เก็บตกวงเสวนา 49 ปี 6 ตุลา: เมื่อเรื่องราว 6 ตุลาไม่ได้ถูกจำกัดไว้เพียงที่ธรรมศาสตร์ (‘a briefing on the 49th anniversary of 6th Oct.: the 6th Oct. event is not limited to Thammasat University’), held today at Thammasat University’s Faculty of Political Science, featured a Q&A with Patporn Phoothong, co-director of the short film The Two Brothers (สองพี่น้อง). The event was a precursor to the upcoming forty-ninth anniversary of the massacre that took place at Thammasat on 6th October 1976.
The Two Brothers was screened as part of today’s event. Directed by Patporn and Teerawat Rujenatham, the documentary features interviews with relatives of two young men who were hanged by police for campaigning against the return of former dictator Thanom Kittikachorn from exile. When student actors at Thammasat staged a reenactment of the hanging, the right-wing Dao Siam (ดาวสยาม) newspaper falsely accused them of hanging an effigy of the Crown Prince (now Rama X), and this inflammatory headline sparked the massacre.
The Two Brothers was screened as part of today’s event. Directed by Patporn and Teerawat Rujenatham, the documentary features interviews with relatives of two young men who were hanged by police for campaigning against the return of former dictator Thanom Kittikachorn from exile. When student actors at Thammasat staged a reenactment of the hanging, the right-wing Dao Siam (ดาวสยาม) newspaper falsely accused them of hanging an effigy of the Crown Prince (now Rama X), and this inflammatory headline sparked the massacre.
The brutal events of that notorious day are encapsulated in a much-reproduced photograph by Neal Ulevich, which shows a vigilante preparing to beat a hanged corpse with a folding chair. In reference to that image, today’s event included a folding chair on display.
The Two Brothers was previously shown at Hope Space in Bangkok last year, at Thammasat in 2020 and 2017, and at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya in 2017. Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses this and other Thai films that refer to the 1976 massacre.
The Two Brothers was previously shown at Hope Space in Bangkok last year, at Thammasat in 2020 and 2017, and at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya in 2017. Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses this and other Thai films that refer to the 1976 massacre.
The Ulevich photograph has become so ubiquitous that a folding chair has become a symbol representing the entire massacre. Karnt Thassanaphak’s photo-montage The Decaying Chair (เก้าอี้ที่กำลังผุพัง), for example, shows a rusting chair, its gradual decay representing the artist’s hope for an eventual end to state violence. (The image was created from more than 1,000 photographs of protesters campaigning against the lèse-majesté law, and it was first exhibited at the Pridi Banomyong Institute in 2013.) Similarly, Chatchawan Thongchan’s short film From Forest to City (อรัญนคร) features a shot of a folding chair, and there is a children’s book about 6th October titled The Folding Chair Stars (ดาว เก้าอี้).
