HONGSA'S SCHOOLBAG IS THE WINNER

My poll 48 ended with six votes. Thanks very much to everyone who participated in it. Here is the result:

THESE FILMS ARE ABOUT IMMIGRANTS. WHICH FILMS DO YOU LIKE?

1.HONGSA’S SCHOOLBAG (2008, Supamok Silarak, Thailand)
It got 4 votes, or 66 %.

2.IMPORT/EXPORT (2007, Ulrich Seidl, Austria)
+KATZELMACHER (1969, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany)
Each of them got 3 votes, or 50 %.

4. THE BETRAYAL – NERAKHOON (2008, Ellen Kuras + Thavisouk Phrasavath, Laos/USA)
+THE PROMISE (1996, Luc Dardenne + Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Belgium)
+VILLAGE PEOPLE RADIO SHOW (2007, Amir Muhammad, Malaysia)
Each of them got 2 votes, or 33 %.

7.THE BALL OF WOOL (2005, Fatma Zohra Zamoum, France)
+BEFORE THE STORM (2000, Reza Parsa, Sweden)
+GAS ATTACK (2001, Kenneth Glenaan, UK)
+NO DAYS OFF (2006, Eric Khoo, Singapore)
+PIRATED (2000, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Vietnam/USA)
+SPARE PARTS (2003, Damjan Kozole, Slovenia)
+A WEDDING IN RAMALLAH (2002, Sherine Salama, Australia/Palestine/USA)
Each of them got 1 vote, or 16 %.

14.ANANSI (2002, Fritz Baumann, Germany)
+BALSEROS (2002, Carlos Bosch + Josep M Domenech, Spain/Cuba/USA)
+JAMES’ JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM (2003, Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, Israel)
+ONCE YOU WERE BORN YOU CAN NO LONGER HIDE (2005, Marco Tullio Giordana, Italy)
+SHOUF, SHOUF HABIBI! (2004, Albert ter Heerdt, Netherlands)
+SIAO YU (1995, Sylvia Chang, Taiwan)
+WE SHALL OVERCOME SOMEDAY (2004, Izutsu Kazuyuki, Japan)

Each of them got 0 vote.


--I gave THE BETRAYAL – NERAKHOON only “A+/A”. The reason why I don’t give it A+ is because I can’t fully identify myself with it, which isn’t exactly the film’s fault at all. This film portrays the lives of some people which are so different from me that I feel very detached from it, especially at the end of the film. They are very different from me because they seem to want to return to their motherland (or fatherland).

As for me, I was born and have been living in Bangkok for 36 years, but I don’t feel emotionally attached to it at all. Thailand and Bangkok may be my motherland, but I don’t have any specially good feelings for this country or this city, though I do feel emotionally connected to some places in Bangkok, especially DJ Station, a gay club which made me feel as if it was my second home in the late 1990’s.

My “detached feelings” for “the longing for motherland” in THE BETRAYAL – NERAKHOON is the opposite of my feelings for the documentary SELVES AND OTHERS: A PORTRAIT OF EDWARD SAID (2002, Emmanuel Hamon, A+). I love what Edward Said talked in this film very much. He talked about the feeling of “not belonging” to any place in the world at all.

I don’t feel I belong to Bangkok. I think the place to which I actually belong is BEARANIA, the land of teddy bears which exists in my imagination. Hahaha.


--I think SPARE PARTS is a great film which seems to “humanize” criminals or evil people. I have been thinking about this topic lately because I don’t like THE READER (2008, Stephen Daldry, B+ ), which also humanizes a criminal, and I’m not sure why. I think the story and the characters in THE READER are very interesting, but the “tone” of the film seems very false for me. The film seems to romanticize its characters too much, and I hate its soundtrack. I think a cold-blooded character like Hanna Schmitz should be in a film directed by Christian Petzold, or anyone who makes films like him, not in a film like THE READER.

As for films which humanize criminals or murderers, I love SPARE PARTS, DEAD MAN WALKING, MONSTER, and L’ARGENT. I think there are some important things which make these films very different from THE READER. Somehow THE READER reminds me of HERO (2002, Zhang Yimou, B+ ), because HERO seems to justify mass murders or a mass murderer, but I don’t agree with its thinking at all.