Showing 1 - 10 of 10
Memories buried in soil
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/07/2019
» Memories and war, illusory borders and invisible scars: These themes are resonant in two documentary films shown late last month at the SAC Film Festival (hosted by the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre). In the Thai documentary Din Rai Dan (Soil Without Land), a Tai Yai man in Shan state talks about his life as a waiter in Bangkok and as a soldier in his ethnic army. In the Vietnamese film The Future Cries Beneath Our Soil, a group of men in a rural village bear the indelible wounds of the Vietnam War, still stinging after 40 years.
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.
Oldman shines bright in Darkest Hour
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/01/2018
» Jowly, chubby, blustery, cinema-ready, Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill is an exercise in How to Win the Golden Globes and Maybe the Oscar. Which aspiring actor wouldn't want to become Churchill at least once, to act out that avuncular theatricality and grandiose temper, to assume that oratory bombast and majestic eloquence? They say you have to play a madman or a psychopath to get a shot at a best actor prize. Now we should add British prime minister into the list -- just ask Meryl Streep and now Oldman.
For your viewing pleasure
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/12/2017
» In a thoroughbred year for film, here are our must-see picks from 2017.
Learning to speak govt's language
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/08/2017
» The Newspeak is the Oldspeak. The New Testament is the Old Commandments. When they say the clock strikes 13, it means the clock strikes 13. The writing isn't in the law but on the wall.
Proustian questions for our leaders
Oped, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/12/2015
» What is your idea of perfect happiness? When 99.5% of respondents in a government-sponsored poll think that the government is the best thing that ever happened for this country. Or maybe in the all of the universe, because such figures are even higher than God's rating.
When the O2 is impure, breathe CO2
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/06/2015
» Congratulations. Peace prevails. Silence is golden. Reform is at full throttle. Reconciliation will glue the cracked golden axe into one shiny piece. Politicians can grow mushrooms. Generals can play golf. Elections are overrated. Democracy is a dream. Only the road map is real. Love is in the air. Citizens can stop worrying and learn how to love the bomb. Everything will be all right. Why worry? Why complain? Why think?
Force-fed film belongs deep in dark vaults
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/12/2014
» Strange things have happened at the cinemas. First, Hitler showed up in a Thai short film sponsored by the government (meaning by taxpayers), the radioactive gatecrasher into a party of virtuous citizens. Second, another Thai film featuring, among other things, a joke about the anal cleft — it's funny as long as it's not your anal cleft — is raking in a huge amount of money at the multiplexes, likely surpassing the 100-million-baht mark as you're reading this, which is after just four days of release. Cinema enlightens, even in the dark forest of swastikas and bodily bergschrunds.
When in doubt, gag the dissenters
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/09/2014
» Banning is the oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook, dating back to the pre-Medici, pre-Bolshevik, pre-YouTube era. It's placebo, and yet the illusion of efficiency still works like drugs among jittery leaders and strongmen who fear papers, images, testaments and sometimes truth.
Beyond kill-bill fever, whistles and photo-ops
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/11/2013
» From the vantage point of a Haagen-Dazs parlour, democracy was alive, kicking, pretty, high-pitched and well-dressed, mostly in black and white. Let's say it's democracy, for convenience's sake, when in fact it was a hearty turnout at Ratchaprasong on Thursday to oppose a clause, just a clause, of the ludicrous amnesty bill.