Showing 1 - 10 of 13
The politics of taste in our election season
Oped, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/12/2025
» Hell is other people's tastes. Hell is when we passionately hate what people unconditionally love. Hell is when we can't fathom how anyone on the face of the earth can like someone or something we find revolting -- a food, a film, a style, an opening ceremony, a politician, a president.
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.
Andalusian dreams
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/02/2024
» Two Middle Eastern tourists looked excited as they held up a phone to an exquisitely carved arabesque in Nasrid Palace at the Alhambra. No, they're not taking photos. They're comparing the Arabic text on their screen with the 8th century stone calligraphy. I hear them mumble in Arabic -- here's the translation:
The way I see it...
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/03/2022
» Ahead of the Academy Awards on Monday, our film critic shares his thoughts on the big runners.
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.
Humanity over bureaucracy
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/11/2019
» Do we need a feature film about the Tham Luang Cave rescue? We already know the characters, the set-up, the conflict, the ending: The 12 youngsters and their coach were saved, transported out unconscious from the flooded grottos in Chiang Rai by a team of elite divers, against the odds of natural or man-made calamities. Miracles, as the world acknowledges, have already been performed. Tears have been shed and a tragedy -- the death of a Thai Navy Seal -- has been mourned.
Women in motion
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/05/2019
» In Senegal, a teenage Muslim girl in an arranged marriage reunites with her lover, who has returned from his aquatic death. In London, a scientist mother engineers a new plant species that begins to dominate the mind of her young son. In 18th-century France, a portrait painter travels to an island off Brittany to paint a young aristocrat and finds herself smothered by love.
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.
Time to let Wild Boars roam freely
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/07/2018
» If nature was mother, the cave the womb, the divers the midwives, then the 12 boys and their football coach have experienced a rebirth -- the strangest rebirth because, held captive inside the wet catacomb for 18 days, they were reborn after escaping death by the skin of their teeth.