Wednesday, January 23, 2013

FANTASY DOUBLE BILL: GHOSTS IN THE CLASSROOM + THE HANGMAN


Inspired by the article "FANTASY DOUBLE FEATURES OF 2012" in Mubi website, Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa asks us to write something like the article, but by linking a Thai short film we saw in 2012 to any film.

As for me, I would like to show the film GHOSTS IN THE CLASSROOM (2011, Ukrit Sa-nguanhai, A+30) with the animation THE HANGMAN (1964, Les Goldman + Paul Julian, A+30), because these two films show injustice or an act of oppression which keeps happening again and again. In GHOSTS IN THE CLASSROOM, we see an old female teacher punishes severely or uses force on a male student who is about 7-9 years old in front of the class. The scene is repeated 4-5 times but with different angles or perspectives each time. Sometimes we see only the front of the class. Sometimes we see this act of violence from the back of the class. Sometimes we see it from the left side. Sometimes we see it from the right side or something like that. Anyway, I'm not quite sure about this. I just remember that the scene is repeated many times. Each time we see that the other students in the class seem to be very obedient and dare not try to intervene in this act of violence. Another remarkable thing in GHOSTS IN THE CLASSROOM is that the beginning and the end of the film shows the same scene: the image of the act of violence. This image is frozen but it is not completely still. The image shakes a little bit. I don't know what the beginning and the end of this film means, but it is like the film has no beginning and no ending. This act of injustice seems to keep on repeating itself over and over.

As for THE HANGMAN, there are also oppression and injustice going on in this film, and the protagonist dares not intervene. You can watch THE HANGMAN here.





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