FILMSICK ON TEERANIT SIANGSANOH'S FILMS

Favorite quote from Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa (Filmsick)

http://www.facebook.com/notes/wiwat-filmsick-lertwiwatwongsa/top-ten-marathon-2012/10151088524051390

"Brimming with emotions, each image in Teeranit Siangsanoh's films is used as a word in a poem. Teeranit constructs his poems/films by connecting these words/images into elliptical sentences which he may be the only one who can understand. Confronting with unintelligible sentences written in an opaque language, I am given a chance to imagine about various things. It's like the discovery of unknown things, aliens from other planets, or sound and voices which we cannot translate, but we can appreciate the harmony of this sound, the beauty of its texture, and its power--the kind of power which has not yet been named."

"เต็มไปด้วยอารมณ์อันหลากล้น ธีรนิต์ใช้ภาพแทนคำทีละคำเขียนบทกวีขึ้นด้วยการร้อยเรียงเชื่อมกันด้วยรูปประโยคลึกลับที่เขาอาจจะเข้าใจเพียงผู้เดียว การผเชิญหน้ากับประโยคที่อ่านไม่ออก ด้วยภาษาที่ลึกลับ เปิดโอกาสให้ผู้เขียนได้จินตนาการไปต่างๆนาๆ เหมือนการพบเจอสิ่งที่ไม่รู้จัก มนุษย์จากดาวอื่น เสียงที่เราแปลความหมายไม่ได้ แต่รู้สึกได้ถึงความไพเราะของมัน ความงดงามของพื้นผิวของมัน และพลังไม่รู้ชื่อของมัน

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As for me (the writer of this blog), Teeranit Siangsanoh's films unintentionally reminds me of some sentences in an article about Jean Epstein written by Nicole Brenez. Because Teeranit's films are full of things which seem to be unrelated to one another, I think his films also "reveal the deep harmony between what is seemingly unrelated", "detect the agreement where there are no links", "asphyxiate standard relationships and destroy expected correlations", "restructure standard cutting of cinematic matter", "restructure the links established between the cinematic image and the gaze", and "against the agreed upon link between things."

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/ultra-modern-jean-epstein-or-cinema-serving-the-forces-of-transgression-and-revolt

"There are no stories. There have never been any stories. There are only nonsensical situations; without a beginning, a middle, or an end; with no inside or out; we can look at them from any direction; right becomes left; without limits of past or future, they are the present.

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"With euphonic montage, we are no longer dealing, as was the case with the family monster, with a synthesis of similarities. But similarly, we now have to detect remote agreements and draw another type of figurative link, another connection between different entities. Real presence reveals the deep harmony between what is seemingly unrelated. For instance, Epstein relates one of Walter Moore Coleman’s experiences on musical synchrony: let there be a crowd making random movements; suddenly, in one instant, the apparent disorder in the trajectories between soldiers, children, and animals are part of a musical consonance: “This is where cinema will one day find its own prosody.”

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"Thus, the Epsteinian description does not submit to the order of appearances: in order to express things, it builds the entity of resemblance through accumulation, the “surreal resemblance” – it is the synthetic discovery; it respects the formal genius of cinematography – it is the difference, the reverse side of transparency; it detects the agreement where there are no links – it is the prosodic constellation. But, conversely, description asphyxiates standard relationships and destroys expected correlations: this is the invention of continuity as negativity, the devouring that is going to restructure not only standard cutting of cinematic matter, but also the links established between the cinematic image and the gaze.

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"Epstein refers to the ordinary link between shots by using the sewing model of the basting stitch. In needlework, the basting stitch is a rough, indicative stitch that precariously and imprecisely brings pieces of cloth together while leaving them as fragments. In cinema, the basting stitch refers to a type of agreed upon link between things; all in all, it precedes the image’s own work. Against the basting stitch, Epstein defends the invention of teratological forms of linking or explosion that “unmask the supposed convention of order within creation,” that acknowledge the disappearance of the defining principle of identity, and that divide up the world once again"

The photo is from the film THE BURNT-OUT STAR ดาวที่ไหม้ไฟ (2012, Teeranit Siangsanoh, 65 min, A+30).