Showing 1 - 10 of 11
Here's to all the useful ghosts of our history
Oped, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/08/2025
» Ghosts are useful because they remind us of the unresolved, the unsettled, the unfinished -- in life, love, politics, or history. The film of the moment hitches onto that idea and takes it far, as far as the Cannes Film Festival, and now it has been picked as Thailand's representative for the Oscars.
Journalism is the first victim in a conflict
Oped, Kong Rithdee, Published on 31/07/2025
» In times of chaos, to call for calm seems naïve. "Imagine there's no countries." Sure, John, I know your utopianism was well-intended, but try telling that to the blood-hounding jingoists running rampant online in Cambodia and Thailand.
Paradise lost
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/04/2025
» In Grand Tour, Miguel Gomes' beguiling travelogue set in 1917, a British diplomat in Burma journeys across Southeast Asia, hopping from country to country, to avoid an encounter with his fiancée. Edward (Gonçalo Waddington) is a colonial officer who, struck by an inexplicable premonition or a case of cold feet, decides to flee Mandalay just before his sweetheart Molly (Crista Alfaiate) is due to arrive. He boards a ship to Singapore, then a train to Bangkok -- it derails on the way, but still makes it -- and onwards to Saigon, Manila, Osaka and Chongqing. Molly, pursuing him, would repeat a more or less similar route.
Ripley strikes quite exquisitely, again
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/04/2024
» Just when you thought the original book was bled dry, its last drop of smouldering homoerotic blood squeezed and sucked by multilple movie adaptations, from Rene Clement (French) and Anthony Minghella (American) to Liliana Cavani (Italian), here comes Steven Zaillian's seven-episode Netflix series bluntly titled Ripley. Dusky and exquisitely coldblooded, the latest reworking proves that the Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley is a living gift that continues giving after 69 years.
The passion of Pasolini
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 10/06/2022
» Pier Paolo Pasolini was born in Bologna on March 5, 1922, and died in a violent, mysterious circumstance on the outskirts of Rome in November 1975. This year marks the centenary of the Italian poet's and filmmaker's birth, and this Sunday at 1pm, the Thai Film Archive will screen Pasolini's first film as director, Accattone, a gloriously austere ode to underclass plight. It will be the first time the 1961 film is screened in Thailand.
We need less 'content' and more journalism
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/01/2020
» Content, as media gurus keep preaching, is king. But such PowerPoint pep talk is shallow: "Content" -- an increasingly bastardised term that has come to signify TV newscasts, podcasts, movies, viral videos, Netflix series, memes, news articles, editorial features, real advertising, covert advertising, tweets and Facebook posts, organic or boosted -- is also an anaesthetic. It dulls the senses and kills meaning, then proceeds to belittle essence, promote shallowness and eventually undermine the practice of journalism.
Saint and sensibility
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/05/2019
» A Christian fable or a Marxist allegory? A magical-realist myth or a political cry against neoliberalism (or feudalism, which produces the same catastrophe anyway)?
Strong field of films match up against Roma
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/01/2019
» Five films from five countries have been shortlisted for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Oscars, with the winner to be read out on Feb 24 (morning of Feb 25 Thailand time). In a way, this is a no-brainer: Roma is a clear favourite, though that leads to another complication: with the Netflix-backed Mexican film also being nominated for Best Picture, can the beloved Roma win both categories? Not to mention that Alfonso Cuaron is also a front runner to win the Best Director prize, a likelihood that only widens the smile on Netflix's 2.35:1-ratio face (the film is still showing at House RCA, as well as on your Netflix account).
A poll date and elephant in the room
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/08/2018
» We've heard distant drumbeats and dates are being thrown around. The election will -- may -- happen on Feb 24, 2019, which is the Year of the Pig, if that portends anything. The latest possible date, if things get pushed around by design or by fate, is May. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe never. Who knows? For a regime that prides itself as rule-keepers, rules and promises have been treated like toilet paper since day one.
Sometimes transcendental, always relevant
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/05/2018
» The American films were on short supply this year at Cannes -- which in turn deprived the assembly line of red carpet material -- but nobody seemed to mind that except, well, some American media and fashion bloggers. That superfluous caveat aside, the recently wrapped 71st Cannes Film Festival was nearly unanimously praised as one of the best editions in recent memory, with a string of good, sometimes very good, titles playing night after night -- and even the bad films weren't so offensively bad, as was often the case. In the midst of soul-searching following the question of relevance (the world wants Avengers), the rise of streaming (the world watches films on phones), the decline of arthouse popularity, Cannes insists on the sacredness of cinema, on the future of the art, and this year it paid off solidly.