06 March 2024

The 400 Blows


The 400 Blows

The Thai Film Archive at Salaya will show François Truffaut’s classic The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups) on 19th April. One of the greatest films ever made, it’s a cornerstone of the French New Wave, a movement in which Truffaut played a foundational role.

The 400 Blows was previously screened at the Archive in 2018. It has also been shown several times in Bangkok: at the Prince Theatre, at Bangkok Screening Room (to launch their BKKSR Cinémathèque programme), and at the Alliance Française (introduced by its leading actor, Jean-Pierre Léaud).

05 March 2024

Doc Club Festival Selections 02


Festival Selections 02

Doc Club and Pub will show highlights from last month’s Doc Club Festival on 10th March. Selections 02 includes Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s ชวนอ่านภาพ 6 ตุลา (‘invitation to read images of 6th Oct.’), Sumeth Suwanneth’s Lost, and Life Goes On (เลือนแต่ไม่ลืม), and Vichart Somkaew’s 112 News from Heaven.

In Chulayarnnon’s film, Octobrists and current students respond to photographs of the 6th October 1976 massacre. Lost, and Life Goes On features interviews with relatives of the victims of the 1992 ‘Black May’ massacre. On 112 News from Heaven’s soundtrack, an announcer reads a bulletin of royal news, which is juxtaposed with 112 captions documenting the convictions of activists charged with lèse-majesté (article 112 of the criminal code) over a 112-day period.

112 News from Heaven premiered in Phatthalung earlier this year. Lost, and Life Goes On was shown at the 26th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 26).

26 February 2024

Phatthalung Micro Cinema 1.5


Phatthalung Micro Cinema

Phatthalung Micro Cinema continues its screening programme on 3rd March with an evening of short films with a political theme. The event includes two of the best recent Thai shorts—Chatchawal Thongjun’s From Forest to City (อรัญนคร) and Vichart Somkaew’s Cremation Ceremony (ประวัติย่อของบางสิ่งที่หายไป)—and We Need to Talk About อานนท์ ชายผู้นำพาให้คนเท่ากัน (‘we need to talk about Arnon: the man who made everyone equal’), a new ten-minute online documentary from Thai Rath (ไทยรัฐ) on protest leader Arnon Nampa.

Phatthalung Micro Cinema held its first few screenings at the Swiftlet Book Shop in Phatthalung—and Supamok Silarak’s film Red Poetry (ความกวีสีแดง) was also shown there this month—though on 12th February a group of police officers warned the shop’s owners that they were forbidden from holding public events there in future. Next month’s triple bill will therefore take place at the town’s Home Baking Cafe instead.

From Forest to City


From Forest to City is a drama in three parts, narrated by a survivor of the 1976 Thammasat University massacre. Part one begins with an epigraph by Kittivuddho Bhikku, an influential Buddhist monk: “Killing a communist is not a sin.” This infamous quote gave nationalist paramilitary groups a licence to kill, and they invaded Thammasat’s campus and lynched dozens of students. In part two, comparing 1976 to the present day, the narrator regrets that Thailand hasn’t changed: society remains irreconcilably divided, between student protesters and the conservative establishment.

From Forest to City Re-presentation

Although From Forest to City is a black-and-white film, it has two flashes of colour: a red folding chair, and a yellow t-shirt. Due to an infamous photograph by Neal Ulevich, this single item of furniture has come to symbolise the entire Thammasat massacre. The yellow t-shirt in an otherwise black-and-white frame recalls Chai Chaiyachit and Chisanucha Kongwailap’s short film Re-presentation (ผีมะขาม ไพร่ฟ้า ประชาธิปไตย ในคืนที่ลมพัดหวน), in which the yellow t-shirts worn by monarchists are the only objects shown in colour.

In part three, From Forest to City switches gear with a documentary montage of dramatic episodes from modern Thai history: the Thammasat massacre, armoured personnel carriers demolishing red-shirt protest camps, and riot police firing water cannon at students in Siam Square. This montage of news footage is set ironically to รักกันไว้เถิด (‘let’s love each other’), a Cold War propaganda song whose lyrics call for national unity.

Cremation Ceremony

Cremation Ceremony


Cremation Ceremony, which resembles a video installation, begins with the faces of three politicians staring impassively at the viewer. The three men—Anutin Charnvirakul, former health minister; and former prime ministers Abhisit Vejjajiva and Prayut Chan-o-cha—are each responsible for gross injustices. Anutin oversaw the initially sluggish response to the coronavirus pandemic. Abhisit authorised the shooting of protesters in 2010. Prayut led a coup, and his junta revived lèse-majesté prosecutions.

Vichart sets fire to photographs of the men, their faces distort as the photographic paper burns, and the only sound is the crackling of the flame. This symbolic ritual is a commemoration of the deaths of coronavirus victims, red-shirt protesters, and political dissidents, though it’s also a metaphorical act of retribution, as the politicians have faced no consequences for their actions.

Cremation Ceremony ends on an optimistic note: an epilogue explains that pro-democracy parties “emerged victorious” in last year’s election. (The film was made before the progressive election winners were denied a place in the governing coalition.)

From Forest to City was shown last year at Bangkok University, and in the online Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน). Cremation Ceremony was shown at the Chiang Mai Film Festival (and in the festival’s highlights programme), at Doc Club and Pub, and at Wildtype 2023. Vichart is a co-founder of Phatthalung Micro Cinema, and his film 112 News from Heaven had its premiere at the group’s inaugural event last month.

24 February 2024

Star Wars IV:
A New Hope


Star Wars IV

Star Wars IV: A New Hope will be shown at Prince Mahidol Hall in Salaya on 30th and 31st March, accompanied by the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra performing the classic score by John Williams. The film has been shown several times before in Bangkok: in 2014 and 2016 at Bangkok Open Air Cinema Club, in 2015 at Cinema Winehouse, and in 2019 at Bangkok Screening Room.

23 February 2024

Fear and Desire (4k blu-ray)


Fear and Desire

Stanley Kubrick’s debut feature film, Fear and Desire, will be released by Kino Lorber on UHD and blu-ray next week in its original version, which is nine minutes longer than the theatrical cut. Kino Lorber previously issued the theatrical version of Fear and Desire—and one of Kubrick’s short films, The Seafarers—on blu-ray and DVD in 2012. The same transfer was issued on blu-ray and DVD by Eureka! in 2013. (The Eureka! discs included not only Fear and Desire and The Seafarers, but also Kubrick’s other shorts, Day of the Fight and Flying Padre.)

Fear and Desire was originally titled Shape of Fear, and had a running time of seventy minutes. In his book Stanley Kubrick Produces, James Fenwick reported that Shape of Fear was shown at the Venice Film Festival in 1952. Film historian Gian Piero Brunetta subsequently discovered correspondence between Kubrick and the festival’s director confirming that the film was shown out-of-competition at Venice.

For its US theatrical release, Kubrick cut nine minutes of footage to increase the film’s pace, and it was retitled Fear and Desire to target the sexploitation market. (Arguably the same mistake was made in 1999, when Eyes Wide Shut was marketed as an erotic thriller.) Kubrick made Fear and Desire independently, and controlled the rights to its distribution after its initial theatrical run. Apparently embarrassed by the film, he sought to prevent it from being shown again, though there were occasional unauthorised screenings in the 1990s.

Fear and Desire Fear and Desire

Kubrick’s decision to cut Fear and Desire was not unusual for the director. He also removed two minutes of footage from Paths of Glory before its theatrical release, and may have deleted a scene from Killer’s Kiss at actress Irene Kane’s request. He cut nineteen minutes from 2001: A Space Odyssey after its premiere, and removed the climactic custard pie fight from Dr. Strangelove. (The custard pie footage is held in the archive of the British Film Institute, though the Kubrick estate does not allow access to it.) Thirteen minutes were deleted from Spartacus after its premiere. Most famously, Kubrick deleted an epilogue from The Shining and released the film outside the US in a version twenty-five minutes shorter than the American cut.

Until the 2012 blu-ray and DVD releases, the only version of Fear and Desire available on video was a bootleg VHS sold via eBay. This transfer had been duplicated so many times that the image was barely watchable. The difference between the VHS edition and the new Kino Lorber 4k restoration is like night and day, and the company’s forthcoming UHD and blu-ray set will also include 4k restorations of all three of Kubrick’s short films, making it the definitive presentation of the director’s early work.

20 February 2024

Shakespeare Must Die


Shakespeare Must Die

The ban on Ing K.’s film Shakespeare Must Die (เชคสเปียร์ต้องตาย) has finally been lifted by the Supreme Court. The court also ruled today that the Ministry of Culture, which banned the film in 2012, must pay 500,000 baht in damages to the filmmaker after her twelve-year crusade to reverse the ban, a campaign documented in her film Censor Must Die (เซ็นเซอร์ต้องตาย). The ban was upheld by the Administrative Court in 2017, though times have since changed, and Shakespeare Must Die appears to be an early beneficiary of a liberalised censorship policy announced by the National Soft Power Strategy Committee (คณะกรรมการยุทธศาสตร์ซอฟต์พาวเวอร์แห่งชาติ) last month.

Shakespeare Must Die is a Thai adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, with Pisarn Pattanapeeradej in the lead role. The play is presented in two parallel versions: a production in period costume, and a contemporary political interpretation. The period version is faithful to Shakespeare’s original, though it also breaks the fourth wall, with cutaways to the audience and an interval outside the theatre (featuring a cameo by the director).

In the contemporary sequences, Macbeth is reimagined as Mekhdeth, a prime minister facing a crisis. Street protesters shout “ok pbai!” (‘get out!’), and the protests are infiltrated by assassins listed in the credits as ‘men in black’. Ing has downplayed any direct link to Thai politics, though “Thaksin ok pbai!” was the People’s Alliance for Democracy’s rallying cry against Thaksin Shinawatra, and ‘men in black’ were blamed for instigating violence in 2010. Another satirical line in the script—“Dear Leader brings happy-ocracy!”—predicts Prayut Chan-o-cha’s propaganda song Returning Happiness to the Thai Kingdom (คืนความสุขให้ประเทศไทย).

The parallels between Mekhdeth and Thaksin highlight the politically-motivated nature of the ban imposed on the film. Ironically, the project was initially funded by the Ministry of Culture, during Abhisit Vejjajiva’s premiership: it received a grant from the ไทยเข้มแข็ง (‘strong Thailand’) stimulus package. The Abhisit government was only too happy to greenlight a script criticising Thaksin, though by the time the film was finished, Thaksin’s sister Yingluck was in power, and her administration was somewhat less disposed to this anti-Thaksin satire, hence the ban.

Although the film was made twelve years ago, its message is arguably more timely than ever, as Thaksin’s influence over Thai politics continues. He returned to Thailand last year, and his Pheu Thai party is now leading a coalition with the political wing of the military junta. Not uncoincidentally, his prison sentence for corruption was commuted, and he was released on parole last weekend.

The film’s climax, a recreation of the 6th October 1976 massacre, is its most controversial sequence. A photograph by Neal Ulevich, taken during the massacre, shows a vigilante preparing to hit a corpse with a chair, and Shakespeare Must Die restages the incident. A hanging body (symbolising Shakespeare himself) is repeatedly hit with a chair, though rather than dwelling on the violence, Ing cuts to reaction shots of the crowd, which (as in 1976) resembles a baying mob.

Ing was interviewed in Thai Cinema Uncensored, and the book details the full story behind the ban. Ing doesn’t mince her words in the interview, describing the censors as “a bunch of trembling morons with the power of life and death over our films.” Thai Cinema Uncensored also includes an insider’s account from a member of the appeals committee, who said he was obliged by his department head to vote against releasing the film: “I had to vote no, because it was an instruction from my director. But if I could have voted freely, I would have voted yes.”

13 February 2024

Arcadia Rooftop Cinema
Blade Runner


Blade Runner

Bangkok’s Arcadia bar celebrates its second anniversary on 17th February with a rooftop screening of its signature film, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. (Arcadia’s logo uses the same typeface as the Blade Runner poster, and some of the bar’s décor, designed by owner Todd Ruiz, was also inspired by the film.)

Arcadia first screened Blade Runner in February last year. It was also shown at House Samyan last year, at Jam in 2019, and at Bangkok Screening Room in 2017.

10 February 2024

100 Greatest Films Ever


Weekend The Godfather

Daily Mail film critic Brian Viner has compiled a list of the 100 greatest films ever made, in a cover story for today’s issue of the newspaper’s Weekend magazine supplement. The list skews towards mainstream titles, as Viner readily acknowledges: “I’ve deliberately left out some of the mighty early silents, and there aren’t too many foreign-language films because this has to be an accessible collection.” Another stipulation is that all titles are available on streaming platforms, thus disqualifying some esoteric arthouse films. (The Mail published a previous list of Viner’s 100 favourite films in 2020.)

The 100 Greatest Films Ever are as follows:

100. Oliver!
99. Thelma and Louise
98. Raiders of the Lost Ark
97. Goldfinger
96. In the Heat of the Night
95. This Is Spinal Tap
94. To Kill a Mockingbird
93. The Sting
92. The Vanishing
91. When We Were Kings
90. Twelve Angry Men
89. It Happened One Night
88. Chariots of Fire
87. Shane
86. Kes
85. The Exorcist
84. High Noon
83. All the President’s Men
82. Parasite
81. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
80. Rear Window
79. The Night of the Hunter
78. Get Out
77. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
76. The Best Years of Our Lives
75. Gone with the Wind
74. City Lights
73. Sunset Boulevard
72. Zulu
71. Chinatown
70. The Shining
69. Henry V
68. His Girl Friday
67. Shakespeare in Love
66. The Third Man
65. West Side Story
64. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
63. The Lives of Others
62. Toy Story
61. Spartacus
60. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
59. Apollo 11
58. Deliverance
57. The Elephant Man
56. Tokyo Story
55. Monty Python’s Life of Brian
54. No Country for Old Men
53. The Producers
52. Schindler’s List
51. Boyhood
50. Dr Strangelove
49. The Conversation
48. The Searchers
47. Duck Soup
46. Rome, Open City
45. Nashville
44. On the Waterfront
43. Bicycle Thieves
42. Top Hat
41. All About Eve
40. Vertigo
39. Seven Samurai
38. 2001: A Space Odyssey
37. The Deer Hunter
36. Taxi Driver
35. There Will Be Blood
34. The Bridge on the River Kwai
33. The General
32. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
31. It’s a Wonderful Life
30. Pulp Fiction
29. Raging Bull
28. Annie Hall
27. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
26. Alien
25. The French Connection
24. The Maltese Falcon
23. The Silence of the Lambs
22. Kind Hearts and Coronets
21. The Sound of Music
20. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
19. The Banshees of Inisherin
18. Double Indemnity
17. Brief Encounter
16. Modern Times
15. Shoah
14. The Apartment
13. Singin’ in the Rain
12. Apocalypse Now
11. Bonnie and Clyde
10. Citizen Kane
9. The Graduate
8. Lawrence of Arabia
7. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
6. Casablanca
5. Some Like It Hot
4. Jaws
3. Psycho
2. The Wizard of Oz
1. The Godfather

(Note that Some Like It Hot is the 1959 comic masterpiece, not the unrelated 1939 comedy. The Maltese Falcon is the John Huston remake, rather than the 1931 original version.)

05 February 2024

Red Poetry
ยังมีจิตใจจะใฝ่ฝัน
(‘still having a mind that will dream’)


Red Poetry
Red Poetry

After a screening last week in Chiang Mai, Supamok Silarak’s film Red Poetry (ความกวีสีแดง) will be shown in Phatthalung this weekend. The feature-length documentary is a profile of performance artist Vitthaya Klangnil, who co-founded the group Artn’t. A shorter version of the film—Red Poetry: Verse 1 (เราไป ไหน ได้)—was screened at Wildtype 2022.

The documentary shows the intense endurance and commitment Vitthaya invests in his protest art. A durational performance—sitting in front of Chiang Mai’s Tha Pae Gate for nine full days—led to his collapse from exhaustion. In another action, he climbed onto Chiang Mai University’s main entrance, repeatedly slapped himself in the face, and fell into a pond. When he reported to the police to answer charges of sedition, he vomited blue paint outside the police station.

The film ends with Vitthaya’s most extreme action: carving “112” into his chest, in protest at the lèse-majesté (article 112) charges he faced after he exhibited a modified version of the Thai flag in 2021. He was convicted of lèse-majesté last year, and received a suspended sentence.

Red Poetry will be shown at the Swiftlet Book Shop on 10th February, at an event titled Red Poetry ยังมีจิตใจจะใฝ่ฝัน (‘Red Poetry: still having a mind that will dream’). Swiftlet was also the venue for the inaugural Phatthalung Micro Cinema screening last month.)

Supamok’s film was screened three times as part of the 27th Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 27): in the online Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน), at the main festival itself, and in the Short 27 Awarded Film Screening programme. It has previously been shown in Chiang Mai, Salaya, and Phatthalung.

03 February 2024

To the Beloved


To the Beloved

Supamok Silarak’s film Red Poetry (ความกวีสีแดง) will have an open-air screening today at Suan Anya in Chiang Mai, as part of a two-day event, To the Beloved (แด่ผู้เป็นที่รัก), in support of an amnesty for political prisoners. The documentary is a profile of performance artist Vitthaya Klangnil, who co-founded the group Artn’t. A shorter version of the film—Red Poetry: Verse 1 (เราไป ไหน ได้)—had its premiere at Wildtype 2022.

Red Poetry shows the intense endurance and commitment Vitthaya invests in his protest art. A durational performance—sitting near Chiang Mai’s Tha Pae Gate for nine full days—led to his collapse from exhaustion. In another action, he climbed onto Chiang Mai University’s main entrance, repeatedly slapped himself in the face, and jumped into a pond. Before reporting to the police to answer charges of sedition, he vomited blue paint outside the police station.

The film ends with Vitthaya’s most extreme action: he carved “112” into his chest, in protest at the lèse-majesté (article 112) charges he faced after exhibiting a modified version of the Thai flag in 2021. He was convicted of lèse-majesté last year, and received a suspended sentence.

Red Poetry was also shown at Suan Anya last year. It has since been screened at Chiang Mai University, and in Salaya. It was screened three times as part of the 27th Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 27): in the online Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน), at the main festival itself, and in the Short 27 Awarded Film Screening programme.

To the Beloved concludes tomorrow with a programme of short films, including the heartbreaking Red’s Scar (บาดแผลสีแดง), in which Nutcha Tantivitayapitak interviews a protester falsely accused of arson following the 2010 massacre. Tragically, the man’s mother and son both died while he was in jail. Red’s Scar was first shown at Wildtype 2022.

30 January 2024

Metropolis


Metropolis

Fritz Lang’s silent masterpiece Metropolis will be shown at the Three Layer cafe in Bangkok on 3rd February, accompanied by live music performed by Kachisak Sa-artsri. The film will be introduced by Phassarawin Kulsomboon, director of Khon Boys (เด็กโขน).

Metropolis was previously shown at Bangkok Screening Room in 2019, and at Cinema Winehouse in 2018. It has been shown twice at the World Film Festival of Bangkok, in 2003 (with a live orchestra) and in 2014.

27 January 2024

Thailand Biennale


Cinema for All
The Open World

As part of the Thailand Biennale in Chiang Rai, the Thai Film Archive’s mobile cinema truck will be screening classic Thai films in the grounds of the province’s historic City Hall. The Cine Mobile event begins today, with Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ), and runs until 7th February.

A virtual reality version of Apichatpong’s installation A Conversation with the Sun (บทสนทนากับดวงอาทิตย์) is also part of the Biennale, on show at the Kotchasan building from 25th to 29th January. The director will take part in a Q&A at the venue today.

Apichatpong’s short film Emerald (มรกต) will be screened daily from 16th January until 9th February, in the What Lies Beneath: Notes from the Underground programme, part of an ongoing Cinema for All (ซีเนม่า ฟอร์ ออล) season at Ban Mae Ma school. (Apichatpong took part in a Q&A with Tilda Swinton at Ban Mae Ma on 5th January.)

The Biennale opened on 9th December last year and ends on 30th April. The theme is The Open World (เปิดโลก).

21 January 2024

Doc Club Festival


Doc Club Festival

Doc Club and Pub will host its first Doc Club Festival in Bangkok next month, from 2nd to 11th February. The schedule includes two screenings—on 6th and 8th February—of Napasin Samkaewcham’s short film A Love Letter to My Sister, a deeply moving documentary about the volatile relationship between his parents. A Love Letter to My Sister was previously shown in last year’s Short Film Marathon 27 (หนังสั้นมาราธอน 27), and at the 27th Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 27).

Another recent documentary short, Vichart Somkaew’s 112 News from Heaven, is screening on 5th and 7th February. On the film’s soundtrack, an announcer reads a bulletin of royal news—a daily staple of the Thai airwaves—and this is juxtaposed with captions documenting the convictions of activists charged with lèse-majesté (article 112 of the criminal code). 112 News from Heaven was also shown yesterday in Phatthalung.

On 10th February, there will be a mini retrospective of Nutcha Tantivitayapitak’s documentary shorts: Mr. Zero (คนหมายเลขศูนย์), บันทึกสุดท้าย ‘ดา ตอร์ปิโด’ (‘the final record of ‘Da Torpedo’’), and Red’s Scar (บาดแผลสีแดง). The three films all profile individuals accused of crimes against the state: a writer charged with lèse-majesté, a lèse-majesté convict who died shortly after she was interviewed by Nutcha, and a protester falsely accused of arson following the 2010 military massacre. The Director in Focus retrospective will be followed by a Q&A with Nutcha.

The festival also includes three videos from 2022, all of which commemorate violent episodes from Thailand’s modern history. Sumeth Suwanneth’s Lost, and Life Goes On (เลือนแต่ไม่ลืม) features interviews with relatives of the victims of the 1992 ‘Black May’ massacre. In Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s ชวนอ่านภาพ 6 ตุลา (‘invitation to read images of 6th Oct.’), Octobrists and current students interpret photographs of the 6th October 1976 massacre. Chanasorn Chaikitiporn’s Dawn of a New Day (ก่อนฟ้าสาง) traces the history of the student protest movement from the 14th October 1973 uprising to the 1976 massacre. Sumeth and Chulayarnnon’s films will both be screened on 5th and 7th February, and Chanasorn’s is screening on 4th December as part of a Director in Focus retrospective.

18 January 2024

Phatthalung Micro Cinema 0.5


Phatthalung Micro Cinema
112 News from Heaven

The first independent film event organised by Phatthalung Micro Cinema will be held on 20th January at Swiftlet Book Shop in Phatthalung. For this soft launch, no. 0.5 in their screening programme, they will show three short films, including the premiere of Vichart Somkaew’s documentary 112 News from Heaven.

On 112 News from Heaven’s soundtrack, an announcer reads a bulletin of royal news, a daily staple of the Thai airwaves. This is juxtaposed with captions documenting the convictions of activists charged with lèse-majesté (article 112 of the criminal code). Vichart’s Cremation Ceremony (ประวัติย่อของบางสิ่งที่หายไป) used a similar technique, with captions honouring victims of political injustice.

Today saw the harshest sentence ever given to a lèse-majesté convict, as Mongkhon Thirakot received a fifty-year jail term. He was found guilty last year, in relation to fourteen Facebook posts, and was originally sentenced to twenty-eight years: two years per conviction, to be served consecutively. He appealed the verdict, and today the Appeals Court added an extra twenty-two years to his sentence.

15 January 2024

January Sing-alongs!


January Sing-alongs!

Neighbourhood, the Bangkok community mall that began regular outdoor film screenings last year, will show a season of musicals this month. January Sing-alongs! includes the classics The Wizard of Oz on 21st January and The Sound of Music on 27th January.

The Sound of Music had a previous outdoor, sing-along screening as part of the 2005 Bangkok International Film Festival, at Benchasiri Park. The Wizard of Oz had an outdoor screening last year, at Benchakitti Forest Park.

The Wizard of Oz also had a theatrical rerelease last year. It was previously shown at Bangkok Screening Room in 2018, 2019, and 2020. It has also been screened at the Scala, Cinema Winehouse, Bangkok Community Theatre, and Jam.

05 January 2024

National Soft Power Strategy Committee


Democracy Monument

Thailand’s film censorship system is likely to be liberalised this year, after an announcement from the government’s National Soft Power Strategy Committee (คณะกรรมการยุทธศาสตร์ซอฟต์พาวเวอร์แห่งชาติ) yesterday. According to the NSPSC, more representatives from the film industry will be permitted to sit on the film censorship board, and the board’s focus will shift from censorship to classification.

The NSPSC, chaired by Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, was established on 13th September last year. It assesses policy recommendations submitted by its subsidiary, the National Soft Power Development Committee (คณะกรรมการพัฒนาซอฟต์พาวเวอร์แห่งชาติ), chaired by Paetongtarn Shinawatra (the leader of Pheu Thai).

Yesterday, Paetongtarn announced that sensitive themes such as sex and religion will no longer be subject to censorship: “Only movies with content that may affect the monarchy will remain prohibited from being screened in Thailand.” (Unsurprisingly, the issue of lèse-majesté remains untouchable.) A proposed new film law, to replace the Film and Video Act, includes a provision for a “[s]elf-regulate rating system”.

Thai Cinema Uncensored, the first comprehensive history of Thai film censorship, documents the arbitrary nature of film regulation in Thailand, and the inconsistencies of the censorship board’s judgements. The proposals unveiled yesterday appear to address many of these problems inherent in the state censorship system, though they fall short of the self-regulation called for by the film industry.

30 December 2023

Nednary


Nednary

“WHAT’S YOUR DEMOCRACY, THOO?”
“DEMOCRACY? IT’S MY KIND OF DEMOCRACY.”

Seven boy scouts arrive at an abandoned camp. One of them is the son of a poacher who shot a rare black panther (in a reference to disgraced businessman Premchai Karnasuta). In the past, the others have all killed domestic cats for fun. Their karma catches up with them as a girl scout and a mysterious man hunt them down. In this supernatural horror film from Yuthlert Sippapak, the girl scout is a reincarnation of the dead cats and the man is the spirit of the panther.

The nicknames of the seven boy scouts are the same as those of right-wing Thai politicians—Thoo (Prayut Chan-o-cha), Thay (Mongkolkit Suksintharanon), Pom (Prawit Wongsuwan), Nooh (Anutin Charnvirakul), Tape (Suthep Thaugsuban), Nu (Wissanu Krea-ngam), and Mark (Abhisit Vejjajiva)—and the girl scout’s nickname, Booh, is the same as Yingluck Shinawatra’s. So the film is a political satire, with Yingluck getting her revenge on the coup-makers and protest leaders who brought down her government. (Thaksin Shinawatra’s nickname is Maew, the Thai word for ‘cat’, so the girl scout character perhaps represents both Yingluck and Thaksin.)

Thoo is the most aggressive of the boy scouts, knocking Booh unconscious, tying her up, and repeatedly punching her in the face when she regains consciousness. The real-life parallel is that Prayut led a coup against Yingluck’s government, and she has been legally persecuted ever since. (She was fined, impeached, and convicted of dereliction of duty.)

Nednary

The film was shot in 2019, though it was initially shelved by its studio, Phranakorn Film, due to concerns about its political content. Yuthlert has since added an over-saturated colour filter to the image (to disguise the fact that it was shot on his iPhone), and retitled the film from Seven Boy Scouts to Nednary (อวสานเนตรนารี). The new title translates as ‘girl scout’, shifting the focus onto the female protagonist, in the same way that Yuthlert retitled another long-delayed film from Fatherland (ปิตุภูมิ) to Rachida (ราชิดา).

Interviewed in Thai Cinema Uncensored, Yuthlert described Nednary as “a political satire. Finding a way to fight back in a film in the mainstream.” The director has been politically active since the 2014 coup, and Nednary is his personal response to the last decade of Thai politics. The violent plot is also somewhat cathartic, as he explained in his Thai Cinema Uncensored interview: “No one grows up, because I kill them all!”

After this year’s election, the studio finally felt comfortable to release the film. In fact, rather than minimising the political angle, it’s emphasised in the trailer and opening title sequence, with the scouts’ nicknames shown in very large letters. (The English spellings of the nicknames in the trailer are more accurate than those in the film’s subtitles: Tu, rather than Thoo, for example.)

In case viewers miss the political allusion, it’s hammered home when the boy scouts argue about who should lead them. Thoo insists it should be him—Prayut clung onto power unconstitutionally for nine years—and the others accuse him of being undemocratic. Thoo’s reply is a Thai pun that’s not translated in the subtitles: he says that his kind of democracy is “ประชาธิปตู่.” The Thai word for ‘democacy’ is ‘ประชาธิปไตย’, though he replaces the final syllable with his own nickname; the English equivalent would be ‘Thoo-ocracy’.

29 December 2023

Short 27 Awarded Film Screening


Best of Short 27
Open World Cinema

The 27th Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 27) took place from 16th December until Christmas Eve, after the preliminary online Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน). At next month’s Short 27 Awarded Film Screening, the winning films will be shown again at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya.

Phassarawin Kulsomboon’s feature-length documentary Khon Boys (เด็กโขน) will be shown on 6th January next year, for its final screening in Thailand for the foreseeable future. Another documentary feature, Supamok Silarak’s Red Poetry (ความกวีสีแดง), is screening on the following day, as is Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s short drama The Physical Realm (ภูมิกายา).

The Physical Realm will also be shown at a Best of Short 27 (โปรแกรมผลงานชนะรางวัลจากเทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 27) screening at Chiang Rai International Art Museum on 10th February. The screening is part of the Open World Cinema programme of the Thailand Biennale in Chiang Rai.

The Amazing Movie Posters of Thailand


Apocalypse Now

The Amazing Movie Posters of Thailand, by Neil Pettigrew and Philip Jablon, is—to borrow the adjective from its title—an amazing book. Featuring more than 500 posters, including many full-page reproductions, it’s the most extensive guide to Thai film posters ever published.

The Amazing Movie Posters of Thailand includes a brief history of Thai film poster production, paying particular tribute to Somboonsuk Niyomsiri (also known as Piak Poster), “[t]he father of Thailand’s style of hand painted movie posters”. The Thai poster for Apocalypse Now, painted by Tongdee Panumas, is singled out as “a contender for being the greatest film poster of all time. Not just from Thailand but from any country.”

The book also features the most comprehensive roster of Thai poster artist biographies ever compiled. The entry for Somboonsuk highlights his design for the French film Temptation (L’Île du bout du monde), which “revolutionised the look of Thai cinema posters in 1959 by using an offset printer which allowed for more richly colourful artwork.” (An exhibition of Somboonsuk’s work was held at the Thai Film Archive last year.)

The Amazing Movie Posters of Thailand / Thai Movie Posters / Bai Pid / Starpics

The Amazing Movie Posters of Thailand is published by the founder of the horror film magazine The Dark Side, thus it focuses heavily on horror and exploitation posters. The final few chapters are devoted to gory and erotic posters, including one for the Hong Kong film A Gambler’s Story (邪斗串), described as “perhaps the all-time most explicit movie poster ever produced in Thailand.” (These posters—displayed in seedier cinema lobbies, not on public view—were more graphic than the films they advertised, as discussed in Thai Cinema Uncensored.)

Co-authors Pettigrew and Jablon are both Thai poster collectors. (Jablon is also a dealer.) Pettigrew has previously written about Thai horror and sexploitation posters in The Dark Side (no. 167, 168, and 180). Jablon organised a poster exhibition at this year’s Singorama Film Festival, and wrote the excellent Thailand’s Movie Theatres.

Gilbert Brownstone’s Thai Movie Posters (Affiches de cinéma thaï), published in 1974, was the first survey of Thai film posters. (Its Thai title is โปสเตอร์ภาพยนต์ไทย.) After almost fifty years, another book on the subject was long overdue, and The Amazing Movie Posters of Thailand was well worth the wait.

Starpics magazine released a special issue (no. 3) on the history of Thai film posters in 1997, which is also a great resource. There are catalogues to the Bai Pid (ใบปิด) and Thai Film Posters (ใบปิดหนังไทย) exhibitions, and other poster exhibitions include Eyegasm and Rare Thai Movie Posters (ลับแลโปสเตอร์ ภาพยนตร์ไทย). There is a short essay on Thai film posters in Thai Cinema (Le cinéma thaïlandais), and vintage posters are illustrated in Dome Sukwong’s A Century of Thai Cinema.

26 December 2023

The Exorcist Legacy:
50 Years of Fear


The Exorcist Legacy

The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear was published earlier this year, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of William Friedkin’s classic horror film The Exorcist. Author Nat Segaloff was Friedkin’s authorised biographer, and he covers the making of the film in considerable detail, with chapters on the three stages of production and the film’s release.

The book also discusses the various Exorcist sequels, which are of interest only to completists. Segaloff’s synopses of all these spinoffs are largely superfluous. Fortunately, though, the first half of the book is devoted to the original 1973 film.

Mark Kermode’s book on the film, from the BFI Film Classics series, remains the definitive study, and Segaloff interviewed him for The Exorcist Legacy. In fact, Kermode has become such an authority on The Exorcist that Segaloff dedicates his book to him alongside Friedkin and William Peter Blatty (who wrote the original novel).