Showing 1 - 10 of 17
Staying afloat on a sea of despair
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/12/2019
» Chakra (Sarm Heng) is a Cambodian peasant boy who wants to escape a rural existence that offers him no future. "How's Thailand?" he asks a friend who returns from working at a construction site in Bangkok. "If you work hard, there's no problem," his friend assures him. Through trafficking agents, Chakra is smuggled across the border, but instead of being sent to a factory or a construction site, the boy is thrown onto a fishing trawler and forced to work without pay in conditions resembling a floating prison.
Ghosts of various stripes
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/09/2018
» Refugees, human-trafficking and a ravenous ghoul show the real and fantastical facets of Thailand in the movies showing this week at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Bond's countdown clock still ticks
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/11/2015
» The first shot in Spectre begins above a carnivalesque party during Mexico's Day of the Dead; the camera then comes down to the ground, weaves among the masked revellers dressed as skeletons, glides into a hotel door, up the elevator, out of the elevator, slips into a bedroom where Her Majesty's secret agent kisses a woman, then follows him out of the window -- "I won't be long", he tells her -- then it goes up again to see Bond sneak across the roofs to a spot where he performs his first assassination in this 24th James Bond movie.
Human traffic
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 03/11/2017
» Edmund Yeo started writing the film Aqerat before the word "Rohingya" would make world news headlines -- entirely for a distressing reason. Now the Malaysian film, which had its premiere in the main competition of the 30th Tokyo International Film Festival this week, has proved prescient as over 500,000 of Myanmar's Rohingya minority have fled violence for Bangladesh in one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in years.
Our newest mission is to love the bomb
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/07/2017
» Like all soap addicts, I caught glimpses of the debut episode of the television series Love Missions last week. Not a strand of hair misplaced despite his dangerous expedition, Capt Purich (played by Sukollawat Kanarot) enters a red zone to battle terrorists after they've abducted foreign delegates from a conference in Bangkok. "This act of terrorism has a big boss behind it," intones the captain.
At Cannes, humour makes a surprise visit
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/02/2017
» Humour is hardly ever associated with Cannes competition films -- to win the Palme d'Or, for example, it's assumed a film should possess art house gravitas, serious humanity, or weighty, topical, discourse-stimulating subject matter (last year's winner, Dheepan, is about immigrants in Paris, and before that, the three-hour-long Turkish drama Winter Sleep).
Pokemon goes on run from state capture
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/08/2016
» No, they will not ban Pokemon Go, though it's not hard to tell how tempting that idea must be in the post-referendum landscape where peace, order and national security have been constitutionally enshrined.
Serving up cruelty, a taste of 'Thainess'
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/08/2016
» The debate on the meaning of "Thainess" always fills me with patriotism and stomach ache. After last week's bombings, the army chief warned us to look out for people who wore hats, glasses and carried backpacks, because "Thais don't do that". The general meant well -- that we should watch out for suspicious agents of terror -- but the way he framed it was a crass, militaristic way of monopolising the definition of something that is shifting, malleable, even undefinable.
Documenting Southeast Asian diversity
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/03/2015
» Now in its fifth edition, Salaya International Documentary Film Festival brings you real-world immediacy and reflection that covers a wide gamut of subjects — from the aftermath of the communist purge in 1960s Indonesia to the housing woes in Singapore, from the ferry tragedy in Korea to a grand tour of the National Gallery in London. The festival (better known as Salaya Doc) begins tomorrow and runs until Mar 28 at the Film Archive in Salaya and the auditorium of Bangkok Art and Culture Centre in Pathumwan (BACC). Admission is free.
Wild Boars may well need saving again
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/07/2018
» I thought we could let it rest, but apparently the post-rescue drama of the 13 cave survivors is here to stay. On Wednesday, the 13 Wild Boars members were put on stage in a live broadcast, a 6pm state-run slot usually reserved for military propaganda.