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  • News & article

    Imagining Krabi

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/03/2020

    » There's an archaeology of narrative in Krabi, 2562, a film by Anocha Suwichakornpong and Ben Rivers currently showing in select Bangkok cinemas. Layer upon layer, stratum upon stratum, dust on dust, it gives us a glimpse of how history, legend and biography is constructed. Like playful excavators, the two filmmakers peel off the palimpsest of a place and its people, real and imagined.

  • News & article

    2023 ROUNDUP A vintage year for Thai cinema?

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/12/2023

    » There were cheers of jubilation and gasps of disbelief as Thai cinema found itself awash with excitement in 2023. This has been the most successful year for mainstream Thai movies in a decade, a box-office triumph far exceeding all expectations. To many, the 2023 coup de theatre calls for celebration. "We are back!" cried optimistic pundits. But also: "Really? Is it just a one-time cinema party and can we keep the ball rolling?"

  • News & article

    A note on Thailand Biennale

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/01/2019

    » One recent morning at Nopphrat Thara beach, the high tide flooded the lower part of a strange, interwoven structure. Rising from the blue water of the bay, it looked like an island, a new, unmapped island of Krabi visible from this popular spot where tourists visit and board tour boats to outlying islands.

  • News & article

    Edgy art in the Northeast

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/10/2018

    » It began on Oct 6, but it's not too late to check out the edgy art festival Khonkaen Manifesto, taking place at various sites around the northeastern province until Oct 26.

  • News & article

    Where to pay final respects to King Bhumibol

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/10/2017

    » The royal cremation day has arrived. Hundreds of thousands are expected to turn up at the ceremonial grounds to witness the historic event. Millions more are going to watch the proceedings on television. Those who would like to pay their last respect to King Bhumibol also have the choice of placing the sandalwood flowers at the 85 replicas of the royal crematorium around the country. There is one in each province and nine in Bangkok.

  • News & article

    Into the devil's lair

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 05/11/2021

    » Like a session of cinematic séance, Rang Zong (The Medium) channels a cemetery-sized roll call of classic horror elements. The film, recently picked as Thailand's representative for the Oscar's International Feature, is proudly possessed by the ghosts of The Exorcist, The Blair Witch Project, the Paranormal Activity franchise, and Ari Aster's Midsommar, but with Southeast Asia's earthy voodooism, plus a serving of Korean-style blood-and-viscera gore as well as an icing of zombie scare-aesthetics. It's a full-course buffet of fright tricks, complete with an apocalyptic, 30-minute-long exorcism orgy that leaves no spell unuttered and no human unpossessed. All of this is couched in a faux-documentary setup, with handheld shots, grainy CCTV footage and characters speaking directly to the camera.

  • News & article

    Of Naga and political dissidents

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/09/2021

    » The Naga is real but the murder is not. Or is it vice versa? What history chooses to remember and relegate to oblivion, what it enshrines as story and what it buries as hearsay, is how the narrative of a nation is forged in a mould of clay or a furnace of fire. Or in this particular case, in disembowelled bodies stuffed with concrete blocks. The murder is real but the Naga is not. This sounds more like it.

  • News & article

    Uncle Boonmee at 10

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/05/2020

    » Rumour had spread early that morning that the Thai film would win big that night. How big? We daren't dream. The runner-up prize maybe? The Cannes grapevine, in those embryonic days of Facebook and Twitter, was fairly dependable but not downright on the money. It gives you the shape but never the details. The Thai film "will definitely win something", said one of my supposedly well-connected friends, accompanied by a speculative wink.

  • News & article

    Memories buried in soil

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/07/2019

    » Memories and war, illusory borders and invisible scars: These themes are resonant in two documentary films shown late last month at the SAC Film Festival (hosted by the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre). In the Thai documentary Din Rai Dan (Soil Without Land), a Tai Yai man in Shan state talks about his life as a waiter in Bangkok and as a soldier in his ethnic army. In the Vietnamese film The Future Cries Beneath Our Soil, a group of men in a rural village bear the indelible wounds of the Vietnam War, still stinging after 40 years.

  • News & article

    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.

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