08 October 2024

Wordslut:
A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language


Wordslut

Amanda Montell’s aim in Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language is to encourage and empower women “to reclaim a language that for so long has been used against us.” Wordslut, published in 2019, is not the first book to show how gender-neutral terms have been transformed into sexist insults: Jane Mills did so in Womanwords thirty years previously. And the notion of reappropriating those pejoratives is older still: Germaine Greer attempted to reclaim the c-word, for example, in the early 1970s. Mills and Greer are not cited in Wordslut (and the book has no bibliography), though Montell did interview Deborah Cameron, author of Feminism and Linguistic Theory.

Montell begins her book by calling for “a language revolution”, though her ultimate conclusion is more measured. She argues that reappropriation is a gradual process: “A word doesn’t have to lose its negative meanings completely to be considered reclaimed. The path to reclamation is almost never that smooth... As long as the positive varieties of a word steadily become more common, more mainstream, by the time the next generation starts learning the language, they will pick up those meanings first.” The book’s title is itself a reappropriation of ‘slut’, though Montell doesn’t mention Katharine Whitehorn’s pioneering self-identification with that word sixty years ago.

01 October 2024

6th October Filmography


6th October Filmography

This week marks the 48th anniversary of the 6th October 1976 Thammasat University massacre. The tragic event has been referenced in more than fifty films and videos, which are all listed in this filmography. Many of these titles are discussed in Thai Cinema Uncensored, which features a comprehensive survey of Thai political cinema.

งานรำลึก 48 ปี เหตุการณ์ 6 ตุลาฯ 2519
(‘commemorating the 48th anniversary of 6th Oct. 1976’)



This week, Thammasat University will commemorate the 48th anniversary of the 6th October 1976 massacre. A pop-up exhibition, ต่างความคิดผิดถึงตาย (‘deadly misconceptions’), will be held at Thammasat’s Sri Burapha Auditorium from tomorrow until 6th October. (A documentary with the same title was released on DVD in 2011.) At the same time, Thammasat’s Pridi Banomyong Library will host 6 ตุลาฯ กระจกส่องสังคมไทย (‘6th Oct., mirror of Thai society’), an exhibition exploring the wider context of the event. (These exhibitions were scheduled to open today, but as of this afternoon the library display was cordened off and the auditorium was closed.)

Three short documentaries will be screened at Thammasat on 5th October. Respectfully Yours (ดวยความนบถอ), directed by Patporn Phoothong and Puangthong Pawakapan, features interviews with families of massacre victims. For The Two Brothers (สองพนอง), Patporn and Teerawat Rujenatham interviewed relatives of the two young men were hanged by police for campaigning against the return of Thanom Kittikachorn from exile. In Manussak Dokmai’s Don’t Forget Me (อย่าลืมฉัน), archive footage of 6th October is accompanied by narration from a documentary on the Mlabri tribe, providing an ironic counterpoint to the violent imagery.

There will also be an exhibition by the Museum of Popular History at Thammasat on 6th October, ก่อนจะถึงรุ่งสาง 6 ตุลา (‘before the dawn of 6th Oct.’). Elsewhere in Bangkok, another 6th October photography exhibition, ไม่ใช่ 6 ตุลาฟื้นคืนชีพ แต่รากเหง้าของ ปัญญาชนนั้นยังอยู่ (‘not a 6th Oct. resurrection, but intellectual roots remain’), will open at Hope Space tomorrow. The Two Brothers will be screened there on the opening day.

Reservoir Dogs


Reservoir Dogs

Quentin Tarantino’s debut film Reservoir Dogs is screening at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok this month, on 3rd, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th, 15th, and 16th October. It was last shown in Bangkok a decade ago, at Jam in 2014.

Wildtype 2024


Wildtype 2024

Wildtype, the annual season of short films programmed by Chayanin Tiangpitayagorn, Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa, and Sasawat Boonsri, returns this week. After being held largely online due to the coronvirus pandemic in 2021, and taking place in a few provinces in 2022, the event expanded significantly in 2023, with screenings at ten venues around the country. This year, fifty-nine films are being shown in Bangkok and at microcinemas throughout Thailand.

Highlights this year include Koraphat Cheeradit’s ...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! (ฉันแต่งงานกับปัจจุบัน ช่วยตัวเองด้วยเมื่อวาน และมีเพศสัมพันธ์กับวันพรุ่งนี้), Kawinnate Konklong’s Unfortunately (แค่วันที่โชคร้าย), and Piyanat Lamor’s Come from Away (กลับบ้าน). ...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! is showing in the Exper programme of experimental films at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok on 5th October. Unfortunately and Come from Away are both included in the U-Dawn Genesis programme, screening at the same venue on 6th October. The Exper programme will also be shown at Loftster in Korat on 22nd October. The U-Dawn Genesis programme will be shown there on 23rd October.

...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now!

...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! begins with a young man stumbling around in a woodland. The aimless protagonist is filmed in a continuous take, with double-exposures constantly fading in and out. Birdsong and other bucolic, ambient sounds soon give way to a non-diegetic locomotive on the soundtrack, which gradually rises to a crescendo. Visually, this is matched by bursts of rapid-fire shots, each lasting for only a single frame, that are perceived only subliminally. Some of these inserts are faux-naïf: white doves and heart emojis, symbolising peace and love. Other flash frames are more extreme: Koraphat juxtaposes sex and violence in split-second montages of anatomical drawings, erections, Ukrainian war casualties in Bucha, Nazi troops, and riot police firing water cannon at Thai protesters.

Unfortunately

Unfortunately dramatises the ideological gap between generations, as a royalist father files a lèse-majesté charge against his daughter’s girlfriend, Bam, after she attends a protest calling for reform of the monarchy. The man tells his daughter: “I used the law to protect the King from defamation. Unfortunately, the person was Bam.” His dialogue evokes a comment from former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who dismissed dozens of civilian casualties in a BBC interview: “unfortunately, some people died”. Unfortunately and ...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! were both shown in last year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน).

Come from Away

Come from Away features a montage of found footage, including clips from TV news broadcasts of Thaksin Shinawatra and Vacharaesorn Vivacharawongse returning to Thailand after both had spent many years abroad. Former prime minister Thaksin returned from self-imposed exile last year, and has continued his divisive and influential role in Thai politics. Teeraphan Ngowjeenanan’s short film แฟ้มรวมภาพทักษิณกลับไทย (‘dossier of pictures of Thaksin’s return to Thailand’) also featured TV news coverage of Thaksin’s arrival. Vacharaesorn is one of the sons of King Rama X, and his return this year has prompted speculation about the royal succession. Come from Away juxtaposes the privileged, state-sanctioned returns of Thaksin and Vacharaesorn with the fates of political refugees such as Wat Wanlayangkoon who fled the country after facing lèse-majesté charges and cannot return.

Isekai
Twas Partly Love, and Partly Fear
Crazy Soft Power Love
No Exorcism Film

The U-Dawn Genesis programme also features four short dramas that include very brief footage of political violence and protest. Buariyate Eamkamol’s Isekai (อิเซไก), a science-fiction tale of a young couple breaking up, shows victims of the 2010 military crackdown lying in the road. Jarut Wisawong’s Twas Partly Love, and Partly Fear, about the family of a Thai lawyer who was forcibly disappeared, opens with a solarised clip of Bangkok riot police firing water cannon at student protesters in Siam Square on 16th October 2020. In Warat Bureephakdee’s Crazy Soft Power Love, a satire on the government’s soft power strategy, a Songkran water fight escalates into a brawl, intercut with footage from the 6th October 1976 massacre. In Komtouch Napattaloong’s No Exorcism Film, a robotic voiceover narrates a dream in which a brutal warlord kills villagers with a sword because they ‘disrespect’ him by not addressing him as their king, and the film includes a short video clip of Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul in 2020 reading a manifesto calling for reform of the monarchy.

Breaking the Cycle


Breaking the Cycle

Aekaphong Saransate and Thanakrit Duangmaneeporn’s recent documentary Breaking the Cycle (อำนาจ ศรัทธา อนาคต) will be shown at A.E.Y. Space in Songkla on 5th October. Aekaphong will take part in a Q&A after the screening. The film, a groundbreaking fly-on-the-wall account of the rise and fall of the progressive Future Forward party, will also be shown at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya on 19th and 24th October, as part of its Lost and Longing (แด่วันคืนที่สูญหาย) season.

30 September 2024

ก่อนจะถึงรุ่งสาง 6 ตุลา
(‘before the dawn of 6th Oct.’)



The Museum of Popular History will stage an exhibition at Thammasat University on 6th October, to commemorate the anniversary of the massacre that took place there on 6th October 1976. The exhibition, ก่อนจะถึงรุ่งสาง 6 ตุลา (‘before the dawn of 6th Oct.’) at Sri Burapha Auditorium, will examine the long-term causes of the massacre, particularly the anti-Communist propaganda prevalent in the media during the 1970s. Using newspapers and posters from the period, the exhibition will highlight the language and imagery used to demonise the Thammasat students.

Just Because You Can't See It, Doesn't Mean It Didn't Happen Hangman

Books and supplements related to the 14th October 1973 protests will also be on display, as will the contents of the กล่องฟ้าสาง (‘box of dawn’), a ‘museum in a box’ released in 2021. The poster Just Because You Can’t See It, Doesn’t Mean It Didn’t Happen features outlines of the bodies of the two men hanged for protesting against Thanom Kittikachorn’s return from exile. Ladkrabang Politics, a group of students from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology in Ladkrabang, painted a silhouette of a hanged student—Hangman—alongside a list of the names of the victims of 6th October. Hangman will be displayed with a folding chair propped up against it, in a reference to a much-reproduced Neal Ulevich photograph of the massacre.

29 September 2024

Hope Space



Hope Space in Bangkok will commemorate the anniversary of the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University with the ไม่ใช่ 6 ตุลาฟื้นคืนชีพ แต่รากเหง้าของ ปัญญาชนนั้นยังอยู่ (‘not a 6th Oct. resurrection, but intellectual roots remain’) exhibition from 2nd to 27th October. The show features photographs of the events of 1976, and of the 14th October 1973 protest. Contact sheets will be displayed on tables for examination via a loupe. A photocopy of a complete edition of the infamous 6th October 1976 issue of Dao Siam (ดาวสยาม) will also be on display.

Patporn Phoothong and Teerawat Rujenatham’s short documentary The Two Brothers (สองพี่น้อง) will be screened on the opening day. Silenced Memories (ความทรงจ ไรเสยง), directed by Patporn and Saowanee Sangkara, will be shown on 13th October.


On show alongside the Thammasat exhibition is 20 ปีตากใบ เราไม่ลืม (20 years of Tak Bai, we will never forget), a photography exhibition commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Tak Bai incident, including a large image of the protesters displayed on an easel. Walai Buppha’s new Tak Bai documentary Along the Road will be shown on 20th October, the day after its premiere at TK Park in Narathiwat.

Indelible Memory:
20 Years Tak Bai


Indelible Memory

This year is the 20th anniversary of the tragedy that took place at Tak Bai on 25th October 2004. More than 1,000 people protested outside Tak Bai’s Provincial Police Station, and police responded with water cannon, tear gas, and ultimately live ammunition, killing seven people. The surviving demonstrators were crammed into trucks and taken to Ingkhayuttha Borihan Fort military camp, though seventy-eight died of suffocation during the five-hour journey.

The government prohibited the broadcasting of video footage of the incident, though in defiance of the ban, the journal Same Sky (ฟ้าเดียวกัน) distributed a Tak Bai VCD—ความจริงที่ตากใบ (‘the truth at Tak Bai’)—with its October–December 2004 issue (vol. 2, no. 4). The footage is also included in Thunska Pansittivorakul’s documentary This Area Is Under Quarantine (บริเวณนี้อยู่ภายใต้การกักกัน), which led to the film being banned. In an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored, Thunska explained how viewing the Tak Bai video footage directly inspired him to pivot from making personal films to political documentaries.

In 2023, Patani Artspace held the รำลึก 19 ปี ตากใบ (‘remembering 19 years of Tak Bai’) exhibition, the Heard the Unheard (สดับเสียงเงียบ) exhibition took place at Silpakorn and Thammasat universities, and Manit Sriwanichpoom’s Tak Bai paintings were shown at the Landscape of Unity the Indivisible (ทิวทัศน์แห่งความเป็นหนึ่งอันมิอาจแบ่งแยก) exhibition. Heard the Unheard featured the personal possessions of seventeen people who died at Tak Bai—including a ฿100 banknote retrieved from the body of a sixteen-year-old boy, Imron—displayed alongside recollections from the victims’ relatives.

Earlier this year, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary, the seventeen artefacts were split between two exhibitions: Living Memories (ความทรงจำที่ยังเหลืออยู่) at SEA Junction, and Indelible Memory (ลบไม่เลือน) at the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre. The items on display were also photographed in Tak Bai (ลิ้มรสความทรงจำ), edited by Kusra Kamawan Mukdawijitra.

Next week, an expanded version of Indelible Memory will open at TK Park in Narathiwat, where it will be on display for the entire month of October. This exhibition has a particular sense of urgency, as prosecutions for the unlawful killings are finally under way, just weeks before the twenty-year statute of limitations expires. It will include the premiere of Along the Road: 20 Years Tak Bai, a documentary directed by Walai Buppha, on 19th October. The film will also be shown on the following day at Hope Space in Bangkok.

Tak Bai photographs were also shown at the Deep South (ลึกลงไป ใต้ชายแดน) exhibition in 2022. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Photophobia series incorporates photographs of the incident, as does the interactive installation Black Air by Pimpaka Towira, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu, and Jakrawal Nilthamrong.

Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh’s Violence in Tak Bai (ความรุนแรงที่ตากใบ) installation features white tombstones marking the graves of each victim, and is reproduced in his book The Patani Art of Struggle (سني ڤتاني چاراو او سها). It was first installed, a few days after the massacre, at Prince of Songkla University in Pattani, and the grave markers were accompanied by rifles wrapped in white cloth. In 2017, it was recreated at Patani Artspace and then mounted on a plinth containing Pattani soil at the Patani Semasa (ปาตานี ร่วมสมัย) exhibition in Chiang Mai.

Two further installations—Jakkhai Siributr’s 78 and Zakariya Amataya’s Report from a Partitioned Village (รายงานจากหมู่บ้านที่ถูกปิดล้อม)—both include lists of the Tak Bai victims’ names. Photophobia, 78, and Violence in Tak Bai were all included in the Patani Semasa exhibition. (The exhibition catalogue gives Violence in Tak Bai a milder alternative title, Remember at Tak Bai.)

28 September 2024

Taklee Genesis


Taklee Genesis

“Make sure we’re not forgotten.”

Time travel, dinosaurs, kaiju monsters, zombies, cavemen, the Cold War, a dystopian future, and the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University: Chookiat Sakveerakul somehow weaves all of these elements into his science-fiction epic Taklee Genesis (ตาคลี เจเนซิส), released earlier this month. It’s a hugely ambitious project, and a million miles away from the director’s earlier films such as Love of Siam (รักแห่งสยาม) and 13 Game of Death (13 เกมสยอง).

In a prologue that takes place in May 1992 (an unspoken reference to ‘Black May’), a young girl witnesses “dead bodies falling from the sky.” These are students who died during the Thammasat tragedy, their bodies teleported by the Taklee Genesis device, a time machine that can create alternate realities. As one character says: “Taklee Genesis was used to cover up a massacre.”

When the girl, Stella, grows up, she learns that her father was a CIA agent involved in the development of the Taklee Genesis. One of the project’s test subjects, Lawan, was transformed into a forest-dwelling spirit, like the monkey ghost in Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ), another supernatural personification of the legacy of the Cold War.

Stella and her friend Kong use the Taklee Genesis to travel back in time to Thammasat on 6th October 1976, after Kong discovers that he is one of the massacre victims who fell from the sky. Chookiat recreates the violence of that day, showing Red Gaur militiamen gunning down students. A young boy stands alone on a balcony laughing at the carnage, in a reference to a smiling onlooker in a photograph by Neal Ulevich. (The artist Khai Maew created a model of the child, which he called Happy Boy.)

Thanks to the Taklee Genesis, Kong has the chance to fight back against the vigilantes who have stormed the campus. This fantasy scenario, in which a Thammasat victim is given the agency to tackle his potential killers, is similar to the alternate history narrative in Preecha Raksorn’s comic strip Once Upon a Time at..., in which the victim in Ulevich’s photograph escapes from his assailant.

Discussion of the Thammasat massacre was suppressed for years, not by the fictional Taklee Genesis device, but instead by successive military governments. Today, it’s primarily through photographs of the event, particularly the famous image by Ulevich, that the incident is remembered. In one of the film’s most powerful moments, Kong takes a roll of film from the camera of his Thammasat classmate and gives it to Stella, telling her: “Make sure we’re not forgotten.”

The Thammasat massacre is a notorious incident in Thailand’s modern history, though it has very rarely been represented on screen. The 6th October scenes in Taklee Genesis are almost unprecedented: the only previous attempt to dramatise the brutality of the event was in the horror film Haunted Universities (มหาลัยสยองขวัญ), which was cut by the Thai film censors.

Perhaps the closest equivalent to Taklee Genesis is Sunset at Chaophraya II (คู่กรรม ภาค ๒), which ended with a similarly realistic and graphic recreation of another massacre, 14th October 1973. (Thai Cinema Uncensored includes a comprehensive analysis of the representation of Thai political history on film.)

22 September 2024

Wilderness


Wilderness

“October 6th is a profound lesson,
Teaching us clearly that...
democracy can only be won by taking up arms”.

Thanaphon Accawatanyu’s new play Wilderness (รักดงดิบ) begins with a revolutionary verse, set to music. The play, divided into two parts, is set in the aftermath of two key events in Thai political history: the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University, and the student protest movement that began in 2020.

In part one, a group of students join the Communist insurgency after the Thammasat massacre, and escape into the forest. Part two features another group of students, though they’re not explicitly indentified as protesters. (Although one character says that she was destined to be part of a demonstration, as she was “in my Mom’s womb during the Black May uprising”, and her father died during that 1992 protest.)

The second part is much more ambiguous than the first, with numerous scenes that appear to be dreams caused by hallucenogenic sweets eaten by the characters. (According to the recipe they follow, the sweets should “dry in the sun for 112 hours”, and the lèse-majesté law is article 112 of the criminal code.) The dreams involve worshipping gods by chanting tongue-twisters.

As in Wilderness, Pasit Promnampol’s short film Pirab (พีเจ้น) and Sunisa Manning’s novel A Good True Thai both dramatise a student’s decision to join the Communist insurgency. A Good True Thai is particularly similar to Wilderness as, like Thanaphon’s play, it focuses on the romantic relationships between the characters.

Wilderness opened at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre on 12th September, and the final performance will be today. The script for one of Thanaphon’s previous plays, The Disappearance of the Boy on a Sunday Afternoon (การหายตัวไปของเด็กชายในบ่ายวันอาทิตย์), appears in Micro Politics alongside Pradit Prasartthong’s A Nowhere Place (ที่ ไม่มีที่), another play that refers to the 6th October massacre.

Once a Month Film


Once a Month Film

Bangkok’s GalileOasis will be screening some classic horror movies on the first weekend in October, as part of its Once a Month Film programme. The event includes two of the greatest horror films ever made: Nosferatu on 5th October, and Night of the Living Dead on 6th October.

There was a gala screening of Nosferatu at the Scala cinema in 2016, and it was also shown at Cinema Winehouse in 2018. Coincidentally, Night of the Living Dead was also screened at Cinema Winehouse, a few days before Nosferatu.

19 September 2024

Prawit Wongsuwon:
“Give me a chance to be the number one...”


Inside Thailand

Prawit Wongsuwon, leader of the Palang Pracharath Party, has pressed criminal charges against a TV presenter in relation to leaked audio clips that were broadcast on Channel 9 last week. The charges were filed at Huamak police station yesterday on Prawit’s behalf by Palang Pracharath secretary-general Paiboon Nititawan.

Danai Ekmahasawat played four clips, all featuring a man who sounded like Prawit, on his Inside Thailand (เจาะลึกทั่วไทย) show on 11th September, and a fifth clip two days later. In the first recording, the man says: “I’ve been a deputy and worked for the Prime Minister for a long time. I’ve made many accomplishments, and now I want the people to give me a chance to be the number one.” (Prawit was deputy PM under Prayut Chan-o-cha for nine years; his party was excluded from the governing coalition last month.)

When the clips were broadcast, Palang Pracharath initially dismissed them as AI deepfakes, though the charges filed yesterday seem to be a tacit admission that they are genuine. Prawit is suing for defamation and illegal distribution of a wiretapped recording, though only the “give me a chance to be the number one” conversation is cited in the police complaint.

18 September 2024

Infiltrating Society:
The Thai Military’s Internal Security Affairs



Internal Security Operations Command, the political arm of the Thai military, has called for sales of a new book to be halted. The book in question is ในนามของความมั่นคงภายใน การแทรกซึมสังคมของกองทัพไทย, a Thai translation of Infiltrating Society: The Thai Military’s Internal Security Affairs by the distinguished academic Puangthong Pawakapan. Infiltrating Society was published in English in 2021, and the Thai translation will be released on 25th September by Same Sky Books.

ISOC posted a written statement on its Facebook page on 14th September, questioning Puangthong’s academic credentials and research methods, and challenging her findings. It also requested that the book was removed from sale (“ขอเรียนว่าการนำหนังสือและบทความทางวิชาการที่มีข้อมูลในลักษณะที่เป็นเท็จ”), and threatened legal action against the author.

Thailand’s modern political history has been dominated by military rule, with thirteen successful coups. But Puangthong argues that, even during periods of civilian government, ISOC’s influence is ever present, creating a constant atmosphere of military surveillance and propaganda. She makes the crucial point that ISOC’s activities are fundamental to the military’s agenda: “Internal security affairs, rather than external threats, have long been the raison d’être of the Thai military”.

16 September 2024

God and the Devil:
The Life and Work of Ingmar Bergman


God and the Devil

Peter Cowie is a leading authority on director Ingmar Bergman, and God and the Devil: The Life and Work of Ingmar Bergman, published last year, is his comprehensive account of Bergman’s entire career. Beginning in the late 1950s, Cowie was in regular contact with Bergman for more than thirty years, and in his critical biography he also quotes from letters and journals from the Bergman archive.

The book’s stark cover shows the personification of Death from Bergman’s masterpiece The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet). God and the Devil examines not just Bergman’s acclaimed filmography, but also his often overlooked theatre productions and his complicated private life. Cowie’s ultimate assessment of Bergman is as follows: “Forever obsessed with God and his demons, reckless in love, and relentless in his commitment to film and theatre.”

Cowie has written and published dozens of books on cinema, specialising in works on the pantheon of great directors, including an early monograph on Orson Welles (A Ribbon of Dreams). He wrote a lavish guide to the films of Akira Kurosawa, and his books on the making of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now are indispensable. His second Godfather book was published fifteen years after the first, and he also wrote a book on another 1970s classic, Annie Hall.

10 ข้อที่คนไม่รู้เกี่ยวกับมาตรา 112
(‘10 things you don’t know about 112’)



Suchart Sawadsi, one of Thailand’s most respected writers, has been charged with sedition (article 116 of the criminal code) for posting a social media link to a video by iLaw, a non-governmental organisation promoting human rights. iLaw uploaded the video, 10 ข้อที่คนไม่รู้เกี่ยวกับมาตรา 112 (‘10 things you don’t know about 112’), to TikTok on 29th October 2022 as part of its No More 112 campaign, and Suchart shared it on Facebook along with a comment calling for the abolition of article 112 (the lèse-majesté law).

The King Protection Group, an ultra-royalist pressure group, filed charges against Suchart the next day. Suchart was described by David Smyth in the first issue of the journal Asiatic (2007) as “without doubt, the single most influential figure in the contemporary Thai literary world.” The King Protection Group has previously filed similar charges against other public figures, ranging from the rapper P9D to the former Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat.

11 September 2024

Truss at Ten:
How Not to Be Prime Minister



“Is it all over?”
“Yes, Prime Minister, I think it probably is.”

That exchange, between Liz Truss and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, is one of several blunt conversations documented by Anthony Seldon in Truss at Ten, which was published last month. Seldon has written profiles of every UK prime minister since John Major, and his previous book covered Boris Johnson’s aberrant premiership. Some PMs cooperate with Seldon, and others don’t; Truss and David Cameron did, while Johnson and Theresa May didn’t.

Truss at Ten features new reporting on the key moments from the shortest British government in history: the reversal of the 45p tax rate policy (“the biggest U-turn in modern prime ministerial history”), the sacking of Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, and the appointment of Jeremy Hunt as his replacement. Surprisingly, given her reckless self-confidence, Truss seemed to defer to Hunt, telling her Principal Private Secretary: “Jeremy will do the domestic side and I’ll do the foreign.”

Seldon has been headmaster of three schools, and his Truss book reads like a wayward student’s end-of-term report card. He sets out ten requirements for a successful PM, and demonstrates how Truss failed at all of them. (The book is subtitled How Not to Be Prime Minister.) Making frequent historical comparisons, Seldon argues that Truss’s period of office was uniquely damaging to the country’s economy. Ultimately, he criticises her “total failure to understand the nature of leadership and the job of being Prime Minister.”

There have been other accounts of the Truss premiership, the best of which is Out of the Blue by Harry Cole and James Healey. Ben Riley-Smith’s The Right to Rule (retitled Blue Murder in paperback) also covers Truss in office, and Truss herself wrote an unapologetic memoir, Ten Years to Save the West.

06 September 2024

The Prince:
The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau


The Prince

Journalist Stephen Maher’s first impression of Justin Trudeau was not particularly favourable: “He looked like a charismatic lightweight”. Maher’s new political biography of Trudeau portrays the Canadian Prime Minister as narcissistic and superficial, “a leader of limited ambitions, a transactional rather than a transformational leader.” Surprisingly, Trudeau agreed to be interviewed for the book earlier this year.

The biography takes its title, The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau, from a 1977 interview with Trudeau’s mother, who described him as “a prince—a very good little boy”. But the term also has other connotations, and Maher describes Trudeau’s sense of entitlement, “his princely certainty in the importance of his ideas,” his “princely capriciousness” and “princely vanity.” There is also a Machiavellian reference, and the book includes withering epigraphs from the Italian philosopher’s The Prince (Il principe).

Maher gives Trudeau due credit for a successful domestic social agenda, with “real progress for children, women, families, and the most significant effort to fight poverty in a generation.” But mindful of Canada’s election next year, he sums up Trudeau’s three terms in office with an unambiguous conclusion that echoes the PM’s current low approval rating: “After eight years of Trudeau, we are obviously in a weaker position.”

05 September 2024

Lost and Longing


Lost and Longing

Next month, the Thai Film Archive at Salaya will screen a season of films about fading memories and broken dreams. Highlights of the Lost and Longing (แด่วันคืนที่สูญหาย) season include Taiki Sakpisit’s The Edge of Daybreak (พญาโศกพิโยคค่ำ) and Jakrawal Nilthamrong’s Anatomy of Time (เวลา), both of which feature former soldiers on their deathbeds. The unnamed men remain largely bedridden, tended by nurses and family members, though their violent reputations—leading the anti-Communist purges of the 1970s—have not been forgotten, and the men’s karma is directly cited as the reason for their sickness.

Aekaphong Saransate and Thanakrit Duangmaneeporn’s recent documentary Breaking the Cycle (อำนาจ ศรัทธา อนาคต), about the rise and fall of the Future Forward party, is also part of the season. Anocha Suwichakornpong’s By the Time It Gets Dark (ดาวคะนอง), about a woman’s recollections of the 1976 massacre at Thammasat University, is also included, and will be shown on the anniversary of the event. (Notoriously, a previous anniversary screening was cancelled by the police.)

Chatrichalerm Yukol’s classic His Name Is Karn (เขาชื่อกานต์), which launched a wave of groundbreaking social realist Thai films in the mid 1970s, is also part of the season. Chatrichalerm’s Somsri (ครูสมศรี) is also showing at the Film Archive this month, on 5th and 27th September, before the Lost and Longing season begins.

Anatomy of Time is showing on 5th and 15th October; The Edge of Daybreak is on 5th and 17th October; By the Time It Gets Dark is on 5th, 6th, and 17th October; Breaking the Cycle is on 19th and 24th October; and His Name Is Karn is on 18th and 24th October. The Edge of Daybreak was previously shown at last year’s Chiang Mai Film Festival. By the Time It Gets Dark has been shown at Warehouse 30, at Alliance Française, at the Film Archive, at Thammasat University, at the 13th International Conference on Thai Studies, and at Homeflick. Breaking the Cycle went on general release earlier this year.

Aside from the Lost and Longing season, there will also be a screening of Nonzee Nimibutr’s Nang Nak at the Film Archive on 4th October. This classic horror film has been shown there fairly regularly, including earlier this year, in 2021, and in 2013. It was also screened in 2020 at Lido Connect, in 2019 at Bangkok Screening Room, at an outdoor screening in 2018, and at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand in 2010.

Artn’t


Vitthaya Klangnil

Chiang Mai’s Provincial Court yesterday upheld an earlier dismissal of lèse-majesté charges against Vitthaya Klangnil, a member of the performance art group Artn’t. The case against Vitthaya was originally dismissed on 23rd May last year. (He was previously convicted of lèse-majesté in relation to another case—displaying a modified version of the Thai flag—and received a suspended sentence.)

Charges against Vitthaya were filed after a performance on 1st May 2021, during which he climbed onto Chiang Mai University’s main entrance and poured red paint over himself. Three members of university staff noticed that, at one point, Vitthaya lay on his back and raised one of his feet in the air. There is a portrait of King Rama X above the entrance, and the staff members filed a police complaint noting that pointing a foot at someone is considered offensive in Thai culture. The case was dismissed as the court ruled that, although his gesture was disrespectful, there was insufficient evidence that Vitthaya deliberately intended to insult the King.

The performance is featured in Red Poetry (ความกวีสีแดง), a documentary by Supamok Silarak about Vitthaya’s various legal cases. Supamok’s film was screened in the Short Film Marathon 27 (หนังสั้นมาราธอน 27), at the 27th Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 27), in the Short 27 Awarded Film Screening programme, and at Wildtype Middle Class 2024. It has also been shown in Chiang Mai (most recently in February), Salaya, and Phatthalung. A shorter version of the film—Red Poetry: Verse 1 (เราไป ไหน ได้)—had its premiere at Wildtype 2022.

03 September 2024

Political Mess


Political Mess

The card game Political Mess (การเมืองจิ๋วๆ) was released in 2020 by Wise Box. It’s one of several recent games that satirise Thai politics. Similar card games with political themes include 1-2-3-4-5 I Love Coup, Thai Democracy Timeline Game, and Bangkok’s Big Brother (เราจะทำตามสัญญา).

Political Mess features four characters, illustrated as pixelated figures that evoke 8-bit video game graphics. The characters are based on political groups: a man in army fatigues carrying a rifle (representing coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha), a man wearing orange (the colour of the Future Forward party, which relaunched as Move Forward), a man with a whistle (a reference to Suthep Thaugsuban, leader of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee), and a man in a red shirt using a loudhailer (as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship protesters are known as red-shirts).

02 September 2024

1-2-3-4-5 I Love Coup


1-2-3-4-5 I Love Coup

The card game 1-2-3-4-5 I Love Coup, from Thai game designers Vanta Studio, was released in 2022, and an expansion pack—the Choc Mint Edition—was added last year. The game is a satire of Thai politics since the 2014 coup, and the Choc Mint update features cards based on the 2023 election and its aftermath. The box art shows the military comandeering Democracy Monument and using it as a tank.

The title is a pun on the Bottom Blues song 12345 I Love You, which also inspired the student protest slogan ‘12345 ai hia Tu’. (Ai hia is a strong insult, and Tu is coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha’s nickname.) The game’s logo, 1•2•III•4•5 I♥COUP, uses Roman numerals for the number ‘3’, in a reference to the three-finger salute adopted by the protest movement.

Satirical Games


There are a few other games based on Thai politics, including the smartphone game Yingluck vs Zombies and the ThaiFight app. Yingluck vs Zombies, launched in 2014, features former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra fending off zombie versions of Suthep Thaugsuban and Abhisit Vejjajiva, in a zombified recreation of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee protests. ThaiFight, developed by Supasheep Srijumnong in 2013, is a fighting game with characters based on Thai politicians and celebrities.

Yingluck vs Zombies Coconut Empire

There are also two Thai games, designed to be downloaded and printed out, that make visual reference to specific political events: the board game Coconut Empire, created by Wipaphan Wongsawang in 2018, and the card game Bangkok’s Big Brother (เราจะทำตามสัญญา), released by iLaw in 2016. The downloadable version of Coconut Empire, for example, included symbols such as a folding chair, in reference to the Neal Ulevich photograph of the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University. But the later commercial release of the game was more generic in its satire.

The game that most resembles 1-2-3-4-5 I Love Coup is Thai Democracy Timeline Game, an online game released by Elect aimed at raising awareness of the democratic process prior to the 2019 election. Promotional copies of a card-game version of Thai Democracy Timeline Game were sent to various institutions, and an updated edition was released before last year’s election. Another card game, Political Mess (การเมืองจิ๋วๆ), was released in 2020 by Wise Box.

Banned Games


Ironically, the Bulgarian video game Tropico 5—in which a fictional coup takes place—was banned in Thailand just a few months after the 2014 Thai coup. Fight of Gods, a Taiwanese video game in which players fight against characters based on religious figures including Buddha, was banned in Thailand in 2017.

More recently, promotional copies of the Thai card game Patani Colonial Territory were seized by police in Yala province on 28th November 2022, and the game’s public release was subsequently cancelled by its developer, Chachiluk. Patani Colonial Territory was designed as an educational tool, to provoke discussion about the contested history of the Patani region.

01 September 2024

Quote of the day…


Quote of the day

“His movies cannot help us.”
— Surapong Suebwonglee

Today sees the return of Dateline Bangkok’s ‘quote of the day’ feature, an occasional series of I-can’t-believe-they-said-that quotes from Thailand. Surapong Suebwonglee, deputy chair of the Thailand Creative Culture Agency, was asked about director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s potential impact on the country’s soft power, though his reply was surprisingly dismissive: “He’s one of the top artists in the world... But if we think about soft power as an economic tool to help us to get out of the middle-income trap and become a high-income country, his movies cannot help us.”

Surapong was interviewed by Max Crosbie-Jones for an article published on the Nikkei Asia website yesterday. His comments echo those of Ladda Tangsuppachai, a Ministry of Culture official who dismissed Apichatpong’s work in 2007: “Nobody goes to see films by Apichatpong... Thai people want to see comedy. We like a laugh.” Unfortunately, it seems that the state’s attitude towards Thailand’s most acclaimed and influential artist has barely improved in the intervening seventeen years.

Quotes of the day from yesteryear: a government spokesperson insisted that coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha didn’t consider himself above the law, Prayut claimed to “respect democracy” barely a fortnight after his coup, and admitted that the army still used GT200 devices after they were exposed as a hoax, a yellow-shirt leader said that Thailand should be more like North Korea, the Information and Communication Technology Minister openly admitted to violating the Computer Crime Act, Suthep Thaugsuban hypocritically condemned protesters for blocking roads, and an Election Commission spokesman claimed that an election would lead to a coup.

30 August 2024

บทปราศรัยคัดสรรคดี 112
(‘speeches on 112’)



A student has received a three-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, after being found guilty of lèse-majesté for attempting to distribute copies of a booklet, บทปราศรัยคัดสรรคดี 112 (‘speeches on 112’). The booklet, published by the United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration, features a collection of speeches calling for the abolition of the lèse-majesté law, which is article 112 of the Thai criminal code.

The graduate student, whose name has not been released, was accused of carrying a box containing copies of the booklet at a Naresuan University commencement ceremony on 30th December 2021. Police confiscated all copies before they could be handed out to anyone attending the event. (Copies had previously been distributed at Three Kings Monument Square in Chiang Mai, and at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.) The student was sentenced yesterday, though the booklet itself has not been banned from publication.

Strangely Real


Strangely Real
Flag: Comet/May 1992

The Strangely Real group exhibition at Noble Play in Bangkok opened on 19th August and runs until 26th September. The exhibition includes Kanya Charoensupkul’s Flag: Comet/May 1992 (ธง ดาวหาง/พฤษภาคม 2535), one of a series of acrylic flag paintings capturing her emotional reactions—primarily melancholy and hopelessness—to the events of ‘Black May’ in 1992.

Strangely Real also features an installation by Tawee Ratchaneekorn, Prison (คุก) which, as the label describes rather euphemistically, “reflects the stringent laws of the Thai state, particularly in crowd control during political expressions, stemming from long-standing political issues.” (Prison was created for Tawee’s Bangkok Art and Culture Centre retrospective, and is the artist’s commentary on the state suppression of student protests over the past few years.)

29 August 2024

“To invite the Democrat Party to join the government...”


Democracy Monument

Pheu Thai announced on 27th August that the Palang Pracharath Party will be excluded from the governing coalition when a new cabinet is finalised next month, to be replaced by the opposition Democrats. Thaksin Shinawatra’s daughter Paetongtarn became Prime Minister on 16th August, though PPRP leader Prawit Wongsuwan was absent from parliament when MPs voted her into office. Prawit also failed to attend parliament for the vote to appoint Paetongtarn’s predecessor, Srettha Thavisin, and he was rumoured to be behind the petition to the Constitutional Court that resulted in Srettha’s dismissal.

Prawit’s conflict with the Thaksin family runs deep, though more recently he has also fallen out with Thammanat Prompao, a fellow PPRP member (and convicted heroin smuggler). Thammanat was Minister of Agriculture in Srettha’s government, but Prawit nominated another MP, Santi Promphat, to replace him in the new Paetongtarn cabinet. This caused a rift within PPRP, and the party split into two rival factions led respectively by Prawit and Thammanat. At a press conference on 27th August, Thammanat made it clear that his relationship with Prawit had broken down, saying: “It’s time for me to declare my freedom.”

On the surface, it appears that Thaksin now has the upper hand: his daughter is PM, creating a Shinawatra dynasty, and his long-standing enemy, Prawit, has been marginalised. But Paetongtarn is now exposed to the same potential fate as previous Pheu Thai prime ministers: being toppled by a military coup or disqualified by the Constitutional Court. (Yingluck Shinawatra was deposed by the 2014 coup, which was allegedly organised by Prawit.) Also, PPRP’s place in the coalition was almost certainly part of a deal struck with the military, allowing Thaksin to return from self-imposed exile, and reneging on this arrangement will be viewed by the military establishment as highly provocative.

Yesterday, in an open letter, Pheu Thai wrote: “we would like to invite the Democrat Party to join the government and work together in running the country for the benefit of the people.” (In 2008, after PTP’s previous incarnation, the People Power Party, was dissolved, the Democrats formed an unelected government that oversaw the military massacre of pro-Thaksin supporters in 2010.) Pheu Thai voters who felt betrayed when the party initially welcomed PPRP into the coalition will surely feel equally let down by yesterday’s invitation to the Democrats.

23 August 2024

The 8th Silent Film Festival in Thailand


The 8th Silent Film Festival in Thailand

The 8th Silent Film Festival in Thailand (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์เงียบ ประเทศไทย ครั้งที่ 8) will take place next month at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, from 6th to 8th September. The event marks both the tenth anniversary of the Silent Film Festival, which began in 2014, and the fortieth anniversary of the Film Archive, which was founded in 1984.

Highlights include rare 35mm screenings of two Yasujiro Ozu comedies, I Was Born, But... (大人の見る絵本 生れてはみたけれど) and Tokyo Chorus (東京の合唱). The programme also features two horror films from Sweden: The Phantom Carriage (Körkarlen) and the bizarre cult movie Witchcraft Through the Ages (Häxan). (The Phantom Carriage was a significant influence on Ingmar Bergman, and also inspired a famous sequence in The Shining.)

One of the most iconic of all silent films, A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune) by Georges Méliès, will also be shown. (It has been screened in Thailand several times before: at the International Heritage Film Festival in 2015, at La Fête in 2012—in its hand-painted colour version—and at the 5th World Film Festival of Bangkok in 2007.)

Witchcraft Through the Ages will be shown on 6th September, The Phantom Carriage on 7th September, and A Trip to the Moon on 8th September, all with piano accompaniment by Matti Bye. Mie Yanashita will provide piano accompaniment for I Was Born, But... on 7th September and Tokyo Chorus on 8th September.

19 August 2024

Tectonism:
Architecture for the Twenty-First Century



In a 2009 issue of Architectural Digest (vol. 79, no. 4), Patrik Schumacher grandly announced “the enunciation of a new style: Parametricism.” His article, Parametricism: A New Global Style for Architecture and Urban Design, even argued that this new architectural style was the successor to the Modernist movement: “Parametricism is the great new style after modernism.”

Schumacher’s book Tectonism: Architecture for the Twenty-First Century, published last year, introduces another new ‘ism’—tectonism—which is apparently a revised version of parametricism: “tectonism is classified here as a subsidiary style within the the overarching epochal style of parametricism. Tectonism is a logical continuation and refinement of earlier stages of parametricism, such as foldism, blobism, and swarmism.”

It’s hard to take Schumacher and his self-proclaimed epochal movements seriously. He makes sweeping, grandiose claims—“Tectonism is the most advanced and most sophisticated contemporary architectural style”—that have no real foundation, and he believes that parametricism/tectonism should become a global architectural hegemony: “The plurality of styles must make way for a sweeping parametricism”.

14 August 2024

Constitutional Court:
“The accused is terminated as prime minister...”


Democracy Monument

The Constitutional Court has ruled, by a slim majority of 5–4, that Srettha Tavisin must resign as Prime Minister. The verdict comes after a petition to the court by a group of forty senators linked to Prawit Wongsuwan, calling for an investigation into Srettha’s appointment of Pichit Chuenban, Thaksin Shinawatra’s disgraced former lawyer, as Prime Minister’s Office Minister. In its judgement, the court said: “The accused is terminated as prime minister due to his lack of honesty”.

Pichit was jailed for six months in 2008 after blatantly attempting to bribe a judge on Thaksin’s behalf with ฿2 million in cash. Srettha was found guilty of violating article 160 of the constitution, which states that government ministers must “not have behaviour which is a serious violation of or failure to comply with ethical standards”, which would indeed seem to apply in Pichit’s case. (The court has made exceptions in the past, however: it ruled that Thammanat Prompao was qualified as a minister in the 2019 military-backed government despite his criminal record for heroin smuggling, as he was convicted outside Thailand.)

When Thaksin returned from self-imposed exile last year, it seemed that he and the military had reached a mutually beneficial arrangement: in return for excluding Move Forward from government, Thaksin’s criminal convictions would be waived. But the military giveth and taketh away: Thaksin has been wrong-footed several times, and every act of leniency granted to him has come with strings attached. He was released on parole, yet the very next day he faced a lèse-majesté charge. His application for a royal pardon was accepted, though it only partially commuted his prison sentence. Junta-appointed senators endorsed Srettha as PM, though now Srettha has been disqualified.

Move Forward was dissolved by the Constitutional Court last week, making the military less reliant on Thaksin, hence today’s verdict. In fact, over the past two decades, the Constitutional Court and the military have wielded significantly more political power than elected governments. Srettha himself was not elected, becoming PM only after the Senate refused to vote for the election winner, Pita Limjaroenrat. Nevertheless, he is now the fourth prime minister allied with Thaksin to be disqualified by the court, after Samak Sundaravej, Somchai Wongsawat, and Yingluck Shinawatra.

11 August 2024

Godzilla Film Festival Thailand 2024


Godzilla Film Festival Thailand 2024

Godzilla Film Festival Thailand 2024 (ゴジラ フィルム フェスティバル タイランド 2024), a three-day mini Godzilla retrospective (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์ก็อดซิลล่า 2024), will take place at Paragon Cineplex in Bangkok between 30th August and 1st September. The event includes daily screenings of Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla (ゴジラ), the film that not only initiated the Godzilla franchise seventy years ago but also created Japan’s kaiju-eiga (monster movie) subgenre.

The plot of Godzilla was loosely adapted from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, though Godzilla’s ‘suitmation’ special effects are more primitive: a man in a suit crushing miniature buildings. Conveniently, Godzilla is a nocturnal creature, with the darkness helping to camouflage some of the more crude effects. The night scenes are highly atmospheric, and add to the film’s bleak, sombre tone. King Kong is another substantial influence, with Godzilla and Kong having equally tragic endings.

Godzilla

As in many other cryptozoological science-fiction films of the 1950s, Godzilla is a metaphor for the dangers of nuclear weapons, with the monster disturbed by atomic bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean. Godzilla is less sensationalist than its American equivalents, though, and ends with an explicit warning: “if we continue conducting nuclear tests, it’s possible that another Godzilla might appear somewhere in the world again”.

Godzilla was one of the very first films shown at Bangkok Screening Room in 2016, part of the venue’s inaugural programme of Asian and Hollywood classics. It was also shown at the 22nd Open Air Film Festival (เทศกาลหนังกลางแปลงศิลปากรครั้งที่ 22) earlier that year.