Showing 1 - 9 of 9
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.
A new vision on Siam's enduring symbol
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/04/2017
» The elephant and the man, walking down the road to redemption and encountering the wounded and the marginalised, the madmen and the prostitutes. In the film Pop Aye, which will kick off Bangkok Asean Film Festival 2017 this evening (see sidebar), the fine-tusked beast accompanies the lost soul as the duo find their way home from Bangkok to the Northeast.
A trip to Diamond Island
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/04/2017
» It's a story of Cambodia but also of Southeast Asia: the new rich built on the back of rural labour, young men who leave their homes in the countryside to carry bricks and build real-estate edifices in the capital. The promise of the future is built on the uncertainty of the present.
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).
Moments of record
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/10/2016
» The film fades and has scratches, but the persistence of history is strong. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Culture and Thai Film Archive (Public Organisation) registered 25 film items into the National Heritage list for audiovisual conservation and future reference. In November and December, the Archive will host screenings of some of the newly inducted titles.
A tower of our glory, except the foreign bit
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 03/09/2016
» I happened to be there at the opening of the sparkling corn-cob skyscraper, the trophy of high-capitalism and symbol of wealth. No fireworks at the launch of the MahaNakhon Tower, that would have been tacky, but we had the beam-me-up light dance and iridescent sky painting, cued to booming music. Jose Carreras sang arias.
Expanding the Asean screen
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/10/2015
» Across Indochina the movie houses are bubbling with energy, and as the region's big brother in popular culture, Thai film is quick to tap into these growing markets. Some recent examples: The teen comedy May Who?, which came out here earlier this month, has just opened in Laos and Cambodia (with the same familiar posters, but with the wriggling scripts of the local languages).
Diamond is the future
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/01/2015
» The closest thing to Thailand in Cannes this year is, once again, Cambodia. Last year, Rithy Panh arrived at the festival with moving Khmer Rouge documentary The Missing Picture, which went on to win the Un Certain Regard prize and be nominated for an Oscar. This year, at the sidebar Directors’ Fortnight section, Paris-based Davy Chou presents his 21-minute film Cambodia 2099, a rapt, fluid record of the dreams-in-construction that is present-day Phnom Penh.
Ready to launch
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/11/2013
» Officially and conceptually, this is an Australian film. Linguistically and thematically, it is a Lao one, while practically and physically, it is very much Thai. Never mind nationality, a good film is a good film. And in a dream that seems wild but certainly not the wildest, The Rocket is perhaps good enough (it has to be lucky enough too) to make it to the shortlist for the best foreign language Oscar, which means the Lao and Thai actors, along with the Australian filmmakers, will get to saunter down the famous red carpet in Los Angeles next February to present this lovely film.