11 October 2024

Infringes


Infringes

Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s Birth of Golden Snail (กำเนิดหอยทากทอง) will be shown at Bangkok Kunsthalle as part of Infringes, a programme of short films curated by Komtouch Napattaloong. Infringes begins on 23rd October, and runs until 22nd December.

Birth of Golden Snail was banned from the Thailand Biennale in 2018, and had its first public screening at the following year’s 30th Singapore International Film Festival. Its Thai premiere was at the 23rd Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 23). Chulayarnnon discussed the film in an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored.

Bangsaen Film Festival 2024


Bangsaen Film Festival 2024

The Bangsaen Film Festival will take place at Burapha University from 17th to 19th October. Aekaphong Saransate and Thanakrit Duangmaneeporn’s recent documentary Breaking the Cycle (อำนาจ ศรัทธา อนาคต) is the event’s opening film. The closing film is Ing K.’s Shakespeare Must Die (เชคสเปียร์ต้องตาย). Ing’s Dog God (คนกราบหมา) will be screened as part of the Lan Film strand on 18th October.

Breaking the Cycle is a groundbreaking fly-on-the-wall account of the rise and fall of the progressive Future Forward party. It has previously been shown at A.E.Y. Space in Songkla, and will be screened at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya later this month.

Banned in 2012, Shakespeare Must Die was released in Thailand only after Ing appealed to the Supreme Court. Dog God (the director’s cut of My Teacher Eats Biscuits) was also released earlier this year after a long ban, and Ing discussed both films in an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored.

01 October 2024

6th October Filmography


6th October Filmography

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

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



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

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

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

Reservoir Dogs


Reservoir Dogs

Quentin Tarantino’s debut film Reservoir Dogs is screening at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok this month, on 3rd, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 27th, and 29th October. It was last shown in Bangkok a decade ago, at Jam in 2014.

Wildtype 2024


Wildtype 2024

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

Highlights this year include Koraphat Cheeradit’s ...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! (ฉันแต่งงานกับปัจจุบัน ช่วยตัวเองด้วยเมื่อวาน และมีเพศสัมพันธ์กับวันพรุ่งนี้), Kawinnate Konklong’s Unfortunately (แค่วันที่โชคร้าย), and Piyanat Lamor’s Come from Away (กลับบ้าน). ...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! is showing in the Exper programme of experimental films at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok on 5th October. Unfortunately and Come from Away are both included in the U-Dawn Genesis programme, screening at the same venue on 6th October. The Exper programme will also be shown at Loftster in Korat on 22nd October, at Alien Artspace in Khon Kaen on 25th October, at Chiang Mai University on 26th October, and at Noir Row Art Space in Udon Thani on 27th October. The U-Dawn Genesis programme will be shown at Loftster on 23rd October, at Noir Row Art Space on 26th November, at Alien Artspace on 27th October, and at CMU On 29th October.

...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now!

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

Unfortunately

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

Come from Away

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

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

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

Breaking the Cycle


Breaking the Cycle

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

29 September 2024

Hope Space



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

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


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

Indelible Memory:
20 Years Tak Bai


Indelible Memory

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

The government prohibited the broadcasting of video footage of the incident, though in defiance of the ban, the journal Same Sky (ฟ้าเดียวกัน) distributed a Tak Bai VCD—ความจริงที่ตากใบ (‘the truth at Tak Bai’)—with its October–December 2004 issue (vol. 2, no. 4). The footage is also included in Teerawat Rujenatham’s short film Tak Bai, and in two documentaries: Thunska Pansittivorakul’s This Area Is Under Quarantine (บริเวณนี้อยู่ภายใต้การกักกัน) and Prempapat Plittapolkranpim’s 18 Years. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the representation of Tak Bai by Thai filmmakers.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

28 September 2024

Taklee Genesis


Taklee Genesis

“Make sure we’re not forgotten.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

22 September 2024

Once a Month Film


Once a Month Film

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

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

16 September 2024

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


God and the Devil

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

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

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

05 September 2024

Lost and Longing


Lost and Longing

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

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

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

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

Aside from the Lost and Longing season, there will also be a screening of Nonzee Nimibutr’s Nang Nak at the Film Archive on 4th October. This classic horror film has been shown there fairly regularly, including earlier this year, in 2021, and in 2013. It was also screened in 2020 at Lido Connect, in 2019 at Bangkok Screening Room, at an outdoor screening in 2018, and at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand in 2010. It will be screened at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok on 17th, 20th, and 29th October.

01 September 2024

Quote of the day…


Quote of the day

“His movies cannot help us.”
— Surapong Suebwonglee

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

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

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

23 August 2024

The 8th Silent Film Festival in Thailand


The 8th Silent Film Festival in Thailand

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

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

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

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

11 August 2024

Godzilla Film Festival Thailand 2024


Godzilla Film Festival Thailand 2024

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

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

Godzilla

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

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

02 August 2024

Vichart Movie Collection


Vichart Movie Collection

A trio of recent films by Vichart Somkaew will be screened at Lorem Ipsum in Hat Yai on 4th August. The Vichart Movie Collection retrospective features three documentary shorts: Voice of Talad Phian (​เสียงแห่งตลาดเพียร), 112 News from Heaven, and his new film The Poem of the River (บทกวีแห่งสายน้ำ). (This will be the fourth screening of 112 News from Heaven, which was previously shown in January, February, and March this year.)

112 News from Heaven juxtaposes news that’s broadcast on all channels every day with news that goes unreported by mainstream outlets. On the soundtrack, an announcer reads a bulletin of royal news, a daily staple of Thai television and radio. This is contrasted with captions documenting news of “victims of the Thai state”. Vichart’s previous film Cremation Ceremony (ประวัติย่อของบางสิ่งที่หายไป) used a similar technique, with captions honouring victims of political injustice.

The Thai monarchy is often associated with the sky, symbolising the high reverence in which it is traditionally held, and lèse-majesté is article 112 of the criminal code, hence the title 112 News from Heaven. The film’s captions feature 112 headlines from a 112-day period, detailing the custodial sentences given to those convicted of lèse-majesté and the bail denied to those awaiting trial. This long litany of legal persecution is followed by a clip from an impromptu TV interview Rama X gave during a walkabout. Asked for his message to pro-democracy protesters, the King offers words of reassurance: “We love them all the same.”

It might seem an unusual comparison, but 112 News from Heaven’s structure recalls D.H. Lawrence’s novel Sons and Lovers. The bulk of that book describes the misery of the protagonist’s life, though it ends on an unexpectedly uplifting note: “He would not take that direction, to the darkness, to follow her. He walked towards the faintly humming, glowing town, quickly.” Can a book’s final few optimistic sentences negate the oppressive narrative of its previous 500 pages? Or does the apparently hopeful ending represent a false dawn? The same questions are raised by 112 News from Heaven, in relation to the state’s attitudes towards political dissent.

The Poem of the River
The Poem of the River

Vichart’s latest film, The Poem of the River, will have its world premiere tomorrow at the Paradise Film Festival in Budapest. The film opens with a caption describing “a Royal Development Project, costing 100 million baht” to dredge the water from the Lai Phan canal in Phatthalung. The dredging was undertaken to prevent flooding, though it has caused disruptive side effects. The canal was previously a local waterway and a source of food for villagers, who caught fish in the canal and grew vegetables nearby, though the area is now barren.

The Poem of the River juxtaposes tranquil images of the canal and its verdant, fertile banks—including some beautiful drone photography—with footage of the dredging process. (The effect is similar to Koraphat Cheeradit’s short drama Yesterday Is Another Day, in which scenes set in a woodland are interrupted by shots of a JCB digging up the area.) A lingering close-up of a man’s face, as he contemplates the results of the dredging, tells us everything about the project’s impact on the local community.

Please... See Us


Please... See Us

Chaweng Chaiyawan’s short film Please... See Us (หว่างีมอละ) will be screened at the 4th International Conference on Burma/Myanmar Studies on 4th August, at Chiang Mai University. 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 a Chaweng retrospective in Phattalung earlier this year. 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).

24 July 2024

Bwana Devil (blu-ray)


Bwana Devil

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. (It was never released on VHS, laserdisc, DVD, etc.) 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 with 3D and widescreen processes.

Bwana Devil’s Natural Vision (anaglyph) 3D system drew audiences back to the cinema in 1952, though the 3D craze came to an end after a couple of years. Oboler attempted to revive the format in 1966, with The Bubble, filmed in a less cumbersome process known as Space Vision. (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.)

22 July 2024

Censor Must Die


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–28th July; and 1st–4th, 8th–11th, and 15th–18th August. It was most recently shown there in May.