of prints and drawings at the Louvre in Paris, has written a beautiful and monumental history of European and American watercolours. Abbeville have also published an equally stunning history of pastel painting, The Art of the Pastel (L’art du pastel).

Japanese Film Festival 2026

The Japanese Film Festival 2026 (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์ญี่ปุ่น 2569) will take place in four cities around Thailand, from 13th February to 1st March. The lineup is dominated by contemporary releases, though there will also be several screenings of Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece Seven Samurai (七人の侍).

Seven Samurai will be shown at House Samyan in Bangkok on 15th, 16th, 18th, 21st, and 22nd February. It will also be screened at Pratudang Micro Cinema in Khon Kaen, on 28th February. (It was previously shown at Cinema Winehouse in 2018, and there have been two 35mm screenings in Bangkok: in 2010 and 2019.)

Breaking the Cycle

Thailand will have a general election on 8th February, and a referendum will be held on the same day, asking whether the constitution should be entirely rewritten. Screenings of Aekaphong Saransate and Thanakrit Duangmaneeporn’s documentary Breaking the Cycle (อำนาจ ศรัทธา อนาคต) have been organised, in three provinces over three consecutive days, in anticipation of the upcoming votes.

The film will be shown tomorrow at the Loftster gallery and café in Korat, at an event called The History on the Rocks. The screening will be followed by a discussion of Thai politics, ประวัติศาสตร์ไทยในแก้วเบียร์ (‘Thai history in a beer glass’).

There will also be a screening on 31st January, at Samaki Chumnum in Nakhon Phanom. That event — Back Then, Forward Now (ดูอดีต ขีดเขียนอนาคต) — is organised by Panom Nakhon Rama.

Breaking the Cycle will also be shown on 1st February, at the House of Commons bookshop and café in Bangkok. After the screening, there will be a discussion with Komtouch Napattaloong, one of the film’s producers, on the history of the progressive ‘orange movement’.

The HOC event is the first in a planned Movie Talk series. Komtouch is also the director of No Exorcism Film, and he curated Infinges, a programme of short films, in 2024.

There will also be a Breaking the Cycle screening on election day itself, at the Nongkhai and Friends library in Nong Khai. This screening, organised by Nongkhai Mai Pop, was originally due to be held at Anybodyhome on 30th January, but was later rescheduled. Nongkhai Mai Pop will also have a screening at La Limité Cafe on 22nd February.

Breaking the Cycle is a fly-on-the-wall account of the rise and fall of the Future Forward party, which was dissolved by the Constitutional Court in 2020. (Future Forward was founded as a progressive alternative to military dictatorship. The party came third in the 2019 election, after a wave of support for its charismatic leader, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, though he was disqualified as an MP by the Constitutional Court.)

The film begins in 2014 with Thanathorn’s determination to end the vicious cycle of military coups that has characterised Thailand’s modern political history. This mission gives the film its title, and Future Forward co-founder Piyabutr Saengkanokkul asks: “Why is Thailand stuck in this cycle of coups?” The documentary benefits from its extensive access to every senior figure within Future Forward. The directors were even able to film Thanathorn as he reacted to the guilty verdicts being delivered by the Constitutional Court.

The documentary ends with the caption “THE CYCLE CONTINUES”, which is sadly accurate: Future Forward’s successor, Move Forward, was dissolved by the Constitutional Court in 2025 despite winning the 2023 election. But in the film, Thanathorn half-jokingly predicts: “In three elections we’ll be the government”, and the movement’s third incarnation, the People’s Party, is currently leading the opinion polls in the run-up to next month’s election.

Breaking the Cycle went on general release in 2024. It was later shown at the Thai Film Archive, as part of the Lost and Longing (แด่วันคืนที่สูญหาย) season. It was also screened at A.E.Y. Space in Songkla, and at the Bangsaen Film Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์บางแสน) at Burapha University. It was part of the Hits Me Movies... One More Time programme at House Samyan in Bangkok, and last year it was screened at Thammasat University and Chulalongkorn University. Its most recent screenings were in Bangkok and Chiang Rai.

Uncle BoonmeeWho Can Recall His Past Lives

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ) will be shown at the Thai Film Archive on 7th February, as part of a two-day event, พินิจ 80 ปีหลังสงคราม ผ่านภาพยนตร์ญี่ปุ่น ไทย และไต้หวัน (‘reflecting on 80 years after the war through Japanese, Thai, and Taiwanese films’). (The first day of the programme will be on 5th February.)

The film’s central character, Boonmee, is dying of kidney failure (which Apichatpong’s father also suffered from). Boonmee is cared for by his sister Jen and his young cousin Tong, though one evening the ghost of his dead wife materialises at the dining table. A few minutes later, Boonmee’s long-lost son returns in the form of a monkey spirit with glowing red eyes.

Boonmee reflects on his life as a former soldier who killed communist rebels in the 1970s, and we are shown some of his previous incarnations: a buffalo that escapes from its owner, and a princess who seduces one of her servants and makes love with a talking catfish. Each of the film’s six reels was filmed in a different cinematic style, as a tribute to the films that captivated the the director when he was growing up.

After Boonmee’s funeral, Tong becomes a monk, though he leaves the temple as he misses the comforts of home. Finally, Tong and Jen visit a karaoke restaurant, either as an out-of-body experience or perhaps in a parallel universe.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is one of Thailand’s greatest films. The shot of Boonmee’s son as a monkey spirit emerging from the jungle (photographed by Nontawat Numbenchapol) has become one of world cinema’s most iconic images. (It appears, courtesy of Apichatpong, on the cover of Thai Cinema Uncensored.)

As in Tropical Malady (สัตว์ประหลาด), the forest is a dwelling for animal spirits, though in Uncle Boonmee the supernatural elements are more explicit and tangible. Also, the central theme of Uncle Boonmee is predicted in Tropical Malady, when one character says: “Remember my uncle who can recall his past lives?”