Showing 101 - 110 of 192
Courting controversy
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/01/2016
» When creativity crosses the line into insensitivity, there's usually a pattern of uproar, apology and cancellation. In the past many years, there's been a number of notorious cases of insensitive creativity in Thai commercials, series, films and visual representations that have made international headlines. The offensive issues often involve race, skin colour, ethnicity and historical interpretation. There are many more that never made the front page, for example the casual mockery of minorities and genders that is normalised by the audience, such as jokes on the accents of hilltribe people that often appear in movies and TV series.
A view from the gas chamber
Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/01/2016
» A Holocaust movie surprisingly becomes a topical subject in Thailand, after the highly publicised, highly embarrassing incident of a Thai aristocrat's grand denial of that historical tragedy (and a subsequent rebuttal by an Israeli ambassador).
Stolen moments
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/01/2016
» In Kongdej Jaturanrasmee's new film Snap, a wedding photographer returns to his hometown in Chantaburi with a group of high school friends. In that picturesque small town, Boy (Tony Rakkaen) takes happy prenuptial pictures of his old flame Phueng (Waruntorn Paonil), who's marrying a high-ranking soldier. That word, "soldier", carries a weight so leaden here: Snap is a soulful romance about a man searching for lost time, but the film is contextualised as a personal aftermath of the larger social tremors, namely the military coups d'etat of 2006 and 2014.
Leaving a Thai impression
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/01/2016
» Once again, a small Thai film blew over Cannes Film Festival like a graceful lover. On Monday, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Cemetery Of Splendour (or Rak Ti Khon Kaen) was screened to a thundering 10-minute standing ovation in the Un Certain Regard section, where the film's elegant formalism and aching beauty, deeply rooted in the northeastern spirit and post-coup reflection, shook up the festival slumber.
Foreign film contenders
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/12/2015
» Star Wars is colonising your waking life, so let me warp you to the neighbouring galaxy. The Oscar season is brewing, and one of the categories we're always interested in -- at least because it's the only category that is about the world and not just about Hollywood -- is the foreign language film. This year 81 countries submitted their films to the Academy. The long list will be announced in January, and the five finalists later in the month.
Playing the Trump card in our backyard
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/12/2015
» Is there a pattern here? The world watches in incredulity at the apparent display of right-wing, ultra-nationalist, anti-otherness outpouring that crosses the line from ideology into bigotry — from Donald Trump and his “No-Muslim” policy to the xenophobia-toeing Marine Le Pen in France, to Thailand’s own finger-pointing mobs shouting hatred at student activists, the threat of mass arrests and now the criminalisation of Facebook’s “likes”. Seriously? When squeezed, a wound bursts with pus. And pus is everywhere in the news.
Living in a void of white wilderness
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 05/12/2015
» They look like modern art, those blank spaces in the International New York Times, an emptiness in the forest of stories.
Fragments of the region, in short
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/11/2015
» On Jan 2005, the Asian Film Archive (AFA) was founded by a group of film lovers and archivists in Singapore. From then on it has worked to preserve, restore, collect and promote the heritage of Asian cinema, as well as co-operate with other preservation agencies and archives to encourage research and critical appreciation of Asian films.
Lessons from the hitmaker
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/11/2015
» Surprise, shock and awe greeted the news that GTH, Thailand's most commercially successful movie studio, will close shop at the end of the year.
Arpat uproar points to censorship flaws
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/10/2015
» The hullabaloo around the Thai film Arpat, which features a misbehaving young monk, is the latest example of problems caused by what some people in the film industry perceive as flaws in the Film and Video Act 2008.