Showing 1 - 10 of 29
Love, beauty, violence
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/05/2024
» Last year, the world embraced Barbie and Poor Things, two outstanding films that tapped into the state of female consciousness in the 21st century. At the 77th Cannes Film Festival, which ends tomorrow, women-driven stories of all stripes are pushed further up (or down) the emotional spectrum. A noticeable number of titles premiering at the influential festival feature female protagonists in varying states of joy and distress -- and to varying results. Powerful acting by female talent also injects life and spirit into those stories, hailing from all corners of the Earth.
Changing the narrative
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/09/2022
» A man returns home from work in Malaysia after Covid-19 struck, then gets lost in a bureaucratic labyrinth trying to get government handouts. Another woman finds a job at a factory, but the rules require her to compromise her faith. In Yala, a skater boy sets out in search of a friendly park where he can enjoy his ride. A hijab-wearing K-pop fanatic is getting married to a man who has just converted to Islam. And in a Pattani family, a young man watches his mother being possessed by a spirit, possibly a black-magic attack from his business rival.
Eyes wide open
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/05/2020
» The literature about modern Thai politics is not abundant, and by this I mean a narrative that grounds its characters in the double-whammy of coup d'etat and street protest that characterised the mid-2000s to mid-2010s. The period, plus a few years earlier when Thaksin Shinawatra rose to power, contains some of the most convulsive and era-defining moments that continue to shape the visible and invisible dimensions of Thai society in the present time, and it's astonishing that not more writers find it a rich wellspring of artistic expression (on the contrary, visual artists and theatre artists seem more responsive to the political currents of the same period).
La La Land, Moonlight directors invoke 2016
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/09/2018
» Two years ago it was Damien Chazelle's La La Land vs Barry Jenkins' Moonlight at the Oscars. This year, the race between the same two directors seems to be shaping up again. This week at Toronto International Film Festival, Chazelle returns with his "Moon movie" First Man, and Jenkins with his adaptation of James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk. The award season -- for those who still care -- is gearing up full steam now.
On unhappy women and clumsy hitmen
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/01/2018
» Pen-ek Ratanaruang's movies -- eight of them in the past 20 years and the ninth slated for a Feb 1 release -- are often inhabited by unhappy women and clumsy hitmen. Unhappy, yet those women are neither resigned nor passive. Clumsy, yet those hitmen have aspirations, dreams and worries like people in other respectable professions. A genre geek, Pen-ek likes crime thrillers, but one of Thailand's best-known directors is also a diligent investigator of human relationships and man-woman dynamics, their eccentric and mysterious rapport and misunderstandings that determine the course of the world, and of cinema.
Life, love, liberation
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/09/2017
» In the sole Thai film showing at Toronto International Film Festival this week, a soap opera star stuck in a loveless marriage tangles with an eccentric hitman and a powerful cult. Samui Song is the latest feature film by Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang, who's fashioned a crime thriller that also plays as a critique of many things: patriarchal oppression, faux-Buddhism, public healthcare and the act of cinema-making itself.
Art, revenge, despair
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/11/2016
» Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals opens with a montage of naked, fat-rippling, extremely obese women, their bodies wrapped in the American flag as they dance to the beat. We then cut to the opening of an art exhibition featuring those naked women on platforms, curled up as live installation pieces, or as morbid glitz, an excess of grotesquerie amid the well-dressed LA crowd.
Alternative screenings this weekend
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/09/2016
» As the multiplexes are dominated by the big Thai film Fanday, two screenings this weekend should provide alternatives for Bangkok moviegoers. First, David Lean's Doctor Zhivago will play at the Scala on Sunday at noon, then a set of nine short films addressing the issue of legal reform will be screened at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre at 3pm.
Let's hear it for silence
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 10/06/2016
» In the world full of noise, let's appreciate the sound of silence. The 3rd Silent Film Festival in Thailand will run from June 16-22 at Scala and Lido, with a programme of marvellous classics from the 1920s. Two pianists specialising in performing with silent films will accompany every screening.
Regional favourites, new and old
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/04/2016
» The 2nd Bangkok Asean Film Festival begins on Thursday at SF World Cinema, and will travel to Khon Kaen, Surat Thani and Chiang Mai later.