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  • LIFE

    Massacre's memory

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/07/2017

    » The noblest thing is to remember the dead, no matter how long it has been. In the documentary Respectfully Yours, friends and families of some of the victims of the Oct 6, 1976, massacre remember those who were brutally maimed, tortured and killed on the grounds of Thammasat University 41 years ago, as the police and right-wing militia laid siege.

  • LIFE

    Filming history

    Muse, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/10/2016

    » Anocha Suwichakornpong's first degree is in jewellery design, but you won't see any gleaming items on her. A small woman with a pixie cut, the film director is more interested in crafting images than making necklaces (or wearing one) -- and that's good for her and even better for us on this side of the screen. On a recent afternoon she showed up to meet us, and the long talk was about film, memory, feminism, frozen ovum, political heartbreak and how the scourge of history has found a way into her latest film.

  • LIFE

    The inciting incident

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/10/2017

    » On Sept 24, 1976, two electricians were beaten and hanged to death from the top of a gate somewhere in Nakhon Pathom, victims of an escalating right-wing terror in Thai politics of that heady decade. Two weeks later, as protests against the return to the Kingdom of former dictator Gen Thanom Kittikajorn gathered steam, students at Thammasat University staged a play about the hanging of the two men. Soon the photographs of the play were used by nationalists to whip up anger and fear of communism, which led to the massacre on the morning of Oct 6 as police and militias laid siege to the university, killing, maiming and brutalising scores of people in one of the worst incidents of bloodshed in modern Thai history.

  • OPINION

    'Bob' Halliday gone, but his light lives on

    News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 03/06/2017

    » Bob told me many stories from a time when I hadn't even been born: During the Oct 14, 1973 student uprising, the authorities suspected he was a spy. When the Oct 6, 1976 massacre took place and the stench of blood was still fresh at Thammasat University, he surveyed the wreckage and bemoaned the state of the country he had adopted as his new home. Some evenings he reminisced on how he had lived through several dictators and prime ministers, hijacked or elected, overthrown or incapacitated -- he talked about Richard Nixon, Thanom Kittikachorn, Tanin Kraivixien, Thaksin Shinawatra, Prayut Chan-o-cha, etc. It didn't matter what happened, he'd say, as long as he could prowl produce markets in search of the perfect durian -- the caramelised Holy Grail of the fruit he adored above all else, the fruit that, as he'd say, made him "slobber like a mastiff".

  • LIFE

    Time is not on anybody's side

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/10/2021

    » There's the anatomy -- the bone and the flesh, supple or flaccid. Then there's time, the cruellest judge of all. In Jakrawal Nilthamrong's Anatomy Of Time (the Thai title is simpler, Wela), the first sound we hear is a tick-tock metronome like the soundtrack of the cosmos as we watch an old lady gently tending to her tubed and bedbound husband. Time will be folded back. The old woman will become young and her dying husband will appear as a spirited, dashing military captain fighting communist insurgents for the good of the nation.

  • LIFE

    Through the prism of history

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/10/2019

    » The book's title is printed on its spine: Prism Of Photography: Dispersion Of Knowledge And Memories Of The 6 October Massacre. Thereafter, from the first page on, we have only photographs with no captions.

  • OPINION

    Sucking the wind out of the elections

    News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 05/05/2018

    » The verb of the week is "to dood".

  • OPINION

    A nation of millions can't hold them back

    News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/10/2018

    » Rhymes and misdemeanours. Yo, yo. Rappers are threatened to be thrown in a slammer.

  • LIFE

    The pastoral romance returns

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/09/2018

    » The star-crossed lovers coo. They ride their buffaloes through a verdant field, splash mud, evade spiteful parents, and make a vow at the shrine of the banyan tree. But their romance, like all memorable romances in books and life, is doomed by the circumstances of fate, tragic and scarred, and their destiny is one of the most heartbreaking in the canon of Siamese literature and film.

  • THAILAND

    Moments of record

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/10/2016

    » The film fades and has scratches, but the persistence of history is strong. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Culture and Thai Film Archive (Public Organisation) registered 25 film items into the National Heritage list for audiovisual conservation and future reference. In November and December, the Archive will host screenings of some of the newly inducted titles.

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