Showing 1 - 10 of 22
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.
Time for Asean films to shine
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/12/2021
» The pandemic notwithstanding, it has been a stimulating year for Southeast Asian cinema. Reflective, heartfelt and oddball new titles from Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand have won major prizes or become critical favourites at international film festivals throughout 2021. Now, many of these films are coming to the big screen in Thailand as the Bangkok Asean Film Festival 2021 (BAFF) is set to open tonight.
Art as our escape
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/09/2020
» This year's theme is at once hopeful and ironic: "Escape Routes" suggests a flight from our unusual times of pathological disruption and political cataclysm -- here, there and everywhere -- and yet the theme is an acknowledgment of those in-our-face uncertainties from which we struggle to find an exit.
Imagining Krabi
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/03/2020
» There's an archaeology of narrative in Krabi, 2562, a film by Anocha Suwichakornpong and Ben Rivers currently showing in select Bangkok cinemas. Layer upon layer, stratum upon stratum, dust on dust, it gives us a glimpse of how history, legend and biography is constructed. Like playful excavators, the two filmmakers peel off the palimpsest of a place and its people, real and imagined.
Diving into the cave
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/01/2019
» Of all the films scheduled to come out in 2019, one will return Thailand to the headlines. Various projects based on last year's dramatic rescue of the 12 Wild Boars footballers and their coach have been touted, and now a Thai film has completed principle photography and is going through post-production.
A note on Thailand Biennale
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/01/2019
» One recent morning at Nopphrat Thara beach, the high tide flooded the lower part of a strange, interwoven structure. Rising from the blue water of the bay, it looked like an island, a new, unmapped island of Krabi visible from this popular spot where tourists visit and board tour boats to outlying islands.
Spirit of the mountain
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/11/2018
» The rugged village of Gatlang in Nepal is the subject of a documentary film showing at select Major Cineplexes this weekend. Director Pen-ek Ratanaruang and Passakorn Pramunwong seemed to have picked an unexpected topic for their new non-fiction work (after their collaboration in the political history doc Paradoxocrazy in 2013), and Gatlang turns out to be a soothing journey, part diary of a post-earthquake rebuilding and part portrait of the people in a remote corner of the world.
Really, who gets to walk the red carpet?
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/05/2018
» This is the question I've been asked several times -- not because I'm a veteran of the fabled Cannes red carpet (it's long, intimidating and tedious, plus I'll never invest in a tuxedo that would make me look like a waiter anyway), but because I've been a ringside witness to the said red carpet in the past 16 years of my visiting the festival. All the thousands of photographs of stars, models, actors -- beautiful people of planet Earth, or planet Cinema -- preening down the tapis rouge at Cannes have become even more famous, more recognisable, more awe-inspiring than most of the films shown here. The aura of glamour, fame and radiance actually makes a lot of people think of Cannes as the red carpet, and not the films it shows or its coveted top prize, the Palme d'Or.
Luang Prabang film fest moves forward
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/12/2017
» There was the crowd, the spontaneous chaos, and the outdoor screening that has become a hallmark of the Luang Prabang Film Festival. Its eighth edition ending last night, the film festival in a town without cinemas has grown into an annual highlight every December, with its eyes firmly fixed on Southeast Asian titles and an attempt to expand its role and relevance to regional audience and filmmakers.
The outspoken monk
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/05/2017
» At the start The Venerable W., we see the firebrand Myanmar monk Ashin Wirathu speaking to the camera, calmly and casually. He talks about the African catfish, a creature that "grows fast, breeds a lot and is violent". The punchline is not totally unpredictable: "Muslims are like that."