Showing 1 - 7 of 7
Romance among the ruins
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/09/2014
» Love is a crumbling currency in the wistful, strangely affecting Pavang Rak (Concrete Clouds). Set in 1997, during the economic meltdown that burst our bubble and left urban carcases of unfinished skyscrapers, the film remembers the emotional inertia of that year and watches its characters drift like ghosts as they realise that even love — of all the catastrophes — can't give them salvation. There's voluptuous despair. There's a full cabinet of 1990s pop-cultural reminiscence, and there's the filmmaker's awkward strive to reconcile the narrative flow with his experimental impulses — and yet here's a Thai film that's as tender as it is bold. It's also a film about the mood (and not necessarily the actualities) of that fateful, uneasy moment of 17 years ago when the market crashed and our sense of the future dashed.
A crack in the foundation
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/06/2014
» The idea that, in horror films, you can smuggle poor storytelling under the cloak of the night is silly, unless you are Dario Argento or Andrzej Zulawski (or recently, Under The Skin’s Jonathan Glazer). More nails are driven into the coffin when that darkened mood, that low-key lighting of the long night, those contrivances for sultry spook, don’t pay off with a few good scares. People go to the movies for three reasons, said The Exorcist director William Friedkin — “to laugh, to cry or to be frightened”. Without those, I add reluctantly, a cinema is a cemetery not worth visiting.
Of love and meltdown
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/10/2013
» Last year a Thai movie won the top prize at the Busan International Film Festival, Asia's leading cinema event. This year, two new home-grown films are in the competition _ here's a first look.
'Big' South film risks missing the ugly point
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/08/2012
» I gasped, because it was the first time I'd seen an aircraft carrier in a Thai movie. Actually, it was just a trailer, and to stick to the cardinal rule of criticism, we won't judge a book by its cover or a prime minister by her dress. No matter how tempting it is.
Regionalcross-Over
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/08/2012
» It helps that the part doesn't require him to speak much. Playing a soldier stationed in the Spratlys, a group of disputed islands in the South China Sea several nations lay claim to with some even flexing their military might, Ananda Everingham, in the new Filipino film Kalayaan, only has to speak three sentences in Tagalog.
Lao new wave
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/04/2012
» For decades, the light has been out in Laos. The movie screens have become totally dark, and the profession known elsewhere as "actor" is, up to today, still non-existent. For so many years our land-locked neighbour has subsisted on a staple of Thai TV soaps and movies, cultural imports that have travelled, or been smuggled, through airwaves and distribution channels, and so much is our cross-Mekong dominance that Lao people have almost forgotten what it's like to watch a Lao film.
Film fest on Idyllic island
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/03/2012
» A unique film event will take place in a most spectacular location from March 9 to 13. "Film on the Rocks Yao Noi" is an inaugural gathering of art and film people at Six Senses, a luxurious resort on Yao Noi Island in Phangnga Bay.