Showing 1 - 6 of 6
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.
The true nature of the beast?
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/11/2020
» 'Happy families are all alike," said Tolstoy, "every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
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.
The women of Wanita
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/03/2017
» Nine years ago, Ropita Mahamat almost lost her son in a shooting incident, a dishearteningly familiar story in the Deep South. One night at 9pm in Pattani, her son was picking a relative from a pondok school when unidentified gunmen opened fire on him -- or, more likely, on someone else, though the bullets hit him. This circumstance, like so many similar ones in the region, was never clearly explained.
The purveyors of Islam
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/06/2015
» At the age of 12, after finishing Prathom 6, Shakireen Malilee left normal education to study to become a hafiz. Originally from Prachuap Khiri Khan, he moved to an Islamic boarding school in Min Buri, a Bangkok suburb, and devoted himself to the ancient art of memorising the Koran. Every day for eight hours, Shakireen recited from Islamic holy scripture and committed each word, each verse, each page, each chapter into his young brain. After four years, he had memorises the entire book, roughly equivalent of memorising every single word of a 500-page tome. At 16, he achieved the rare honour of being called a hafiz.
Ramadan in the city
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/08/2012
» In his car he arrives just when the light turns serene orange. Thanarat Wacharapisut is in white shirt and brown slacks.