Bangkok Through Poster 2024Thailand Postlitical Fiction

The fifth annual Bangkok Through Poster exhibition opened at Kinjai Contemporary in Bangkok yesterday. This year’s theme is Thailand Postlitical Fiction: poster designs for imaginary movies commenting on Thai politics.

A handful of posters in the exhibition refer to past political violence. One example is a spoof horror film titled Cursed Siam (สาปสยาม) by Canyouhearcloud, referencing the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University. Two posters refer to the 2010 crackdown at Ratchaprasong: All the Light We Can(not) See by Wonderwhale Studio (which uses candles to represent the red-shirt victims), and Animal Sanctuary by Chonlatorn Wongrussamee (which emphasises the killing of wounded protesters sheltering at Wat Pathum Wanaram). Two posters—More Conceal, More Reveal (ยิ่งปกปิด ยิ่งเปิดเผย) by Deepend Studio, and Unfortunately by Njorvks—highlight former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s statement that “unfortunately, some people died” at Ratchaprasong. Kawinnate Konklong’s short film Unfortunately (แค่วันที่โชคร้าย), released last year, also refers to Abhisit’s dismissive comment.

Most of the posters, however, focus on more recent events. Thaksin Shinawatra and his daughter Paetongtarn (the current Prime Minister) are the most common theme, featuring on ten posters: The Missing (You Too Much) (ผมคิดถึงคุณ) by Setthawuth K. (a spoof of The Shining), The Chair of the Promise Land [sic] by Genji Kun, The Zone of Shinnawatra [sic] by Nam.Ni.Ang, The Successor by Gaw Chutima, Hereditary by Kritsaran Hanamonset, The Loop by Thalufah, The Invisible Storm by Antizeptic, The Landslider by Sina Wittayawiroj (a diptych inspired by The Lobster), and Closing the Scenes (ปิดฉาก) by Thiraphon Singlor.

The student protest movement inspired almost as many posters as the Shinawatras, including Chorn Yuan’s A Smile. There are two that refer to 16th October 2020, when riot police used water cannon to disperse protesters at Siam Square: 16 10 63 by PrachathipaType, and Sky Flood, Stars Fall (น้ำท่วมฟ้า ปลากินดาว) by Tnop Design. Panita Siriwongwan-ngarm’s Here at Din Daeng Police Station, a Boy Named Varit Died (ที่นี่ (สน.ดินแดง) มีคน ตาย ชื่อ ด.ช.วาฤทธิ์) honours a 15-year-old boy who was shot at a protest in 2021.

Protest leader Arnon Nampa appears in two posters: The Lawyer Devil (ทนายปีศาจ) by Shake and Bake Studio, and The Letter (จดหมายรัก) by Tanis Werasakwong (known as Sa-ard). The Letter refers to letters he wrote to his family from prison, as does Vichart Somkaew’s short film The Letter from Silence (จดหมายจากความเงียบ), released this year. Arnon’s fellow protest leader Parit Chirawak features in The Penguin 112 by director Chaweng Chaiyawan (a reference to Parit’s nickname and the lèse-majesté charges he faces).

Article 112 also inspired perhaps the strongest poster in the exhibition, Pssyppl’s Lèse-majesté, which depicts blue figures strangling red ones with nooses, a comment on the maliciousness and severity of Lèse-majesté prosecutions. Bangkok Through Poster 2024 runs until 22nd December.

Please... See Us

Chaweng Chaiyawan’s Please... See Us (หว่างีมอละ) will be screened tomorrow at Maejo University in Chiang Mai as part of a double bill of Chaweng’s short films. Please... See Us is a powerful and transgressive film, and ends with an extended sequence in which a pig is killed and dismembered, the helpless animal being a tragic metaphor for the plight of ethnic minorities in Thailand.

The film was shown at Chiang Mai University ealier this year, and at a Chaweng retrospective in Phattalung. It had an outdoor screening in Chiang Mai last year. It has been screened twice at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok, in 2021 and 2023. It was shown in Phayao as part of Wildtype 2021, and in Salaya at the 25th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 25).

Sarit Thanarat

Sarit Thanarat, military prime minister during the Cold War, died in December 1963. After his death, the floodgates opened, and exposés of his love life were rushed into print. His lovenest was a private residence nicknamed the ‘pink palace’ (วิมานสีชมพู), and this was the title of a Sarit biography published in 1964, which included a dossier of photographs of Sarit’s alleged lovers. Several erotic novels of the period, including แม่ม่ายผ้าขะม้าแดง (‘red-headed widow’), were also thinly-veiled portrayals of Sarit’s mistresses.

Almost fifty years later, the phrase ‘pink palace’ was censored by Channel 3 when it broadcast the lakorn คุณชายพุฒิภัทร (‘khun Chai Puttipat’) on 5th May 2013. In the third episode, a former military general played by Montree Jenuksorn (who slightly resembles Sarit) discussed his ‘pink palace’, though the sound was muted, presumably to avoid any possibility of a libel suit from Sarit’s descendents. (The novel on which the drama was based refers to Sarit more obliquely.)

Potential defamation also prevented director Banjong Kosallawat from making a planned Sarit biopic in 2002, which was to have been titled จอมพล (‘marshal’). Sarit did feature briefly in the horror movie Zee Oui (ซี-อุย), ordering the swift execution of the murderous title character for political expediency. And Sarit’s statue looms ominously over the characters in Song of the City, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s segment of the portmanteau film Ten Years Thailand.

After Sarit led a coup in 1957, he was portrayed as a hero by pliant newspaper cartoonists. One example of such propaganda showed Sarit cradling a rescued child in his arms, returning the boy (who represents the Thai people) to his grateful mother. In contrast, a July 1958 cartoon in the liberal ประชาชน (‘people’) newspaper depicted Sarit as a monkey wrapping his tail possessively around Democracy Monument. Sixty years later, in the wake of the 2014 coup, Sarit satire was too sensitive, and the Guerrilla Boys self-censored their mural Junta Connection (วิ่งผลัดเผด็จการ), which originally depicted Sarit passing his (literal) baton of dictatorship to Prayut Chan-o-cha.

Art and Culture (ศิลปวัฒนธรรม) magazine analysed cartoonists’ caricatures of Sarit (vol. 43, no. 1), and the journal Same Sky (ฟ้าเดียวกัน) examined the lurid books published shortly after his death (vol. 20, no. 2). Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the portrayal of Sarit in Thai films.

Dateline Bangkok

2025 is just around the corner, and it marks Dateline Bangkok’s twentieth year online. It’s hard to imagine, but back when this blog began back in 2005, Thaksin Shinawatra was prime minister (whatever happened to him...?), Siam Paragon and Suvarnabhumi airport weren’t open yet, and Moo Deng hadn’t been born.

The past two decades have been a period of political polarisation, with coups in 2006 and 2014, and violent crackdowns on protesters in 2010. Perhaps the most jaw-dropping political moment in recent memory came in 2019, when a Thaksin proxy party attempted to nominate Princess Ubolratana as prime minister. Sadly, the cycle of street protests, judicial overreach, and military intervention is likely to continue.

On the other hand, I have fond memories of many film events, including a marathon 24-hour programme of short films over a single weekend in 2018, various clandestine screenings of controversial films, and the World Class Cinema (ทึ่ง! หนังโลก) seasons at the much-missed Scala cinema. And did I really fly to Singapore in 2019 just to see one twenty-minute Thai film?!

There have been plenty of cultural highlights over the last twenty years. My joint favourites are Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ), which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010, and Rap Against Dictatorship’s anthemic single My Country Has (ประเทศกูมี), which was released in 2018 and instantly went viral online.

On a personal note, Thai Cinema Uncensored, published in 2020, told the full story of Thai film censorship for the first time. Dateline Bangkok’s archive now contains thousands of articles about films, books, art, media, music, censorship, and politics. The average number of readers is around 1,000 per day, and if you’re reading this, you’re one of them, so thank you very much!

somethingELSEBack to the Future

Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s short drama The Physical Realm (ภูมิกายา) will be shown at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok tomorrow, in the second of a series of screenings organised by ELSE. The theme of the somethingELSE programme is Back to the Future.

The Physical Realm had its Thai premiere almost exactly a year ago, at the 27th Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 27). It was also shown in Chiang Rai earlier this year at the Thailand Biennale. It will be screened at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya on 22nd December in a reprise of the Best of Short 27 (โปรแกรมผลงานชนะรางวัลจากเทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 27) programme.

28th Short Film and Video Festival

The Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน) concluded two days ago, and the 28th Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 28) will take place from 14th to 22nd December at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya. This annual festival, founded in 1997, is Thailand’s longest-running film event, providing a unique showcase for independent filmmakers.

Of the short films in competition, the highlights include Komtouch Napattaloong’s No Exorcism Film, screening on 14th December, and Jarut Wisawong’s Twas Partly Love, and Partly Fear on 21st December. Both films were previously shown at Wildtype 2024.

The documentary film competition includes Vichart Somkaew’s The Letter from Silence (จดหมายจากความเงียบ) on 14th December. The documentary strand also features two feature-length films showing in competition that were not part of the online Marathon, as they are politically sensitive: Uruphong Raksasad’s Paradox Democracy on 14th December, and Thunska Pansittivorakul’s Damnatio Memoriae (ไม่พึงปรารถนา) on 15th December.

Damnatio Memoriae premiered at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in South Korea earlier this year. The film is a collage of found footage, though it also includes the director’s trademark explicit content, with a political subtext.

Paradox Democracy—whose title has echoes of Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s Paradoxocracy (ประชาธิป'ไทย)—is the third in a series of documentaries by Uruphong about the recent student protest movement. The first two films in the trilogy are You Fucked with the Wrong Generation (made for television, but not broadcast) and Songs of Angry People.

Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s short drama The Physical Realm (ภูมิกายา), one of the award winners from last year’s Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 27), will be shown on 22nd December in a reprise of the Best of Short 27 (โปรแกรมผลงานชนะรางวัลจากเทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 27) programme. It will also be shown at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok tomorrow.

Skyline FilmPulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction will be screened on the rooftop of River City Bangkok on 27th December, as part of a regular programme of monthly outdoor screenings organised by Skyline Film. Quentin Tarantino’s classic was previously shown at House Samyan this year, at Neighbourhood last year, at House and Bangkok Screening Room in 2019, and at Cinema Winehouse in 2018 and 2015.

Hits Me Movies... One More Time (vol. 2)

As the end of the year approaches, there’s an opportunity to catch up on the films you may have missed at House Samyan in Bangkok. The cinema is bringing back its most popular films of the year in December, in a programme called Hits Me Movies... One More Time. (Yes, the name is a pun on the Britney Spears single.) This year is vol. 2, as the format began last year, with encore screenings of Oppenheimer, Past Lives, and other hits from 2023.

This year’s programme runs from 12th December to New Year’s Day, and highlights include the Thai documentary Breaking the Cycle (อำนาจ ศรัทธา อนาคต) showing from 12th to 16th December; and the Greek ‘Weird Wave’ drama Dogtooth (Κυνόδοντας) on Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. (Breaking the Cycle went on general release in May. Dogtooth was shown at House Samyan in August, at the Chulalongkorn International Film Festival in 2011, and at the Bangkok International Film Festival in 2009.)

Arcadia Rooftop Cinema Enter the Dragon

Bangkok’s Arcadia bar continues its Sunday night cult film screenings on 1st December with Enter the Dragon, featuring Bruce Lee in his most famous role. Previous titles in the open-air Arcadia Rooftop Cinema programme have included 2001, Die Hard, Un chien andalou (‘an Andalusian dog’), Videodrome, Alien, Akira (アキラ), and the venue’s signature film, Blade Runner.

Bangkok Breaking: Heaven and Hell

Kongkiat Khomsiri’s Netflix series Bangkok Breaking—a drama about rivalries among the EMS ‘body snatchers’ who transport accident victims to hospital—was released in 2021. Earlier this year, he adapted the series into a film, Bangkok Breaking: Heaven and Hell (ฝ่านรกเมืองเทวดา), which is also streaming on Netflix.

The film’s prologue is probably its most effective sequence. A slum neighbourhood has been purchased by the corrupt head of an EMS foundation, who has plans to redevelop it into luxury accommodation. The residents protest against their eviction, and are brutally beaten by riot police with batons. A TV reporter at the scene tells her audience: “The city is in chaos. It’s like a battlefield here.”

The scene—filmed on an impressive outdoor set without GCI—escalates as protesters, and even monks who have joined the demonstration, are shot dead by police snipers. A news bulletin reports that “the police fired real bullets at the protesters.” The violence is bloody, and a reminder that Kongkiat also directed the intense thriller Slice (เฉือน).

The protest that opens Heaven and Hell echoes the real-life demonstrations against the military government that took place in Bangkok a few years ago, particularly the violent clashes at Viphavadi Rangsit Road throughout August 2021. In fact, the film even features a protest sign reading “เผด็จการ” (‘dictator’), and one character has “Fuck Government” written on his chest.

If Kongkiat’s film had received a theatrical release, it would potentially have been censored for its depiction of police killing protesters with live bullets. Film censorship was controlled by the police department from 1972—following a decree by Thanom Kittikachorn’s junta—until the Film and Video Act of 2008. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the severe restrictions imposed on films portraying the police.)

Paetongtarn Shinawatra:“I feel relieved and happy...”

The Constitutional court today declined to investigate former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who had been accused of influencing the governing Pheu Thai Party. A petition to the court made several allegations, including that Thaksin had used his access to Pheu Thai to gain special privileges during his detention in a police hospital, that he ordered Pheu Thai to expel Palang Pracharath from the coalition government, and that he had an undue influence on the selection of the current PM following the removal of Srettha Thavisin.

The court unanimously dismissed these claims, which seems remarkable given that the Prime Minister is Thaksin’s daughter Paetongtarn. (In an interview with Time magazine on 17th April last year, she said: “I’ve always been daddy’s little girl. So I consult with him about almost everything”.) Yet Pheu Thai has somehow avoided the fate of its predecessors Thai Rak Thai, the People Power Party, and Thai Raksa Chart, all of which have been dissolved by the court in previous years.

The court also ruled today that it would not investigate Pheu Thai on sedition charges, although it dissolved the Move Forward Party for sedition earlier this year. Thaksin and Pheu Thai clearly gained brownie points from the military establishment by excluding Move Forward from the ruling coalition last year, and it seems that Thaksin’s political roles—his behind-the-scenes influence and public campaigning—are still being tolerated. This afternoon, after the court’s announcement, a visibly moved Paetongtarn told reporters: “I feel relieved and happy”.

November Action Flicks

Neighbourhood, the Bangkok community mall, is resuming its outdoor film screenings this month, after taking a break during the rainy season. The current programme is billed as November Action Flicks, though it also includes Taxi Driver, which is more of a drama than an action film.

Martin Scorsese’s classic, one of the greatest films of the last fifty years, will be shown on 24th November. It has been screened a few times before in Bangkok: at House Samyan this year and last year, at Bangkok Screening Room in 2019, and at Scala in 2018.

Fragmentary Forms: A New History of Collage

The standard histories of collage as an artistic practice, such as Collage by Brandon Taylor, trace its origins to 1912, and the newspaper cuttings appliquéd to Cubist paintings by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Herta Wescher’s Collage (Die Collage), the definitive work on the subject, discussed nineteenth century examples in addition to the Cubists and their successors. The recent exhibition Cut and Paste antedated the technique by 400 years, though Freya Gowrley’s groundbreaking book Fragmentary Forms: A New History of Collage, published this week, traces the history of collage over thousands of years.

As she writes in her introduction, Gowrley (who contributed to the Cut and Paste exhibition catalogue) “aims to provide a more expansive history of collage than has previously been produced.” The book’s publisher calls it a “global history of collage from the origins of paper to today”, and at 400 pages it lives up to that description. All previous histories of collage have focused entirely on European and American artists, though the scope of Gowrley’s book is truly international, with coverage of collage in Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Again, unlike previous histories of the topic, Fragmentary Forms considers collage not only as fine art, but also examines its role in taxonomic collections, devotional objects, printed ephemera, and domestic craftmaking.

Priyanandana Rangsit v. Nattapoll Chaiching

The Civil Court has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed in 2021 by the aristocrat Priyanandana Rangsit against the historian Nattapoll Chaiching and his publisher, Same Sky Books. Nattapoll is the author of the bestselling ขุนศึก ศักดินา และพญาอินทรี (‘feudal warlords and the eagle’). His earlier book ขอฝันใฝ่ในฝันอันเหลือเชื่อ (‘I dream an incredible dream’) also saw a revival in sales after it was among five titles seized by police from the offices of Same Sky.

On 5th March 2021, aristocrat Priyanandana Rangsit sued Nattapoll and Same Sky for defamation, seeking ฿50 million in damages. According to the lawsuit, Nattapoll’s books incorrectly assert that her grandfather, Prince Rangsit Prayurasakdi, sought an improper political influence over Phibun Songkhram’s government in the 1940s. She argued that this allegation about her long-dead ancestor tarnished her family name, and was thus defamatory to her personally.

Yesterday, the court came to the obvious conclusion that Prince Rangsit, having died in 1951, was not affected by the content of Nattapoll’s books. In the court’s judgement, Priyanandana’s legal case was therefore invalid from the beginning. This ruling is hardly surprising, though more questionable is the fact that it took almost four years for such a spurious case to be dismissed.

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining

Taschen published The Stanley Kubrick Archives as a limited coffee-table book in 2005. Then, in 2009, came their collector’s edition of Kubrick’s Napoleon, limited to 1,000 copies: ten volumes inside one enormous book. Another collector’s edition followed in 2014: the making of Kubrick’s 2001, limited to 1,500 copies in a metal slipcase. Of course, these books were far from cheap, though last year’s collector’s edition on the making of Kubrick’s The Shining (limited to 1,000 copies) cost a prohibitive $1,500 (almost as much as the other three titles combined).

Fortunately, a year after its release, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is now available in a more modest edition, costing around a tenth of the original price. (How times have changed: this version is the same price as the limited edition of The Stanley Kubrick Archives was in 2005.) The new edition consists of two volumes in a slipcase: a book of photographs (many previously unpublished) styled to look like a scrapbook; and The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, a comprehensive account of the film’s production.

The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is credited to both J.W. Rinzler and Lee Unkrich, though Rinzler wrote the majority of the text. During the project’s gestation, there was some confusion around the authorship: Unkrich (a Pixar film director) initially referred to it as his book, without mentioning Rinzler’s input, and then implied that he had hired Rinzler. In fact, Rinzler had begun the manuscript independently, and the two later agreed to collaborate.

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining benefits both from Rinzler’s expertise as a writer of making-of books (such as The Making of Alien), and Unkrich’s passionate interest in The Shining. (He wrote the introduction to Danel Olson’s book, also titled Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.) The original collector’s edition also included supplemental volumes such as a Saul Bass sketchbook and a reproduction of the film’s continuity script.