Showing 1-10 of 16 results
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Poor Barbie... Oppenheimer's the bomb
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/03/2024
» The annual guessing game to read the minds of inscrutable Oscars voters is here.
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Pandemonium
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/09/2022
» The first shot of Athena will be discussed in every writing about the film. A bravura choreography of movement that begins with an intimate close-up of a face and ends, after 10 blood-rushing minutes, with an explosion of revolutionary rage -- a la Les Miserables and Do You Hear The People Sing? transported to a predominantly-Muslim Paris suburb -- that opening shot is so hypnotising and immersive in its non-stop kineticism that we're led to forgive that it's also an earnest show-off, a proud enshrinement of style and attitude over everything else. Romain Gavras, a filmmaker known for making music videos for Jay Z and M.I.A, will cement that approach with many similar shots throughout the film -- long, seemingly uninterrupted shots with parkour camerawork full of angry bodies -- more than enough for aspiring filmmakers of the world to slobber over.
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Eyes wide open
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/05/2020
» The literature about modern Thai politics is not abundant, and by this I mean a narrative that grounds its characters in the double-whammy of coup d'etat and street protest that characterised the mid-2000s to mid-2010s. The period, plus a few years earlier when Thaksin Shinawatra rose to power, contains some of the most convulsive and era-defining moments that continue to shape the visible and invisible dimensions of Thai society in the present time, and it's astonishing that not more writers find it a rich wellspring of artistic expression (on the contrary, visual artists and theatre artists seem more responsive to the political currents of the same period).
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A night of surprises, some splendid
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/05/2019
» The odds weren't in Asia's favour, since there were only two films from the continent in competition. But South Korea did it, just like Japan had last year. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite won the Palme d'Or at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival, making it the second year in a row that an Asian film has won world cinema's most coveted prize, after last year's victory of Hirokazu Kore-eda's Shoplifters.
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Asean films receive special showcase
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/07/2018
» The riches of Southeast Asian stories and images are celebrated at the 4th Bangkok Asean Film Festival, which opens tonight at SF CentralWorld and runs until Sunday. Hosted by the Thai Ministry of Culture, this year's edition marks the 51st anniversary of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the regional body whose primary mission is economics and which increasingly pays more heed to cultural promotion.
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Devil on the doorstep
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/02/2018
» You go into a Lav Diaz's movie as if you were going into a church, or a trench war, or an ultra-marathon: you prepare for the epic length, the brutal transcendentalism and the implacable burden of history that hit you like a blow.
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Four inspiring tales for the price of none
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/10/2017
» The gift of love, kindness and generosity from the late King Bhumibol lives on in the minds of all Thais. It serves as the inspiration behind the anthology film Khong Kwan (The Gift), comprised of four short films by four Thai directors to be screened free of charge beginning Saturday at cinemas nationwide.
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Dissecting a nation
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/06/2017
» Pasuk Phongpaichit's and Chris Baker's house is a verdant abode at the end of a maze in an Ekamai sub-soi. The garden at the back has tall trees and a small, tea-coloured pond. The whole area used to be a swamp, said Baker. The couple, both highly respected scholars in Thai studies, have been living there since 1987, or in their lexicon, "just before the boom" -- the high-flying economic expansion whose seismic shifts forever transformed Thailand in the early 1990s. Had they wanted to purchase the plot slightly later than they actually did -- after the boom had set in -- they wouldn't have been able to. "We came just before the high-rises."
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Lao cinema hits the jackpot
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/05/2017
» In this Lao film, a nearly-blind woman is visited by ghosts that come to tell her winning lottery numbers. Her young caretaker, a girl from the countryside, takes advantage of her mistress' impairment and cashes in on the phantoms' fortunetelling, scoring win after win. On paper, it all sounds preposterous. Ghosts that give out lotto jackpots? How superstitious! How Southeast Asia! But don't be mistaken: you should go and watch Nong Hak (Dearest Sister), a well-made Lao production that spins the supernatural premise into class critique and psychological horror, ripe with atmospheric suspense. In fact, this is simply a better film in terms of script and technical standards than many Thai flicks released each year.
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EU film fest brings many shades of modern Europe
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/05/2017
» The stories of Europe are told in the 13 films at the European Union Film Festival 2017, which begins tonight at SF CentralWorld.
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