Showing 1 - 6 of 6
Defeating death
Life, Tatat Bunnag, Published on 02/07/2019
» Losing people you love is hard. Accepting loss is extremely challenging. People from different cultures and religious backgrounds have their own beliefs on how to deal with grief, or whether or not there's life after death.
SEA of delights
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/07/2019
» The Bangkok Asean Film Festival runs until July 8 and features 30 titles. Here are our top picks.
Asean films receive special showcase
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/07/2018
» The riches of Southeast Asian stories and images are celebrated at the 4th Bangkok Asean Film Festival, which opens tonight at SF CentralWorld and runs until Sunday. Hosted by the Thai Ministry of Culture, this year's edition marks the 51st anniversary of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the regional body whose primary mission is economics and which increasingly pays more heed to cultural promotion.
Strange brew
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/03/2018
» He went down to the crossroads, fell down on his knees, asked the Lord for mercy -- and somehow got it. In this biopic documentary, Eric Clapton -- his place in the pantheon of guitar god-dom guaranteed -- is a tragic genius denounced by his own mother and nurturing a desperate crush on his best friend's wife, which kept his guitar wailing and weeping. Here's a 60s-70s blues-rock maverick who sold his soul to heroin, cocaine, cognac, whatever, and when he emerged from the pit and things began to feel wonderful tonight, he lost his son in a terrible, terrible accident. That a new documentary about his life to date is allowed to end happily is proof that rock'n'roll (and life itself) can cheat the claws of fate and go on for longer than 12 bars.
Santi-Vina finally comes home
Life, Published on 22/07/2016
» On July 15, the Thai Film Archive hosted the screening of Santi-Vina, the 1954 classic Thai film whose negative prints were thought to be lost before they were discovered at the British Film Institute in London two years ago. After a lengthy restoration process by a lab in Italy and a world premiere in Cannes, Santi-Vina returned home after six decades. The screening at Scala last Friday is sure to become a chapter in Thai cinema history: it was an emotional homecoming and the 800-seat theatre was full to the tilt, something that hadn't happened at the venue for a long time.
Soulful, sorrowful, tragic
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/08/2015
» Amy is a biographical documentary of the singer Amy Winehouse, but it is also a horror film. Watching it is like watching a ghost, a confused, tortured ghost of a woman who has boundless talent in singing and none in living. As we watch Amy Winehouse -- in home video footage, concert recordings, TV interviews, etc -- it hits us that we're watching her being killed slowly at every passing minute; killed by herself, her addiction, and by the cruel ecosystem of the fame industry that feeds first on her gift then more voraciously on her downfall. This is one of the best documentary films this year, and in some parts it's also one of the hardest to watch.