Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art

Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art, published this week, documents the professional history of tattooing in Europe and America over the last 300 years. Martin Hildebrandt, who opened a tattoo parlour in New York in 1858, is “widely considered to be the first professional tattooer in the Western world”, though author Matt Lodder reveals that tattooing was a recognised profession in England as far back as 1719. Lodder traces the subsequent development of tattooing as an art form, including the tattoo renaissance led by American artists such as Lyle Tuttle, and the book includes many previously unpublished illustrations of tattoo photographs, designs, and ephemera.

Tattoo (Tatoueurs, Tatoues) is another key work of tattoo history. Body Decoration (Geschmückte Haut, by Karl Gröning) and The World of Tattoo (De wereld van tatoeage) illustrate tribal tattooing from around the world. The History of Tattooing, published ninety-nine years ago, was the first book on the subject. Andrea Juno and V. Vale’s Modern Primitives, discussed at length in Lodder’s book, is an influential guide to contemporary body modification. The term ‘tattoo renaissance’ was coined by Amie Hill in a cover story for Rolling Stone (no. 67), reprinted in Side-Saddle on the Golden Calf.

Skyline FilmPulp Fiction

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

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

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

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

Arcadia Rooftop Cinema Enter the Dragon

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

Bangkok Breaking: Heaven and Hell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

November Action Flicks

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

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

Fragmentary Forms: A New History of Collage

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

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

Priyanandana Rangsit v. Nattapoll Chaiching

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

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

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

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining

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

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

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

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

Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy

Vichart Somkaew’s new documentary Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy (ไตรภาคการเมืองร่วมสมัยไทย) is an hour-long portmanteau project combining three of his recent short films: Cremation Ceremony (ประวัติย่อของบางสิ่งที่หายไป), 112 News from Heaven, and The Letter from Silence (จดหมายจากความเงียบ). The anthology’s structure, divided into three segments, reflects what the director sees as the three eras of modern Thai politics: 1932–1957 (the abolition of absolute monarchy and the establishment of democratic institutions), 1957–1992 (prolonged military dictatorship, culminating in the ‘Black May’ crackdown), and 1992 to the present day (liberal reforms, followed by political polarisation).

Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy begins with Vichart’s most directly political film, Cremation Ceremony, in which the faces of three politicians stare impassively at the viewer. The three men—Anutin Charnvirakul, former health minister; Abhisit Vejjajiva, former prime minister; and former army chief Prayut Chan-o-cha—are responsible for three tragic injustices. Anutin oversaw the Thai government’s initially sluggish response to the coronavirus pandemic. Abhisit authorised the shooting of red-shirt protesters in 2010. Prayut led the 2014 coup, and his military government revived lèse-majesté prosecutions.

Vichart sets fire to photographs of the three men, their faces distorting as the photographic paper burns. There is no sound except the crackling of the flame. This symbolic ritual is a reminder of the deaths of Covid victims, red-shirt protesters, and political dissidents, though it’s also a metaphorical act of retribution, as the three politicians have faced no consequences for their actions. (Anutin is a billionaire, Abhisit was cleared of all charges, and Prayut acted with total impunity.)

While the three portraits burn slowly, captions mourn the forgotten victims: red-shirts shot while sheltering in Wat Pathum Wanaram, political prisoners charged under article 112, and victims of the coronavirus. (Cremation Ceremony originally ended on a hopeful note with a final caption explaining that pro-democracy parties had “emerged victorious” in last year’s election. But after the film’s release, the progressive Move Forward Party was excluded from the governing coalition, and the optimistic caption has now been removed.)

Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy continues with 112 News from Heaven, which 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”.

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.

After its litany of legal persecution, 112 News from Heaven ends with 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.” Viewers are left to interpret this in the context of the film they have just seen.

Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy’s final segment is The Letter from Silence, a series of extracts from letters by lawyer and pro-democracy campaigner Arnon Nampa to his family, written while he serves a prison sentence for lèse-majesté. Arnon’s letters are often heartbreaking, as he faces the prospect of many years in jail if convicted on further charges, separated from his wife and their two young children.

In fact, Arnon is one of the common threads linking each Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy episode. Cremation Ceremony summarises his 3rd August 2020 speech calling for reform of the monarchy, 112 News from Heaven documents the legal process following his arrest, and The Letter from Silence quotes from his prison letters.

The Letter from Silence

Vichart Somkaew’s latest short film The Letter from Silence (จดหมายจากความเงียบ) features extracts from letters by lawyer and pro-democracy campaigner Arnon Nampa to his family, written while he serves a prison sentence for lèse-majesté. Arnon’s letters are often heartbreaking, as he faces the prospect of many years in jail if convicted on further charges, separated from his wife and their two young children.

The film is silent, except for ambient sounds recorded at night in a quiet neighbourhood. It avoids the explanatory captions of Vichart’s previous films 112 News from Heaven and Cremation Ceremony (ประวัติย่อของบางสิ่งที่หายไป), instead letting Arnon’s words stand alone. This makes the film all the more powerful, and emphasises the hopelessness of Arnon’s situation.

The Letter from Silence’s focus on Arnon’s letters themselves has echoes of another short film with a similar title, Prap Boonpan’s Letter from the Silence (จดหมายจากความเงียบ). Prap’s film documented the suicide note left by Nuamthong Praiwan, who had protested against the 2006 coup by crashing his taxi into a tank.

The Letter from Silence, which is dedicated to Arnon and other political prisoners, was shown as part of this year’s online Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน) on 5th November. Vichart has announced plans to combine it with 112 News from Heaven and Cremation Ceremony into an hour-long portmanteau film, Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy. Arnon’s letters have been translated into English by the Article 112 Project website.

Arnon led a protest at Democracy Monument on 3rd August 2020, one of the first rallies calling for reform of the monarchy. The speech he delivered at that event was published as The Monarchy and Thai Society (สถาบันพระมหากษัตริย์กับสังคมไทย). He has also written a book of poetry, เหมือนบอดใบ้ไพร่ฟ้ามาสุดทาง (‘we subjects, as if mute and blind, have found ourselves at the end of the line’). A documentary about him, We Need to Talk About อานนท์ (‘we need to talk about Arnon’), was screened at Phatthalung Micro Cinema earlier this year.

Short Film Day

The Thai Film Archive at Salaya will celebrate Short Film Day on 28th December with screenings of Lumière! and Hugo. Short Film Day marks the date in 1895 when the Lumière brothers showed a programme of short films to customers at a café in Paris.

Lumière! is a compilation of 114 meticulously restored short films by the Lumière brothers. Narrated by Thierry Frémaux, it’s similar to the earlier documentary The Lumière Brothers’ First Films, a compilation of eighty-five Lumière films narrated by Bertrand Tavernier. (In both compilations, the short films are arranged thematically rather than chronologically.) Lumière! was previously shown at the Alliance Française in Bangkok in 2018.

Hugo was Martin Scorsese’s first film in 3D, and also his first film aimed specifically at a family audience. It’s nominally the story of Hugo Cabret, a Parisian orphan, but its real focus is filmmaker Georges Méliès, played by Ben Kingsley. Méliès sells toys at a small booth, though Hugo discovers his past as a cinema pioneer.

Hugo also has parallels with Scorsese’s own life. Like the title character, Scorsese was captivated by the cinema as a child, and he rehabilitated the reputation of director Michael Powell, just as Hugo brings Méliès back into the limelight.

The Film Archive will also show Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, on 6th December. This classic Hollywood-on-Hollywood satire has been shown previously at Bangkok Screening Room, and at Smalls in Bangkok.

House Samyan

House Samyan in Bangkok will show two classic French films at the end of this month, with further screenings continuing into December. François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups) and Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (À bout de souffle) are both among the greatest films ever made, and cornerstones of the French New Wave (la nouvelle vague)

The 400 Blows opens on 28th November, followed by Breathless on the following day. Both films are being screened in a double bill on 30th November; and on 1st, 5th, and 7th December.

The 400 Blows was screened at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya earlier this year and in 2018. It has also been shown several times previously 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).

Breathless, one of the most influential films ever made, was shown in Chiang Mai and Bangkok last year. It was also shown in Bangkok in 16mm in 2010, and at an open-air screening in 2011.

2475Dawn of Revolution

When the animation 2475 Dawn of Revolution (๒๔๗๕ รุ่งอรุณแห่งการปฏิวัติ) was released earlier this year, Prachatai reported that the film’s production company, Nakraphiwat, was paid almost ฿4 million by the army for other projects between 2020 and 2022. Yesterday, Prachatai revealed that it had received a defamation lawsuit from Nakraphiwat, alleging that Prachatai’s online article falsely implied that 2475 had been funded by the military.

The film’s credits include a long list of individual donors, some of whom gave as little as ฿100 each, though the bulk of the budget was provided anonymously. 2475 (directed by Wivat Jirotgul) tells the story of the 1932 coup from a royalist-nationalist perspective, though its makers are clearly sensitive to the suggestion that the film is an example of military propaganda.

The lawsuit was filed on 11th October, and there will be a preliminary hearing at the Criminal Court in Bangkok on 9th December. Prachatai’s report—headlined “พบเจ้าของแอนิเมชัน ‘2475 Dawn of Revolution’ รับโครงการทำสื่อแบบวิธีเฉพาะเจาะจง ‘กองทัพบก’ 11 สัญญา” (‘the maker of 2475 Dawn of Revolution took on 11 media contracts from the army’)—which was published on 15th March, is still online.

16th World Film Festival of Bangkok

The 16th World Film Festival of Bangkok (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์โลกแห่งกรุงเทพฯ ครั้งที่ 16) begins on 7th November with the Thai premiere of Sivaroj Kongsakul’s new film Regretfully at Dawn (อรุณกาล). The festival will run until 17th November.

Kriengsak Silakong, the festival’s founder, sadly died in 2022, and the Lotus award for lifetime achievement was renamed in his honour. Like the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th festivals, this year’s event will take place at CentralWorld’s SF World cinema. (The 6th, 7th, and 8th festivals were held at Paragon Cineplex; the 5th, 9th, and 10th took place at Esplanade Cineplex.)

Regretfully at Dawn is one of several recent Thai films whose protagonists are retired soldiers nearing the end of their lives. Sivaroj’s film includes flashbacks in which the main character, an elderly man called Yong (played by Caravan band-member Surachai Jantimathawn), is haunted by his time in the military. The time frame is not specified, though judging by Yong’s age, he likely fought against the Communist insurgency in the 1970s.

Taiki Sakpisit’s The Edge of Daybreak (พญาโศกพิโยคค่ำ) and Jakrawal Nilthamrong’s Anatomy of Time (เวลา) also feature protagonists who cannot escape the memories of their anti-Communist past, though Yong is a more sympathetic figure than the dying men in Taiki and Jakrawal’s films. Similarly, the title character in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ) confesses that he “killed too many communists”, though the film doesn’t include flashbacks to that period of Boonmee’s life.

The 100 Best Movies of All Time

The 100 Best Movies of All Time, a magazine published by A360 Media earlier this year, lists 100 classic films, though only six are foreign-language titles. The list is very mainstream, which is hardly surprising as A360 is a rebranding of American Media, the publisher of the National Enquirer and other supermarket tabloids. The Godfather is at the top of the list.

Bangkok Art Biennale 2024

After Beyond Bliss (สุขสะพรั่ง พลังอาร์ต) in 2018, Escape Routes (ศิลป์สร้าง ทางสุข) in 2020, and Chaos:Calm (โกลาหล:สงบสุข) in 2022, the fourth Bangkok Art Biennale’s theme is Nurture Gaia (รักษา กายา). As in previous years, the Biennale (บางกอก อาร์ต เบียนนาเล่) is being held at multiple venues around the city, from galleries to temples. The event opened on 24th October, and runs until 25th February next year.

Taiki Sakpisit’s video installation Dream Sequence (ฝันทิพย์), showing at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, consists of static shots filmed at the house in Paris where Pridi Banomyong lived during his years in exile from Thailand until his death in 1983. The house was purchased this year by Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, founder of the Future Forward party, cementing the property as a symbol of progressive politics thwarted by the establishment, and the Biennale catalogue describes Tiaki’s video as “a kaleidoscopic feast of delusion, desperation, oppression, and perpetual nightmares rooted in Thailand’s flawed democracy.”

Dispatch

Dispatch, an exhibition of photographs by R. Scott Davis, opened at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre on 1st November, and runs until 1st December. Davis photographed EMS workers as they attended emergency calls and accidents, and human specimens at Bangkok’s Central Institute of Forensic Science.

Tsurisaki Kiyotaka also photographed fatal accidents and crime scenes in Bangkok, though his images focus on the victims rather than the EMS staff. The Netflix series Bangkok Breaking (มหานครเมืองลวง) dramatised the competition between the city’s various EMS teams.

War

Bob Woodward’s most recent books on presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden all have one-word titles: Fear, Rage, Peril, and now War. Woodward covered the first few months of the Biden administration in Peril, and War—released earlier this month—is his account of Biden’s responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Isreal’s war with Gaza. (He previously wrote a similar book on Barack Obama’s foreign policy, Obama’s Wars.)

Woodward’s reporting is always extraordinary—his and Carl Bernstein’s investigation into the Watergate scandal ultimately led to Richard Nixon’s resignation—but War is a remarkable book. Almost every chapter features direct quotes from secure telephone calls and private meetings between Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and others.

The US intelligence services were aware of Putin’s plan to attack Ukraine, and tried several times to convince Zelensky that it would happen. Woodward reports that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told a skeptical Zelensky: “we believe there is a very high risk that the Russians will re-invade your country.” Zelensky was equally dismissive when CIA director Bill Burns reiterated: “There is going to be a significant invasion of your country”. Even a week before the war began, Zelensky remained unconvinced when Vice President Kamala Harris warned him: “You face a potentially imminent invasion.”

After the 7th October 2023 attack on Isreal by Hamas, Woodward shows how Biden and his most senior diplomats were focused on seeking assurances from Netanyahu that his retaliation would be proportionate. Netanyahu insisted that “not an ounce of anything will go into Gaza to help people,” though Blinken and Biden convinced him to reconsider. As the war dragged on, Biden sought to minimise any potential escalations, and Woodward quotes at length from a wide-ranging 4th April call between Biden and Netanyahu debating an invasion of Rafah, humanitarian aid, and the hostage crisis.

Biden’s private opinion of Netanyahu is clear from War. Woodward reports that Biden called the Israeli PM “a fucking liar,” and added for good measure: “That son of a bitch Bibi Netanyahu, he’s a bad guy. He’s a bad fucking guy!” But it was the book’s reporting about former president Donald Trump that made more headlines: Woodward quotes Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trump’s presidency, describing Trump as “fascist to the core.” (Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly agreed with Milley in a recent New York Times interview.)

Woodward’s own assessment of Trump (who is suing him after the release of The Trump Tapes) is also unequivocal. He ended Rage by describing Trump as “the wrong man for the job” though he goes much further in War: “Donald Trump is not only the wrong man for the presidency, he is unfit to lead the country. Trump was far worse than Richard Nixon, the provably criminal president... Trump was the most reckless and impulsive president in American history and is demonstrating the very same character as a presidential candidate in 2024.”

Chris Whipple (The Fight of His Life) and Franklin Foer (The Last Politician) have also written books on the Biden White House. Simon Shuster’s The Showman is an account of Zelensky’s presidency and the war in Ukraine.

Lazada

Today the Criminal Court in Bangkok dismissed lèse-majesté charges in relation to online videos promoting the shopping website Lazada and Nara skincare. Lazada had posted a video on 5th May 2022 featuring Thidaporn Chaokhuvieng in a wheelchair, which led to allegations that it was mocking Princess Chulabhorn and disabled people in general. Another TikTok campaign showed images of Thidaporn alongside Kittikoon Thammakitirad, who was dressed similarly to Queen Sirikit.

The video campaign was surprisingly audacious for a mainstream, market-leading company like Lazada, as lèse-majesté is rigorously enforced and the references to Chulabhorn and Sirikit were unambiguous. Two days later, Srisuwan Janya (dubbed “Thailand’s complainer-in-chief” and mocked by comedian Udom Taephanich) filed lèse-majesté charges against Thidaporn and Kittikoon, amongst others, and they were arrested on 16th June 2022.

The Criminal Court’s decision today was as surprising as the initial Lazada campaign. Previously, lèse-majesté has been broadly interpreted, though today’s judgement followed the precise letter of the law (article 112 of the criminal code). Article 112 specifies that only defamation or insults directed at the King, Queen, heir to the throne, or regent are illegal, and the court today made clear that it would only prosecute lèse-majesté cases related to those named individuals.

Therefore, as Chulabhorn is not the heir to the throne, the case against Thidaporn was dismissed, perhaps setting a precedent that criticism of some royals is not a crime. The court also ruled that the imitation of Queen Sirikit was not disrespectful, and therefore dismissed the charges against Kittikoon. Again, this was unexpected, as it seems to permit the impersonation of a senior royal, even for commercial purposes.

ปฏิทินพระราชทาน(‘royal calendar’)

The Appeals Court yesterday upheld a two-year jail sentence for a man charged with lèse-majesté for distributing a calendar featuring a cartoon duck. The 2021 desk calendar, published by the Khana Ratsadon pro-democracy protest group, was titled ปฏิทินพระราชทาน (‘royal calendar’), in what the police claimed was an attempt to imitate an official royal publication.

The lèse-majesté charge related to five of the calendar’s cartoons, illustrating the months of January, March, April, May, and October. (The images cannot be reproduced or described, as this would constitute a repetition of the offence.) The man was arrested on New Year’s Eve 2020, and sentenced on 7th March 2023, though he was granted bail pending an appeal. He did not attend court yesterday, and was sentenced in absentia.

This is the third calendar to be confiscated by the Thai authorities in recent years. Wall calendars featuring photographs of former prime ministers Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawawtra were seized in 2018 and 2016.

Amazing Stoner Movie Fest 4

The fourth Amazing Stoner Movie Fest (มหัศจรรย์หนังผี ครั้งที่ 4) will take place at Cinema Oasis in Bangkok from 7th to 10th November, with simultaneous screenings both inside and outside the cinema. The festival’s Holy War Zone strand, part of its Shorts Programme (โปรแกรมหนังสั้น), includes two Thai films that feature archive footage of political unrest: Patipat Oakkharhaphunrat’s Black Hole and Warat Bureephakdee’s Crazy Soft Power Love. Both films are also included in this year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน).

Crazy Soft Power Love is a satire on the government’s soft power strategy, culminating in a Songkran water fight that escalates into a brawl, intercut with footage from the 6th October 1976 massacre. It was previously shown at Wildtype 2024.

Black Hole is a surreal black-and-white film in which a young son discovers that his father, a corrupt military officer, has sold citizens’ digital data for personal gain. The film links this family conflict with anti-military demonstrations in modern Thai history, with footage from 14th October 1973, 6th October 1976, and the student protests that began in 2020. It was also screened in the Tech Tales Youth programme at the 27th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 27).

If the Air Has Memories

Walai Buppha’s new documentary If the Air Has Memories (หากอากาศมีความทรงจำ) will be screened today at TK Park in Narathiwat, as part of the Indelible Memory (ลบไม่เลือน) exhibition commemorating the Tak Bai incident, when seventy-eight protesters suffocated to death on 25th October 2004 while being transported to a military camp. Today is the twentieth anniversary of the tragedy.

After many years, seven former police and military officers were eventually charged with the murder of the Tak Bai protesters. However, no attempt has been made to enforce the arrest warrants issued for them, and at midnight tonight, the twenty-year statute of limitations will expire, meaning that they cannot be prosecuted.

Walai’s one-hour documentary is the first film to give a voice to the families of the Tak Bai victims. One relative, for example, says that “we kept quiet, memory never goes away. We’d just get used to it.” He also asks why the protesters were “loaded on the truck and stacked up” like animals.

If the Air Has Memories includes a photograph of Tak Bai protesters being transported, as does the new horror movie The Cursed Land (แดนสาป), directed by Panu Aree. A character in Panu’s film has newspaper clippings and printouts about Tak Bai on a wall in his house.

If the Air Has Memories is not yet complete, and is screening today under its working title. It was first shown on 20th October at Hope Space in Bangkok, under its eventual subtitle, 20 Years Later, as part of the 20 ปีตากใบ เราไม่ลืม (‘20 years of Tak Bai, we will never forget’) exhibition.

Its final release title, Along the Road, refers both to the route along which the victims were transported twenty years ago, and the ongoing journey of the relatives in coming to terms with what happened. This title is also a reference to the long-running legal campaign for justice and accountability, which is still, two decades later, a journey without an ending.

Short Film Marathon 28

The 28th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 28) will take place from 14th to 22nd December at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya. As a prelude, all of the films submitted will be screened in alphabetical order in this year’s online Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน), between 29th October and 4th December.

There were more than 600 submissions this year. A few of the highlights include Vichart Somkaew’s documentary 112 News from Heaven on 29th October (previously screened at Phatthalung Micro Cinema 0.5, the Doc Club Festival, and Vichart Movie Collection), Patipat Oakkharhaphunrat’s Black Hole on 31st October (previously shown at Tech Tales Youth), Pattanapong Khongsak’s Bad Taste (โอรส) also on 31st October, Warat Bureephakdee’s Crazy Soft Power Love on 1st November (previously screened at this year’s Wildtype), Teeraphan Ngowjeenanan’s Comedy Against Dictatorship also on 1st November, Vichart’s The Letter from Silence (จดหมายจากความเงียบ) on 5th November, Komtouch Napattaloong’s No Exorcism Film on 7th November (also previously screened at Wildtype), Vichart’s The Poem of the River (บทกวีแห่งสายน้ำ) on 8th November, and Jarut Wisawong’s Twas Partly Love, and Partly Fear (another Wildtype film) on 12th November.

Comedy Against Dictatorship features an interview with comedian Setthawut Chanpensuk, who was inspired by Rap Against Dictatorship to start a satirical stand-up comedy routine. (In one of his live sets, he takes a swig of an energy drink: “Let me have a sip of Red Bull. Ahhh, the taste of inequality.”) Bad Taste, tinted blue and set to the song Blue by Eiffel 65, features a judge who eats blue food from a dogfood bowl on the floor. The colour blue has a symbolic meaning in Thai politics, and the film implies the judge’s dog-like obedience.