Showing 1 - 10 of 43
Melancholy and absurdity
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/05/2021
» Chaitanya Tamhane was 27 years old when his breakthrough film Court became a critical sensation and won the Lion of the Future Award at the Venice festival in 2014. A film of understated power about India's Kafkaesque judicial tribulation, Court announced the arrival of an exceptional talent from Mumbai, a proud cinema city usually associated with rambunctious Bollywood titles.
The inciting incident
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/10/2017
» On Sept 24, 1976, two electricians were beaten and hanged to death from the top of a gate somewhere in Nakhon Pathom, victims of an escalating right-wing terror in Thai politics of that heady decade. Two weeks later, as protests against the return to the Kingdom of former dictator Gen Thanom Kittikajorn gathered steam, students at Thammasat University staged a play about the hanging of the two men. Soon the photographs of the play were used by nationalists to whip up anger and fear of communism, which led to the massacre on the morning of Oct 6 as police and militias laid siege to the university, killing, maiming and brutalising scores of people in one of the worst incidents of bloodshed in modern Thai history.
Close your eyes
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/09/2017
» In June 13, 1981, Issei Sagawa, 32, was arrested after he was seen dumping two suspicious suitcases in the Seine. A student of comparative literature at Sorbonne, the Japanese man two days earlier had killed his Dutch classmate, raped her corpse, stored her body in his fridge and ate morsels after morsels of her flesh to stimulate his sexual desire. Only when the smell became unbearable did he pack what remained in the suitcases and threw them into the river. The French court declared Sagawa legally insane and released him. He returned to Japan, wrote a comic book about his world-famous case, became a food critic (no kidding), and starred in pornographic films. Today Sagawa, old and paralytic, still lives in a suburb of Tokyo.
'Boss', 'Pai' and the casino of (in)justice
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/07/2017
» Place your bets on what's going to happen first: Vorayuth "Boss" Yoovidhya being brought to court, or Jatupat "Pai Dao Din" Boonpattararaksa being granted bail.
Massacre's memory
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/07/2017
» The noblest thing is to remember the dead, no matter how long it has been. In the documentary Respectfully Yours, friends and families of some of the victims of the Oct 6, 1976, massacre remember those who were brutally maimed, tortured and killed on the grounds of Thammasat University 41 years ago, as the police and right-wing militia laid siege.
Play censor ball well, Mr Zuckerberg
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/05/2017
» Dear Mr Zuckerberg,
Pain, bluster, to no avail
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/03/2017
» On paper this is a pantheon of contemporary French acting: Gaspard Ulleil, Marion Cotillard, Lea Seydoux, Vincent Cassel and Natalie Baye. The director is Xavier Dolan, the Quebecois wunderkind who's had his five films premiered at Cannes at the age of just 27.
Keep Somchai from the black hole of history
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/03/2017
» 'Top Muslim lawyer disappears. Believed abducted for opposing martial law," read a headline in this newspaper 13 years ago.
We need trust in the law, not cowboys
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/02/2017
» In cowboy movies, there are two sets of justice. Legal justice -- slow, frustrating, futile, executed by the sheriff or the hangman -- and frontier justice, which is as swift as the trigger and as thirst-quenching as a mug of moonshine. It can be executed by anyone with bullets to spare.
Our best films of the year
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/12/2016
» As usual we have two lists, for titles released in local cinemas and the wider universe of world films shown elsewhere (and hopefully coming to our screens soon).