Constitutional Court:“The accused is terminated as prime minister...”

The Constitutional Court has ruled, by a slim majority of 5–4, that Srettha Tavisin must resign as Prime Minister. The verdict comes after a petition to the court by a group of forty senators linked to Prawit Wongsuwan, calling for an investigation into Srettha’s appointment of Pichit Chuenban, Thaksin Shinawatra’s disgraced former lawyer, as Prime Minister’s Office Minister. In its judgement, the court said: “The accused is terminated as prime minister due to his lack of honesty”.

Pichit was jailed for six months in 2008 after blatantly attempting to bribe a judge on Thaksin’s behalf with ฿2 million in cash. Srettha was found guilty of violating article 160 of the constitution, which states that government ministers must “not have behaviour which is a serious violation of or failure to comply with ethical standards”, which would indeed seem to apply in Pichit’s case. (The court has made exceptions in the past, however: it ruled that Thammanat Prompao was qualified as a minister in the 2019 military-backed government despite his criminal record for heroin smuggling, as he was convicted outside Thailand.)

When Thaksin returned from self-imposed exile last year, it seemed that he and the military had reached a mutually beneficial arrangement: in return for excluding Move Forward from government, Thaksin’s criminal convictions would be waived. But the military giveth and taketh away: Thaksin has been wrong-footed several times, and every act of leniency granted to him has come with strings attached. He was released on parole, yet the very next day he faced a lèse-majesté charge. His application for a royal pardon was accepted, though it only partially commuted his prison sentence. Junta-appointed senators endorsed Srettha as PM, though now Srettha has been disqualified.

Move Forward was dissolved by the Constitutional Court last week, making the military less reliant on Thaksin, hence today’s verdict. In fact, over the past two decades, the Constitutional Court and the military have wielded significantly more political power than elected governments. Srettha himself was not elected, becoming PM only after the Senate refused to vote for the election winner, Pita Limjaroenrat. Nevertheless, he is now the fourth prime minister allied with Thaksin to be disqualified by the court, after Samak Sundaravej, Somchai Wongsawat, and Yingluck Shinawatra.

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.

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.

People’s Party

Move Forward, the progressive party that was dissolved by the Constitutional Court this week despite winning last year’s election, has been relaunched as the People’s Party with a new leader, Nattapong Ruangpanyawut. (Former leaders Pita Limjaroenrat and Chaithawat Tulathon were barred from politics for ten years following the party’s dissolution.)

The new party logo uses a simple graphic design to make a bold ideological statement. An inverted pyramid represents a reversal of Thailand’s top-down social hierarchy. The pyramid’s three lines symbolise the French revolutionary slogan ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’, perhaps an implicit counterpoint to Thailand’s traditional tripartite motto ‘nation, religion, king’.

Foreign Correspondent Thailand’s Bad Monks

Last night’s episode of Foreign Correspondent, one of the flagship current affairs programmes on the ABC in Australia, highlighted the growing number of monks succumbing to the temptations of sex, drugs, and money: “In Thailand, constant scandals involving monks are threatening a crisis of faith.” Al Jazeera broadcast a similar exposé a decade ago—101 East: Thailand’s Tainted Robes, on 18th December 2014—which reported that reverence for monks was in decline “as a series of scandals shake the public’s faith in the monkhood.”

Despite controversies involving corrupt monks, there are strict censorship rules governing the representation of the monkhood, in an attempt to protect the image of the institution. Thai Cinema Uncensored describes a ‘Buddhist lobby’ of religious organisations engaged in reputation management, campaigning against negative representations of monks in movies, and the book examines more than a dozen films either cut or banned for their portrayal of monk characters.

In some cases, the movies were inspired by real life, such as หลวงตา 3 สีกาข้างวัด (‘Luang Ta 3’), based on Nikorn Dhammavadi, a monk who dominated the headlines in 1990 when he fathered a lovechild. The film was criticised for bringing Buddhism into disrepute, though surely more reputational damage was caused by Nikorn than by the movie. Similarly, Poj Arnon, director of a series of monk comedies, told The Nation newspaper: “The way some monks behave in real life is far worse than anything I present on film” (16th March 2016).

When Ing K.’s film My Teacher Eats Biscuits (คนกราบหมา) was banned for its depiction of debauched monks, the director protested that she was merely reflecting incidents reported in the news. The censor’s candid reply was: “ข่าวสารเรา control ไม่ได้ แต่หนังเรา control ได้” (‘we can’t control the news, but we can control movies’).

“Nixon Resigns”

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resignation as US president. The second term of his presidency had been dominated by investigations into the Watergate scandal, and in his resignation speech on 8th August 1974 he conceded that he was vacating the office to avoid almost certain impeachment by both the House of Representatives and the Senate: “because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the nation would require.” (The speech was released on vinyl as Resignation of a President.)

Famously, at a press conference on 17th November 1973, Nixon had insisted: “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.” But after his so-called ‘White House plumbers’ broke into the Democratic National Committee’s Washington headquarters in the Watergate building, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered a criminal conspiracy that led all the way to the presidency. (Woodward and Bernstein’s work was one of the greatest examples of investigative journalism in newspaper history. Their main source, nicknamed ‘Deep Throat’, was deputy FBI director Mark Felt.)

It was the ‘smoking gun tape’ transcript, released following a Supreme Court ruling, that finally confirmed Nixon’s attempt to obstruct the FBI’s investigation into the Watergate burglary. On the tape, a recording of an Oval Office meeting on 23rd June 1972, Nixon says that the CIA “should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don’t go any further into this case, period.” The transcript was published on 5th August 1974; Nixon resigned three days later. In his inauguration speech, Nixon’s successor Gerald Ford drew a line under the Watergate controversy and declared: “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”

In an interview with David Frost (broadcast on 19th May 1977), Nixon implied that a president has immunity from prosecution: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” At the time, this was seen as a gross misreading of the US constitution, though earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled that a president does indeed have legal immunity for any official act carried out while in office. This ruling was particularly controversial as it came at a time when former president Donald Trump had been convicted of covering up a hush money payment and was under investigation for other crimes.

Move Forward Backward

The Constitutional Court has ruled that Move Forward, the progressive party that won last year’s election, poses a threat to the monarchy and must be dissolved. This is effectively the party’s second dissolution, as the same court dissolved Move Forward’s predecessor, Future Forward, in 2020. Other parties—Thai Rak Thai, People Power, and Thai Raksa Chart—have suffered the same fate and, like Move Forward and Future Forward, they were all anti-establishment and opposed to military rule.

This afternoon’s verdict was a foregone conclusion, as the court had already ruled in January that Move Forward’s manifesto pledge to amend the lèse-majesté law violated article 49 of the constitution, according to which it is forbidden “to overthrow the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State.” In such circumstances, article 92 of the Organic Act on Political Parties (2017) states that the Election Commission of Thailand “shall file a petition to the Constitutional Court to dissolve such political party.” (The ECT did so in March.)

Former party leader Pita Limjaroenrat was under no illusions about the outcome, writing an online op-ed for The Economist last week discussing “Move Forward and whatever political vehicle takes our place after the ruling on August 7th.” In its defence before today’s judgement, Move Forward made the perfectly reasonable case that lèse-majesté is a law like any other, and should therefore be subject to amendment by parliamentary vote. The party has not sought to repeal the law, only to reduce its severity. Needless to say, this is absolutely nothing like the treason described in article 49.

Since winning the election, Move Forward has faced sustained opposition in an attempt to prevent it from gaining power. On the eve of the parliamentary vote for a new PM, in a decision timed to cause maximum impact, the ECT petitioned the Constitutional Court to investigate Pita for alleged ownership of media shares. Most senators appointed by the military made clear that they would never endorse a Move Forward candidate, despite the party’s mandate from the election result.

Then, on the morning of the second prime ministerial vote, the Constitutional Court suspended Pita from parliament, and once again the timing was hardly coincidental. Pita was eventually exonerated, though his suspension during the investigation prevented him from being renominated as PM. On the other hand, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has not been suspended while the court investigates his alleged violation of article 160 of the constitution.

Even Move Forward’s ostensible allies conspired to keep the party out of office. Despite repeated assurances to the contrary, Pheu Thai joined with United Thai Nation and Palang Pracharath—the political wings of the military junta—in a coalition that was explicitly designed to exclude Move Forward. (Thaksin was photographed exchanging respectful wai greetings with coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha at a cremation ceremony yesterday, in the first public meeting between Thailand’s two most influential political figures.)

The dissolution has disenfranchised Move Forward’s 14 million voters, though the party will reconstitute itself under a different name, and its popularity is likely to increase, as the 2023 election result demonstrated that a majority of the electorate are opposed to the military establishment. Many disillusioned former Pheu Thai voters are also likely to support Move Forward’s successor. But a revival of the student demonstrations that took place after Future Forward’s dissolution is less likely, as the protest leaders have been charged with lèse-majesté and other offences.

ตาดูดาว เท้าติดดิน (‘looking at the stars, feet on the ground’)

In 2013, Thaksin Shinawatra published a comic adaptation of his autobiography, ตาดูดาว เท้าติดดิน (‘looking at the stars, feet on the ground’). The book, published by Thaksin’s own Thaicom company, was a vanity project that reimagined his life as an inspirational rags-to-riches tale. (As Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker wrote in Thaksin, their book on the former PM, “Thaksin has mythologized his life story as a poor boy made good.”) The comic was later converted into a seven-part animated series, aimed at an even younger audience, released on YouTube in 2014.

Surprisingly, ตาดูดาว เท้าติดดิน was the second comic biography of Thaksin. The first was published shortly after the 2006 coup that removed him from office. ชีวิตทักษิณ บันทึกประวัติศาสตร์ นายกของไทยคนที่ 23 ที่มีทั้งคนรัก คนชัง สุดท้ายถูกยึดอำนาจ! (‘Thaksin’s life: a historical record of how the 23rd Prime Minister of Thailand, who had both lovers and haters, finally seized power!’) is similarly hagiographic, though drawn in a more realistic style for a slightly older readership.

The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper

The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper is the first general history of writing pads and their various uses. Roland Allen devotes his first few chapters to Florentine notebooks, including domestic examples such as the ricordanzi (account book), ricordi (memoir), and zibaldoni (“a personal anthology, or miscellany”, similar to later collections of quotations known as common-place books).

The book’s scope extends from the Middle Ages to the present day, and it includes concise histories of diaries, logbooks, and other types of personal journal. It also has an annotated bibliography. There are a couple of notable omissions: spiral-bound reporters’ notebooks (used for shorthand notation) and yellow legal pads.

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.

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

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).

Bwana Devil (blu-ray)

Bwana Devil, the production that launched a brief vogue for 3D films in the 1950s, will be released on blu-ray this month, making its first appearance on video. (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.)

From Democrazy to ‘Coupocracy’

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

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

Censor Must Die

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

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

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

The documentary premiered at the Freedom on Film (สิทธิหนังไทย) seminar in 2013, was shown a few months later at the Thai Film Archive, and had private screenings at Silpakorn University and the Friese-Greene Club. This week, Censor Must Die returns to Cinema Oasis, the cinema Ing and Manit founded in Bangkok, screening on 25th–28th July; and 1st–4th, 8th–11th, and 15th–18th August. It was most recently shown there in May.

Journey... Blood... 2011–2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

Procession of Dystopia

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

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

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

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

Finist the Brave Falcon

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

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

“IT’S THE SUN WOT WON IT”?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These are the twelve chapters and their key films:

The Invention of the Movies —

• A Trip to the Moon
• The Great Train Robbery

The Golden Age of Silent Movies —

• The Gold Rush
• Sunrise

Classic Hollywood —

• Casablanca
• Citizen Kane

The Western —

• Stagecoach
• The Searchers
• Red River

Film Noir —

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

Comedy —

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

Musicals —

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

Suspense —

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

Horror —

• Cat People
• Halloween
• The Babadook

Action —

• The Bourne Identity
• Nobody
• Run Lola Run

Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Superhero Films —

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

International Art House —

• Bicycle Thieves
• Seven Samurai
• Nostalghia

The Movie Book (2nd edition)

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

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

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

These are the 117 main entries in the second edition:

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

These are the eighty-eight films in the appendix:

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

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

BBC News Thai

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

‘Guilty Landscapes’

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

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

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

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

รวมผลงานคัดสรรจากเพจ อยู่เมืองดัดจริต ชีวิตต้องป๊อป พ.ศ. 2557–2554(‘living in a pretentious city, life must be pop’)

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

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

Skyline FilmAnnie Hall

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

House 20th

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

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

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

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

Bangkok Critics Assembly Awards 2023

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

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

Pup

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

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

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

Non-Thai films featuring unsimulated sex have recently been passed uncut by the Thai censors, in another significant relaxation of the censorship rules: Dogtooth (Κυνόδοντας) and Pink Flamingos were both rated ‘20’. Pink Flamingos was screened at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya last year, and Dogtooth will be shown at House Samyan in Bangkok in August.

A Sleepless Entity(or The Thai’s Prometheus)

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

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