Showing 1 - 10 of 12
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.
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.
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.
Last light at Lido
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/05/2018
» The Lido Theatre opened on June 27, 1968, a 1,000-seat movie palace in the fast-modernising neighbourhood of Pathumwan. The first title on the marquee was Guns For San Sebastian, a cowboy film starring Anthony Quinn.
To Myanmar with love
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/11/2016
» The big problem about shooting a film in Myanmar, says Thai filmmaker Chartchai Ketnust, was not obtaining permission. It was the mob of onlookers trying to get a peek of the stars.
Hanuman help us from a 'happy' ogre
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/09/2016
» The crusader has returned to the gate, ready to crush the infidels. I thought the new buzzword was "Thailand 4.0", whatever that means, and yet this week we're still arguing if a portrayal of a mythical ogre in a music video is blasphemy, a transgression against the high culture of Siam, the culture that stares down from a pedestal, that exists like a taxidermied animal on the altar of an abandoned temple.
Pokemon goes on run from state capture
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/08/2016
» No, they will not ban Pokemon Go, though it's not hard to tell how tempting that idea must be in the post-referendum landscape where peace, order and national security have been constitutionally enshrined.
Bowie, in film
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/01/2016
» A shape-shifter on stage, David Bowie naturally found a new home in acting. Over the past 40 years, the late performer starred in many films -- though acting seemed more like another one of his experimental projects -- working with top directors such as Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan and the late Tony Scott, and playing roles from vampire and wizard, to alien and Andy Warhol (in Basquiat, a biopic of the artist by Julian Schnabel). It would be impossible to list them all, so here are my five picks on Bowie's screen performances.
Romanticising the insurgency
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/07/2015
» Rarely do we see a Thai film set in the Deep South and rarely do we see a film with so many people saying "assalamu alaikum" to each other. So now that we have one in the cinema, it turns out to be such a piece of romantic fluff that it hardly does justice to the complicated reality of the region and its people. What should we expect when Latitude Tee Hok (Latitude No.6) has been financed by the military — the Internal Security Operations Command, to be precise — and produced by UCI Media, an affiliation of a company that sells communication equipment to the army?