ในช่วงต้นปี 2012 เรากับเพื่อน ๆ อีก
4 คน ซึ่งได้แก่ Wiwat
Lertwiwatwongsa, Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Chayanin Tiangpitayagorn,
and Kanchat Rangseekansong ได้ร่วมกันเขียนบทความเกี่ยวกับผู้กำกับหนังทดลองหน้าใหม่ของไทย 44 คน
เพื่อลงในเว็บไซต์ EXPERIMENTAL CONVERSATIONS ของประเทศ IRELAND โดยได้มีการเขียนเนื้อหาเพิ่มเติมในช่วงต้นปี
2013 ด้วย
แต่เราไม่สามารถเข้าไปดูเว็บไซต์ดังกล่าวในช่วงหลายสัปดาห์ที่ผ่านมา
เราก็เลยคิดว่าเพื่อความสะดวกของตัวเราเองในการค้นข้อมูล เราควรนำบทความนั้นมา post ลง Facebook และ blog
ของเราด้วยเลยดีกว่า เผื่ออาจจะเป็นประโยชน์กับคนอื่น ๆ ด้วย
แต่ต้องเตือนว่า
บทความนี้เขียนขึ้นในช่วงต้นปี 2012 และต้นปี 2013 นะ
เพราะฉะนั้นเนื้อหาในบทความนี้จึง “ล้าสมัย” ไปเรียบร้อยแล้วจ้า
แต่มันก็เป็นประโยชน์สำหรับเราเวลาเช็คข้อมูลเกี่ยวกับ “หนังทดลองเก่า ๆ ของไทย”
ขอกราบขอบพระคุณ Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa, Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Chayanin
Tiangpitayagorn, and Kanchat Rangseekansong ที่ร่วมกันเขียนบทความนี้เมื่อ 13 ปีที่แล้ว
MYSTERIOUS OBJECTS FROM THAILAND
Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa, Chulayarnnon
Siriphol, Chayanin Tiangpitayagorn, Jit Phokaew, Kanchat Rangseekansong
"I do not know what “film” is and I don’t
think it is important because once you are able to clearly point out what it
is, it becomes an established idea which is no longer of interest to me."
Sasithorn Ariyavicha (1)
In the article below, the word
"film" denotes all kinds of moving images. The article below does not
focus on the experimental cinema in Thailand, but on the Thai arthouse cinema
in general, because like in the films of Apichatpong, somehow we don't know the
line which separates experimental cinema from other kinds of cinema. Window (Apichatpong
Weerasethakul, 1999, 12 min) is undoubtedly an experimental film, but what
about Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2002)? So instead of
trying to separate Thai experimental films from other kinds of arthouse films,
we think we would rather write about them altogether, though experimental films
may get a bit more emphasis here.
INTRODUCTION
For
us, the Thai writers of this article, the month of July and the early part of
August each year is the sacred period, because it is the time when the Thai
Film Foundation holds an event which is informally called "The Marathon
Film Festival". This film festival screens every new Thai film submitted
to the foundation. About four hundred short films and a few feature films are
shown each year. The screening is held 6 days a week for about 6 weeks. The
screening is arranged according to the alphabetical order of the film titles.
After that, about 75 films in the Marathon Film Festival will be selected for
the competition in the Thai Short Film and Video Festival in late August.
For
us, the Thai cinephiles, one of our most blissful experiences is when we sit in
the darkness of the screening room of the Marathon Film Festival, seeing short
films made from nearly every province of Thailand, finding new kinds of visuals
and sound, new stories, new ways of telling stories, unexplainable things, the
crudeness of film production, the audacity, and even the naivete in the
representation of serious topics in these films. It is certain that not every
film in this festival is a diamond in the rough from a faraway land. Some films
in this festival are made by a high school student who uses a camera for the
first time in her life. Some films are made by an ordinary person who has never
had any film education before. Some films are made just to entertain the family
of the director. Some films are originally made to be shown in an organization
or a corporation that the director belongs to. Some films are made just because
the director found something surprising in his life and wanted to record that
moment. Some films are made by students as a homework. Some films are even made
to teach moral lessons to the audience. The exhilaration, the ennui, the bawdy
humor, and the carefree attitude of these films in the Marathon Film Festival
make us realize the power of the cinematic medium. This medium can now finally
escape from the hands of the professionals, film students, financial backers,
studios, equipment owners or any experts. We can say that films have now fallen
from heaven into the hands of common people with the aid of new technology
which makes filming equipment cheaper and easier to operate. Everybody can make
films now.
Though
some may believe that most films shown in the Marathon Film Festival are
carelessly made, worthless, like a nonsensical toy of the director, like a joke
made by some mentally-ill kids, or have nothing interesting in them, we think
differently. In our eyes, the Marathon Film Festival is the golden treasure of
new visuals and new sound. The visuals and sound in these films are often
unpolished, but full of adventurousness and sincerity. Many films in this
festival capture the images of ordinary life, and treat people who appear in
the films as human beings, instead of characters like in most mainstream films.
Many films in this festival reflect what is going on right now in our
contemporary society much faster than most mainstream films, and also reflect
many subcultures and marginal groups of people which are often underrepresented
in mainstream films. The films in this festival become the voice of people who
are often overlooked or who are often allowed to speak only in stereotypical
ways. The films in this festival allow us to experience new kinds of aesthetics
and teach us new ways to experience the same old world. The beautiful diversity
of the films in the Marathon Film Festival amazes us. To see these films is
like to be dazzled by the luster of some special unpolished diamonds. These
diamonds are special, because the more they are cut, the more they may lose
their radiance.
Many
Thai directors in the list below used to send their short films to the Marathon
Film Festival. Many films made by these directors were not selected to enter
the competition in the second round, but impressed us tremendously. The
directors in the list here cannot represent the overall picture of the Thai
experimental cinema or Thai arthouse cinema. There are many great Thai
directors who are not included in the list here, both well-known directors,
such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and unknown directors, because we are not
able to write about all of them within this limited time and due to the limited
access of many Thai short films. What you are going to read now is nothing more
than some opinions of some ordinary viewers who appreciate the diversity of
moving images. We hope that the kinds of visuals and sound we are going to
describe below may help the readers to get to know some experimental or
arthouse filmmakers who don't deserve to be overlooked among the flooding
streams of moving images today.
THAI
CONTEMPORARY ARTHOUSE FILM DIRECTORS
(in alphabetical order)
1.Aditya Assarat (born 1972)
Aditya became famous with his thesis
film Motorcycle (2000, 14 min), which deals with an old villager who
receives the message that his son was dead from a motorcycle accident in
Bangkok. Instead of crying out loud, the villager goes into a forest to hunt
for some animals, so that he can earn some money to pay for the funeral of his
son. Motorcycle won the R.D. Pestonji award in the 4th Thai Short Film
and Video Festival. One of the jury was Apichatpong Weerasethakul. What is
interesting in Motorcycle is its understated drama. The characters in
the film bear great pain, but they keep it all inside, and show us only 10% of
their pain. Understated drama, understated conflicts, or understated climax can
be found in some other films of Aditya, too. In his Wonderful Town
(2007, 92 min), the film focuses on the atmosphere of a tsunami-ravaged town,
and the repetitive daily activities of the townspeople/characters. The film,
some of its characters, and the town seem to be under some somnambulistic
spell, except near the end of the film when a dramatic thing happens. Aditya's
masterpiece is Hi-So (2010, 102 min), which tells a story of a handsome
rich guy whose American girlfriend gets frustrated while visiting him in
Thailand. Later, he has a Thai girlfriend, but his Thai girlfriend cannot quite
fit in with his society of party-loving, rich, foreign, or mixed-race friends. Hi-So
shows Aditya's keen observation on human behaviors and little gestures, such as
in the scene in which some Thai guys try to take advantage of the protagonist's
American girlfriend while they are taking pictures together. Many little
gestures in Hi-So reveal very interesting things about people's
prejudice, culture clash between Thais
and foreigners, and some aspects in the relationship between the rich and the
poor.
The relationship between Thais and
foreigners/mixed-race people is also dealt with in Aditya's Phuket
(2009, 30 min) and Bangkok Blues (2009, 20 min)(2), but in Bangkok
Blues, what is more interesting than this topic is the thought-provoking
quality of it. Some films of Aditya, such as Wonderful Town, Bangkok
Blues, and 6 to 6 (2010, 20 min), seem to not spell out clearly what
the films are trying to say. These films let us observe the mostly unimportant
activities of the characters, and allow us to interpret freely or make meanings
out of these activities by ourselves. And sometimes you don't have to interpret
anything at all. Just observe the characters will be enough, such as in
Aditya's My Rabbits (2011, 2 min), which shows us the unimportant
activities of his three rabbits, while the frame of the picture moves up and
down from time to time.
2.Anocha Suwichakornpong (born 1976)
Anocha's master's thesis film from Columbia University, Graceland
(2006, 17 min), was
selected for the 59th Cannes Film Festival's Cinefondation program. It was the
first Thai short film selected for the Cannes
Film Festival. After that she made Like. Real. Love (2008, 38 min), a
trilogy in which is about three kinds of love--love between a dead mother and
her daughter, love between a man and a woman, and love of humanity. The last
part of this trilogy is partly inspired by Employees Leaving the Lumière
Factory (Louis Lumière, 1895), and poses some interesting questions about
the relationship between film and reality. Anocha had once dealt with this
relationship before in Ghosts (2005, 35 min). The first half of Ghosts
is about an audition of an aging actress, while the second half is about
Anocha's mother. Some scenes in this film blend reality and fiction together in
a very memorable way. Her debut feature is Mundane History (Jao nok
krajok, 2009, 82 min), a family drama about the friendship that develops
between a young paralyzed man from a wealthy Bangkok family and his male nurse
from the northeastern part of Thailand. The film is also a commentary on
Thailand's class-based society and the frailty of life. It premiered at
the 2009 Pusan International Film Festival, where it was in the New Currents
competition, and also opened the World Film
Festival of Bangkok. It made its European Premiere in the Tiger Awards
competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam,
and was among the three films in the 15-title line-up that won the Tiger Award.
Featuring a scene of full-frontal male nudity and masturbation, it was the
first Thai film under Thailand's motion-picture rating system to be given the
most restrictive 20+ rating. Other notable works of Anocha include Kissing
in Public (2009, 3 min)(3), and 3-0 (2006, 8 min), which is
Haneke-like in its cold observation on its characters. 3-0 is about
three people who try to walk, but in the end they cannot walk very far. The
film has its political meanings, and is actually about three important
political moments in recent Thai history, including the massacre in Bangkok on
October 6, 1976, the Black May event in 1992, and the coup d'état on September
19, 2006. Anocha co-founded her production company, Electric Eel Films, in
Bangkok in 2006. Her company is the
space for group of up-and-coming young Thai filmmakers, for example, Wichanon
Somumjarn (In April the Following Year, There Was a Fire) and Tulapop
Saenjaroen (After the Wind, Distinction).
3.Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook (born
1957)
Araya is undoubtedly the most
important Thai video artist who has kept on making great gallery-based videos
since 1998. She is also a writer, a lecturer, and a multidisciplinary artist
who started making prints in the early 1980s and installation art in the early
1990s. Her first videos deal with various activities she does with real
corpses, for example, reading to corpses in Pond (1998), Reading for
Three Female Corpses (1998), Reading for Male and Female Corpses (1998),
Lament (2000), and Reading Inaow for a Female Corpse (2001);
singing for corpses in Thai Medley (2002); walking through a morgue in A
Walk (2002); dressing up a female corpse in I'm Living (2002) and Sudsiri
and Araya (2002); talking to corpses in Conversation (2005);
teaching corpses in The Class (2005); and having some music played in
the cemetery in Glome Pee, the Crying of the Earth (2006). These videos
change the perceptions of the viewers towards the death issue. In these videos,
death is not something disgusting any more, but it is treated as an undeniable
fact, a part of our lives, or something which we must accept with calmness and
not try to avoid it. Araya deals with death again in In a Blur of Desire
(2006, 19 min, three-channel video), which records the slaughter of a pig, a
cow, and a buffalo. What is interesting in In a Blur of Desire is the
calmness of the tone, which is in contrast to the frightening tone of Pig's
Stories (Amrit Chusuwan, 2011), a multi-channel video installation which
also deals with the slaughter of animals. This is because the purposes of these
two video installations are different. In a Blur of Desire may focus on
the transition of life to death, while Pig's Stories may focus on the
brutality we try to avoid thinking about while we consume meat.
Apart from the death topic, Araya
also deals with other social taboos in her other videos, for example, The
Nine-Day Pregnancy of a Single Middle-Aged Associate Professor (2003),
which makes us aware of the prejudice in society towards women's behaviors and
private lives; The Insane (2006), which records the monologues of eleven
insane women, but in the end makes the viewers aware that these mental patients
are not much different from us, because they also have love, fear, dreams,
ambitions, anxiety, and have suffered a lot from many obstacles in their lives
like us; and Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith Beheading Holofernes, Jeff
Koons' Untitled, and Thai Villagers (2011, 20 min), in which a Thai monk
tries to teach moral lessons to villagers by using these two paintings, which
some might judge beforehand as inappropriate to be placed in a Buddhist temple.
However, some of Araya's best videos
don't have to deal with social taboos. In This Circumstance, the Sole Object
of Attention Should Be the Treachery of the Moon (2009) is a captivating
video showing many people walking up and down a green field. In the Pool of
Still Water, There is a Yearning for the Torrential Flow of the Big River
(2009) shows us a person lying on a bed near a pond. His/her body is wrapped
around in a white blanket. The person moves his/her body around, while the
light goes dimmer and dimmer until the picture is in complete darkness. It is
one of the most powerful videos of Araya. Araya's masterpieces also include the
videos in The Two Planet Series (2008), such as Manet's Luncheon on
the Grass and the Thai Villagers (2008, 16 min), Millet's the Gleaners
and the Thai Farmers (2008, 15 min), and Van Gogh's the Midday Sleep and
the Thai Villagers (2008, 18 min). In these videos, Araya lets Thai
villagers comment freely on the highly-regarded paintings in the titles. These
videos open up many interesting questions, such as the questions about how to
appreciate art, whether art education is really necessary, what is beauty, and
whether the reactions of the villagers towards the paintings reflect the
reactions of the video-installation viewers towards the villagers in the
videos?
Araya can be considered the most
important Thai video artist because she creates great videos frequently, while
other Thai multidisciplinary artists turn to use video medium only from time to
time, or not as frequently as Araya. Other multidisciplinary female artists in
Thailand who create great gallery-based videos or video installations from time
to time include Preeyachanok Ketsuwan, Suchada Sirithanawuddhi, Sudsiri
Pui-Ock, Tuksina Pipitkul, Wantanee Siripattananuntakul, and may also include
Varsha Nair, a Uganda-born, India-graduated artist who resides in Thailand.
As for Thai male artists, the ones
who create great video art or video installations from time to time include
Amrit Chusuwan, Arin Rungjang, Chol Janepraphaphan, Kamol Phaosavasdi, Montri
Toemsombat, Navin Rawanchaikul, Noraset Vaisayakul, Pan Pan Narkprasert,
Prateep Suthathongthai, Sakarin Krue-on, Sathit Sattarasart, Suebsang
Sangwachirapiban, Suparirk Kanitwaranun, Suporn Shoosongdej, and Thaweesak
Srithongdee.
4.Arthawut Boonyuang
One of the first films of Arthawut
is Wake Up (2008, 3 min), which is inspired by the literary works of
Kanokpong Songsompan, but Wake Up is an unimpressive atmospheric film.
It is a good film, but it is not so much different from many Thai atmospheric
short films at that time. However, Arthawut succeeded in creating a name for
himself when he made Women in Democracy (2009, 6 min), in which we see a
woman giving an interview about how she lost her husband during the crackdown
on the red-shirt protesters in Bangkok in April, 2009. What is interesting in
this film is the texts which run at the bottom of the screen all through the
film. The texts alternately tell us about gossip news on Thai stars/celebrities
and old news about the important political events in Thailand since 1932,
including some events which many Thai people don't want to talk about. Women
in Democracy became one of the bravest Thai films made that year. Arthawut
made a sequel to this film called I Remember (2011, 90 min), which is
partly about the massacre in Bangkok on May 19, 2010, and also about his trip
to a beach with his close friends and other things he wants to remember from
the year before. One distinctive quality found in some of Arthawut's films is
the extreme slowness, or scenes which let us observe something for a long time,
while the story doesn't move forward. These scenes can be found in I
Remember, Space (2009, 5 min), Scar (2010, 12 min), and Time
to Tear (2011, 10 min). Arthawut's masterpiece is Time to Be...
(2009, 12 min), in which we see a woman carrying a cremation urn, while the
texts on the screen tell us about a man who loses his old father. The film is
very intriguing and provokes the audience to interpret what the film really
means.
5.Chaloemkiat
Saeyong
Some may say
that Chaloemkiat's films are weird and look like they were made by someone who
doesn't know how to make films. Some may also say that Chaloemkiat's films are
inferior, because his films are full of texts on the screen, instead of telling
stories by the editing of scenes. But what is interesting is that Chaloemkiat's
films actually play with texts and the limits of texts in cinematic medium.
Chaloemkiat's texts are both narrator and interruptor who pulls the audience
away from the narrative. In Peru Time (2008, 18 min), which shows us the
images of a farm rice in several long static takes, we can see a lot of texts
on the screen, but none of them is readable. In Politically Lawyer and
Narrative Cinema (2009, 27 min), the texts play many roles. In some scenes, we
see a university toilet, but the texts say, "This is an airport
toilet." In another scene, we see university students, but the texts say,
"These are airhostesses." The texts also tell us about a highly
convoluted murder mystery. Sometimes we see barely nothing on the screen,
except long texts from the dialogue of the characters. Sometimes the texts
appear at the bottom of the screen as subtitles, while the characters directly
comment on the subtitles we see. In Politically Lawyer and Narrative Cinema,
the texts play the role of narrator, tell us that we should regard the image of
a classroom as the image of an airport, and parody themselves at the same time,
such as in the scene in which the texts say, "This is a pirate DVD."
In Chay, Gayvah-rar 'n' the Machupicchu (2010, 21 min), the texts create
some stories which may not be connected to the images we see. The texts and the
images in this film are like the superimposition of images of different roads,
which sometimes conjoin each other, and stimulate the viewers to reinterpret
the images in the film. Chaloemkiat's use of texts is pushed to the limit in History
in the Air (2009, 58 min), which shows that texts are a problem which needs
to be eliminated. In a way, we can say that texts in Chaloemkiat's films play
the role of a narrator in films which don't care much about telling stories,
because these films regard stories as a problem obstructing the use of images.
Most of
Chaloemkiat's films are perplexing, especially Employees Leaving the Lumière
Factory (2010, 31 min). Chaloemkiat uses extreme darkness as the core of
this film. In a scene in this film, we see two women use flashlights to look at
a photo shown in the darkness in the Museum of Light. This scene is replayed a
few times, with a slight difference each time it is replayed. Most of his films
also concern politics, but hide the political implications in an interesting
way. His films have the qualities of experimental films, films made by
inexperienced film students, and films made by someone who tries to destroy the
rules of cinema at the same time. In a place between the cinema of weak
storytelling and the cinema of challenging filmmakers, that's where the
eccentric films of Chaloemkiat are situated, shouting out his love for the
memory of people, moving images in which things barely move, and mysterious
atmosphere which is hard to find elsewhere.
6.Chonlasit Upanigkit (born 1990)
Among numerous film students in Thai universities now, one of
the most distinguished film students is Chonlasit, who is going to be graduated
from Silpakorn University soon. This university has been teaching films for
only a few years, but has now created many interesting filmmakers.
While most film students make short films which are not
longer than 30 minutes, the three great films of Chonlasit do not conform to
this standard. These three films are Distance (2010, 55 min), Night
Blind (co-directed with Rasika Prasongtham, 2010, 40 min), and Siam Park
City (2011, 45 min), and that makes him comparable to Chookiat Sakveerakul,
because when Chookiat was a university student, he also liked to make films
which are bigger in production and longer than films made by other Thai film
students. What Chookiat did 10-12 years ago did not conform to the norm of Thai
film students at that time, but his films have since become examples used in
Thai film classrooms, and he has now become one of the most successful Thai
mainstream film directors.
As for Chonlasit's films, Distance is about a male
friend who is secretly in love with a lesbian friend. The film is full of
natural-looking long takes, instead of slick-looking ones. Night Blind
is a romantic film about a woman who cannot see well at night. Some cinephiles
may like this film less than other films of Chonlasit, but it is the only film
of Chonlasit which garnered an award at the 15th Thai Short Film and Video
Festival, while his other films lost in the first round of the competition.
Chonlasit shows how sharp-eyed and how talented as a
cinematographer he can be in Siam Park City, his experimental
documentary. He made this film by walking around some public parks in Bangkok
and recording people's activities in the parks from early afternoon until
sunset. This film lets us observe some kinds of "cultures" inherent
in the park users, and his skills at cinematography and editing make the film
really riveting. However, some teachers, directors, and mainstream film viewers
always accuse his films of being too slow.
Chonlasit's main strength is the fact that he can tell
stories about people who are close to him very convincingly. Most of his films
rely on the improvisation of the actors, most of whom are his friends. That's
why he can convey the feelings and emotions in his films in such a natural way
that other romantic Thai films have rarely done before. His films are very
touching because of the emotional authenticity in them.
As for now, March 2012, Chonlasit is in the process of making
a thesis feature film called W. He hasn't finished making it yet due to
some unpredictable problems about a main actor. This is the first film that he
doesn't use people close to him as the main actor. The film will be 162 minutes
long, and Chonlasit says that the inspiration for this film comes from The
Love of Siam (Chookiat Sakveerakul, 2007, 150 min) and films by So Yong
Kim. W is about the lives of two female students and the confusion inside
their heads while they are studying in the Faculty of Sport Sciences, which has
never been represented in Thai films about teenagers before. W is the
most ambitious project of Chonlasit, and it forces him to work much harder than
his college friends. He also makes Call (20 min) as a workshop for the
two main actors of W.
Apart from making his own films, Chonlasit also works as a
cinematographer, editor, sound mixer and colorist for other directors' short
films, music videos, or commercials. He works frequently for Nawapol
Thamrongrattanarit. Chonlasit is one filmmaker to watch right now. He has a lot
of potential to be a big figure in the Thai mainstream film industry in the
future.
7.Chulayarnnon Siriphol (born 1986)
We can divide Chulayarnnon's films
into two groups: earlier and later films. His earlier films include Hua-Lam-Pong
(2004, 12 min), which he made while he was studying in a high school and which
made him famous, Golden Sand House (2005, 19 min), and Sleeping
Beauty (2006, 40 min). In Hua-Lam-Pong, Chulayarnnon observes an old
man who likes to take a picture of himself at Hualampong terminal station. In Golden
Sand House, he remade a soap opera TV series by casting his family members
and his maid as the actors and using his house as the location. A middle-aged
maid from Myanmar took on the role of a beautiful heroine. Chulayarnnon's
father took on the role of an aristocratic handsome hero. The film focuses on
the shyness these unlikely actors feel in front of the camera and also on their unnatural acting. The viewers have to
figure out by themselves who plays which role in this film. Sleeping Beauty
is like the meeting place between Hua-Lam-Pong and Golden Sand House,
because in Sleeping Beauty, Chulayarnnon secretly recorded the daily
activities of his family members, including the time when they were asleep, and
lets the viewers create a story by themselves. These earlier films of
Chulayarnnon focuses on mundane activities of people. The scenes in these films
are a mix between secretly-recorded scenes and partially-staged scenes. These
observational scenes may not look special, but the clues in the titles of the
films encourage the viewers to imagine a story by themselves out of the images
from the films.
After that, Chulayarnnon's films
become more experimental. The later period of his films starts from Ghost
Orb (2007, 2 min), which is a semi-video art capturing reflections from
camera. Then he made Danger (Director's Cut) (2008, 14 min), one of his
bravest and sarcastic films. This film reflects his uncomfortableness with film
education in Thailand. He made this film by combining Danger, his thesis
film, with his teachers' harsh commentaries on Danger. In every scene of
Danger (Director's Cut), the viewers can simultaneously watch Danger
and read the texts from the teachers' commentaries on the scene. Danger
(Director's Cut) shows us both how predictable mainstream films are and how
narrow-mindedness film education in Thailand is, because it does not allow
students to be really creative. The film ends with the photo of Chulayarnnon in
student uniform slowly burning.
Chulayarnnon's later films become
more political, too. Karaoke: Think Kindly (2009, 5 min) satirizes the
conflicts between the red shirts and the yellow shirts in Thailand in a rather
innocent way. However, in Thai Contemporary Politics Quiz (2010, 8 min),
Chulayarnnon became more cunning in dealing with political topics, because this
film comes in the form of a quiz in PowerPoint style. The film asks the viewers
many questions about contemporary Thai politics, but doesn't gives us any answers.
After that, Chulayarnnon made A Brief History of Memory (2010, 14 min),
which is an extremely powerful and brave documentary. Instead of attacking the
red shirts, the yellow shirts, and the colorful shirts, this film focuses on an
interview with a woman in Nang Lerng community in Bangkok. This woman lost her
son during the red shirt crackdown in April 2009, because her son, who tried to
protect his own community, was shot by a red shirt supporter. In this film, we
see black-and-white images of Nang Lerng community while mysterious round
objects keep appearing on the screen. These mysterious objects act as if they
are spirits floating in the air of the community. We also hear the sad voice of
the mother, who doesn't blame any sides of the political conflicts. It is just
the voice of a woman who lost her son forever.
In conclusion, what is great in
Chulayarnnon's films include his experiments on images, the space of
imagination that he gives to the viewers, and the sharp criticism on some
topics. These qualities make him a real director to watch. His website
is here: http://www.chulayarnnon.com/ .
บทความนี้เขียนขึ้นในช่วงต้นปี 2012
8.Ing K
In the 1990s, many people knew Ing K, or Samanrat
Kanjanavanit, as a serious environmental activist, because she was involved in
the protesting against the shooting of The Beach (Danny Boyle, 2000) at
Maya Bay, and because she made documentaries against big businesses, such as Thailand
for Sales (1991), Green Menace: The Untold Story of Golf (1993, 58
min) and Casino Cambodia (1994). There was also
another important event happening in her life then. It is the banning of her
first feature film My Teacher Eats Biscuits (1997, 120 min)
when it was going to be shown in the First Bangkok Film Festival in
1998. The reasons for the banning include insult to Buddhism, because this cult
film has such characters as the sect leader, played by Ing K herself, and
because the film questions some Buddhist teachings via such scenes as the one
in which a monk is having sex with a corpse, but a senior monk deems this act
righteous because it is a male corpse! My Teacher Eats Biscuits was
abruptly pulled out of the Festival after a mysterious fax had been sent to the
police complaining about this film.
After that incident, Ing K stopped making films for about ten
years. During that period, she continued doing her other activities as an
independent artist, painter, and writer. She also operates Kathmandu Gallery
together with Manit Sriwanichpoom, her partner who is a famous photographer and
one of the directors of an experimental political film called Land of Laugh
(1992, 13 min). And then she decided to make a film again. She collaborated
with Manit and Kraisak Choonhavan, a Thai politician, to make a documentary
called Citizen Juling (2008, 222 min), which
explores the myths and discourses about violence in the three southernmost
provinces of Thailand. The film focuses on the incident in which some villagers
abducted Juling Pongkunmul, a teacher who came from Chiang Rai, the
northernmost province of Thailand, and held her hostage until some people beat
her severely. This incident became big news, and Juling died after almost eight
months in a coma. The film was shown in film festivals both inside and outside
Thailand. What is interesting in the film is the way Ing uses the camera to
pose some serious questions, and shows us some myths about "the
otherness" in Thai society. The film explores the feelings and emotions of
people both in the southernmost and the northernmost parts of Thailand,
including people who were close to Juling.
Ing's latest film is Shakespeare Must Die (2012, 170
min), which tells two overlapping stories. One is about a tyrant of a fictional
country and his wife. The other is about a theatre which stages the play
Macbeth to convey some political messages(4). What is interesting about this
film is whether this film will deal with any important institutions in Thailand
again or not, because My Teacher Eats Biscuits deals with beliefs and
"religious" institution, and Citizen Juling deals with the
concept of "nation". So it is highly likely that Shakespeare Must
Die also deals with some important things in Thailand, too.
While some Thai films try to reflect the political conflicts
in Thailand which are getting more and more dangerous, Ing's films stand out
from many other Thai political films because her films don't focus on flowery
techniques or hidden symbols. Her films talk to us straightforwardly, openly,
and fiercely. After tackling religions with biting humor in My Teacher Eats
Biscuits and posing some controversial questions in Citizen Juling,
Ing caused some controversy again when Shakespeare Must Die was banned
by the Culture Ministry's National Film Board on April 3, 2012, on the grounds
that the film may disrupt the unity of Thailand. Like its predecessors Syndromes
and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2006) and Insects in the
Backyard (Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, 2010) which were also banned in Thailand, Shakespeare
Must Die unintentionally reminds us of what Nicole Brenez said in
Cinespect.com, "Censorship is the rewarding testimony that a film is
important. For an activist filmmaker, it's a label of quality."(5)
บทความนี้เขียนขึ้นในช่วงต้นปี 2012
9.Jakrawal Nilthamrong
Jakrawal Nilthamrong holds a MFA in art and technology
studies from Chicago Art Institute. His works have the qualities of narrative
short films, experimental films, and video art at the same time. He adapts some
concepts of Buddhism to fit his films and video works. Most of the characters
in his works can be represented as humans who are still in "karma"
and "cycle of life", such as the characters in Man and Gravity
(2009, short), and Immortal Woman (2010, short). Moreover, he is also
interested in concepts of "past and future" and
"reincarnation", which can be found in A Voyage of Foreteller
(2007, 8 min), and Patterns of Transcendence (2006, 49 min). His debut
feature Unreal Forest (2010, 70 min) was screened in International Film
Festival Rotterdam.
บทความนี้เขียนขึ้นในช่วงต้นปี 2012
10.Korn Kanogkekarin
Korn made great films which no one
understands. The power of his films come from the juxtaposition of scenes which
are not connected to each other, or come from scenes which need some
explanation, but the explanation will never be given. Popular (2009, 16
min) shows us a transvestite dissecting a frog and smoking a cigarette in split
screens, but it doesn't tell us why the director wants us to see it. Are You
Ready? (2010, 6 min) shows us the back of a woman's head, Korn lying
impatiently on green grass, and someone standing naked on a flush toilet. Good
Day of Kornly (2010, 4 min) presents Korn trying to mow the lawn by using
an ax. Korn's masterpiece is Why Do You Jump? (2011, 19 min), which
shows someone surfing TV channels, Korn dancing weirdly in his room, Korn
shaking his hair in slow motion for a long time while the sound of someone
making love is heard, and images of the body of Korn bisected by some visual
effects and manipulated into something which looks like a sculpture of a pagan
goddess. The last part of this film also features a very appropriate use of
electronic music, because the manipulated images of Korn keep changing in
perfect harmony with the rhythm of the soundtrack. No one may understand Why
Do You Jump?, including Korn himself, but this film is undeniably very
powerful.
In a way, Korn can also be called
the Thai Candy Darling, because he also acts in some great films by other Thai
directors, and his queer charm is the main reason why those films become
memorable. His queer charm can be appreciated in Essence de Femme (Chama
Lekpla, 2011, 15 min), in which he plays a naked transvestite trying to cook
some food, and In Train (Boripat Plaikeaw, 2011, 84 min), which is a
documentary about Korn and his gay friends going on vacation. In In Train,
Korn carries an upper torso of a naked male mannequin with him all through the
trip, not caring any more what other people may think of him.
No comments:
Post a Comment