Showing 11 - 20 of 262
Coldplay across the universe
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/02/2024
» The latest Coldplay concert in Bangkok was a feat of photogenic spectacles designed to bedazzle, complete with light-blinking wristbands, sci-fi-warped animation on spherical screens, balloons in the shape of planets and exploding fireworks above the roof of Rajamangala National Stadium ("The football field not often used to play football on," as a Thai national squad member noted.)
Marina's soul searching in Bangkok
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/10/2023
» Like Dante guided by Virgil, Marina Abramovic drifts through the purgatory that is Bangkok chaperoned by the little monkey prince. After praying at shrines and temples of assorted spiritual inclinations, she is taken to the Monkey King (Pichet Klunchun), whose rhymed, melodic prophecy finally guides Abramovic to the prayer hall of Wat Pho where her salvation awaits clad in a saffron robe.
The afterlife of Mitr Chaibancha
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/10/2023
» In an abrupt moment of life's brutal script, Mitr Chaibancha fell to his death from a helicopter ladder on Oct 8, 1970. He was filming Insee Thong (Golden Eagle), playing an anti-communist masked hero, when he slipped from the rung and plunged to the ground in Pattaya. That same evening, his body was transported to Wat Kae Nang Loeng. Thousands of people, unable to believe that Thailand's most famous actor was really, tragically dead, amassed impromptu at the temple and demanded that his corpse be raised from the coffin and shown to the public.
Pita and the 'Myth of Sisyphus'
Oped, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/07/2023
» 'The Gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight."
Will gentrification respect city's people?
Oped, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/06/2023
» We've lived for over a century in the shadow of grandeur: near the Customs House, known to Thais as rongpasi. "We" means my maternal family and the community of Haroon Mosque. Each day before sunrise, the muezzin's sing-song call rings through the neighbourhood, carried on the river wind towards the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, the French Embassy and Assumption Cathedral.
Asian talents score big at Cannes
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 31/05/2023
» From Japan to Malaysia by way of Vietnam, Asian filmmakers of disparate sensibilities triumphed at the recently-wrapped 76th Cannes Film Festival. The Palme d'Or may have gone to French filmmaker Justine Triet from her tense drama Anatomy Of A Fall, but six other awards handed out by the world's most influential film festival went to filmmakers from Asia, an unprecedented slate of recognition.
Hear her roar
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/05/2023
» The image of a girl taking off her hijab is wrought with cinematic symbolism. Kamila Andini shows it in her Indonesian film Yuni (2021); Hesome Chemamah in his Thai short I'm Not Your F*cking Stereotype (2019); Ana Lily Amirpour in the Iranian vampire film A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014). Subversion? Provocation? Liberation? At this year's Cannes Film Festival, we see that image in Amanda Nell Eu's Tiger Stripes, a work as playful as it is potent in its portrayal of adolescence and what it entails for a young woman's body.
Gay cowboys and glorious flesh
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/05/2023
» After the lukewarm opening film -- Maiwenn's Jeanne Du Barry, a fluffy costume drama starring Johnny Depp as King Louis XV -- the 76th Cannes Film Festival had its hottest ticket in a short film. Not just any short though: it's Pedro Almodovar's queer cowboy movie Strange Way Of Life, which saw patient festival-goers queuing up in the Rivera drizzle for nearly an hour to fill up even the worst seat of Salle Debussy on Wednesday.
10 films to watch out for
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/05/2023
» A fierce hijab girl, a Vietnamese pilgrimage, a Scorsese-DiCaprio team up and a new Cate Blanchett drama, Cannes Film Festival opens today with an eclectic taste of world cinema.
Harry shows Bangkok some Styles
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/03/2023
» The accessory du jour was the fluffy pink boa. The colour scheme was hot pink -- pink pants, pink boots, pink cowboy hats, pink eyeshadow, pink hijabs. Or if not pink, then anything in the tooth-aching shades of the rainbow. It was a lively, joyous sight on Saturday night, a show of hot-hue aesthetics in a defiant contrast to the brutalist concrete skeleton of Rajamangala Stadium. How I wish concrete-mad Bangkok could look like this every day!