Bwana Devil (blu-ray)

Bwana Devil, the production that launched a brief vogue for 3D films in the 1950s, will be released on blu-ray this month, making its first appearance on video. Bwana Devil, directed by Arch Oboler, wasn’t the very first 3D movie—the first commercial release in 3D was The Power of Love in 1922—but it was the film that brought 3D into the mainstream.

US cinema attendance peaked in 1946, and quickly decreased, as GIs returning from World War II settled down in the suburbs, started families, and embraced the consumer lifestyle. That same period saw a rapid rise in television ownership, and the film industry sought to differentiate the cinema experience from domestic TV viewing.

Bwana Devil’s Natural Vision 3D process drew curious audiences back to the cinema in 1952, though the film itself is fairly underwhelming. Jack Arnold made more iconic 3D films, It Came from Outer Space and Creature from the Black Lagoon. Even Alfred Hitchcock directed a film in 3D, Dial M for Murder. But the 3D cycle lasted only two years, as widescreen formats (Cinerama and CinemaScope) offered a similarly immersive experience.

Oboler attempted to revive 3D in 1966, with The Bubble, filmed in a less cumbersome process known as Space Vision. (Flesh for Frankenstein utilised the same process.) The popularity of VHS in the early 1980s led to more 3D movies, and the most recent 3D cycle began after the commercial success of Avatar. As in the 1950s, prestige directors were again encouraged to experiment with 3D, hence Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. The intention was to lure viewers away from HD TV and online streaming platforms, though too many films were retrofitted with 3D (Jurassic Park, Toy Story) and ticket prices were too high.

3D, edited by Britt Salvesen, is an excellent history of all forms of 3D imagery. 3-D Movies, by R.M. Hayes, was the first book on stereoscopic cinema.

From Democrazy to ‘Coupocracy’...

One way that artists satirise Thai politics is by punning on the Thai word for democracy itself, ประชาธิปไตย. There have been at least ten Thai puns on ‘democracy’, the most common being Democrazy, first used by the band Heavy Mod as the title of their 1995 album. (That album also includes a track titled ประชาฉิปตาย, which translates as ‘democracy dies’, similar to the “Die mo cracy” t-shirt slogan by Speech Odd.) The short film title Demockrazy (ประชาทิปตาย) includes two puns, while the documentary title Paradoxocracy (ประชาธิป'ไทย) is more long-winded.

The script for the film Nednary (อวสานเนตรนารี) features a pun on Prayut Chan-o-cha’s nickname, “ประชาธิปตู่” (‘Tu-ocracy’). Political commentators have used similar neologisms to explain the status of Thai democracy under various influential prime ministers: Prayutocracy, Thaksinocracy (ทักษิณาธิปไตย; Thaksin Shinawatra), and Premocracy (เปรมาธิปไตย; Prem Tinsulanonda). Most recently, Tyrell Haberkorn coined the term ‘coupocracy’ to describe the period covering the 2006 and 2014 coups.

Censor Must Die

It’s fair to say that director Ing K. has had her battles with the film censors. In an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored, she described the state censorship board as “a bunch of trembling morons with the power of life and death over our films.” Two of her films were banned in Thailand—My Teacher Eats Biscuits (คนกราบหมา) in 1998, and Shakespeare Must Die (เชคสเปียร์ต้องตาย) in 2012—though both bans have recently been lifted.

Ing’s documentary Censor Must Die (เซ็นเซอร์ต้องตาย) shows producer Manit Sriwanichpoom receiving the censor’s initial verdict on Shakespeare Must Die, and follows him as he appeals against the ban at the Ministry of Culture and files a case with the Office of the National Human Rights Commission. (The documentary was made in 2013, though it was another decade before the ban was finally revoked, following a judgement by the Supreme Court.)

Censor Must Die’s most revealing scene takes place at the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture: in the lobby, a TV plays a video demonstrating the traditional Thai method of sitting in a polite and respectful manner. The video encapsulates the Ministry’s didactic and outdated interpretation of Thai culture, and it was parodied by the mock instructional video “How to Behave Elegantly Like a Thai” in Sorayos Prapapan’s film Arnold Is a Model Student (อานนเป็นนักเรียนตัวอย่าง).

The documentary premiered at the Freedom on Film (สิทธิหนังไทย) seminar in 2013, was shown a few months later at the Thai Film Archive, and had private screenings at Silpakorn University and the Friese-Greene Club. This week, Censor Must Die returns to Cinema Oasis, the cinema Ing and Manit founded in Bangkok, screening on 25th, 26th, 27th, and 28th July. It was most recently shown there in May.

Journey... Blood... 2011–2013

The Thai punk/grindcore band Blood Soaked Street of Social Decay released the album Journey... Blood... 2011–2013 on CD in 2013. Like their cassette EP 2013, the CD’s cover image shows victims of Thai military violence. The compilation includes the band’s entire back catalogue, from their first release เ​ด​โ​ม ๒​๕​๕​๔ (‘demo 2011’, with an under-construction Democracy Monument on its cover) to อีพี ๒๕๕๖ (‘EP 2013’, reissued as a tenth anniversary CD last year).

Most tracks are blistering criticisms of Thai state institutions, including the monkhood, the Constitutional Court, and the government. Gun in Hand Military Fucking Shoot People (หัวควยถือปืน), for example, was recorded in 2012 in response to the 2010 massacre in downtown Bangkok, and the song’s music video features news footage of the event. The band’s other music videos are rapid-fire slideshows of political imagery: กฏระยำ, released on 6th October 2011, has photographs of the 14th October 1973 and 6th October 1976 massacres; and ตายทั้งสภา, from 2013, has satirical memes of Yingluck Shinawatra and other politicians.

Members of the band were arrested in 2018 after they burnt posters of coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha at the จะ4ปีแล้วนะ (‘4 years already’) concert. They also played at another anti-coup concert, BNK44, later that year.

“...destabilize the socio-political situation in Russia.”

A novel about a zombie apocalypse has been banned in Russia, after Roskomnadzor—the state media regulator—accused its author of attempting to “destabilize the socio-political situation in Russia.” The book, Мышь (‘mouse’) by Ivan Philippov, is a dystopian satire in which a medical facility has been created to develop a serum allowing President Vladimir Putin to prolong his death: “Хотя бы до 120 лет Владимир Владимирович дожить бы очень хотел. И денег на опыты он не пожалеет” (‘Putin would love to reach 120 years old, and will spare no expense in funding experiments to make this possible’).

A mouse infected with the serum escapes from the secret laboratory, spreading a virus that turns Russian citizens into zombies. The novel was published last year by Freedom Letters, based outside Russia, which specialises in Russian-language literature that would be banned if it were submitted to Russian censors.

Procession of Dystopia

Procession of Dystopia is the result of a collaboration by three artists from different disciplines—author Kanatorn Khaosanit, director Wattanapume Laisuwanchai, and composer Khetsin Chuchan—whose works complement and influence each other. Kanathorn’s short story Let Them See Us, Let Them Fear Us, Our Love Is a Rebellion They Cannot Crush takes place in a dystopian future in which (as in George Orwell’s 1984), love is illegal. This inspired Wattanapume’s two-channel video installation and the sound design by Khetsin that accompanies it.

In Wattanapume’s video The Body Craves Impact as Love Bursts (ร่างกายอยากปะทะ เพราะรักมันปะทุ), images of a man and woman are shown on two sheets suspended on ropes, tantalisingly close and facing each other, yet separated. As the director explains in his artist’s statement, the installation was made in solidarity with the rapper Elevenfinger, who is serving a prison sentence for possession of ping-pong bombs used in anti-government protests: “Throughout the trial, I became acquainted with his girlfriend, who, like him, was an active member of the Thalugaz group, fighting for democracy... I have visited him and witnessed the despair not only affecting him and his partner but also their families and relatives. This situation mirrors the plight of other political prisoners”.

The video ends dramatically with flashing images and footage of fireworks, filmed at Thalugaz protests in 2021. Dry ice is pumped into the gallery, simulating the tear gas used by riot police to control the demonstrators. At this point, the audio created by Khetsin, Garden of Insignificant Things (สวนสิ่งไม่สำคัญ), features the sounds of fireworks exploding and rubber bullets fired by riot police. Khetsin’s ironic title is similar to that of Tanwarin Sukkhapisit’s film Insects in the Backyard (อินเซคอินเดอะแบ็คยาร์ด).

Procession of Dystopia opened at Bangok Art and Culture Centre on 2nd July, and closes today. The gallery’s bland introduction to the exhibition doesn’t mention politics or protesters, referring only euphemistically to “contemporary issues and situations”.

Finist the Brave Falcon

A Russian playwright and theatre director were sentenced to six years in a penal colony yesterday, after being found guilty of justifying terrorism. The charges relate to the play Finist the Brave Falcon (Финист Ясный сокол), written by Svetlana Petriichuk and directed by Zhenya Berkovich, in which a Russian woman marries an Islamic State fighter in Syria.

Berkovich and Petriichuk were arrested in Moscow more than a year ago, and have been held in custody ever since. They faced a maximum of seven years in prison, and their six-year sentence takes into account the time they have already spent in detention while awaiting trial. Both women pleaded not guilty, and plan to appeal the verdict. The award-winning play, whose title comes from a Russian folk tale, was first performed in 2019.

“IT’S THE SUN WOT WON IT”?

When Donald Trump was convicted of falsifying business records to conceal his hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the next day’s newspaper headlines were almost unanimous: “GUILTY”. The exception was the New York Post: of all the major US newspapers, the Post was the only one to criticise the verdict, and its front page headline on 31st May was “INJUSTICE”.

The Post’s proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, supported Trump’s presidency, albeit through gritted teeth: he was quoted calling Trump a “fucking idiot” in Michael Wolf’s Fire and Fury. Murdoch’s Fox News acted as a Trump mouthpiece, even knowingly broadcasting false conspiracy theories about ‘rigging’ the 2020 election. Tucker Carlson, one of Fox’s highest-profile presenters, dismissed Trump in private—as revealed in emails disclosed before the Dominion Voting Systems defamation trial—yet endorsed him on the air.

After the 2022 midterms, Murdoch seemed to distance himself from Trump. The Post ridiculed him as “TRUMPTY DUMPTY” on its 10th November 2022 front page. Six days later, it denied Trump what he craves most—publicity—by relegating his declaration that he was running for re-election to a single line at the bottom of the page: “FLORIDA MAN MAKES ANNOUNCEMENT”.

Yet Trump continues to dominate the Republican party, hence the Post’s recent olive branch “INJUSTICE” headline. Murdoch is motivated by profit and political influence: the ‘Trump bump’ (the increase in clicks and subscribers caused by Trump news coverage) is hard to resist, and there’s an increasing likelihood of Trump winning this year’s US election. (Trump’s CNN debate with Joe Biden on 28th March was disastrous for Biden.)

In the UK, The Sun—also owned by Murdoch—has backed the winning party in every election since 1979, giving it a long-standing reputation for influencing public opinion. But the reality is that Murdoch knows which way the wind is blowing, and The Sun switches its allegiances accordingly, reflecting the prevailing mood rather than manipulating it.

The Sun endorsed the Conservatives in the 1979, 1983, 1987, 2010, 2015, 2017, and 2019 elections, and in each case the party had a significant lead in the opinion polls. After much effort by Tony Blair, he received The Sun’s endorsement in the run-up to the 1997 election—the 18th March 1997 headline was “THE SUN BACKS BLAIR”—but by that point Labour’s victory was already a foregone conclusion. Similarly, The Sun backed Blair and Labour in 2001 and 2005 as the party was ahead in the polls.

After the 1992 election, The Sun famously took credit for the Conservative victory with the headline “IT’S THE SUN WOT WON IT” (11th April 1992). Exceptionally, the paper had endorsed the Conservatives despite Labour’s lead in the opinion polls, but the self-congratulatory headline was hardly justified. Labour’s lead was very slight, and pollsters are aware that Conservative voters are generally less likely to admit their voting preference. Unlike 1997—and 2024—there wasn’t an overwhelming desire for change in 1992.

MRP polls have predicted a historic Labour landslide in today’s election. (The most damning polls for the Tories have been those commissioned by The Daily Telegraph, which predicted a “wipeout” on 15th January and 20th June.) Although the six-week election campaign was disastrous for the Conservatives, it was only on election day itself that The Sun came out in favour of Starmer. The paper’s support is fairly lukewarm, with a headline calling for a “NEW MANAGER” (a football pun) without naming either Labour leader Keir Starmer or the Labour party directly, in contrast to its enthusiastic endorsement of Blair in 1997. Like Blair, Starmer has courted The Sun during the election campaign, but although newspapers still set the news agenda, they don’t determine election outcomes.

While their influence on party politics is limited, newspapers have more impact on single-issue politics, especially when they cover an issue over an extended period of time. The News of the World’s exposés of Conservative ministers’ sex scandals contrasted with the party’s ‘back to basics’ slogan in the 1990s. The Daily Telegraph’s long-running coverage of the MPs’ expenses scandal in 2009 revealed significant levels of corruption in public office. There is also a pernicious influence: Euroscepticism founded on what Tim Shipman calls “the ‘straight bananas’ school of reporting from Brussels” (invented by Boris Johnson in the 1990s), leading to regular anti-immigration headlines in the Daily Express and Daily Mail that fuel right-wing populism and xenophobia.

The 12-Hour Film Expert:Everything You Need to Know about Movies

The 12-Hour Film Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Movies, by brothers Noah and James Charney, has a reductivist title, but the book itself is a reasonably detailed history of American cinema. On the other hand, foreign-language films are squeezed into a single chapter, which the writers admit—and demonstrate—“is well-nigh impossible to do”.

The book is organised into twelve chapters, each of which begins with a list of a few key films, “the most important ones to watch.” An appendix, The Movie Playlist, lists further genres and subgenres, each with twelve recommended films. At the end of the Playlist, the “rule of twelve” gives way to a list of directors from various countries outside the US, each represented by their best-known films.

There’s a general emphasis on more recent films, and there are some odd omissions: numerous genres, such as war, gangster films, period dramas, documentaries, and animation, are excluded. Stanley Kubrick’s films are conspicuously absent from any of the book’s lists.

These are the twelve chapters and their key films:

The Invention of the Movies —

• A Trip to the Moon
• The Great Train Robbery

The Golden Age of Silent Movies —

• The Gold Rush
• Sunrise

Classic Hollywood —

• Casablanca
• Citizen Kane

The Western —

• Stagecoach
• The Searchers
• Red River

Film Noir —

• Double Indemnity
• Out of the Past
• Touch of Evil
• Chinatown

Comedy —

• Bringing up Baby
• Airplane!
• When Harry Met Sally

Musicals —

• Top Hat
• Singin’ in the Rain
• Moulin Rouge!

Suspense —

• The Wages of Fear
• The Birds
• The Italian Job

Horror —

• Cat People
• Halloween
• The Babadook

Action —

• The Bourne Identity
• Nobody
• Run Lola Run

Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Superhero Films —

• X-Men
• Star Wars IV–VI
• The Lord of the Rings I–III
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

International Art House —

• Bicycle Thieves
• Seven Samurai
• Nostalghia

The Movie Book (2nd edition)

The Movie Book was first published in 2015 as a guide to the most influential films from cinema history: “The movies gathered here are those that the authors feel... to have had the most seismic impact on both cinema and the world.” The book was written by a team of authors (Louis Baxter, John Farndon, Kieran Grant, and Damon Wise), led by Danny Leigh.

116 films were included, cross-referenced and arranged chronologically, with entries ranging from a single page to six pages per film. There was also an appendix of eighty-eight extra films, “a selection of the movies that came close to being included in the main section, but did not quite make the final cut.”

The second edition appeared in 2022, with minimal changes. It included only one additional film, Parasite (기생충), making a new total of 117 main entries. Five films were deleted from the appendix, replaced by five new entries. The deletions from the appendix are Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler), The Jazz Singer, Rosemary’s Baby, Good Bye, Lenin!, and Times and Winds (Beş Vakit); the additions are The Exorcist, Twelve Years a Slave, Black Panther, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and Nomadland.

These are the 117 main entries in the second edition:

• A Trip To The Moon
  
• Intolerance
  
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
  
• Battleship Potemkin
  
• Sunrise
  
• Metropolis
  
• Steamboat Bill Jr
  
• The Passion of Joan of Arc
  
• The Blue Angel
  
• People on Sunday
  
• City Lights
  
• M
  
• Duck Soup
  
• King Kong
  
• Zero for Conduct
  
• The Bride of Frankenstein
  
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  
• The Wizard of Oz
  
• The Rules of the Game
  
• Gone with the Wind
  
• His Girl Friday
  
• Citizen Kane
  
• Casablanca
  
• To Be or Not to Be
  
• Ossessione
  
• Laura
  
• Children of Paradise
  
• La belle et la bête
  
• A Matter of Life and Death
  
• It’s a Wonderful Life
  
• Bicycle Thieves
  
• Kind Hearts and Coronets
  
• The Third Man
  
• Rashomon
  
• Sunset Boulevard
  
• A Streetcar Named Desire
  
• The Night of the Hunter
  
• Singin’ in the Rain
  
• Tokyo Story
  
• The Wages of Fear
  
• Godzilla
  
• All That Heaven Allows
  
• Rebel Without a Cause
  
• Pather Panchali
  
• Kiss Me Deadly
  
• The Searchers
  
• The Seventh Seal
  
• Vertigo
  
• Ashes and Diamonds
  
• Some Like It Hot
  
• The 400 Blows
  
• La Dolce Vita
  
• Breathless
  
• Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
  
• Last Year at Marienbad
  
• La jetée
  
• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
  
• Black God, White Devil
  
• Dr. Strangelove
  
• The Sound of Music
  
• The Battle of Algiers
  
• The Chelsea Girls
  
• Playtime
  
• Bonnie and Clyde
  
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
  
• The Wild Bunch
  
• Easy Rider
  
• Le boucher
  
• The Godfather
  
• Aguirre: The Wrath of God
  
• The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
  
• Don’t Look Now
  
• The Spirit of the Beehive
  
• Chinatown
  
• Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
  
• Jaws
  
• Picnic at Hanging Rock
  
• Taxi Driver
  
• Annie Hall
  
• Star Wars IV: A New Hope
  
• Alien
  
• Stalker
  
• Das Boot
  
• Blade Runner
  
• Blue Velvet
  
• Wings of Desire
  
• Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
  
• sex, lies, and videotape
  
• Do the Right Thing
  
• Raise the Red Lantern
  
• Pulp Fiction
  
• Three Colours: Red
  
• The Shawshank Redemption
  
• Toy Story
  
• La haine
  
• Fargo
  
• The Sweet Hereafter
  
• Central Station
  
• Festen
  
• The Ring
  
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
  
• Spirited Away
  
• Amelie
  
• Lagaan
  
• The Lord of The Rings I: The Fellowship of the Ring
  
• City of God
  
• Oldboy
  
• The Lives of Others
  
• Pan’s Labyrinth
  
• Slumdog Millionaire
  
• The Hurt Locker
  
• Man on Wire
  
• The White Ribbon
  
• Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
  
• Gravity
  
• Boyhood
  
• Parasite

These are the eighty-eight films in the appendix:

• The Great Train Robbery
  
• Nosferatu
  
• Un chien andalou
  
• Freaks
  
• The Grapes of Wrath
  
• The Maltese Falcon
  
• Sullivan’s Travels
  
• Meshes of the Afternoon
  
• Double Indemnity
  
• Brief Encounter
  
• Murders Among Us
  
• Out of the Past
  
• The Red Shoes
  
• All About Eve
  
• Los Olvidados
  
• The Big Heat
  
• La strada
  
• Seven Samurai
  
• Rififi
  
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
  
• Touch of Evil
  
• Elevator to the Gallows
  
• Peeping Tom
  
• Psycho
  
• West Side Story
  
• The Innocents
  
• Jules et Jim
  
• The Manchurian Candidate
  
• Dry Summer
  
• Jason and the Argonauts
  
• Onibaba
  
• I Am Cuba
  
• Closely Observed Trains
  
• Persona
  
• The Graduate
  
• Belle de jour
  
• Salesman
  
• Once Upon a Time in the West
  
• Kes
  
• Midnight Cowboy
  
• A Clockwork Orange
  
• Harold and Maude
  
• Land of Silence and Darkness
  
• Walkabout
  
• The Harder They Come
  
• The Exorcist
  
• A Woman Under the Influence
  
• Sholay
  
• Xala
  
• Eraserhead
  
• Dawn of the Dead
  
• Days of Heaven
  
• Apocalypse Now
  
• Raging Bull
  
• The Shining
  
• ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
  
• Scarface
  
• Blood Simple
  
• Paris, Texas
  
• Come and See
  
• Brazil
  
• Down by Law
  
• Jesus of Montreal
  
• Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse
  
• Hard Boiled
  
• Reservoir Dogs
  
• Naked
  
• Short Cuts
  
• Heavenly Creatures
  
• Drifting Clouds
  
• Breaking the Waves
  
• Taste of Cherry
  
• Werckmeister Harmonies
  
• Amores Perros
  
• In the Mood for Love
  
• Mulholland Drive
  
• Tsotsi
  
• Caché
  
• Ten Canoes
  
• There Will Be Blood
  
• The Secret in Their Eyes
  
• The Kid with a Bike
  
• Holy Motors
  
• Twelve Years a Slave
  
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Black Panther
  
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire
  
• Nomadland

(Note that Some Like It Hot is the 1959 Billy Wilder classic, Scarface is the 1983 remake, and The Maltese Falcon is the 1941 remake.)

BBC News Thai

I was interviewed for an online video from BBC News Thai, published today, which examines the current state of film censorship in Thailand. (Twenty years ago, on 5th February 2004, I was interviewed on BBC3 television.)

‘Guilty Landscapes’

The Dutch artist Armando coined the phrase ‘guilty landscapes’ to describe tranquil spaces that bore silent witness to past violence. Thai artists and directors have produced work that echoes Armando’s concept, even though they were not directly inspired by it. For his Anatomy of Silence (กายวิภาคของความเงียบ) exhibition, for example, Pachara Piyasongsoot painted bucolic landscapes with traumatic histories linked to the Cold War. (Pachara was not initially aware of Armando’s concept, but when we discussed it, he immediately identified with it.)

Several Thai films also depict guilty landscapes whose violent legacies are connected to the Cold War. Taiki Sakpisit’s Seeing in the Dark, Thunska Pansittivorakul’s Santikhiri Sonata (สันติคีรี โซนาตา), and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s A Letter to Uncle Boonmee (จดหมายถงลงบญม) were filmed in Khao Kho, Santikhiri, and Nabua, respectively, all of which are locations previously associated with anti-Communist violence. (Thai Cinema Uncensored includes an analysis of guilty landscapes in Thai films.)

Other films by Thai directors have evoked sites of more recent state violence. Taiki’s A Ripe Volcano, Thunska’s Homogeneous, Empty Time (สุญกาล), Panya Zhu’s White Bird (นกตัวนั้นยังสบายดีไหม), and Weerapat Sakolvaree’s Zombie Citizens all include shots of the Royal Hotel in Bangkok, which was used as a field hospital during the ‘Black May’ massacre in 1992. Taiki’s Dark Was the Night and Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s Planking were filmed at Thammasat University, where a massacre took place in 1976. Weerapat’s Nostalgia, and Chai Chaiyachit and Chisanucha Kongwailap’s Re-presentation (ผีมะขาม ไพร่ฟ้า ประชาธิปไตย ในคืนที่ลมพัดหวน), refer to multiple guilty landscapes.

The artists and directors discussed so far have all used the concept of guilty landscapes to draw attention to state violence against pro-democracy protesters or suspected Communists. Charit Pusiri, on the other hand, is an artist from the opposite end of the political spectrum: his work promotes a royalist-nationalist ideology. For his Remembrance (รฦก) exhibition in 2013, he created composite photographs that show carefree present-day scenes juxtaposed with historical images of warfare and fallen soldiers. These split-screen compositions are the most direct illustrations of the guilty landscape concept in Thai art.

รวมผลงานคัดสรรจากเพจ อยู่เมืองดัดจริต ชีวิตต้องป๊อป พ.ศ. 2557–2554(‘living in a pretentious city, life must be pop:a collection of selected works, 2014–2011’)

Prakit Kobkijwattana used to work in advertising, but now he uses commercial techniques in his art, to satirise Thailand’s militarism and materialism. Like many Thai artists, Prakit experienced a political awakening—known in Thai as ta sawang—after the 2010 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Bangkok. Prakit was profiled in the Bangkok Post in 2021: “Ever since the Ratchaprasong intersection incident in 2010, the 57-year-old has radically changed his point of view toward art and society”. Sayan Daenklom coined the term “Post-Ratchaprasong art” to describe works produced in response to the massacre, in the journal Read (อ่าน; vol. 3, no. 2).

Prakit created a Facebook page, อยู่เมืองดัดจริต ชีวิตต้องป๊อป (‘living in a pretentious city, life must be pop’), in 2011, posting memes and graphic art commenting on the Ratchaprasong massacre and the following four years of Thai politics, culminating with the 2014 coup. In 2015, these were collected in the book รวมผลงานคัดสรรจากเพจ อยู่เมืองดัดจริต ชีวิตต้องป๊อป พ.ศ. 2557–2554 (‘living in a pretentious city, life must be pop: a collection of selected works, 2014–2011’), edited by Kasada Satayahurak. (Note that the date range in the title is in reverse, to show the country’s political regression during that period.)

Skyline FilmAnnie Hall

Woody Allen’s classic romantic comedy Annie Hall will be shown on 20th July, on the rooftop of River City Bangkok, as part of a regular programme of monthly outdoor screenings organised by Skyline Film. Annie Hall was previously screened at Thailand Creative and Design Center in 2013, and at Scala in 2020.

House 20th

House Rama, Bangkok’s first arthouse cinema, opened at Royal City Avenue in July 2004. It showed Thai films, including the director’s cut of Love of Siam (รักแห่งสยาม), and foreign titles such as Taxidermia (in an uncut screening under the censor’s radar). In addition to the cinema, House had a shop selling DVDs and posters, and even a small library.

House celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2014, at which point it was still Bangkok’s only independent cinema. RCA was once a popular nightlife destination, but it became increasingly neglected, and House relocated to the Samyan Mitrtown mall in 2019.

Next month is House’s twentieth anniversary, and there will be a season of classic films—all previous box-office hits at House—to mark the occasion. Highlights include Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver on 5th, 14th, and 21st July; Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction on 13th and 20th July; and the key New Queer Cinema film My Own Private Idaho on 12th July.

Pulp Fiction was previously screened at Neighbourhood last year, at House and Bangkok Screening Room in 2019, and at Cinema Winehouse in 2018 and 2015. Taxi Driver was shown at House last year, at BKKSR in 2019, and at Scala in 2018. My Own Private Idaho was shown at House in 2022, and at BKKSR in 2019.

Bangkok Critics Assembly Awards 2023

The short films on the shortlist for the Bangkok Critics Assembly Awards 2023 (รางวัลภาพยนตร์ไทยยอดเยี่ยม ชมรมวิจารณ์บันเทิง ครั้งที่ 32 ประจําปี 2566) will be screened at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok next month. Napasin Samkaewcham’s A Love Letter to My Sister, a deeply moving film about the volatile relationship between his parents, is one of the nominees for best documentary short, and will be shown on 7th July.

A Love Letter to My Sister was previously screened at this year’s Doc Club Festival, and as part of their Selections series. It was also shown in last year’s Short Film Marathon 27 (หนังสั้นมาราธอน 27), and at the 27th Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 27).

Pup

Sarawut Intaraprom is a director with a particularly niche claim to fame: he has made the only two films featuring erections that have been passed by Thai censors. Don’t blink during his science-fiction film Father and Son (พ่อและลูกชาย), or you’ll miss an explicit shot lasting only four frames. And in his new film Pup (สุนัข และ เจ้านาย), two characters are seen baring all, in a way that would probably fail the ‘Mull of Kintyre test’ (an unofficial rule applied by the UK film censors, based on a map of the flaccid-looking peninsula).

Pup, rated ‘20’, is being shown at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok. At its first screening yesterday, three staff from the Ministry of Culture were present to ensure that the cinema was rigourous in verifying patrons’ ages. (Viewers are required to show their ID cards before watching films rated ‘20’, though it’s unusual for the Ministry to supervise this process.) Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses these rules, and the history of Thai film censorship, in more detail.

Other Thai directors have included equally graphic images in their films, those these have always been censored: Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Blissfully Yours (สุดเสน่หา) and Tanwarin Sukkhapisit’s Insects in the Backyard (อินเซคอินเดอะแบ็คยาร์ด) were both cut for this reason by the Thai censorship board. (Apichatpong and Tanwarin were interviewed about this in Thai Cinema Uncensored.) Similarly, Ekachai Uekrongtham’s Pleasure Factory (快乐工厂), made in Singapore, was cut for its Thai and Singaporean theatrical releases.

A Sleepless Entity(or The Thai’s Prometheus)

Naphat Khunlam’s short film A Sleepless Entity (or The Thai’s Prometheus) is a dystopian fantasy about a student filmmaker who dreams of expressing her creative freedom but is oppressed by the conformist education system. The film is notable for its references to photographs of war and political conflict, in both Thailand and Vietnam: the gunman who hid his weapon in a Kolk popcorn bag, army snipers shooting people sheltering at Wat Pathum Wanaram, and the famous Eddie Adams photograph of Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing the Viet Cong soldier Nguyễn Văn Lém.

A Sleepless Entity is the latest of several films, videos, and artworks to recreate Kraipit Phanvut’s photograph from 6th October 1976 of police colonel Watcharin Niamvanichkul aiming his pistol while nonchalantly smoking a cigarette. Manit Sriwanichpoom inserted his Pink Man character into the image for Horror in Pink (ปีศาจสีชมพู), a technique parodied by Anuwat Apimukmongkon. Spanky Studio superimposed a clown’s head over Watcharin’s face. In Déjà vu (เดจาวู), Headache Stencil replaced the pistol with a futuristic ray gun. For his Selfie Series (เซลฟี่ ซีรีย์), Chumpol Kamwanna depicted himself taking a selfie while adopting the same pose as Watcharin. The pose was also restaged in Anocha Suwichakornpong’s film By the Time It Gets Dark (ดาวคะนอง) and View from the Bus Tour’s music video Sun Rises When Day Breaks (ลิ่วล้อ). Pornpimon Pokha’s Hidden Agenda No. 5 (วาระซ่อนเร้น หมายเลข 5) recreated the image in watercolour.

Yesterday Is Another Day

Koraphat Cheeradit’s short film Yesterday Is Another Day will be shown at this year’s Isan Creative Festival (เทศกาลอีสานสร้างสรรค์), being held at Khon Kaen between 29th June and 7th July. The festival’s theme is Proud of Isan (สะออนเด้).

Yesterday Is Another Day is part of the Short Film Short Cut programme, taking place from 24th to 30th June as a prelude to the main festival. The films will be shown on a bus travelling around the city, and Yesterday Is Another Day is being screened on 27th June.

In Yesterday Is Another Day, a high school student plays hooky and meets his girlfriend in a woodland. They take a walk, and joke about their future together, seemingly without a care in the world. But there are ominous signs of impending threats: they find a discarded handgun, and Koraphat inserts shots of a JCB digging up the forest.

Eventually, we learn that the student is being charged with lèse-majesté, merely for sharing Facebook posts. His court hearing is the following day, and he is likely to be jailed. (The film doesn’t state directly that he’s facing royal defamation charges, though it’s clear from the couple’s conversation: he explains that the sentence is three years per offence, which is the minimum jail term for lèse-majesté.)

The prospect of criminal charges for posting on social media is a reality for hundreds of people in Thailand today, many of whom are students. As the boy in Koraphat’s film says to his girlfriend, he has to face changing from “being a teenager to being a prisoner.” The film is a powerful and moving reminder of the severe consequences of lèse-majesté, and what it must feel like to be criminalised at a young age for expressing opinions online.

Yesterday Is Another Day was previously shown at the Chiang Mai Film Festival (twice), at Wildtype 2023, and in the Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน). It was first screened in Silpakorn University’s programme The Political Wanderer.

From the Moment They Met It Was Murder: Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir

Alain Silver and James Ursini have dominated film noir scholarship with their Film Noir Reader series and three different books titled Film Noir: an encyclopedia (co-edited with Elizabeth Ward and Robert Porfirio), a recent anthology, and a Taschen guide. They have also written The Noir Style and American Neo-Noir, among other books on the subject.

It’s fitting that the leading experts on film noir should write a book on Billy Wilder’s classic thriller Double Indemnity, which is the quintessential noir film. Their new book From the Moment They Met It Was Murder: Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir, released this year to mark the film’s eightieth anniversary, highlights its unmatched influence on noir cinema: “We cannot overstate the influence of Double Indemnity on the film noir movement. Before 1944 there was a trickle of titles. After there was a flood.”

The book (dedicated to Richard Schickel, who wrote a BFI Film Classics study of the film) also covers the true-crime origins of Double Indemnity’s plot (including the famous Daily News photograph of Ruth Snyder in the electric chair), Wilder’s reluctant co-writer Raymond Chandler, and the film’s production history. Silver and Ursini provide plenty of new analysis, though they also recycle some material from the Double Indemnity entry in their film noir encyclopedia.

Photography Never Lies

Photography Never Lies (ภาพถ่ายไม่โกหก) opened on 30th May at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, and runs until 8th September. The exhibition explores the impact of technology on the authenticity of images.

Photography Never Lies features a selection of works from one of the biggest names in AI photography, Boris Eldagsen. Eldagsen coined the term ‘promptography’ to describe the results produced by generative AI software based on prompts typed by the artist.

The Macht (‘power’) series, by Patrik Budenz and Birte Zellentin, is another highlight. Photographs of each country’s heads of state are superimposed over each other, with the longest-serving leaders dominating each composite portrait.

A set of postcards is available, featuring some of the key photographs from the exhibition. The set’s stylish packaging reproduces the camera aperture motif of the exhibition logo.

Orbiting Body

Orbiting Body (รูปโคจร) opened at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre on 13th June, and runs until 8th September. The centrepiece of this sparse exhibition is Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Blue Encore (ออกแบบในใจ), large-scale landscape paintings by Noppanan Thannaree and Amnart Kankunthod suspended on motorised rails, opening and closing like theatrical backdrops or curtains. Blue Encore was previously shown at the Thailand Biennale in Chiang Rai.

Breaking the Cycle

Over the past twenty years, every major event in Thai politics was defined by its connection—either in support or opposition—to Thaksin Shinawatra. For millions of pro-democracy voters who rejected the military establishment, Thaksin was the only alternative. But Thaksin is a populist, not a liberal democrat, and since his return from self-exile he has become part of the establishment himself.

In 2018, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit launched a new political party, Future Forward, as a genuinely progressive, democratic challenger to military dictatorship and Thaksin-style populism. Only a year later, Future Forward came third in the 2019 election, after a wave of support for its charismatic leader. But soon afterwards, Thanathorn was disqualified as an MP by the Constitutional Court, due to his ownership of shares in a media company. In 2020, the court dissolved Future Forward, ruling that it had violated party funding rules by accepting a ฿191 million loan from Thanathorn.

Aekaphong Saransate and Thanakrit Duangmaneeporn’s new film Breaking the Cycle (อำนาจ ศรัทธา อนาคต) follows Thanathorn throughout all of these events, though it begins in 2014 with his 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?” Like Homogeneous, Empty Time (สุญกาล), Breaking the Cycle features stunning drone shots of Democracy Monument to symbolise the country’s fragile democratic status.

The documentary benefits from its extensive access to every senior figure within Future Forward, with intimate fly-on-the-wall coverage of the 2019 election campaign. The directors were even able to film Thanathorn as he reacted to the guilty verdicts being delivered by the Constitutional Court. They also interview him, but he doesn’t clarify his media shares or his party loan. Future Forward MP Pannika Wanich admits that Future Forward was politically naive, a description that arguably applies even more to its successor, Move Forward.

The film ends with the caption “THE CYCLE CONTINUES”, which is sadly accurate. In a carbon copy of the Thanathorn case, Move Forward’s leader Pita Limjaroenrat was also investigated for ownership of media shares. Although Pita was exonerated, history looks likely to repeat itself this year, as Move Forward is facing almost certain dissolution. The Constitutional Court has already ruled that the party’s manifesto pledge to amend the lèse-majesté law constituted an attempt to overthrow the monarchy.

Breaking the Cycle is a complete record of the rise and fall of the Future Forward movement, and the even greater election result achieved by Move Forward last year. The subsequent sustained opposition to Move Forward and its idealistic leader—from Pheu Thai, the military, the Senate, and the Constitutional Court—is even more consequential than the fate of Future Forward, and the story of Move Forward is still unfolding.

As one of the documentary’s interviewees says: “This is the beginning of the next chapter.” If Breaking the Cycle is a prologue to the story of Move Forward, hopefully its eventual sequel will feature a new iteration of the party gaining power after the 2027 election. That’s something Thanathorn half-jokingly predicts in the film: “In three elections we’ll be the government.”

Breaking the Cycle is one of very few feature-length political documentaries to go on general theatrical release in Thailand. Like Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s Paradoxocracy (ประชาธิป'ไทย), Breaking the Cycle has been a box-office hit with politically engaged young people, which is hardly surprising given the unprecedented support that Future Forward (and Move Forward) received from Millennials and Gen Z. (There will be a Q&A with Aekaphong and Thanakrit at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok on 30th June.)

Yesterday, Mongkolkit Suksintharanon filed a complaint at the Central Investigation Bureau in Bangkok, calling for a police investigation into Breaking the Cycle on charges of sedition (article 116 of the Thai criminal code). Mongkolkit, former leader of the Thai Civilized Party (a right-wing microparty), accused the film of presenting a one-sided account of Future Forward. (This is true, but of course it isn’t a crime.)

Mongkolkit also complained that the film discussed the 2014 coup without explaining the reasons why the junta seized power, as if any explanation could justify the military’s power grab. It’s deeply ironic that film directors are facing potential charges for discussing the coup, while the generals who orchestrated the coup have avoided prosecution.

Gallery Movie Night: A Night of Cinematic Exploration

A retrospective of short films by Taiki Sakpisit took place this evening at SAC Gallery in Bangkok, followed by a Q&A with the artist. Gallery Movie Night: A Night of Cinematic Exploration featured four of Taiki’s previous films—Shadow and Act, A Ripe Volcano, Seeing in the Dark, and The Age of Anxiety—and one new production, The Spirit Level. Like Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s A Minor History (ประวัติศาสตร์กระจ้อยร่อย), The Spirit Level tackles the tragic discoveries of the bodies of murdered political dissidents in the Mekong river.

Shadow and Act

Shadow and Act—like Sorayos Prapapan’s Prelude of the Moving Zoo and Anocha Suwichakornpong’s Come Here (ใจจำลอง)—features sequences shot at Dusit Zoo, which was closed by royal decree in 2018. Shadow and Act also includes shots filmed at another prestigious institution from a bygone age, the Chaya Jitrakorn photography studio, panning slowly around the studio’s fixtures and fittings, settling upon dusty portraits of Cold War dictator Phibun Songkhram and other kharatchakan (‘civil servants’).

A Ripe Volcano

Similarly, in A Ripe Volcano (ภูเขาไฟพิโรธ), the camera prowls elegiacally through the empty corridors of the Royal Hotel, another example of Bangkok’s faded glory. The hotel became a makeshift field hospital in 1992 during ‘Black May’, and its lobby was stormed by the military. A Ripe Volcano evokes the violence of the event through indirect signifiers, such as a fire engine (several of which were set ablaze in 1992), creating an uncanny sense of foreboding. Weerapat Sakolvaree’s Zombie Citizens and Thunska Pansittivorakul’s Homogeneous, Empty Time (สุญกาล) also evoke Black May with shots of the hotel.

Seeing in the Dark

Seeing in the Dark opens with contemplative, static images of Khao Kho, a mountainous region in northern Thailand with a potent political legacy: Phibun hid the country’s gold reserve—and the Emerald Buddha statue—from the Japanese there during World War II, and the area was a base for Communist insurgents throughout the 1970s. There are shots of the Sacrificial Monument compound, which memorialises the ‘sacrifices’ of the soldiers who fought the Communists, rather than the thousands of insurgents who were killed.

Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism website notes that Khao Kho was once “a red area smoldering in the smoke of war from different political ideologies. Khao Kho was considered a forbidden land that ordinary people should not get too close to because it was considered extremely dangerous. But as time passed, the conflict ended and Khao Kho transformed into one of Phetchabun’s most striking and beautiful tourist areas.”

A similar reputational whitewashing took place at other sites of anti-Communist violence, such as Santikhiri and Nabua, a process examined in Thunska’s Santikhiri Sonata (สันติคีรี โซนาตา), Apichatpong’s A Letter to Uncle Boonmee (จดหมายถงลงบญม), and Pachara Piyasongsoot’s exhibition Anatomy of Silence (กายวิภาคของความเงียบ). Khao Kho, Santikhiri, and Nabua are, to use Dutch artist Armando’s term, ‘guilty landscapes’: tranquil spaces that bear silent witness to historical violence.

In Seeing in the Dark, an ominous rumble on the soundtrack hints at the continued presence of this past menace. The film ends with footage of anti-government protests from October 2020, a reminder—to quote the Ministry of Tourism again—that Thailand is still “smoldering in the smoke of war from different political ideologies.”

The Age of Anxiety

The retrospective concluded with The Age of Anxiety which, with its rapid-fire editing and screeching soundtrack, captured the anxious atmosphere during the twilight of King Rama IX’s reign. The film’s English title reflects the national mood while Rama IX was hospitalised, though its Thai title (รอ ๑๐) has an additional resonance, with a reference to his successor. The film is also streaming on the Kortfilm website, which links it to Thai politics: “Made in response to the government’s merciless obliteration of the Red Shirt protesters in the 2010s, the music and flashing images are a reflection of a traumatized and anxious mental state.”

Dark Was the Night

Yesterday’s event was part of Taiki’s Dark Was the Night (ผีพุ่งไต้) exhibition, which opened on 9th May and runs until 6th July. The exhibition features a two-channel video installation, also titled Dark Was the Night, projected at opposite ends of the gallery. On one side are shots of the Thammasat University campus, which initially seem to contrast with the theme of the exhibition. But these images are metaphorically rather than literally dark, reminders of the 6th October 1976 massacre that took place at Thammasat, making the campus another ‘guilty landscape’. The exhibition also features three photographs from Taiki’s Thammasat University series, including an image of the notorious red lift in which sheltering students were shot during the massacre. The lift was also featured in the horror film Haunted Universities (มหาลัยสยองขวัญ).