The Space of Dechito

Crazy Stupid Love

2011-12-20T21:52:00.003+07:00

Crazy Stupid Love is a film directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. It's about love that has gone awry. It's about how parents' broken relationship can affect their children. It's about secret love. It's about the mid-life crisis. It's about a new start. It's about love.

Of course, I don't mean to cast a net to sweep every aspect of life under its carpet, but the film does tell you a lot about this crazy stupid thing called love. Cal Weaver, a middle-aged man, is an estranged husband, whose wife, Emily (wonderfully stars Julianne Moore), takes a decision to leave him possibly due to her midlife crisis. The first half of the film sees Cal as a confused man trying to cope with the separation and start seeing other women, with the help of Jacob Palmer, a dashing womanizer. However, things turn out to be more complicated as Cal is not ready to give up his love.

Over the second half, we see how the two men, Cal and Jacob, learn to take a middle road, with Cal being more sophisticated and with Jacob being less. Both start to learn that love is nothing but unpredictable but once one finds it, one should not just give up once it is hampered by any difficulties, be they big or small. What I find interesting about the film is how the directors try very hard not to resort to easy, cliche endings, even though this is almost impossible given the film's genre is clearly that of romantic comedy. Of course, there's no harsh tragedy in the film, but at the end there emerge a hope that some can change to be a better person (both physically in the case of Cal and mentally in that of Jacob) and some (like Cal's own son who falls in love with his own babysitter) just need to soldier on despite the acknowledgement that love cannot be won.

There's nothing new with the film. But if you have some free time on Sunday evening, maybe it's one choice among many.

Private Eyes | รัก (ทะ) ลวงตา

2010-09-15T00:18:00.011+07:00

Private Eyes, adapted for Thai theatre-goers from the original script by Steven Dietz, had its premiere yesterday. The translator and director, Pawit Mahasarinand, also took a role in the play, which aims to make the viewers confused and question the thin line between fiction and reality. Not only does the main actors, Nophand Boonyai and Dujdao Vadhanapakorn, retain their real names throughout the play, the situation is made more complex with them playing the roles of actors. In a sense, this play can be labelled 'metafiction', as it's a work of art that discusses its own fictive status, something that is not totally unheard of in the theatre scene. However, the cast of only five characters does bring freshness to this postmodern structure with the same characters taking different functions in different layers of Chinese-box reality.

Love figures prominently, as the whole play deals with the issues of trust and faith. Scenarios are repeated, though not with precision, only to be revealed later as possibilities in dreams, instigated by either fear or desire. However, even though the play is complex, its complexity is not there just to mesmerize the viewers, but indeed to portray the increasingly distorted mind of a man who believes that his lover has an affair with a director.

Nothing can be trusted in this play, as it revels in its own self-reflexivity and fictive status. Even the psychoanalyst, who is supposed to be a reliable voice of sanity giving 'objective' comments to the viewers, somehow cannot be trusted. What we have left here is our own attempt at understanding and our little faith, faith that what we're watching tells us something about life, even though we know only too well that the writer has a lot up his sleeves. Perhaps towards the end we are merged with the actor, whose last words are simply 'don't fool me' ...

More details of the play can be found here.

Kinsey

2010-06-14T20:46:00.002+07:00

Kinsey is a very touching film that details a man's fight against cultural prejudices. Alfred Kinsey was a renowned scientist working at Indiana University and, despite his religious background, he set out to find truths about life and the world. The film does show how Kinsey, during the early decades of the twentieth century, tries so hard to study sexual behaviour of American people. Of course, given the age and time, what Kinsey does is pioneering and daring, as the oppressive nature of society at the time rarely permits such a study to be conducted without prejudgement. With the Protestant belief riding high, Kinsey manages to secure a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, though it was later put to a stop due to the public panic over such a sensitive issue.

The figure of Kinsey, however, triumphs over all this, as we see the man braving his way through the society full of moral hypocrisy and double standard. His unrelenting fight is comparable to that of Prometheus, who risks his life to give fire to mankind. Kinsey himself is an experimenter, as we see he tries and tests different forms of sex, at times injuring himself in the process and pushing his moral boundaries to the limits. Nevertheless, somehow we see him as a courageous fighter for his own belief -- that everything can be measured and analysed -- and that his belief is itself very cautiously formulated.

He clearly distinguishes love from sex and strictly analyses the latter, accepting the fact that the former is somewhat much more complicated and cannot be measured. However, I can't help wondering that at times Kinsey is ill-at-ease distinguishing between sex and love. When his wife wants to 'sexually experiment' with one of his assistants, we clearly see that Kinsey is apparently worried. This perhaps raises a pertinent question that somehow sex can't just be measured either, simply for the fact that sex and love can't be separated. Somehow we try to use reason to analyse sex, but little do we realize that we can't simply be a detached observer of such a delicate issue.

But of course this doesn't mean that the world should ignore Kinsey or that his study should be treated with less respect. Totally the opposite, I reckon.

The Devil Wears Prada | Confessions of a Shopaholic

2010-05-30T00:03:00.008+07:00

Look closely and you'll start to see a lot of similarities between these two recent films, The Devil Wears Prada and Confessions of a Shopaholic. Needless to say, both are based on the novels of the same names and both feature a central female character who has problems with her lifestyle. In The Devil Wears Prada, we see Andrea Sachs or Andy having problems with choice, whether to be a successful fashion columnist in a top fashion magazine or to have a lovely relationship with her boyfriend. On the other hand, Rebecca Bloomwood in Confessions of a Shopaholic, also chooses to decline a once-in-a-lifetime offer to work in a fashion magazine in order to stop living a lie.

Both films see the whole fashion industry as an arena full of heartless struggles and competitions, where the winners are left soulless and the losers nothing but ... losers. Here, we can't help but aligning this world with working women, a rather new generation of women who need to prove that they can work as effectively as (or even better than) men, women who have been under enormous pressure to prove themselves that they can survive in this dog-eat-dog world of consumerist capitalism. One can't help but wonder how in this day and age of affirmative right and political correctness can women be stereotyped in such a cruel way, especially when one takes into consideration that these negative images are created by female novelists. Of course, I don't mean that they misrepresent women, but they are rather too heavy-handed in painting this rather cold image of women, whose personal lives suffer at the expense of their career success. A good example would naturally be the character of Miranda Priestley, whose ice-queen looks are just a external layer that conceals her vulnerability.

It comes as no surprise to learn that both Andrea and Rebecca at the end decline these lucrative offers but prefer to take low-profile jobs. But the reason actually varies: while Andrea chooses to quit her job because she doesn't want to be cold-hearted as Miranda, Rebecca just refuses to take the job at Alette because she thinks the job just keeps her in a web of lies in the world where she needs to entice people to spend more money in retail therapy. However, despite this difference, what is similar between the two films is that their decision not to enter the fashion world is related to their discovery of the truth of life -- that the meaning of life lies not in jobs or shopping but in ... men. Now, call me sarcastic if you may, but I do believe that in this day and age of postfeminism, we could have done better, to see that perhaps women don't EVEN need a boyfriend or a relationship, but a belief in their true self, the self that they can rely on and be contented with. What I see in these films, however, is that women choose not to depend on a job or shopping, but to depend on men instead.

Read Out Loud!

2010-05-13T13:34:00.003+07:00

I just stumbled on this language joke whilst arranging my stuff at home. Reading it once again, I just realised how imperial the joke was and it did disguise the unequal power relations between the "native" language user and those who are not "qualified" to use their language.

----------------------

One day ima gonna Malta to bigga hotel. Ina Morning I go down to eat breakfast. I tella waitress I wanna two pissis toast. She brings me only one piss. I tella her I want two piss. She say go to the toilet. I say you no understand. I wanna to piss onna my plate. She say you better not piss onna plate, you sonna ma bitch. I don't even know the lady and she call me sonna ma bitch. Later I go to eat at the bigga restaurant. The waitress brings me a spoon and knife but no fock. I tella her I wanna fock. She tell me everyone wanna fock. I tell her you no understand. I wanna fock on the table. She say you better not fock on the table, you sonna ma bitch. I don't even know the lady and she call me sonna ma bitch. So I go back to my room inna hotel and there is no shits onna my bed. Call the manager and tella him I wanna shit. He tell me to go to toilet. I say you no understand. I wanna shit on my bed. He say you better not shit onna bed, you sonna ma bitch. I go to the checkout and the man at the desk say: "Peace on you". I say piss on you too, you sonna ma bitch, I gonna back home.

A Lesson for Everyone

2010-05-13T13:23:00.003+07:00

Two English-language teachers, an American and an Englishman were sitting in a coffee-shop puzzling over why their Thai students seemed so slow at grasping the fundamentals of the English language. They agreed it was an appalling state of affairs.

Yank: Of course, the worst lot are the sophomores.

Brit: I didn't know we ran a signals class.

Yank: Not semaphores, you idiot. Sophomores, second-year students.

Brit: Why didn't you say so in the first place? Which are the most troublesome?

Yank: The lot on the first floor.

Brit: There aren't any classes on the first floor. There's only the library. The sec... sophomores are on the ground floor.

Yank: That's what I said, first floor. By the way, I don't think much of those drapes in the library.

Brit: Drapes? You mean the backward class?

Yank: The drapes on the windows, I can't stand the pink colour.

Brit: You mean curtains. I've got some like that in my flat.

Yank: You've a flat? There's a gas station nearby. They'll fix it.

Brit: No, my flat. Where I live.

Yank: You mean your apartment. How is it anyway?

Brit: Okay, but the lift's a bit of a pain.

Yank: You hurt your back? Why don't you take the elevator?

Enter an Australian colleague.

Bruce: Good-day! Where did you get those strides? They're beaut.

Brit: I beg your pardon.

Yank: He means your pants.

Brit: Where I buy my underwear is none of your business. If you must know, I got them from a pavement stall.

Yank: Those sidewalk stalls in Bangkok are something else. You can buy anything from sneakers to thumbtacks...

Brit: From plimsolls to drawing pins...

Bruce: By the way, what were you two having such an intense conversation about?

Brit: Our students. They just don't seem to be able to grasp plain English.

Bruce: That's right. I spent an hour last week trying to explain what a freeway was.

Yank: I couldn't make them understand what a throughway was.

Brit: What's a freeway?

Bruce: Don't come the raw prawn with me son.

Brit: Okay waiter. Make that fried prawns instead.

Footnote: The above conversation originally included a Scot, but nobody understood a word he said. However he did refer to Postscript as "just a wheen o'blethers" which is apparently something less than complimentary.

The Letter

2010-05-13T13:15:00.002+07:00

Once there was a boy who loved a girl very much. The girl's father, however, did not like the boy and did not want their love to grow. The boy wanted to write a love letter but he was sure that the girl's father would read it first. At last he wrote a letter to the girl.

The great love I said I have for you

is gone, and I find my dislike for you

increases every day. When I see you,

I do not even like the way you look;

the only thing I want to do is to

look the other way; I never wanted to

marry you. Our last conversation

was very dull and in no way has

made me anxious to see you again.

You think only of yourself.

If we were married, I know that I would find

life very difficult, and would have no

pleasure in living with you. I have a heart

to give, but is not a heart

I want to give to you. No one is more

demanding or selfish than you, and less

able to care for me and be of help to me.

I sincerely want you to understand that

every I speak is the truth. You will do me a favour

if you consider this end. Do not try

to answer this. Your letters are full of

things that do not interest me. You have no

true concern for me. Good-bye! Believe me,

I do not care for you. Please do not think

I am still your loving friend.

The girl's father read the letter. He was pleased, and then gave the letter to his daughter. The girl read the letter and was very happy. The boy still loved her.

Abort, Retry, Ignore

2010-05-13T12:16:00.002+07:00

Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,

System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,

Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,

Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets;

Having reached the bottom line

I took a floppy from the drawer.

Typing with a steady hand, I then invoked the SAVE command

But I got a reprimand: it read Abort, Retry, Ignore.

Was this some occult illusion? Some ethereal intrusion?

These were choices Solomon himself had never faced before.

Carefully, I weighed my options,

These three seemed to be the top ones,

Clearly I must now adopt one:

Choose Abort, Retry, Ignore.

With my fingers pale and trembling,

Slowly toward the keyboard bending,

Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,

Praying for some guarantee

Finally I depressed a key --

But on the screen what did I see?

Again: Abort, Retry, Ignore.

I tried to catch the chips off-guard

I pressed again, but twice as hard.

Luck was just not in the cards.

I saw what I had seen before.

Now I typed in desperation

Trying random combinations

Still there came the incantation:

Choose: Abort, Retry, Ignore.

There I sat, distraught exhausted, by my own machine accosted,

Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor.

And then I saw an awful sight:

A bold and blinding flash of light --

A lightening bolt had cut the night and shook me to my very core.

I saw the screen collapse and die

"Oh no - my database," I cried.

I thought I heard a voice reply,

"You'll see your data Nevermore!"

To this day I do not know

The place to which lost data goes.

I bet it goes to heaven where the angels have it stored.

But as for productivity, well

I fear that IT goes straight to hell

And that's the tale I have to tell

Your choice: Abort, Retry, Ignore.

-- Author unknown

Lust Caution

2010-05-10T00:09:00.002+07:00

The latest film by Ang Lee, Lust Caution is simply not for faint-hearted viewers. Expect scenes of strong sexual nature and violence as this film involves a secret relationship between an influential politician and a spy who tries to coax out his secrets.

Stylised and dignified, the film does show the complex relationship between them, as the spy turns out to be very good, so good that she just falls in love (or at least sympathises) with the man she is supposed to betray. I believe the director does want to show the viewers the thin line between love and hate, between pure sex and love, and between intimacy and love. Indeed, what we see from the film is also how malleable the human mind is -- how one can force oneself to love or hate someone and also how one can fall victim to this process of self-hypnotism when one actually believes in one's own concoction.

Also, I believe there is this issue of difference between self and nationhood that the film tries to bring up. What should Wong Chia Chi do when she has a conflict of interest, when she plays the role of Mak Tai Tai and falls in love with the enemy of the State? Once the conflict at this level is played out, her choice at the end does portray that she puts herself before her country -- somewhat a romantic ending whereby a woman chooses to trust her enemy, simply because he shows her how much he has trusted her. The ending does beg some questions though. Does she love him simply because he gives her a jewel? Does it mean that she believes that love should be quantified in material terms in the age of wartime when you cannot believe in anything? Perhaps the director wants to say that even a hard-core resistance fighter is still very much human, having her own dreams, aspirations, and especially the need for love. Perhaps underneath the guise of a ruthless, cold fighter, there lies a fragile woman in need of love.

Julie and Julia

2010-04-28T02:50:00.004+07:00

Based on a book by Julie Powell, Julie and Julia is a film that details the relationship between two people who barely know each other physically, but who get connected through their memoirs. Julie tries to make her days more meaningful by initiating a project -- to start blogging about her one-year assignment to cook all the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking by none other than Julia Childs and her two French friends, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle.

The film does show that to accomplish such a tasking assignment is not easy and you need more than just yourself, but a very supportive spouse to help you through, in the same way that Julia Childs had her husband encourage her to realise her true passion -- cooking. Similar to Chocolat and Like Water for Chocolate, Julie and Julia uses cooking as a poignant metaphor of learning about oneself, one's desire, and one's fear.

But across the two generations, one starts to see the difference in terms of social status. Julia was a wife to a political diplomat who was designated to station in various US embassies overseas. She didn't need to work and cooking was more like a hobby-like vocation. Julie, on the other hand, represents a modern-day city woman in her early thirties, who has to work full-time. Cooking for her is definitely something extra that she needs to fill in her time. But the similarity is that the two women find cooking a hobby that makes their lives meaningful.

It makes me wonder that there's something about this film more than just cooking. It's the writing about it: Julia collaborating on her French cookbook and Julie on her blog. Writing does emphasize the experience of sharing and communication, something that we nowadays are deprived of. Like cooking, writing means you spend time thinking about words and about how to mix them up before sending them out. Both Julie and Julia are concerned with publishing, as it means that their voices are heard and that people out there appreciate what they're doing. Publishing, in this sense, is not so different from seeing your friends enjoy the food you just cooked -- sharing something good.

I'm not sure whether I'm doing the same thing here, trying to share something good. But I guess that somewhere somehow in this blog I've laid myself bare for your scrutiny. Sexy feeling, isn't it?

V for Vendetta

2010-04-19T00:23:00.002+07:00

Perhaps V for Vendetta is one of a few films that directly pertains to what is currently happening in Thailand. Centering on the issues of censorship, power, and violence, the film is set in London in the future whereby civil wars are common and violent suppression is something not totally unheard of.

V, the name of the masked man, is unhappy with how the government administers their work through distorted media and a series of cover-ups. People are brainwashed not to think or disagree with how things are run. Those who show a modicum of dissent will be 'silenced' and made disappeared through various means, some of them including the use of fatally poisonous germs. Thus, it's no wonder how in the beginning of the film we see people just go about doing their routine jobs in a very boring setting, where there's no art or literature that may enable them to think and criticize.

This tedious setting is set in contrast to V's own apartment, peopled by a great number of famous paintings and books. This acculturation of early forms of civilization enables V to think differently and abhor the government's cheap media spinning and concocting of lies or partial truths. Besides V was also a victim of the plot by the government to try their new invention -- a fatal germ -- on living people to test for possible immunities. Apparently, none but V survived and his body has ironically been beefed up in this process.

However, watching this film doesn't give me any hope for change. Just look at how surreal the whole thing is presented, how V is modeled on a superhero figure who is both intellectual and distinguished by his bodily stamina. Besides, he's eloquent with words, a feature that is rarely attributed to the majority of heroes who choose to remain reticent. V, on the contrary, talks a lot and somehow one can sense that he'd better be an English teacher than a hero.

There's one thing I don't like about the film -- the torture of Evey Hammond. It turns out that she's been subjected to a series of torments by V's own hands. What I don't understand is how she could forgive him so easily and continue to trust him, despite his misbehavior that could've led to her death. However, there're also some points that strike me as interesting -- how she needs to learn not to fear death before being part of his team. The film shows that such fearlessness ironically needs violent infliction of pain and mental stress. This leads to a crucial issue in the film, that is, how violence is somehow necessary in the creation of freedom. To have freedom, you must be able to stare at death in the eyes and must also be able to stand out from the crowd. However, in order to do that, you need to be subjected to violence that breaks you from the societal mold. This is simply because somehow peace comes with fear and fear sometimes comes with selfishness.

The Women

2010-04-08T00:39:00.003+07:00

One of the most unlucky aspects of The Women is, despite its star-studded list of actresses, its timing, which is a bit too late. This is because everybody who is interested in this type of film would more or less definitely have seen Sex and the City. The main four characters are quite similar and the fact that all of them dwell in an urban landscape even emphasizes the similarity even more. What is even more strikingly similar is that both films do highlight the power of men, despite the status of present-day city women.

All in all, I don't find the film too objectionable, as most reviews have said. The director does manage to convey the important message that female bonding is indeed crucial and even indispensable at the time when male power is invisibly pervasive, as we literally see no men in the film, apart from the baby in the end.

What is central here is how the city women are stereotyped in this film -- one taking an editorial post in a very trendy women magazine, one a woman who loves to have children and a big loving family, and one a lesbian. But the film does center on another stereotype, which I find banal yet interesting -- a woman who is rich but whose husband has a secret affair with a salesgirl. What we see here is a spoiled housewife who has this ideal American dream facing the 'real' crisis for the first time when her husband is found to have a secret lover. This betrayal is so vital to her growth, making her question what she really wants in life. My first impression here is that, like Sex and the City, this film brings up a lot of questions. It portrays how fragile modern women are, how much they are sheltered from real life, and how such a middle-class life blinds them to so much that could've happened in their life. No wonder that while a lot of city women may identify themselves with the film, a lot as well would find these problems too banal and light -- so insignificant and repetitive that a budget and a powerful cast should not have been wasted.

Perhaps the genre of romantic comedy does hinder the serious development of the film, as we see Mary excel in her fashion designing career and then able to be financially independent. What would've happened if she had failed? What would've happened if her daughter had liked the mistress of her husband? In other words, what if the film cares a little bit more to show the harsh realities of life in the city, where not everything is rosy?

Departures | Okuribito

2010-03-30T21:38:00.006+07:00

Death has always been a taboo but Departures has turned this unspeakable subject into an art of sublimity. Daigo Kobayashi is a cellist who finds himself unemployed as his manager decides to dissolve the band. His wife and he make a big decision of moving to his hometown and living in his long-forsaken place which was once a cafe owned by his Father.

Daigo, then, accidentally gets accepted to work as a person who prepares the dead body for their funeral, a ritual that is at once very artistic and typical of a dying Japanese convention. Even though some people look down on him and think that what he is doing is improper, especially his wife, who threatens to leave him, Daigo finds this job spiritually rewarding as he perceives how people show suppressed emotion and passion, something that is quite impossible to express when the dead were alive. He learns the great truth of humanity, how everyone's life has some moments of greatness and beauty and how everyone deserves at least a little bit of dignity when they die.

Perhaps one can see that Daigo's decision to take this job is caused by his need for love, which has been denied to him by his broken family, especially when his Father decided to move out and live with one of his cafe staff, to the distress of his mother and him. However, through this job, which is demeaning to some, Daigo manages also to learn some of the most meaningful lessons -- forgiveness and unconditional love.

Of course, in a way we can see Departures as a very masculine film, in which two generations of men learn about each other, with women taking back seats and looking at them with support and respect. One can see that perhaps the ending is a little bit too melodramatic when Daigo manages to remember his Father's face, symbolically recognizing the role of fatherhood that he needs to perpetrate. His wife, on the contrary, just smiles and quietly lets him continue this honorary job. With this line of thought, one can also think of how Japanese society is still very much in close alliance with patriarchal codes. But somehow the film does portray the sweet and impressive side to these codes, not the oppressive ones we usually see.

L'iceberg

2010-03-30T02:50:00.005+07:00

L'iceberg, a film by Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, and Bruno Romy, is a surreal comedy showcasing the dream of an alienated woman who longs to see an iceberg. She realises her desire one day after she accidentally traps herself in a walk-in freezer at a fast food chain where she works. Somehow this experience miraculously makes her realise how alienating her everyday life is, especially when, after a night of entrapment, she goes home to find that her family hasn't actually realised that she's not home. Bitter and confused, she finds herself more and more attracted to ice and coldness.

What the film nicely portrays through their odd cinematography and eccentric acting of main characters is the distinction between a city and a seaside town. The former is a breeding ground of angst and alienation, whereas the latter is the place where our main actress, Fiona, realises what she really wants -- the dream of seeing an iceberg -- and the man she really wants, a deaf sailor who owns a small boat aptly called Le Titanique. Rene is pitted up against her husband both in terms of dress and behaviour and it's no wonder why Fiona falls for Rene, as he's portrayed as a Heathcliff-style hunk who talks less but seems to ooze passion and depth, the exact features that go well with the ocean where he works.

However, with the film of this kind, a stereotypical ending where Rene and Fiona fall in love with each other and live together ever after is not going to happen. Fiona does see an iceberg in the end but it doesn't last, like one's dream that ironically loses its fizz once it is fulfilled. What perhaps is more interesting is to see that one still struggles for it nonetheless and one doesn't know what life will bring next. I know that this kind of moral twist is pretty boring and, to be honest, predictable, but L'iceberg does cast a fresh light on this twist via surrealistically minimalist dialogue, setting, and acting. This minimalism is somehow cast against the vastness of the ocean and the dream and aspiration of Fiona herself.

เงาสีขาว | The White Shadow

2010-03-21T14:40:00.003+07:00

The White Shadow has long been held as one of the best contemporary fictional narratives by those in the know. A work of substantial length, The White Shadow or the Portrait of An Artist in His Turbulent Years is not an easy read, especially when we take into account the author's eccentric choice of not dividing the whole text into paragraphs and his daring revelation of his angst and hatred for himself, those around him and the world in general.

Of course, this sense of hatred is not uncommon in modern literature with those works of such French authors as Baudelaire and Rimbaud, who were sick of their surroundings and used their literary skills as a means of psychological healing (and paradoxically dwelling further into the dark abyss of the human mind). What is distinguished about The White Shadow, however, is how the author brings this state of mental complexity to the Thai landscape and shows how an average man, like him, can feel the same way.

With the literary work of this kind, one of the problems the author faces is how to steer the narrative away from the creation of a whimsical narrative that is eventually simply a work of self-gratification. Danaran Saengthong manages to move away from this, with his subtle criticism of Thai society, in which political correctness and the double standard of morality are something as commonplace as Starbuck's in Bangkok. However, through his masterly storytelling, he doesn't extol himself as a hero that can have an effective distance from all this mental corruption; he is himself corrupt and this leads to an ironical question that is strongly felt throughout -- how much can we believe this man, when he himself says that he's not that better from the rest? Perhaps this is exactly the reason that makes the message of this life story so pithy. Aren't we all like him? We like to criticize the status quo and yet emerge as an immaculate judge? The White Shadow just makes manifest that such an arrogant standpoint is impossible.

Another element that is special to this narrative is how the author seems to bare all the hidden social conventions that are hushed. His misogynistic standpoint, however, is highly controversial but is symptomatic of Thai patriarchy in general. His inability to love is also another reason why he is unable to settle down with a woman. Perhaps what we see here is something perhaps worth a psychological study. It is my conjecture that the author wishes to retain an emotionally charged life, in which he sees things as bright and interesting so that he can turn them into a work of art. However, life is not art and life is in fact boring, especially when we take into account certain 'traditional' stages of life that each of us is subjected through, such as education, courtship, marriage, procreation, children rearing, and coping with old age and death. Through his life story, we can sense the anger and anxiety of the author who doesn't want to subject his life to such mundane stages, whilst at the same time seeing them as unavoidable. This existential crisis is closely tied with the traditional Thai sense of manhood, in which men need to prove their performance through the conquest of women as well as their skills in infringing social codes.

Through the sense of inexplicable hatred and complaint of existing conditions, I find the book a compulsive read. As the novel progresses, we can perceive that the author is in fact a storytelling virtuoso who can keep us riveted to the chair reading his narrative that gradually unfolds the stories of people around him, those stories that are somehow related to his as well as his implicit comments on them.

Ensemble, c'est tout

2010-03-16T22:20:00.005+07:00

With my limited free time, I can't watch all the films that I want. But tonight it's the turn of a French film called Ensemble, c'est tout, starring the likes of Audrey Tautou and Guillaume Canet. It's a romantic tragic-comedy that is easy to digest, with the two main characters starting off with mutual hatred. The setting of Paris is appropriate, as it is the place where people do not care for each other and indifference is the general ambience. Tautou plays Camille, an office cleaner who often works in the night shift. She lives in the damp and freezing attic. Occupying the same building are two men, Franck and Philibert, who share the same flat despite their personality difference: Franck is a surly chef, while Philibert is living the remnants of his aristocratic past.

During the first half of the film, I thought that there would be a romance developed between Philibert and Camille, as he's the one who really cares about her health and takes her downstairs when she's seriously ill. Then, as the narrative progresses, we see a conflict gradually emerging when Franck seems to have a crush on her, too. However, to my disappointment, out of the blue, Philibert is taken out of the equation when the fate has him meet with another girl and fall in love with her instead. This is not quite what I expected as the film should have perhaps dwelt on the realistic complexity of the triangular relationship among the three main characters. Or at least just making Philibert realise his homosexual tendency would not be too bad and far better than bestowing him such an easy exit.

However, if I'm not mistaken, the whole point of the film has something to do with human connections. If Paris is portrayed as a place where people no longer feel connected and end up pretty much alone and miserable, it's high time we re-established connectedness among ourselves once again. Care (with or without understanding) is crucial, exemplified by Camille's act of humanitarian selflessness -- her decision to take care of Franck's dying grandmother.

Not only do urban people need a sense of connectedness, the ability to express oneself is also stressed in the film. The director appears to give a comment that with our life separate and alone, we somehow lose our ability to talk and express ourselves, especially our delicate emotions, preferring to live inside the shell of our lonely yet secure self-defence. The ending of the film criticizes just that and tells us to articulate our suffering and need should we need the help of our friends or someone close by.

Die Vermessung der Welt | คนวัดโลก

2010-03-16T01:31:00.005+07:00

Die Vermessung der Welt is an ambitious novel by German novelist Daniel Kehlmann, who was born the same year as I was. The narrative centres around the lives of two important people in German intellectual history -- Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Friedrich Gauss -- and how they "measured" the world in different ways. Humboldt was by nature an explorer, travelling across the globe to Latin America trying to find a system whereby they could measure everything most accurately. Gauss, in contrast, was a prodigious mathematician, who liked to stay at home working on his mathematic formulae.

Kehlmann juxtaposes the two narratives together in a criss-cross manner, allowing us to have a glimpse of the lives of these great pathfinders. Gauss suffers from the fate of a genius whose intellect does not permit him to see that everyone else around him is not equally clever. One of his sons, Eugene, is a lost cause but his assistance is something that Gauss cannot live without, especially when he needs to make a long journey. Also, we see Gauss perceiving his own mental degeneration, which for others, is still the mind of a genius nonetheless. His suffering is more like a loner's, with pain he himself only sees and needs to endure.

Gauss complains and makes a lot of fuss whenever he needs to travel. The same cannot be said with Humboldt, as he is an avid traveller. His narrative borders on magical realism, especially when he goes to Latin American where everything seems to be marvellous and surreal. He is followed by his fellow companion who always complains but remains with him nonetheless, despite the fact that his name does not receive the same recognition Humboldt obtains.

I believe what Kehlmann does here is to portray how two different people set out to travel and measure the world, one internally and the other externally. What we also see is the beauty and subtlety of these two minds whose determination and complexity are brought into full display. Somehow the world is not the only place that needs to be discovered, as Kehlmann argues indirectly that perhaps our minds, especially those minds of great people, are also worth exploring too.

King and the Clown

2010-03-16T01:01:00.003+07:00

Last year one of my beloved lecturers lent me a DVD -- a Korean film called King and the Clown. Of course it took me several months before I had a chance to see it. It turned out to be one of the most emotionally intense films I'd ever watched.

The story involves the complicated relationships among main characters, including two clowns and the King. Apparently it's based on a true story that once happened in Korea during the reign of King Yeonsangun of the Joseon Dynasty. I was intrigued by the playful yet serious performance of these three main characters whose fates are somehow intertwined in the solemn atmosphere of the palace.

The film does highlight the omnipotent power of the King, who can dictate the destiny of people around him with only a few words. The implication is that his power can be both alluring and rewarding for those who can secure his favour, but the same power may potentially be a death sentence for those who are not in his book or have enough dignity not to be obsequious. Then one day come Jangsaeng and Gonggil, two clowns, who are popular thanks to their ability to mock people around them. The awkward situation is when these two clowns don't have a choice but to provide an entertainment that borders on the satire of the whole court. The even more awkward situation is when the King is pleased with their performance and even has a crush on Gonggil and is willing to forsake his duty to spend time with this rural comedian and his beautiful storytelling skills with the aid of puppets and phantasmagoria.

The film delicately shows the moment when power and favour intertwine and how these two comedians react to their instant favour at court, despite their knowledge that the courtiers hate them, not only because they take the King away from his duty, but also because their satire just exposes these courtiers to ridicule. The tension between the rurality of the comedians and the urbanity of the courtiers can never be clearer. However, the clowns also find themselves in a very vulnerable position: once they lose the King's favour, their lives may be finished too. I reckon the film does a great job in portraying the arbitrariness and absurdity of the whole situation when everything does depend on the King's ups and downs, unfettered by any rules or traditions. Yet, both the clowns and courtiers need to do their jobs, knowing only too well the absurdity that lies underneath their acts.

นางนากเดอะมิวเซียม | Nang Nak The Museum

2009-12-20T10:41:00.002+07:00

Those who are Thai or live in Thailand for a certain period of time would more than likely know about the legend of Nang Nak of Phra Khanong, of how she died at childbirth and became a ghost waiting for her husband. Of course, her ghost is scary and well-revered by Thai people as her statue is propped up in Wat Mahabutr, nowadays reachable by BTS.

So it comes as no surprise that there should be a play that parodies the legend and exposes some prejudices that hide behind the powerful myth. Veteran director Damkueng Tithapiyasak manages to do so as well as add some humour to this play, making it one of the most funny plays in this year. So funny that the play has been restaged twice and I was one of the audience of the second restaging at the Makhampom Studio in Saphan Kwai.

The plotline is crisscrossed between the past and the present, beginning at the attempt of some people to make a film about Nang Nak. Their decision to invite a media to make the whole show more realistic creates a setback in which Nang Nak is called back to the present, pestering one of the staff whom she believes is her reincarnated husband. The premise is interesting in the sense that we see how Nang Nak tries to adapt and learn about Thailand at the present, such as the Skytrain, and Westernised commodities that litter the contemporary Bangkok landscape, as well as the redefinition of Nang Nak herself not as a scary ghost but a confused woman. Also, she needs to face the fact that her husband is no longer the same man but a modern man who is now seeing someone else.

As the story progresses, we start to see how the play touches on various prejudices that the myth seeks to hide. We start to realise how in the old days Nang Nak was maltreated by her husband and domestic violence was something so common that people didn't talk about it. We also learn how lonely Nang Nak was, waiting for her husband to come back. However, the play also acknowledges the role of gossips and rumours that makes the whole legend blurry and we are not so sure which part is fact and which is fiction, yet it cannot be denied that the power of the legend is firmly engraved on the mentality of Thai public.

The ending is ingenious as it turns out that the ghost of Nang Nak will only disappear if her reincarnated husband simply finds a new girlfriend and forgets her completely, thus re-emphasising the power of men who can dictate the life and death of women. Women, on the other hand, are dependent on men and live on their mercy. Nang Nak's resignation at the end is somehow not as important as the flippancy on her husband's part and the dominance of patriarchal codes that is very much latent in Thai society.

Eternal Summer

2009-12-20T02:33:00.003+07:00

Lately I have watched quite a few Asian films, especially Taiwanese and Korean ones. Eternal Summer is one of those that I have managed to watch despite my increasingly busy schedule (Facebook is, of course, to blame for this!). I didn't know anything about this before, but the idea of a triangle love relationship among two men and one woman sounded pretty interesting, especially when a man and a woman compete for the same guy.

The gender dimension does add some spark to this film, as it makes the whole thing much more complicated. Jonathan and Shane have been best friends since childhood with the former secretly falling in love with the latter. The film focuses on Jonathan's sexual growth, from innocence to gradual acknowledgement of same-sex desire. However, for him, Shane is obviously a straight guy stereotyped by his gifted ability to play basketball and, thus, being a heartthrob at school. Yet, Shane seems to be loyal to his best friend and spends more time with him than other people, thus making Jonathan at once fragile, confused, angry, and frustrated.

The entry of Carrie into their lives changes the structure of their relationship, as she is compared to a comet that comes in the orbit of the earth around the sun. Her gradual fondness for Shane makes Jonathan even more bitter and jealous, as he tries to channel his emotion for Shane onto his study. What I find rather intriguing is the fact that, despite having Carrie as his girlfriend, Shane does not ignore Jonathan, but tries to engage him even more for fear of losing their friendship, which Shane deems as precious.

The ending is of course one of the most challenging parts of the film, as Leste Chen the director faces with the dilemma of Shane choosing either Jonathan or Carrie. However, Chen's decision to have the story stop at the point where the the development of the three characters remains indecisive has a highly emotional impact, as the audience becomes confused and wishes Shane to settle for one or the other. Personally, I like this kind of "unending" ending as it is both realistic and artistic at the same time -- artistic in the sense that life is artistic and that life is intensely ambiguous and fuzzy.

When the film finishes, I just sympathize with all three characters who emerge both sad and smitten with unfulfilled desire at the same time. Shane wants his friendship with Jonathan and his love for Carrie to last forever, but Jonathan cannot keep being friends with Shane because he does not want to get hurt from unrequited love. What he needs is love, not just friendship. This is reinforced by the fact that he repudiates and abhors Shane's successful attempt to rape him, knowing fully well that Shane does not want him sexually but that he does it so that Jonathan can be "friends" with him. Sex here does not mean love but power and oppression.

However, watching this film makes me wonder such complicated issues as love and friendship. Do we really have a clear boundary between the two? Is sex really one of the factors distinguishing between love and friendship? Of course, each person has their own answers to these.

Juno

2009-11-04T12:54:00.004+07:00

Somehow it's not difficult to see why a lot of people just fall in love with this film, with its candyfloss landscape and a bright, optimistic girl who speaks her mind. Of course, for some, Juno is a rude girl growing up in pretty liberal contemporary American surroundings. Yet, her frankness is somehow sweet and portrayed as more likable than others who are simply superficially nice.

Being raised in such a liberal family, however, can also have a drawback, as Juno is pregnant while she's still 16 years old with her friend Bleeker. Juno decides to keep her baby as she realises that already by two months in her pregnancy it may have developed fingernails. We can only surmise how hard it must be for her to reveal her bulging stomach to all her friends at school and triumph over prevailing prejudices against teenage pregnancy. She then makes a decision to find adoptive parents and manage to find a lovely perfect couple, Mark and Vanessa Loring, whose middle-class background and lifestyle is foreign to hers.

What we see here is Juno's imagination of this 'perfect world', where her baby shall one day be part of. Her dream of Mark and Vanessa as the perfect parents is shattered when she realises that Mark can no longer live in that 'perfect' world of conservative beige wallpaper and a pilate machine. He decides to pursue his own dream of being a more radical musician who can do whatever he wants. It is, however inadvertently, Juno who is the one who teaches him to follow this dream. When she realises that this 'perfect' couple is breaking up, Juno is shocked as she is smitten with the loss of faith in humanity. Her father jumps to a rescue, as he teaches her to love someone who loves her for who she really is. That's when she decides to confess her love to Bleeker, this time disillusioned with the 'perfect' middle-class world and discovering that her own place and situation is already the best there is to have.

Even though the film touches on such a sensitive topic as teenage pregnancy, it is somehow pretty optimistic in showing that Juno's condition is pretty well accepted and tolerated by her friends and family. Whether this can happen in reality remains a moot topic, but I think Juno is still very lucky and still needs more stringent measures to wake her up to the crude reality of the real world. Somehow I just wonder what it would be like if Lars von Trier had directed the second part of the film.

But my point is this: perhaps Juno should be applauded for her strength in withstanding all the prejudices in her decision to keep the baby, but another person who deserves praise is Vanessa, who decides to have the baby even though she no longer has Mark by her side. Like Juno, she is determined to have what she wants. If Juno finally has Bleeker, Vanessa has her baby. Their journey somehow runs in parallel.

But that's where the happy ending ends and the nightmare begins. While Juno is still deeply in love with Bleeker, Vanessa is disillusioned with marriage life. It is, therefore, understandable that she will channel her love for Mark to that of the baby and who knows whether the baby will grow up to be a depressed nutcase raised in porcelain surroundings. Whether that will happen we need to wait and see ...

Bangkok Traffic Love Story | รถไฟฟ้า ... มาหานะเธอ

2009-11-02T10:52:00.003+07:00

I have the feeling that if I say something negative about this film, I will be badly treated by my friends and my students. But after a period of long reflection, it's time I said something about Bangkok Traffic Love Story. A lot of Thai audience seems to love it, judging from the number of queries and comments appearing on the Pantip webboard. There's actually at least one group of people who went around Bangkok to search for real locations in the film. A lot of white collar workers in their 30s just love this film, as it somehow fills in the gap of contemporary Thai films, where either senseless (romantic) comedies or ghost films seem to be the only choices Thai viewers have.

Perhaps the other reason why this film is so popular is because it is so rooted in contemporary Thai urban scenes, with the leading appearance of BTS skytrains. An increasing number of Bangkok dwellers choose this channel to commute everyday as it is definitely faster. Besides, the trains themselves are also the "meat market" where people of similar class and ideology can meet -- the so-called new urban middle class. However, it remains to be seen whether real romantic encounters can actually happen when a lot of commuters just choose to listen to their MPs or stare at inane and loud TV commercials rather than to chat up with someone they like, but it can't be denied that what happens in the film is actually the fantasy of many people.

It is also obvious that the film is targeted for women viewers, as we see the character of Mei Li develops in a significant way at the expense of Lung, starring Ken Theeradej, whose personality is reduced to a life-size cardboard able to flash a killer's smile whenever needed. We see how Mei Li develops from an independent career woman to a dependent girl in desperate love with Lung. However, the ending starts to see some light when Mei Li is able to jettison Lung's love as he's leaving for Germany. However, my dream of her strength and independence is shattered once Lung is back and surprises her with his god-like trick of making the skytrain stop halfway and turning everyone on board into a mobile phone freak.

Of course, one can easily say that the film is in league with patriarchal codes, with women always in search for their dream men. But this one is slightly better, as it shows Mei Li's attempt to put herself in the man's life quite actively. We learn that women finally are able to fight back to get what they want. But writing along this line, I start to wonder: but isn't it still "a man" they're fighting for. Maybe this is still patriarchy in another guise. And somehow we just don't question this anymore.

Blue Gate Crossing

2009-11-02T10:26:00.003+07:00

Blue Gate Crossing is a beautiful Taiwanese film launched in 2002, detailing the lives of teenagers confused in love and sexuality. Directed by Yee Chin-yen, the film is hauntingly minimalist, with only three or four main characters. Yet, through its well-organized plot and subtle dialogue, the viewer is left with indescribable happiness and melancholy once the film finishes.

Even though the plot is somehow quite simple with Zhang Shihao, a handsome boy falling in love with Meng Kerou, a plain looking girl, it doesn't mean forever love and melodramatic happy ending in this film. What is interesting is that, with such a popular boy choosing to love her, Kerou is just confused and chooses to listen to her heart rather than the expectation of people around her. She wants to know whether her secret liking for a close friend, Lin Yuezhen, may be part of her homosexual tendency. With this, we start to see how complexed and realistic the film is, as Merou is in the process of growth and realizes that life may not be what it seems in cheesy teenager films. Her coming of age tale is at once painful yet liberatory: she needs to confront social prejudices but at the same time learns that she finally has a choice to grow up to be what she truly is, independent of social expectations.

However, the film does show some problems. She cannot talk about her confusion to anyone apart from Shihao and Yuezhen, the latter of whom is apparently shocked and completely ignores her advance. Shihao, however, tries to make sense of this gender confusion and learns to give her some needed space. Yet, it remains to be seen whether Merou can open up her heart to her family, especially her mom, who is also beside her.

All in all, I think the film is painful and beautiful at the same time. Perhaps it's high time Thai teenage films followed this less trodden path.

นิมิตต์วิกาล

2009-09-14T21:51:00.002+07:00

A recent work by Anusorn Tipayanon, Nimitwikan (นิมิตต์วิกาล) is a short story about quest, power, and humanity. Set in the old days when Thailand was in dispute with France over the territorial lines in Cambodia, the work relates how a Thai man survives from a flash flood and is then hospitalised by the French. He is imprisoned in a dark room with only a lit lantern. There he hears the piano sound and a female voice talking to him.

The author shows his expertise in weaving fiction with the real story of Andre Malraux stealing some ancient objects from Banteay Srei, a very beautiful temple located around 30 kilometres north-east of the famed Ankor Wat. Malraux's story is here capitalised as a scandal and a warning tale for those who become too mesmerised by art, in the same way that the protagonist is fascinated by the world of photography. In the style unique to Anusorn, this fascination becomes at once glamorous and dangerous.

Here little is needed to pinpoint the similarity between this novella and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, when a White man is drunk with power and establishes himself as a mob leader. Here in this novella it is Pierre Bourdieu (what a name!) who is inspired by Malraux's diary and makes a decision to form a brigand to fight the French authorities. I won't tell you what will happen, whether the French manage to crack down on this insurgent group or they get off scot-free, but it suffices to say that what we have here is a parable of power and loss, of one's recognition that power is nothing but burden that leads on to more burden. What in the end exists may not be power as such but the void, the state of nothingness when one realises that nothing will last forever and everything is illusory, including power. Here one may say that Anusorn's message is deeply Buddhistic.

So what is the whole book about? Power and nothingness? Surely not, at least what we have in hand is a book and this is art. Art, even though it is enticing and dangerous, has a role; it makes us more sensitive to the illusion that surrounds us. Thus, it may not be too far-fetched to claim that Anusorn's small opus reminds us that art, in being fiction, can remind that everything else also is.

กุมภาพันธ์ | February

2009-09-14T00:32:00.004+07:00

An old film by veteran director Yuthlert Sippapak in 2003, February is a beautiful film set in Bangkok and New York. Kaewta is an unsuccessful artist in Bangkok, who realises that she has got only four months to live. Her relationship also comes to an end. All in all, her life in Bangkok can't get any worse. Thus, it is natural that she needs to fly to New York to enjoy the last period of her life forgetting her life in Bangkok.

Once in NYC, she finds life can definitely take a worse turn, as she is conned by a taxi driver and, when escaping, is run over by a car. Kaewta wakes up, only to realise that she forgets who she is and where she comes from. Beside her is a mysterious man named Jeeradech, who works for a mafia gang and who wants to be good.

Of course, I can't help but feel that this plot is somehow very typical and not that original, but the director manages to hold our attention with the beauty of the Big Apple. Fate is a main issue of this film, as the lives of both Kaewta and Jeeradech cross one another through fate. Yet, somehow this fate is closely intertwined with the notion of fatalism, as they are also reminded that they know so little about how their lives would turn. Little would Kaewta realise that her pictures would be appreciated by an American artist (whose slow accent is somehow condescending) and little would she realise that her relationship with Jeeradech would be cut short. Little would she know that she would meet him once again and little would she know that the director would take him away once again. (At this point, it makes me wonder whether the director himself got inspired by Brad Silbering's City of Angels.)

I don't mean to be too cynical here but a film that harbours too much on coincidences and chances is bound to be not highly regarded in terms of plot, as the director could easily make things happen and blame them on fate. Perhaps that's the reason why I still esteem old-fashioned whodunits which require the real power of reasoning and the great technique of ratiocination.

Water | Time

2009-09-13T23:51:00.006+07:00

Written by Shogo Tanikawa and directed by Bhanbassa Dhubthien, Water | Time is currently being restaged due to popular demand. There are only three actors in this play: Sasithorn Panichnok, Shogo himself, and Apirak Chaipanha. Yet the audience were riveted to their seats for one hour and a half, mesmerised by the bittersweet relationship between Nam and Kenji, and A, a friend who tries to help this couple.

The problem is somehow commonplace: Kenji is an unhappy Japanese playwright, somewhat pressured by his previous works, while Nam (a Thai word for 'water') is a sweet Thai girl who is in love with Kenji. However, things are not as sweet as they expect, as Kenji finds his creativity blocked and cannot finish his latest script. Nam becomes the breadwinner and their love is understandably put on a strain. Their communication is somehow made more difficult by the languages they speak: both of them need to talk in English, a language to which neither of them are native. Frustration appears, as we can see that sometimes both Nam and Kenji resort to their native language to reveal their emotion and anxiety.

I think the play portrays to great effect the problems we face nowadays. Love in the city is indeed very difficult, but love between people from two different nationalities are even more difficult. The sad thing is we don't find these two characters -- Nam and Kenji -- evil or corrupt: they are good-intentioned, very much in love with each other, but somehow the urban society they live in requires too much from them. This can be seen in Kenji's stress, as he wishes to write better works, to achieve both financial and intellectual recognition at the same time.

However, what remains puzzling to most viewers is probably the climax scene when Kenji is preparing rice balls to Nam. I think the script could be improved if more hints are put as to what really happens to both characters. I understand that the playwright doesn't want to reveal too soon what really happens until right at the very end. But the hints are too few. If someone misses those hints, a lot of meaning will be lost.

But perhaps that's also the beauty of this play. Attention is needed if one wishes to understand. Attention is also needed in terms of time. Time is fluid and plays a crucial role in our imagination. Nam consciously dreams of the yonder days when her love with Kenji blossomed. Kenji, however, dreams of the future when Nam and he will visit the Fuji together. And of course the last scene when time is also a crucial factor for our understanding of the play, when the past becomes the present and vice versa. Time is indeed subjective.

I need to confess that I was myself puzzled a little bit right after the play, but the more I think about it, the more I want to see it again, at least to fill in missing gaps and ruptures. But somehow these are not meant to be filled.
Just like some moments in real relationships, these gaps and untranslated bits cannot be translated but can only be felt and imagined.

นางฟ้านิรนาม | Cocktail

2009-08-21T20:54:00.007+07:00

Cocktail by Vince Licata and Ping Chong has been adapted into a Thai screenplay, entitled Anonymous Angel or Nangfah Nirnam. Directed by Dangkamol na Pombejra, the play revolves around the life of a Thai pharmaceutical scientist, Dr Krisna Kraisintu, who firmly believes that all lives are equal and therefore everyone, rich or poor, should be entitled to equal access to medicine.

The performance by the cast and crew from the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, remained strong in their first show to the public. Applause naturally went to Bhanbassa Dhubtien for her brilliant acting and pace, as she was able to hold the audience captive to her solid two-hour performance. Her acting remained serious in contrast to the intentionally absurd performance of other characters, thus making us question contemporary society we live in, where the sane are obviously the marginal.

My first impression after the performance was also how the crew managed to make use of all audio-visual gadgets to great effect, though at times synchronisation could present itself as a problem. Also evident was the contrast between red and yellow, something which probably was not in the original, but adapted to convey the director's own signature in this Thai rendition.

There's however one thing that I questioned, that whether it was fashionable in this day and age to create the flat portrayal of a character. We only see the good side of Dr Krisna in this play and it somehow makes me wonder whether some audience would find it too excessive, to the extent that it might become an unintentionally self-parody. Wouldn't it be better then to create a more complex Krisna, whose ambition is a double-edged sword that could make her personality both benign and monstrous at the same time? Of course, I don't mean that such a truly great and altruistic person cannot exist, but I question that person is as flawless as Dr Krisna in this play.

But at the end of the day, I couldn't help but marvel at the colossal figure Dr Krisna cuts for herself anyway. Flawless or not, Dr Krisna is a rare jewel in this corrupt world.

Silentium

2009-06-15T00:32:00.003+07:00

Silentium is a Latin word for 'shut up'. It is also the title of an Austrian film by Wolfgang Murnberger based on a detective novel by Wolf Haas. It revolves around a grumpy private detective stumbling into the mysterious case of a man found dead on a rooftop in the beautiful city of Salzburg. As he keeps on searching for the truth behind the death, his life is increasingly in danger.

Even though what I just wrote in the previous paragraph seems pretty banal and commonplace in an average detective story, Silentium is somehow fresh in its gothic feel and odd characters. Simon Brennder, the detective, looks more like a homeless person than a detective as his life spirals out of control. Salzburg is also transformed into a city of at once carnivalesque and mysterious atmosphere.

It turns out that the death involves a Catholic school in which there are only 33 male students. The recruitment of Filipino maids of course rouses Brenner's suspicion as he tries to unravel the whole mystery. Of course, his search leads to a series of deaths which, albeit gory as it were, are somehow made light by the general humorous tone of the film.

Of course, I don't think I need to reveal the culprit, as the viewer could probably have guessed who is behind all this after watching it for a while. In fact, the director even shows the faces of the murderers at the beginning of the film. What is more important, I believe, is Brenner's reasoning and picking up trails, coupled with his eccentric personality. In one point, he is even compared to Jesus as he is portrayed as wearing a crown of thorns. This just makes me think: in what sense is Brenner a matyr? Does he sacrifice his life and safety in order to search for a truth no one wants in the same way that Jesus preaches what nobody nowadays wants to hear? Maybe Brenner's ethics is out of place in the world where we are becoming more desentisised to evils and moral corruption.

This is sad.

2 Days in Paris

2009-06-15T00:07:00.002+07:00

Another film that uses Paris as a crucial setting, 2 Days in Paris is about love, relationships, and cultural conflict. Two main characters, Jack and Marion, are in love, but the film shows that somehow love is not enough.

What is interesting in this film are national stereotypes that are somehow inflated to the level of intentional absurdity. Marion is French: she is portrayed as temperamental, 'allegedly' promiscuous, and sophisticated. Jack is an cynical American hypochondriac. However, these stereotypes are not there only to reinforce the difference in characterisation; they become the cause of misunderstanding, expectation, and of course self-realisation. What I like about this film is that Julie Delpy does not only parody these stereotypes, but she also portrays how we still use them in our attempt to understand or make sense of things and people around us.

Even though at times I got exhausted listening to their constant bickering and never-ending dialogues, 2 Days in Paris is beautiful. It shows how Jack and Marion, despite their stereotypical differences, wish to learn and transcend the stereotypical boundaries as deep down they hope that love can somehow conquer this difference. The ending, which for some may seem unrealistic, reflects something about life: that a split second can make or break a relationship. Somehow days or months of rationalising about make-up or break-up may not be important anymore in that split second when one wishes to stop or carry on. In that split second, perhaps indescribable instinct or faith in love counts.

The Royal Tenenbaums

2009-06-04T22:53:00.004+07:00

A quirky film, The Royal Tenenbaums is about family bonding, distinguished by its rich characterisation. The Tenenbaums are a family of geniuses; however, this doesn't mean they are happy. We see the parents divorced and living apart and we also see their children growing up to be an unhappy and insecure bunch of thirty-somethings.

However, despite the bleak plot, it is a feel-good film showcasing the attempt by the father, Royal Tenenbaum, to make amends and to pull his family back together. His sons and daughter do not look at his return with innocent expectations; however, soon enough they realise that somehow being a family one cannot expect perfection. Forgiveness is important as it enables lives to go on, not stuck with guilt and memories of bad experience.

Enough with the gist of the film. Sadly and unexpectedly, I don't empathise much with the film, finding it a bit too pretentious as it tries so hard to be quirky and eccentric. It may be better as a novel, not as a film. I don't know why I feel this way. Let me give you some possible reasons. You may choose one.

(A) I get bored of this overused style of contemporary weirdness and eccentricity to portray the postmodern sense of humanity.

(B) With this cynical style of representation, I just don't expect cheesy happy ending with Royal Tenenbaums dying happily with his sons, daughter, and grandchildren understanding him. In other words, I just don't expect this kind of film to 'teach' in such a didactic manner.

(C) I have a dysfunctional family so I just don't believe in family bonding.

(D) I have a male menopause.

Rush Out | กรูกันออกมา

2009-05-22T00:30:00.004+07:00

Paretas Hutanggura is probably most remembered from his collection of short stories The Witch in the Building (แม่มดบนตึก). Some of the stories remain a must-read for those interested in contemporary Thai Literature, as Paretas is one of the most sarcastic authors around who does give an accurate picture of consumer culture.

In Rush Out, he continues in the same vein of sarcastic parody, tackling the film industry through the characterisation of two characters, a traditional minor royal and a PhD upstart who just finishes her study abroad. If the former prefers everything to be traditional, the latter simply thinks that tradition is anything but dead and society should be more frank in dealing with violence and the corruption of the public mind. The two are asked to be in the same panel for the Pirate Award, which is given to the best scriptwriter, whose script will be made into the film. So what we see is the contrast of the two extremes, one traditional and the other radical and transgressive.

Such a contrast, in fact, is what exists in Thai society and is deepening. We have people who still preach about the evils of globalisation and the glorious days in the past. At the same time, we have newer generations of people who think that these opinions are simply a myth and that these older people are deluding themselves to be something they have never been from the start.

Paretas, of course, doesn't offer any solution to this crack in our social structure, but he does revel in portraying the contrast in the Rabelaisian manner, as if he realised that there's no way out, just a cynical look at the whole scenario of absurdity. For me, this novel is special, as it is the first time I feel that I need to read quickly. It's not made for careful perusal. Perhaps the style itself reflects our faster pace of life, where we are not supposed to stop and think. Because if we do so, existential absurdity is what we are going to feel.

824 | แปดสองสี่

2009-05-21T23:52:00.006+07:00

824 is a (not quite) new novel by Jane Vejjajiva, who did stir the Thai literary circles with her debut The Happiness of Kati. However, in my humble opinion, this work is far better than her former, which already won her the SEA Write award. Well, my compliments don't logically mean that she'll automatically get the Nobel Prize for Literature, but at least it does show that her expertise doesn't only lie in the portrayal of the upper-middle class.

The strange title does have a meaning: Jane tries to depict the lives of 8 beings (seven people and one dog) within 24 hours. They all live down the same alley and even though they don't know each other, their lives somehow are related. Doesn't this sound a bit too familiar? If you think this is something truly new, I'd recommend you to read MR Kukrit Pramoj's Many Lives and, of course, its prototype -- Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, which was first published as far back as 1927. However, different from these two novels, which end with death, 824 ends with hope.

The characters do vary as the author attempts to cast a wide net to capture creatures from all walks of life, from various gender and class dimensions. Therefore, we have a good-intentioned transvestite, a drunkard, an old man who despite his age tries to take care of an old lady with whom he fell in love long time ago, and a Frenchman who is head over heels in love with Bangkok. All in all, 824 has all the material to create a soi melodrama, in which all characters have challenges to overcome, past to forget, present to live, and future to look forward to.

Even though some elements are a bit cheesy, like the love story between the two old people and the transvestite's secret admiration for a younger man who accepts him for who he really is, we can't deny that the author remains a strong strategist who plans and plots (in all meaning of the word) everything carefully, so much so that every life seems to miraculously intertwined that there's no space for "reality" to happen. In other words, the all-too-well plotted plot has no loose ends, thus reiterating its status as fiction rather than reflecting life.

Somehow, I find this perfection a bit too oppressive, as we all know that life is not like that. Life has, as it were, loose ends and dead ends. If The Happiness of Kati is the ideal portrayal of the upper-middle-class girl who learns to cope with the death of her mother, 824 is likewise idealistic in its depiction of cosmic ordering of the lives of seven people and one dog, an order so monstrous that it can only be created by a human who yearns for meaning in such a meaningless world.

Synecdoche, New York

2009-05-14T00:42:00.006+07:00

According to Abrams' Glossary of Literary Terms, synecdoche is a device whereby a part of something is used to signify the whole, or (more rarely) the whole is used to signify a part. I tired my brain out thinking about the connection between this special figurative device and Charlie Kaufman's new film, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman.

As in some of Rene Magritte's paintings, Synecdoche deals with the issue of a play within a play. Caden, the main character, finds himself a victim of weird diseases, giving him rashes and strange symptoms. They make him obsessed of death, to the extent that he wishes to create a great work of art dealing specially with this issue. He is also in a failed relationship with his wife Adele, a famous artist of her own right. One day she chooses to walk out on him with their daughter Olive, moving to Berlin. Caden has no choice but to dedicate his whole time and energy on this new opus. His new 'theatre' houses the whole of his neighbourhood in New York, as he aims to portray his own life in its crudest reality.

However, his attempt to replay his own life down to its minutiae has setbacks. He hires an actor to play his role, only to find that the actor falls in love with exactly the same woman he fancies. Taking his role to heart, the actor commits suicide, causing Caden to find another person to play his part. Then, the whole thing becomes more complicated, as Caden appears in his own film dictating how his actor should act. This makes one wonder whether there should be another Caden out there dictating this Caden (surely some audience would have thought Charlie Kaufman himself would be that Ur-Caden).

However, this role of making a lot of decisions tires Caden out, as towards the end he chooses to be a cleaner instead. In turn, he lets a cleaner take his part and he himself waits for her order. Perhaps this is nothing less than an existential crisis that he suffers from, losing faith in life as it were and prefering to live like a crab in a deep sea like Eliot's Mr Prufrock. Perhaps this is where synecdoche comes in, as the life of Caden somehow is part of our life, the fate of humanity whereby we have no real desire to dictate our life. One key reason is that we know that even though we make decisions, fate will get the upperhand and have its way with our life, the same way that Caden's life just spirals out of control especially the moment when he thinks he has the firm grip.

Imitation is a key motif in Synecdoche. Caden tries to imitate the whole of his life on the grandest scale possible, the same way as Borges's mad cartographer does, only to realise the futility of his ambitious project. Adele, on the other hand, is a miniature painter, trying to create the smallest piece of artwork. They work on the opposite directions of this synecdochic representation. However, we see neither of them is really happy. Caden is a bitter old man yearning for his secretary Hazel, a symbol of desire as she lives in a house on fire. If Hazel is desire, Adele is lack (as Lack is her maiden name). Both of these women figure as the impossible for Caden and somehow become the drive for him to create the great opus.

I'm sure those literature students will have fun interpreting this film, as there're a great number of allusions and references here. But of course this can make the whole film really difficult and challenging. But if you enjoy his earlier films such as Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine and the Spotless Mind, all of which were written by him, I'm sure you'll like this one, too.

Borges and the Eternal Orang-Utans

2009-05-09T13:01:00.004+07:00

Written by Luis Fernando Verissimo, Borges and the Eternal Orang-Utans is clearly a parodic homage to Jorge Luis Borges, one of Dechito's favourite authors. The plot is a cross between two genres: detective fiction and campus novel, revolving around Vogelstein who has a cat called Aleph. He once translated Borges's short story and added what he thought would improve the story. Borges complained and this has left a sense of guilt on Vogelstein's mind, especially now when Borges is world famous. He longs to meet the Argentine author to make up for what he sees as academic carelessness on his part.

Fate works its way and one day Vogelstein finds out that Borges is to appear in a conference on Edgar Allan Poe in Buenos Aires. He doesn't hesitate to join the conference, only to find out that a keynote speaker is brutally stabbed to death. Suspects abound as the speaker himself is notoriously vicious and spiteful, always on alert to discredit aspiring scholars who wish to be on his par.

The premise is petty and serious at the same time, as academic wrangling leads to a murder in a locked room, the scenario made famous by none other than Poe himself. Of course, there is no orang-utan this time, as most readers who are acquainted with Borges would also be familiar with Poe, naturally. The body of the victim also lies in a weird position, leading to further ruminations on the part of Vogelstein, the witness, who is now working with Borges to find the solution to this mystery.

This simple summary should be interesting enough, but Verissimo manages to add more elements, such as Dan Brown's famous deciphering of arcane codes and Agatha Christie's unreliable narrator (popularised by her The Murder of Roger Ackroyd). Thus, what results in this novella is a highly interesting and fun read, especially suitable for Borges fanatics. The homage to Borges is the last part whereby he 'rereads' what Vogelstein tells him, showing that the Argentine author is always one step further despite his awkward manners and almost blindness.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

2009-05-09T11:16:00.003+07:00

Elizabeth: The Golden Age is a sequel. Though it may not be always historically accurate, it is a good film with beautiful images and strong characterisation. The film sets out to portray how the Virgin Queen maintained her power through the turbulent times later in her reign, especially during her political fight with the Spanish and Mary, Queen of Scots.

What I like about the film is the extent to which the director, Shekhar Kapur, has invested in the image of Queen Elizabeth as the prototype of a Renaissance figure who finds the religion redundant and somehow contradicts with human emotion and creativity. Thus, we see the contrast of colour: while black is associated with the Spanish and the Roman Catholics, resplendent white is linked with Elizabeth herself and her reign. From the perspective of the film, nature also aligns itself with the Queen, as its storm wreaks havoc on the Spanish Armada. What is underlined, therefore, is how much religion, especially Roman Catholicism, is portrayed as oppressive and against nature. This interpretation is shrewdly highlighted, especially in the scene when Elizabeth watches the tempestuous sea. However, this should not blind us to the fact that in reality during her reign the Roman Catholics were just as vehemently persecuted.

However, one wonders whether Elizabeth herself, with nature on her side, can prosper. We see how much she represses her carnal desire and channels that to her political creativity. We see how much she feels for her cousin, Mary the Queen of Scots, who is about to be beheaded thanks to her order. In other words, she is also victimised by nature, as she cannot control her desire and longing. Nonetheless, according to the film, she is more successful than the Spanish, as she allows herself to succumb to these human emotions, not negating them altogether and being transformed into a lifeless lumb of blackness like King Philip II (as the film portrays him to be).

True to its glorifying style, the film chooses to end with the death of Sir Francis Walsingham when the Elizabethan reign is at its highest, with its colonies around the world and no more equal political enemies. However, I can't help but wonder if the film had chosen to follow her path till the moment she actually dies, we may perhaps see and understand more of this Renaissance figure, especially how more human and frail she can become.

God Man Dog

2009-04-16T23:00:00.004+07:00

It comes to me as no surprise that God Man Dog has been chosen to feature in quite a few film festivals. It also comes to me as no surprise that this film comes from Taiwan, a country with difference so vast both in terms of class and religion.

We see characters from different classes with various different religious beliefs. Involved are (1) an estranged middle-class couple, the man practising Chinese Buddhism and the woman starting to believe in Christian God; (2) a poor couple migrating from the Philippines, with their rigid belief in Jesus; (3) their daughter who practises San Da (a kind of kickboxing) and her girlfriend who wants to be a model; (4) a man called the 'Yellow Bull' who travels around collecting the unwanted replicas of gods or goddesses; and (5) a young vagabond who likes to hide himself in the luggage compartment in coaches.

Their lives crisscross and intertwine in various ways, begging us to ponder on the themes of fate and coincidence and how God is involved in all of these. For director Singing Chen, perhaps this concept of God transcends different religions as he seems to focus on the cosmic level of divine predetermination. No one can explain how it works and the law of karma seems to work its way subtly. For example, the Yellow Bull always seems to be unlucky even though he is a good man dedicating himself to repairing forsaken god replicas.

What I find beautiful about this film is that it makes me look at the chain of causal laws in a new way. We may not be rewarded in the way we want all the time but God always has his or her way in sending us signs and makes us realise the mystery of life. Or perhaps all this is just our interpretation in our attempt to make sense of this perhaps absurd universe. The film, I'm happy to say, manages to convey these levels of complexity in belief and faith.

I know some of you may have trouble understanding my review, but you need to watch the film to see what I mean.

Memories of Matsuko

2009-04-11T16:29:00.004+07:00

On the surface, Memories of Matsuko may appear like Amelie with its visual carnival and fairy-tale-like storytelling. But once the film finishes, there's something much heavier and interestingly more rewarding in this Japanese film.

The film charts the growth of a woman called Matsuko from her childhood till her death. What is special about Matsuko is that she just has too much love to give. Luck is, however, not on her side as her love is never returned: her father seems to devote all his love to his ailing sister, her boyfriends are either incapable of love or show their love through domestic violence (with of course Matsuko on the receiving end).

The fact that she is constantly beaten by her boyfriends has turned Matsuko into a pathetic creature who chooses to let herself be beaten than to stay alone without love. One may say that she's stupid, unable to learn from her mistakes, but I'd venture to say that the director manages to turn this stupidity into something rather heroic. She chooses not to learn from her experience, hoping that one day her whole-hearted love would be reciprocated both in similar quality and quantity. Her ability to absolve men's follies somehow equates her to God -- or at least a human god who is desperately in need of love.

The visual bonanza is somehow ironic. The colourful, flowery landscape of Japan should not blind us to the fact that there's a great deal of violence going on here. The contrast between the beautiful setting and the acts of violence (as in the scene where Matsuko is beaten by a teenager to death) is shocking. Yet, somehow this should be reserved to Japanese culture, whereby its pop culture, seemingly innocent, is laden with extreme violence and oppression.

However, like Happy Endings the film ends with hope. Even though the happy ending may not befall to Matsuko, it may be for those who learn from her, like her nephew Shou, or for those who are affected by her warmth and unrelenting faith in love. Hopefully this will happen to most viewers of this film.

Happy Endings

2009-04-10T21:33:00.004+07:00

I know this is an old film, released in 2005, but I just had a chance (and free time) to watch it. Now that Thai politics is anything but stable, it's perhaps my unconscious choice to watch a film with a positive name like 'Happy Endings'.

After viewing it, the title seems somewhat subtle: it's not plain Walt Disney-style happy endings, but kind of happy in As-Good-As-It-Gets style. The film plot doesn't promise any positive ending, yet director Don Roos manages to cast a positive light on it. The film involves lots of secrets and lies, and, if these aren't enough, lots of desires and confusions. It's set in LA and there are basically ten characters whose lives intersect and intertwine. It also seems like there's no morality here: a young girl and her stepbrother having sex with each other, a woman having sex with an older man for money, and an aspiring filmmaker wanting to be famous by exploiting other people's stories.

OK, this is America and what's surprising is that all these happen in a rather affluent suburb, reinforcing the claim made by such films as American Beauty that money doesn't promise benevolence or morality. In a way, the whole film can be construed as the American Dream gone awry, with these characters so lost, lonely and miserable. I think the film resembles Magnolia, but somehow chooses to portray these negative conditions in a lighter tone. However, there's a sense of optimism there when, towards the end, most characters dance together in a ballroom with Jude (superbly played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) crooning 'Just the Way You Are'.

I think the director prefers the status quo, saying that these characters are all too human, and being human means you are liable to make mistakes and seldom learn from them. There's no alternative but to accept our human frailty and weakness. However, as we're now entering the Obama age where (the possibility of) change is in the air, I wonder whether the director can do more than just portraying our all-too-human follies and giving up on all hopes for our redemption.

The paragraph I just wrote sounds weird to myself. Maybe Dechito's changing somehow, believing that he's a preacher who can change the world. Maybe he's no longer a cynic. Maybe he no longer wants to be an armchair philosopher. Maybe it's just his wistful thinking simply to be more than what he can be ...

The Oxford Murders

2009-04-01T09:35:00.003+07:00

In comparison with The Book of Murder, The Oxford Murders also by Guillermo Martinez is a literary gem. Everything seems to fall nicely together at the end and it shows that it's the work which probably had been in the author's mind for quite some time.

The story is simple: the main character is an Argentine exchange student who needs to study in Oxford for some time under the supervision of an Oxford professor. He studies mathematics, probably likened to the author himself who has a Ph.D. in mathematics. One day he finds out that his old landlady is brutally smothered to death. He witnesses the scene alongside famed mathematician Arthur Seldom. From then on, there occurs a series of murders that somehow can be linked to this murder, as the criminal intellectually leaves some signs at the crime scenes which puzzle both the student and the police.

There're possible criminals, such as (1) Beth, the landlady's granddaughter who dislikes taking care of the old lady, (2) Lorna, the student's lover who is an avid reader of crime fiction, (3) the father of a child who needs a lung transplant, and (4) Podorov, a bitter Russian student whose work was stolen. There're also some good symbols, including a dead badger which nobody dares to clear from the road for fear of bad luck.

The reason I like it is that there is a series of twists that happen in the novel until the last page. I thought I could figure out the ending yet the author's always one step ahead, already having taken into account what we thought. I found this ingenious and reminded me of Borges's 'Death and the Compass', a short story from Martinez's compatriot.

For those of you who are a fan of Eco's The Name of the Rose, you just can't miss this great work!

The Book of Murder

2009-04-01T09:03:00.005+07:00

I didn't realise until today that I had disappeared for almost a month. There's no one but myself to blame. Anyway, let's review something different, this time a detective novel called The Book of Murder by Guillermo Martinez. Two reasons made me feel interested: the author is an Argentine and the crime is intellectual. These two reasons of course are related to my love for Borges in the beginning.

I need to confess that I've decided to sell this book to a second-hand bookshop before I leave for Bangkok this weekend. (I've of course bought some other books here in San Francisco so I need to sell those that I don't plan to keep.) Sadly this novel has to go, the reason being that the ending is a bit too weak (or for some too intellectual). I still prefer the old-fashioned detective story whereby all clues lead to a good end where all the knots are untied nicely and rationally. This one seems to lead to another sphere altogether. For fear of spoiling, I just can't tell you the ending.

The narrator is an aspiring author and he knows a young woman who takes dictation named Luciana B. Luciana works for another famous writer, Kloster, who is a mammoth figure in the Argentine literary circle. One day Luciana claims that Kloster tries to harass her sexually. This action leads to a series of catastrophic results, with Kloster's wife asking for a divorce and taking their only daughter under her care.

However, things don't turn out well for Luciana either. Even though she receives a great amount of money from Kloster, her family and boyfriend start to die for mysterious reasons with only her sister Valentina the sole survivor.

On a superficial level, one can perhaps safely say that Martinez's novel is about revenge but on a deeper level it concerns divine retribution and cosmic karma. The fact that Kloster is an author shouldn't be ignored here as his position can be pitched against that of God, who decrees the fate of mankind. So it goes without saying that when the series of murders that occur to Luciana's loved ones correspond to those in his novel, Martinez seems to concern himself with the serious issues of fate and fatalism.

However, when a detective novel concerns itself with fate and such divine retribution, it can't help but sacrificing the fun of causality and 'rational retracing'. If a series of actions can no longer be attributed to a law of causality (at least on a human plane) but to the arbitrariness of cosmic coincidences, then a detective novel is no longer a detective novel; it's become something more monstrous.

Yet I still can't explain why I don't want to keep The Book of Murder. Maybe the ending is a bit weak, in comparison with The Oxford Murders, which is simply marvellous. Maybe there are a lot of knots being untied. Maybe there're a lot of empty spaces that just remind us of how much of this cosmic fatalism can have a go at us.

Closer

2009-03-03T23:25:00.004+07:00

Another assignment from my student, Closer is a very subtle contemplation on modern-day relationships. The film centres around the lives of four characters who are somehow lost and confused in a contemporary urban setting of London.

The film doesn't offer a complete beginning and ending. We realise that the beginning is elsewhere: Alice escapes from a breakup in New York and Dan is seeing Ruth at the beginning of the film. Then time flies and Dan finds himself head over heel in love with Anna, a beautiful photographer. Then Larry a dermatologist steps in. He is married to Anna, who uses this marriage to stop her obsession with Dan.

However, as time flies, she realises that her love for Dan is greater and wants to leave Larry, who proposes that they have sex before he signs divorce papers. Alice is likewise dumped by Dan and returns to her career in a strip club. Then we see another twist where Anna chooses to go back to Larry. Heartbroken Dan has no choice but to go back to Alice, who spurns him and returns to New York.

I know this is more like a summary than an analysis, but somehow the twist and turn of the whole film shows how complex and subtle human emotions are, especially when they concern love. In this case, love is not just a pure emotion caused by a single impression, like when Dan sees Alice for the first time. Later on, we gradually come to realise that there is something darker and more sinister to love. The errie scene is the ending whereby we see Anna going to sleep with Larry next to her. She doesn't seem to be happy but perhaps it's all there is for the modern-day matrimony. There's definitely something like acceptance of imperfection and compromise, where she decides to settle for someone she's not really in love but someone who will give her less headache.

When I come to think about this, perhaps Anna represents those who choose not to dwell too much in love as love means investment, expectation and pain. She chooses not to go on with Dan because perhaps she knows she loves him too much and she'll invest too much in him emotionally. One can say that she's a coward. But isn't Dan also a coward, choosing to return to Alice even though he knows perfectly well that he prefers Anna. By going back to Alice, we see how cowardly and insecure Dan can be, susceptible not only to his own needs but also to Larry's powerful storytelling that plays upon his lack of confidence and trust.

Alice emerges victoriously in this film, especially at the end when she can simply say to Dan that she no longer wants him, simply because she doesn't trust him. But of course she's not innocent to begin with. She doesn't tell her real name to Dan when they seem to fall in love at first sight. But she chooses to tell her real name 'Jane Jones' to Larry in a strip club, a setting full of deception and guiles. Alice is a good example of how we in the modern day are very much used to lying and manipulating, so much so that we can no longer separate between truth and fiction. But in Alice's case we can probably say that lying and manipulation are part of her self-defence mechanism she uses to protect herself from the cruel outside world and shitty men.

So perhaps the film boils down to this: who do you choose to be, Anna or Alice? Anna, faithful to herself, yet chooses to run away from real love. Or Alice, prone to lying and manipulation, leads a solitary life and never settles for anything less.

Wifi Project Version 2.0 | ไวไฟ 2.0

2009-02-15T22:39:00.004+07:00

Today I had chance to go to the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre to watch the exhibition Krungthep 226. Coincidentally, I just saw a sign that there would also be a play called Wi-Fi Project Version 2.0 by the Saosoong theatre group. I was incredibly lucky as it was their last performance and I probably couldn't find it restaged anywhere else soon.

It was actually a collection of two short plays -- The Google Detective and Hi5...eiei. Both plays portray how our interactions with modern technology can be related to our redefinitions of love and romance, as well as cheating and lies. In a monologue manner and sometimes with multimedia interactions, each play was respectively led by theatre veterans, Damkueng Tithapiyasak and Janya Tanasawangkul.

The Google Detective is about a man looking for a romance on-line, only to be exposed to a rather sophisticated cyberworld where it is impossible to believe or to trust anyone. With a view to looking for love, the actor ends up being too cynical and engaging himself rather in finding out who his on-line friend is. Love is thus impossible and replaced with sex and paranoia.

While The Google Detective revels in its rather pessimistic tone of contemporary romance quest, Hi5...eiei starts off more cheerfully with an 'ab-baew' woman also looking for a romance on-line, only to find her long-lost friend looking to rekindle his romance with her. Full of hope and expectation, she gradually changes from her 'ab-baew' personality to a more 'human' one and moves away from the computer to her real life. However, when it transpires that her long-lost friend already has a girlfriend and is only interested in her as his temporary 'gig', she starts to retreat to the on-line community and sadly assume her 'ab-baew' persona on-line. I personally find this play rather touching, especially how the woman at the end smiles and talks childishly in her innocent guiles. It makes me understand that perhaps being the so-called 'ab-baew' can be just a shell for someone to protect his or her vulnerable self in such a terribly cruel on-line world where images and avatars are not to be trusted.

Having watched these mini-plays, I can't help but feeling rather happy as I have distanced myself from the on-line world in my post-cynicism era. I'm pleased to say that I don't have Hi5 or facebook accounts. I only have this blog and its Multiply mirror-site. So those of you who send me invitations, please stop. Let's meet in the real space if you can catch me.

A Moment in June | ณ ขณะรัก

2009-02-15T21:57:00.004+07:00

Spoilers alert!

A Moment in June is a beautiful film that tells the stories of three relationships that involve second chances. Two of them happen in reality and one happens in a play. It's stylishly done and suitable for those who adore Wong Kar Wai's films. For me, it's a cross between his In the Mood for Love and Stephen Daldry's The Hours. It goes without saying that both films showcase some instances of passionate, yet brutal, love and longing. Hence, A Moment in June follows suit by picking up on two blissfully painful cases: one is a failing relationship between two men and the other is a sadistic case of a woman who waits for thirty years to meet her beloved man.

Of course, while the latter case triumphs over the long wait, the former just isn't that lucky, as it's possible that an unexpected accident might have just ended the relationship. What this film shows is probably how love is simply just a game where no one will know what will be the ending. But one can't deny that, like In the Mood for Love, the film does glamorise affairs and make people want to have a secret relationship that will enable them to be 'heroic', i.e. to be able to sacrifice their secret need and live with their legally married partner. In a sense, like The Hours, the relationship of a legally married couple is not portrayed as a sanctuary, but a scene of brutal tedium and compromise that will result in madness and oppression. However, what is 'morally exquisite' in A Moment in June is a sense of responsibility, especially on the part of the father who chooses to stay with his wife as he wishes to be a good father.

However, when I come to think about it, isn't this just another myth of perfect family? Does it mean that you can only have good children as long as their parents are not divorced? I think a lot of parents out there just choose their children to be a pretext to cover up their own cowardice. They daren't face the fact that they're no longer in love, but they just choose to stay together for the sake of their children. I think this myth is lame but sadly a lot of films, including both The Hours and A Moment in June, just perpetrate this myth. In my opinion, children are wiser than what adults believe and they learn to adjust themselves eventually with divorces. At least they'll be able to realise that love is complicated and sometimes if parents can't stay together it doesn't mean that they no longer love their children. (In this case, Mrs Doubtfire is more realistic and morally uplifting.)

The film also makes use of a play within a play, or to be more precise, a play within a film. This technique is called 'mise en abyme', a French phrase meaning 'placing into infinity', as it can signify that the whole event of love and the second chance happens all the time in the history of mankind. It happens again over and over, yet with different results, like the ending of the play in which the actress is waiting for her secret lover to arrive when the curtain falls. Sometimes someone does arrive and sometimes someone is stood up. In this light, art imitates life and its complexities.

When I come to think about it once again, doesn't life imitate art too? Don't we somehow will our lives to be like what happens in films and books? Sometimes a play within a film perhaps tells us that the whole film may just be an imitation of the play, especially its stylish yearning and fantasy. And then after watching this film, viewers start to wish to copy what's going on in the film, thinking that it's stylish and glamorous. Then we're in a vicious circle and can no longer separate between fiction and reality. Or perhaps their boundaries are not as clear-cut as we imagine they would be.

Happy-Go-Lucky

2009-01-17T14:44:00.003+07:00

A feel-good comedy for everyone, Happy-Go-Lucky is just a perfect film for those who think they have a bad day. Poppy, the protagonist, is exactly what the film title says. She is just happy. But what is interesting in the film is that her happiness and positive attitude are constantly tested by everyday happenings. Her bike is stolen, some people stare at her, her driving instructor thinks she's stupid, and a shop assistant refuses to talk to her.

Somehow the film makes me realise that it's so hard to be happy in contemporary society. In order to survive in this 'liveless' society, people naturally put up barriers, as part of their self-defence mechanism and this mechanism in turn exacerbates the hellish condition of the city. Poppy, probably recognising this, refuses to act like other people. She just shines and people's reactions don't deter her from continuing to be simply nice and pleasant.

However, one can't ignore the fact that she's quite lucky. She's got good friends, especially Zoe, who can lend her a shoulder to cry on, a good relationships with friends at work, and a good boyfriend. Perhaps this is the bare necessities for one to be nice. If she's got no one to start with, one wonders whether Poppy will have this attitude. But of course one can't deny that with this happy-go-lucky attitude people are naturally attracted to her. I, for one, don't like her at the beginning of the film, finding her pretty annoying and loud, but towards the end I just can't help falling in love with her and just wish that the world should be populated by more people like her.

The scene where she refuses to let Scott, the driving instructor, drive his car (the role marvellously played by Eddie Marsan, shows that Poppy's positive attitude is not just mindless cheerfulness, but a carefully thought out one. She wills herself to be that way so that people around her can be more cheerful and nice to each other. But of course this can be easily misinterpreted, as Scott thinks that she tries to lure him through what he thinks is female guile. Another scene that is worth mentioning is her strange encounter with a homeless guy. With her response 'I know', one can't help but wonder how much she does know. But it is my personal belief that she actually knows what is going on.

Now, with all these reflections in mind, I just think that if there're real people who think like Poppy, I should like to applaud them. The reason is because these people know sorrow only too well and are very sensitive to what is going on in the world. They are, in other words, receptive to the evils that are happening in the world. It's likely that this kind of people will suffer from mental illnesses more than ordinary people. One of the mechanisms to prevent these illnesses is of course to sport a happy-go-lucky attitude. But soon enough realisation and depression will come in through back doors and they'll end up in hospital beds faster than 'normal' people who are so cold and indifferent.

The Happiness of Kapi

2009-01-12T22:45:00.004+07:00

Dear Kapi

I know you will find this letter one day. You must be grown up now and probably lead a happy life in a hi-so condo in Bangkok. I think you must now be grown up enough to stomach the whole reality. What you've just seen in the film in which I am both the co-director and the main financial supporter is just one side of the story. Of course I decided to make the film so that you can better learn about our special relationship. It's meant to be used in conjunction with the big cabinet full of drawers that I managed to categorise and catalogue my life for you. (Do I need to tell you that I'm a very neat person? My neatness is part of the OCD syndrome that I've long been suffering from. One of the symptoms is my need to make sure all drawers in that cabinet are full of rubbish that I want to give to you. Don't throw any of them away. Even though I have died, I'm still keeping my eyes on you.)

Kapi, I think I'd better come clean with you. The reason that I needed to leave you with Grandpa and Grandma that day is not because I needed to do what I had promised. I know you probably believe that the accident that day made me feel too guilty to raise you up and that I needed to do what I promised -- not to be near you or to touch you again because I was such a careless lady. No, even the dumbest person would probably find my reason weak and lame. Of course, I could've jumped into the water to help you, but because I was wearing Coco Chanel that day so I just couldn't. Also, because to be honest, I somehow wanted to get rid of you that day but you survived. You were too lucky, Kapi.

That day was very significant. I just talked to your father, Ant Thin Summin, a Burmese janitor with whom I fell in love whilst I was in Burma. Of course, my parents disagreed with our romance and said that I could've found a better person who were from the upper-middle class, not this low life whose salary was not even enough to support my lunch. Have I told you that I worked in the Burmese embassy as my father (yes, your grandpa) helped support the Junta in legal matters? I couldn't help but fall in love with Ant Thin Summin at first sight while he was cleaning the embassy toilet. I got pregnant soon after and you, Kapi, were the product of our class-free romance. However, Thin Summin later betrayed me. He found himself a British gay sugar daddy who promised to take him to the UK. He didn't hesitate to fly with that big fat old farang of course. I felt sad and suicidal. The accident that day was, I need to say, partly intentional. I just wanted to get rid of you Kapi. You just reminded me of my miserable relationship with that Burmese guy who was confused with his sexuality.

I couldn't kill you that day because Thong, the little twat, found out. With guilt, I just couldn't face you anymore. I decided to give you to Grandpa and Grandma and leave for the UK to look for Thin Summin. I found him and he changed his name to Anthony Summers. What a shameless guy! Of course he spurned me for the second time. I didn't have enough money to buy my flight back. Grandpa and Grandma were so furious that they didn't give me money anymore. I had no choice but to prostitute myself and found myself infected with HIV. That's when I thought I needed to fly home and spend the last days of my life with you Kapi. Also, I needed to make sure you would get what you should -- that hi-so condo and a holiday home in Hua Hin. These I bought with money I saved from my 'trip' to the UK. Don't tell anyone, Kapi, but the real world is not as clean as what you saw in the film. (Do you remember Pierre? He's one of my customers. I sent him to see you to check whether you're OK.)

By the way, Kapi, could you do me a favour? Can you promise me that you'll not show this film to other people, especially those with red shirts? They will surely not be happy with our hi-so lifestyle. Our misery is so light and pale in comparison with theirs. Here we're concerned only with whether you'll want to see your father or not, but there they're probably concerned with what to eat or where to sleep tomorrow. Do I need to tell you that not everyone have in an immaculate traditional Thai pavilion, a holiday home in Hua Hin, a duplex condo in the city centre, and a Grandma who can speak French? This film should be kept a secret between you and me ok?

I love you so much Kapi and I still remember the days when we were sleeping together in a little seaside bungalow with white curtains overseeing a white horse. The whole setting was so fashionable and seemed like it just came fresh out of a music video. Or was it a music video that I remember?

Au revoir,

Your Mom xx

Happy Birthday แฮปปี้เบิร์ดเดย์

2008-12-26T01:56:00.004+07:00

Spoilers galore!

I watched Happy Birthday tonight at Paragon Cineplex simply due to some positive reviews on-line. The film was good even though I think it's a little bit too cliche and sentimental. Perhaps I've been watching too many weird films that I just can't tolerate simple films anymore.

The relationship between Then and Pao starts from their common interest -- travelling around Thailand. Then loves photography and Pao loves drawing -- what an idyllic starting point for love among the Thai middle-class. Middle-class viewers will probably enjoy the first half of the film as the couple drive around scenic routes in the North of Thailand (the area around Mae Hong Son I think). However, while their middle-class romance is blossoming, a car crash results in Pao suffering severe brain injuries, which reduces her to a condition of living like a vegetable. That means theoretically she's dead but technologically she's surviving through the aid of oxygen.

Because of his middle-class promise made to her that they'll take care of each other until they die, Then takes care of Pao, cleans her, changes her sanitary pads, and takes her out shopping. His care for her borders on the level of insanity. Despite the protests from her parents to 'let Pao go', Then holds on to what remains of his girlfriend dearly. He's broke paying loads to keep her 'alive' and loses his job due to lack of concentration. In other words, the director wants to make clear that he suffers a lot because of her as he wishes to cherish their promise. The director also wants to show how heroic he is in trying to maintain his loyalty especially in the contemporary social context of fast love and easy sex.

However, I can't help but thinking that Then is making a serious mistake, trying to hold onto Pao's body. Throughout the film, we see him change lotuses in front of a Buddha replica. But one wonders whether he really understands Buddhism, especially the concept of 'letting go'. Lord Buddha preaches against desire, especially that for material objects. In a sense, Then's wish to keep Pao's body is like a child guarding a toy that's broken. It's obvious that Pao already exists in Then's vivid imagination. I think it's perhaps much better if the film shows his true understanding of Buddhism, that Pao's existence is not just physical but mental. Pao's body is just an external shell, waiting to decompose. Pao's existence in Then's imagination should be much more revered.

Besides, the film should've further raised the mooted topic of euthanasia, especially from the point of the person who suffers. We only see the opinions of her boyfriend and her parents, but of course we don't learn much about Pao's attitude towards life and death in general. The treatment of her character in the first half of the film should've focused also on her opinion so that this would shed light on another perspective on the matter. She functions as a silent body or when we hear her speak it's mostly from her boyfriend's imagination.

If we treat this film as a piece of middle-class propaganda, think about the effect it will cast upon middle-class viewers, how the film will shape their middle-class conception of 'true love' and its connection with the physical. Perhaps it's something to do with our age of consumerism and materialism that we middle-class people need an actual object to confirm our idea of love. Pao's body is unfortunately and paradoxically used selfishly by Then to confirm his everlasting love to her. Wouldn't it be better if he just accepted her death and continued with his life without her body but with his memory of their time together? Pao would surely love to see him happy rather than slaving over her unconscious body and getting crazy in the process.

I just don't find Then's love for Pao heroic; it's just possessive, middle-class and rude.

Vive L'amour

2008-12-25T12:26:00.004+07:00

Vive L'amour is an old film by Tsai Ming-Liang. It's probably a good platform to develop your understanding of his visual aesthetics and politics before you graduate to his more complex films such as I Don't Want to Sleep Alone. The plot centres around three characters (two men and one woman) whose lives intersect in an empty apartment. We don't know much about these characters in terms of their past, but we gradually understand their mental conditions, which are fundamentally similar in that they are all lost, alienated souls living in a city that suffers from interminable development and consumption.

The woman works as an estate agent, while the two men are homeless salesmen and illegally share an empty apartment. One of them sells a columbarium (a room with niches or shelves made to store cinerary urns) -- something typically Far Eastern; the other sells clothes on the pavement. I think for those of you who read de Certeau will adore this film as it puts into play his theory of strategy and tactic. The space of an empty apartment waiting for lawful tenants is usurped by two loners who barely have money but manage to pass themselves off as 'commoners'. They don't look like vagabonds so people don't suspect. On the contrary, the estate agent lives in a rather shabby apartment, presumably her own lawful place.

But this film is not only about physical space, but also how space shapes the mentality of the characters. These characters roam the cityspace, both in daytime and nighttime. But they don't belong to the urban space which empties them out. Symbolically, they may perhaps be compared to those urns stored separately in different niches in a big columbarium. Their lives intersect but they barely connect spiritually. Sex doesn't function as a remedy, but only as a source of pleasure that eventually confirms their difference. Like I Don't Want to Sleep Alone, the mattress functions as both a spiritual and physical sanctuary, but a temporary one at that.

The ending of the film may be surprising to some, yet for those Tsai Ming-Lian fans it's typical. We are shown a scene of the estate agent crying for a solid six minutes and twenty-five seconds. Nothing more. A requiem for the lost urban soul, perhaps.

Le temps qui reste | Time to Leave

2008-12-23T01:37:00.004+07:00

Directed by Francois Ozon, Le temps qui reste is more like a philosophical tract on death and life. The film is probably by far the best rendition of Italo Calvino's classic statement that "the ultimate meaning to which all stories refer to has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death".

Romain, the main protagonist in this film, scarcely believes himself when his doctor tells him that he only has months to live due to a growing tumor in his body. A successful photographer who takes everything for granted, Romain finds the whole situation difficult to take. With his success, he never reveals his own vulnerability, preferring to create his own small world of which he's a sole ruler.

However, his cancer diagnosis changes the whole picture. Not only does he need to communicate, but he also needs care. He can't turn to his family, which he has ignored for a long time. He believes that his parents don't have the gut to get divorced and that his sister is married to a loser. He doesn't wait to make it clear that he doesn't like her child either. So we see that Romain's success both in career and in love just spoils him, making him take everything for granted.

His incoming death makes him feel more vulnerable. Yet, it's pretty strange yet understandable that he chooses not to tell his family the truth about his health, but rather to confide in his grandmother, with whom he is no longer in touch and who he knows will die soon too. This encounter with the grandmother functions as a turn in the film, when Romain seems to learn something and change his attitude towards life. (It's my personal opinion, though, that Ozon should've made it clearer what Romain actually realises after his conversation with his grandmother. I still feel the gap is rather quite big here.)

Coincidentally, Romain happens to run into a couple who desperately want to have a child but simply are unable to due to the sterility on the husband's part. Romain offers to help, hoping that the son will be his legacy on earth. And Romain then seems to be happy after this, feeling his life fulfilled and realising that while he's dying there's another life about to begin.

What do I think about this? I just don't like it, of course. Needless to say, I hate children like the early Romain, as I find them pretty noisy and needy. Wouldn't it be more heroic if Romain just dies alone and accepts his own solitude without leaving anything in the world. If I were him, I definitely wouldn't want to have any children. My personal statement is that we've done enough to make this world a bad place. Perhaps it'd be better altogether if the earth doesn't have humans. We only create more rubbish and heat, doing nothing but gratifying our personal selfish needs.

Also, I feel like if we have children, we are bound to have expectations that will eventually do more harm to them. This is because, whether unwittingly or not, our children will try to live up to our expectations and they'll hurt themselves for this. Maybe the concept of having children to continue your line of descent is quite imperialist, as it means that you believe that you're good enough and that your children should be given a chance to continue developing this world. But the question is: do we have such a right to think so righteously about ourselves?

Perhaps it's something to do with age. Maybe I'll want to have children when I grow older. Let's wait and see.

Visitor Q

2008-12-21T01:08:00.003+07:00

If you believe that you know what a dysfunctional family means and you think it's something banal that probably happens to approximately 90 percent of families on earth, think again. If you think that dysfunctional family members don't engage in conversations and prefer to avoid contact or communication, then think again. Visitor Q is a Japanese film that will turn that stereotypical image of a dysfunctional family upside down.

You'll probably never think that there exists any family any weirder than that in this film. Kiyoshi Yamazaki, the 'salariman' patriarch, obsessed with his job as a TV presenter researching on youngsters' trends, chooses to exploit his own children for his own personal success and recognition. His elder daughter doesn't care much about her study but chooses to focus on her well-paid career as a hooker, while his son is an object of bully at school. The shock begins when the father interviews his own daughter and ends up having sex with her in the process. He also intends to conduct a picture-perfect scoop on how his son is bullied, without showing interest in his son's well-being. Keiko the mother doesn't fare any better. She's in turn being bullied and beaten by her oppressed son. She spends her free time prostituting herself to earn some money for heroine. During dinnertime, she just limps about quietly trying to please everyone.

It goes without saying that the dysfunctional family in Visitor Q puts Homer's family in The Simpsons to shame. The Yamazaki are by far in a league of their own, full of extreme oddities and crazy thoughts. Their weirdness just reflects the oppressive conditions of contemporary Japanese society, in which people need to compete and be successful at work. Social norms are intense as these Yamazaki family members appear very normal in public places. By contrast, in such private spaces as a bedroom, a brothel, or a car, they let loose their own 'deviant' selves and it is in these spaces that we see how society has damaged their identity, to the extent that they are unable to control their own split selves.

Of course, the director Takashi Miike aims to satirise his own society and puts a moral twist by introducing the mysterious character of Q, who brings the whole family back to conscience. If Kiyoshi the patriarch is no longer in control of the whole situation and lets himself be swayed by various temptations, it's high time the mother needed to come out and assert her right, Miike seems to say. Q teaches Keiko to realise something that she has always possessed but never really realises she has -- milk from her breasts. Through this blatant (and some might say obscene) symbol of breast milk, Miike seems to be saying that it's the mother who needs to stand up and usurp the centre stage of family rearing, not being brainwashed as a robotic servant as the patriarchal society of Japan would like to dictate.

However, this film doesn't signal any romantic return to the perfect family setting, but shows how such return is impossible. Keiko, along with other family members, are transformed into perverse creatures due to strict social norms. Even though they seem to realise the power of motherly love in the end, the whole thing happens in a highly artificial place, i.e., a greenhouse, with a big sheet of tarpaulin covering the mother figure as if it were a sacred shroud (as appearing in the picture above). For me this may be construed as a parody of Virgin Mary.

I prefer Visitor Q to Audition, Miike's work that's probably more well-known internationally. Visitor Q is very fresh and even though it's extremely violent and weird in its own way, it's incredible that Miike manages to hide some messages in the film but at the same time doesn't make this teaching look too cheesy. This moral perhaps is indispensable, otherwise I would probably feel too guilty to laugh at certain scenes of this film.

Cachorro | Bear Cub

2008-12-10T14:39:00.007+07:00

Cachorro or Bear Cub is a film that treads into a pretty difficult terrain of parenthood and homosexuality. The film is set in the metropolitan city of Madrid, one of the most tolerant cities on earth. The film centres around Pedro, a hunky dentist who prefers a single, yet sexually active life. However, his sister's visit to India affects his ideal life of a gay bachelor, as she leaves Bernardo, her nine-year-old son, with him.

Of course, you might easily predict what the film will be about: the positive relationship between the boy and his uncle, where both try to adjust themselves and learn about each other. With his sister being incarcerated in India for possession of drugs, Pedro realises that her stay in India will be extended for years. However, he is not concerned as Bernardo is pretty liberal and knows a lot about life more than he expects. This certainly strengthens their friendship and understanding, until the day Bernardo's evil grandmother steps in and asks him to leave for Valencia.

This turn of plot is pretty cliche as we are quite familiar with the motif of a wicked grandmother-cum-witch against that of the benign uncle-cum-prince. The political ideology reflects the contemporary climate whereby anything traditional is being cast as negative and gay people, by contrast, are aligned with the transgressive or the liberal.

What this film does is pretty much traditional in the sense that gay people are portrayed as leftist and leading a transgressive lifestyle as could normally be found in such magazines as Attitude or Gay Times. The characterisation of Pedro is so stereotypical to the extent that he can be labelled a 'traditional' gay who enjoys smoking pot and uninhibited sex. The portrayal of which has become an indelible, lasting impression not only on the mind of straight people, but gay people too.

What I perhaps would like to see is a more subtle depiction of gay characters, whose lives are not dictated by gay lifestyle magazines, gay people who question their own identity or who have problems conforming to gay lifestyle as promoted by magazines or credit card companies. That surely would be a way forward.

The Namesake

2008-12-06T22:04:00.003+07:00

One of the benefits of having cable TV is how it can surprisingly come in between you and your work. Today as I was planning my lecture on poststructuralism I couldn't help switching the TV on. Having found that The Namesake was on the Star Movies channel, I didn't have any choice but stop all my work and concentrate on watching the film. Part of the reason is that I was bored of work. But of course the name Jhumpa Lahiri also guarantees that the film that I was going to spend my next two hours on would be worthwhile, considering the fact that her Interpreter of Maladies was one of the most subtle stories I taught in the last semester. Her work is highly relevant, timely, and moving, especially to those who find themselves straddling more than one culture.

Based on Lahiri's bestselling novel, The Namesake focuses on an Indian couple, Ashima and Ashoke, who choose to migrate to the USA with the hope that their family will be freer and able to lead a better life. Despite her loneliness in New York, Ashima is eventually able to adjust herself to the new home and make new friends. They have two children and are later able to move to a new house in a better neighbourhood. It is not too far-fetched to say that they manage to follow the path of becoming a respectable middle-class family. However, things are not as easy as it seems. Their children, Gogol and Sonia, are Americanized and belong to a different world. They find arranged marriage and other Indian customs weird, if not obsolete. Gogol himself has a white girlfriend and doesn't appear to be able to relate to his parents that well, preferring to spend time with his girlfriend's family.

The moment when Ashoke dies seems like an epiphany for Gogol, who suddenly realizes his own Indian root and chooses to marry another Indian girl, whom he spurned when he was young. Had the film ended here, I would've turned my TV off and burned the set, as the whole film would then have been nothing but a propaganda for ethnic revivalism. But Lahiri's work surpasses this. Gogol's new relationship with his Indian wife doesn't work out either. Like Gogol, she's anything but traditional. Years in Paris have transformed her into a sophisticated, urban girl who knows better. The marriage with Gogol seems to restrain her intellectual growth and vibe, as Gogol still yearns for a traditional family with a wife who waits for his arrival from work and cooks samosa for him every Thursday. It goes without saying that the influence of Ashima remains strong as she retains the role as an ideal wife to Gogol's father. The ending therefore is open-ended, with Gogol travelling to find himself (like what his father did in the past) and Ashima deciding to live six months in her birthplace, practising the activity she loves best -- singing.

Of course, I need to say here it's virtually impossible to tell the whole story of The Namesake, but it's a really touching story that deals with such issues as homeland, root, and belonging. We've already gone past the age where cultural pluralism was blindedly celebrated. The Namesake reflects not only on the happiness but the problems this cultural pluralism may entail, such as the loneliness on the part of Ashima and the identity confusion on the part of her children. Even though the film seems to suggest that a marriage of people of different ethnicity doesn't work, it doesn't portray the same-ethnicity marriage in the positive light either. This is simply because, no matter what ethnicity one has, one is bound to change if one lives like a transnational. Lost, lonely, and lovelorn may perhaps be the three 'L's that best describe this new rootless, globe-trotting tribe. However, at least there's a benefit to be had: freedom. Even though life will be full of trouble caused by lack of or difficulty in communication, Ashima can choose to be who she is and dictates her own life. It's the sacrifice she's willing to take.

What's the message of the film? Although the film portrays the idyllic space of Indian past, it's no longer possible to return. Globalization and transnationalism have destroyed such disparity between Eastern vivacity and Western independence. You can't expect children of this new generation to be doting wives or highly responsible husbands; their easy lives have made them cynical and lost. But of course there's one thing that perhaps links the two generations together: their thirst for life. But isn't this just another American ideology?

Sunflower ดอกไม้ในแสงแดด

2008-11-29T08:39:00.005+07:00

For those regular theatre-goers, the name of Nopphan Boonyai has been established as one of the most interesting new-wave directors. Sunflower, one of his most popular plays, became the talk of the town when it was first launched at the Crescent Moon Theatre at the beginning of this year. Due to popular demand, it is currently being restaged at the same venue until December 7.

There are just three characters in this play but the number should not blind us to the dynamic that their interaction creates. Nop is a good-looking guy who is simply unable to be committed in a relationship. Orn is a confident woman who falls in love with a photographer who is already married. Tawan works as a 'love doctor' giving comments to those people who have problems about love. However, he himself doesn't fare any better, waiting for his partner, a real doctor, who will never return.

The influence of Wong Kar Wai reinforces the themes of love, loneliness, and urban angst. It's like these three characters just come fresh out of Chungking Express, lost and yearning at the same time. The motifs of a mysterious woman with a golden wig, pineapple cans, and the bird without legs are present in order to bring home such feelings as unrequirted love and desire with no definite directions. In other words, it may be said that these characters resemble us in the modern days, afflicted with yearning and desire, and the conditions are worsened by the fact that our desire is not fulfilled or once it's fulfilled we are not satisfied and want to move on.

Perhaps, quite accurately, the play portrays our long-lasting problem with desire. On the one hand, we desire something we don't have, can't have, or no longer have, such as Nop who remains scarred by his first love, Orn who desperately wants the photographer's love, and Tawan who injures himself simply as a pretext to see his estranged boyfriend. On the other hand, we don't desire something we already have and unconsciously try to reject this state of bliss so that we can desire once more. This, perhaps, may be caused by boredom and the contemporary way of life that requires us to obtain the newest, the latest, and the most modern. This lifestyle pushes us to fly higher and higher, until we forget it feels like to stay on ground.

But the play doesn't choose to portray only the negative side of these dire conditions. Even though the three characters have their own spaces in each corner of the stage, there're always three stools at the centre waiting for them to return, to chat, to communicate, to make pretense, to show off, or simply to tell stories. This interaction is equated with the sense of friendship these three people have. Perhaps friends are, of course, vital and their presence is needed, even though we all know that deep down we have our own space where friends will not, or cannot, intrude. Perhaps this is all there is ... Perhaps this is all we can have.

The Fall

2008-11-27T01:16:00.004+07:00

Spoilers alert ...

The Fall is a feel-good surreal film. If you've watched Hero by Zhang Yimou and have been astonished by its visual fantasy, you will not be disappointed watching this film. Directed by Tarsem Singh, the film portrays the psychological connections between the two protagonists, a little girl and a bed-ridden stunt man. The latter is suicidal and, like Scheherazade, tells stories to the young girl to get her to do what he wants.

The stories that he tells bear resemblance to his surroundings, despite their settings in the time and place so remote from his own. Of course, one may say that when you tell the story, you can't avoid putting yourself in the story. There's no such thing as impersonality or objectivity in story-making and story-telling. The film makes a good case for this and shows that there's a process of redemption and recovery in story-telling too.

I personally find the essence of the film quite similar to Stranger than Fiction, which I've just watched. What these two films are identical is the way they have faith in the narrator, especially in how this narrating figure can change the turn of the story. These two films make a case against the belief that we're somehow controlled by the stories we make for ourselves and put a positive twist, a rather existentialist one at that, that we human are capable of making a decision and thus bringing about a good change.

Perhaps this spirit is in the air at the moment as we see more and more people gathering and standing firm for what they believe, be it in the US where people voted for Barack Obama, having a total faith that this new voice can bring about a positive 'change', or in Thailand when 'yellow' people gathered at the Government House and then at Suvannabhumi Airport or 'red' people at Rachamangala Stadium, all believing that their presence would bring about change.

Returning to the film, the spirit of change can be seen in the end when the stunt man agrees to change the ending to please the girl. But what I think is the drawback of this film is how little we're convinced by it. I don't personally believe that the begging of the little girl is enough to make a suicidal man change his mind. There should've been something else that triggers his reconsideration -- an epiphany perhaps. Yet, this decision to change the ending -- not to let him be killed in the end -- is pretty elegant on its own, as it may be related to the fact that we're indeed all connected and our stories, though highly individualistic, may inspire others or make them feel despair. The stories, once told, are no longer ours. Once they enter the public realm, they belong to the world, enriching it so.

The Message ลิขิตนาคา

2008-11-27T00:46:00.005+07:00

While Thai politics is anything but stable, it's understandable that a growing number of people resort to escape from this stalemate and put their interest in something else altogether. Hence, I didn't spurn the opportunity when a ticket to watch The Message, a contemporary li-kay performance, was offered to me. Do I need to tell you that I rarely frequent a traditional Thai performance, let alone the li-kay, the narrative of which I found too predictable and lengthy.

Of course that perception has changed since I watched The Message or Likhit Naga in Thai the other evening at Lido Multiplex. The show was led by the Silpathorn winner Pradit Prasartthong, whose dance was obviously majestic. Part of the lyrics were made more up-to-date and with the use of such visual aid as the LCD projector the show was anything but obsolete. However, the traditional elements of li-kay remain, including improvisation, bling-bling costumes, and plots concerning divine or semi-divine entities.

The story involves a sojourn on earth by an underworld god -- a Naga called Malan. However, little does he know that his trip will endanger his life, as people on earth are ready to exploit him for various gains, including tourism and commerce. Of course, the ending is quite predictable with Malan getting angry wishing to castigate the earthlings by creating a big flood. Even though this plot sounds all too predictable for those regular li-kay watchers, one can't deny that it's also timeless and pretty much relevant to what's happening in Thailand at present. I only wish more people would turn up to watch this and learn something from it.

The performance is part of Bangkok Theatre Festival 2008. More details can be found here.

The Orphanage

2008-11-16T01:37:00.004+07:00

The Orphanage is a subtle horror film, which gradually creates tension in viewers until the point where the climax sublimely flourishes. However, those viewers who want quick, dramatic ghostly appearances that scare their socks off might be disappointed. But those who want a rather slow-pacing horror-cum-detective fiction will definitely like it.

This is not just a horror flick that aims to make viewers guess what's happening, it's also a stylish film, too. However, one sometimes wonders why the samaritan couple would wish to live in such a big house. Of course I understand that the protagonist Laura wants to remake the house, which was once the orphanage where she grew up, and turn it into her little paradise where she and her husband can form their own team of adopted children. (This sounds pretty much like Madonna and Angelina Jolie, but this trend has yet to catch up in Thailand.) Her samaritanism is on the verge of madness, as if it were motivated by her own guilt to survive and prosper after life in the orphanage. Her friends there, by contrast, disappeared without a trace.

The more she wanders around the house, trying to refurbish it, Laura gradually discovers a series of shocking truths. Needless to say, it also involves her only adopted son Simon, who keeps talking and playing with his imaginary friends. The director did a great job in making us feel not only horrified by the whole past incidents but sympathise with Laura in shouldering all these responsibilities.

However, if there's going to be a drawback, it's how little we know about Laura and what is the cause of her good will. Surely she had been brought up in the orphanage, but we're given too few details why she chooses to come back. Maybe I didn't watch it properly, but I couldn't help but feeling that the film would've been even better had the director provided more clues or played upon the issue of Laura's guilt.

Stranger than Fiction

2008-11-16T00:42:00.004+07:00

Directed by Marc Foster, Stranger than Fiction is of course a film about fiction. Will Ferrell, playing Harold Crick, is pretty tamed in this film, not unlike Jim Carrey in The Truman Show. The plot is simple: Crick discovers that he's a character in an unfinished novel by an author who is renowned for her "ability" to kill characters. Of course, Crick is scared and tries every possible way to stop the author Karen Eiffel from killing him.

In the course of the film, the characters gradually develop. Crick has grown from a cold, indifferent IRS agent to a sensitive person who manages to understand the author and even let her kill him. Ana Pascal, a baker with whom he falls in love, also gradually learns to love the man for what he really is, despite her first impression of him as a cruel tax man. However, most touching of all is the development of Eiffel who begins to understand how her 'fiction' has intertwined with reality and the implications of what she's been doing. I'm not going to reveal the ending but suffice to say that Eiffel's decision at the end is a moment of understanding that's truly beautiful.

In my humble opinion, Stranger than Fiction is not just a film that aims to showcase the scriptwriter's intelligence and wit, but it also gives an insight into how to lead one's life and how magic always happens. This film may be a banal cliche for some, but for me it's really touchingly heroic. Not heroic in the sense of a knight in the shining armour saving the life of a princess, but heroic in the way an ordinary person can be.

Perhaps in the world that is getting more and more complicated, this film teaches us that stoicism is still a good option to stick to and God may perhaps be kind and let you live. That's all I can say, otherwise there'll be spoilers alert.

Coming Soon โปรแกรมหน้า วิญญาณอาฆาต

2008-11-16T00:09:00.006+07:00

Coming Soon is a new horror film by GTH. Fun to watch, the film is based on a rather postmodern premise -- what if the ghost on the film comes out to haunt viewers. This play with the levels of reality is by no means new, as we have seen what Deconstructing Harry and Tristam Shandy have earlier made progress in this line of development. However, what is rather innovative in this film is the impact it has made on the viewer, as the viewer is quite accurately portrayed as voyeurs seeking pleasure and thrill without regarding carefully whence their joy may have derived.

I need to confess that when I was watching the film, my viewing experience somewhat changed: it was pretty scary to see they film the actual cinema whilst you know that the ghost was lurking somewhere. I couldn't help but relate that to my actual viewing as we were watching the film around 8pm in a rather empty cinema. But of course, deadened as my senses are, my fright disappeared five minutes after the film finished.

In fact, when we come to think about it, Coming Soon is less scary than The Shutter. I believe the reason is that it's simply too predictable. Somehow I realised half-way through the film what the ending was going to be like and I could guess when the ghost was about to appear. There's only one scene that scared me -- that's when the protagonist was talking to his friend, and suddenly his friend's face changed to the ghost's. So I guess that's the way forward: try to scare the viewer by not giving the clue what's going to happen. Also, try not to use any music to lead the viewer's feeling, as the viewer is pretty sophisticated and can sometimes guess (automatically) when the ghost is going to appear simply by guessing when the climax of the music will be.

However, if you don't expect some ingenious twists, this film still delivers some thrill. And if you like clever films that turn you into an idiot, this film may be good for you. This is because it touches on the issue of viewing as voyeurism: filmmakers and viewers are portrayed as irresponsible people who care about nothing but self-interest. While filmmakers want to make good films that earn them a lot of money, viewers are selfish and think of nothing but pure enjoyment and cheap thrills. Of course most horror viewers fall into this category and those who go to watch Coming Soon are not excluded.

Now the question remains: why do you pay money just to be insulted? Or are there so fewer tricks to frighten us now that the filmmaker needs to make us their victims? I bet in the near future they should make the film when the viewers themselves are turned into ghosts to haunt the director. That'd be fun and more flattering to us.

Zizek!

2008-10-21T00:54:00.004+07:00

It's such a joyful experience to watch Zizek! At first, I expected it to be a very difficult film with Slavoj Zizek talking non-stop from beginning to end. Of course, the Slovenian theorist talks a lot and you will not be disappointed if you want to hear him talk. In fact, his talk will cover about 98% of the whole film, while 1% sees him fidgeting and the other 1% is spent on the landscapes of various places, including Buenos Aires and New York, where this globetrotting theorist makes a visit.

This is not a difficult film and somehow I can understand his thoughts here better than reading his dense books, which of course are entertaining. Throughout the 71 minutes we can catch a glimpse of the witty man, whose mental stamina never flags and sometimes viewers just wonder whether this guy ever feels tired, thinking or just surviving. Of course, my feeling for Zizek is more of respect as I'm absolutely in awe of his dedication to philosophy at the expense of other aspects of life as a human being. Of course, what can I say when he claims that even being 'human' is one of the most well-hidden ideologies of all times! That's why he has no qualms about being a 'monster', one whose interest is in the rather insular sphere of modern-day intellectual theory. (I think this really sounds familiar!)

However, it's exactly this point that I beg to differ. Throughout the film, we begin to see that there's something behind his beautiful (some would say obscene) mind and his rather gauche personality. There's this need to be recognised, a strong, passionate determination to get his opinions across. (Once he even ran for a presidential election in his home country!) This is what perhaps becomes a paradox of the film: while Zizek himself declares that being human is just an ideology, he can't help but reveal, though inadvertently, this human side himself in the film. Or perhaps is this just 'my parallax view' of his image? Or perhaps does Zizek himself allow some space for this self-contradiction? Or should we take what he says seriously? There's a sense of joviality that belies seriousness, and at the same time there's a sense of gravity that belies play. We can never be sure how to deal with what he says. This is Zizek's style that blends humour with intellect, perhaps to show the absurdity of our search for the impossible real.

There's one scene you should not miss: Zizek (half-) naked in bed philosophizing about something I can't even remember. Perhaps I was too shocked at the time, never expecting to see him in such an intimate setting. Perhaps he tries to blur the private and public spheres, symbolizing his use of psychoanalysis (a tool for the private sphere of human mind) to analyse the public sphere of global capitalism. If so, this scene is really ingenious.

For me, this film is good. How can I evaluate the success? I don't really know how to explain, but after watching it I just want to read his books. Perhaps less to find fault than to see how he 'enjoys' life through his verbal performance.

Serbis

2008-10-19T21:08:00.004+07:00

Serbis, a new film from the Philippines, is about a family who runs a soft-porn cinema. It's self-reflexive, beginning with a naked girl (unwittingly) seducing viewers with her repeated phrase "I love you" and ending with a couple trying to negotiate in a sex trade. Of course the whole film is about lust and unfulfilled desire among the cinema's own clientele, but it undoubtedly plays upon the film's philosophical status as a desire-generating machine, turning viewers into voyeurs whose desire remains held in abeyance.

The Pineda family who runs this cinema, strategically and ironically called Family, suffers various plights: the Matriarch Nanay Flor loses her court case against her estranged husband; Alan, one of her nephews, makes a girl pregnant whilst having no wish in getting married; and Flor's daughter Nayda, though married with a son, finds herself in love with Ronald, a relative. One may be right to claim that the family members are struggling to hold themselves together, but one may be wrong to claim that they are giving up hope. What I find refreshing in Serbis is perhaps the fact that life's just like that, with moments of despair and hopelessness, but these are not occasions to give up. Despite all these, Nanay Flor continues to fight the ups and downs of her fate with pride and dignity. Her old age should not blind us to her grace and determination, something that has yet to pass on to the next generation, who are generally portrayed as being subject to uncontrollable desire or resigning themselves to fate.

(On this count, I couldn't help but compare this family to the Buendia in One Hundred Years of Solitude, in which Ursula the matriarch tries to hold everything together.)

I particularly like the fact that throughout the film we are led into the nooks and crannies of the cinema, as if we were led into the labyrinth of desire (if we take this Family cinema metaphorically as the production house of desire) of the Pineda family. Of course, we have Serbis boys who are ready to satisfy the cinema clientele's sexual needs, but we also realise that the lives of the Pineda family themselves are perhaps even more salacious. However, watching their family romances does not create a soap opera feel, but rather something more primitive and sordid, yet universal, like a sexual act itself.

Even though I'm sure a lot of people out there would certainly reject this kind of place, branding it as a place of ill repute, the Family cinema in Serbis is more like a haven for some people who are lost or marginalised by the outside world. We see some touching images of those people who loiter in this unholy ground, yet they are happy chatting away and making friends among themselves.

Perhaps this cinema is like a goat that appears in front of the screen -- it is used as a scapegoat when the authorities need to mete out a punishment. They shut down bars, brothels, and of course soft-porn cinemas like the Family, but they never seem to take enough time to think about the real cause why people frequent this kind of place in the first place. Of course the film does not reveal the root of all the problems, but rather dwells on a temporary solution devised by the marginalised. So temporary and fleeting, yet for some it's beautiful and brutal at the same time.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

2008-10-07T00:12:00.004+07:00

It's time I reviewed The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, one of the most beautiful films that I've seen this year. It's a pleasant experience to watch such an uplifting film when my life is shit: 300 papers and 12 reports to mark and another academic programme to look after. Yet I'm still alive and face all this turmoil with bravery, especially after I've seen what Jean-Dominique Bauby underwent in the film ...

Even though he suffers from a stroke that has eventually rendered all parts of his body except an eye paralysed, Jean-Dominique Bauby (or Jean-Do as he would like people to call him) still finds his conditions not totally hopeless and even feels inspired to write an autobiography, an act of courage that very few can actually face up to in that situation.

What's beautiful in Jean-Do's storytelling is that he manages to look at his tragic fate from another perspective. He doesn't feel like a victim, but more a sacrificer whose suffering enables other people around him to understand more about love and communication. Thus, more than once we see him metaphorically in a diving bell (probably representing his suffering from the so-called locked-in syndrome) but spreading his arms out as if he were Jesus (probably representing his condition as a sacrificer for other people's happiness). His suffering brings his family together, becomes a cause for his therapists to have faith in life. Thus, he can no longer afford to die, as his life and death means too much for people around him.

Perhaps what this film wants to say is that we are not alone. Our act always has consequences, wittingly or not, for people around us. No man is an island and everyone is connected with another. Jean-Do's suffering, though paralysing him as if he were put in a diving bell, becomes a way for people around him to understand life. For his secretary Claude Mendibil, Jean-Do becomes her 'butterfly' as his imagination actually frees his life and paradoxically his life is thus less restrained than hers.

Perhaps what this film wants to say too is that the purpose of our life is not for us, but for people around us. Before the stroke, Jean-Do's life so far has been self-centered and careless. However, after the stroke, he learns to live with the locked-in syndrome with grace and understands the value of life if it can bring about the others' happiness.

I know this is really another cliche, but I've been thinking about it and trying to interpret my life along that line. Perhaps this is the reason why I've chosen to be a broke brainwasher. Perhaps just for now ...

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

2008-09-29T00:05:00.004+07:00

Woody Allen's films are almost always about simple stuff that middle or upper-middle class people do or find themselves involved, be it love, money, relationship, life and death. Vicky Cristina Barcelona is his latest film to date and it makes viewers wishing to forget their bleak and gloomy present and fly to Barcelona to enjoy the European sunshine and late night relaxation.

The film is simple yet elegant, touching upon human follies and cowardice when faced with choice. We have two main characters: Vicky, the stern and uptight woman working on a dissertation on Catalan identity, and Cristina, a carefree spirit on the pursuit of real happiness. The two fall for Juan Antonio, a painter who is charming and spontaneous, tending to let his emotion overcome reason. Thus, it's not surprising that Juan Antonio and Cristina hit it off pretty quickly, yet what's even more astonishing is that he manages to turn Vicky's life upside down, as she realises that she's not really in love with the man she's about to marry in two weeks' time.

So what we see here in the film is that love or attachment is no longer a two-way interaction; it's much more complicated than that. Somehow Cristina's relationship with Juan Antonio helps him relate to his ex-wife Maria Elena better. In the same way, Juan Antonio's relationship with Vicky casts a new light on her long-term relationship with Doug. Perhaps what Allen is doing is to show the audience that love is not simply an intimate relationship between two people, but involves the issues of comparison and contrast. One needs to look at other relationships in order to gauge one's own. In addition, Allen manages to convince that these issues of comparison and contrast can also bring catastrophic consequences to a relationship.

However, the ending doesn't promise any solution. It's really life-like in that Cristina's search for happiness or meaning of life still goes on, while Vicky settles for her bourgeois marriage with Doug. Perhaps what Juan Antonio says is right: life hasn't got any meaning, so why not just enjoy it?

In a way, Vicky Cristina Barcelona involves the politics of place, as Barcelona is seen as changing the characters' mindsets and helping them towards self-discovery (a journey that by no means promises satisfaction). In Barcelona, New Yorkers learn to discover their desire (not unlike the Italians' journey to Turkey in Hamam or the Germans' trip to Italy in Death in Venice). Yet, one wonders whether Allen here dwells too much on stereotypes. But he's nonetheless successful in making this film a commercial for Spanish tourism.

Otto; Or, Up with Dead People

2008-09-28T00:17:00.003+07:00

Otto; Or, Up with Dead People was shown here last week as part of the Bangkok International Film Festival. Directed by Bruce Labruce, the film showcases a lost gay zombie. I found the whole film pretty touching as we are led not only to the awareness of the plight suffered by Otto, an exploited, beaten zombie, but also his confused mentality.

Of course, the influence of George A. Romero's films are more than patent as the politics of 'the living dead' is used to the full effect here too. We tend to think that gay people can't be zombies simply because they're marginalised and tend to be aware of their living conditions. Common sense seems to tell us that only the mainstream or the majority can be zombies because they take their mainstream values and beliefs for granted. Thus I have seen zombies loitering in shopping malls or sometimes I can even see three hundred zombies sitting in an exam room, slaving away for best grades. However, Bruce Labruce turns the table around and shows that gay people can be zombies too, especially in their attempt to create 'gay essence' and stick to it. Examples of gay essence would be effeminate mannerism, clubbing, sleeping around and becoming good at languages. Perhaps in this sense gay people and mainstream feminists are more suitable for zombie-making than their straight counterparts.

However, in Otto's case, being a zombie has a different rationale all together. He becomes a zombie, not because he follows what the gay route dictates, but more because he is used ironically to show how other people around him, though living, are even more zombie-like than him. By being a zombie, Otto reveals his human side: his confusion, his victimised state, his alienation, as well as his exploitation. I can't help but sympathising with Otto's own trauma as a psychopath-cum-pariah and admiring his positive outlook in the end, when he decides to go north as it can help keep his body from corruption. Like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, despite the evils and prejudices against the marginalised in the contemporary world, Otto remains strong (in a zombiesque way).

There are many layers in this film and Bruce Labruce also parodies himself in the process. There is also a film in the film, with Medea Yarn directing (and exploiting) Otto in her new film about gay zombie liberation. Medea Yarn and her partner Hella Bent believe in the power of the film and Medea herself uses theory jargon that at times becomes inscrutable. In addition, we also see the parody of the cult film, especially its emphasis on flesh, sex, and death. However, the politics of this film is not to transgress or to ask questions, but rather to make fun of the whole cult film industry which at times tries too hard to be serious and forget one of the foundations of film-making: pleasure.

Persepolis

2008-09-20T23:59:00.004+07:00

It's not that surprising to know that Persepolis has been such a success in the Western hemisphere. Western people adore this coming-of-age tale of an Iranian woman who escapes the ruthless regime of her country to the free world of France. The whole film can be used as a propaganda and an excuse for the West to invade the Middle East, as it shows how living in Iran means you're always under the State's surveillance.

Of course, I don't deny that it can be such a gruesome experience where freedom is limited and moral collectivism is at an all-time high. The sense of morality, though, is portrayed as insincere and at best an excuse for bribery or tea money for those who have power, especially the police. Compared to Iran, Europe is much better as a place where one can enjoy freedom and choice. Marjane roams around Vienna wearing pretty revealing clothes and chain-smoking, understandably a reactionary result of the oppressive time in her motherland.

Yet, one shouldn't treat the whole story as representative of women's experience in Iran, even though one is tempted to do so. Part of the reason is that Marjane's is an individual case which probably differs from the majority. If I'm not mistaken, I believe Marjane's family is pretty posh, revelling in their bourgeois condition. They seem to be well-absorbed in Western ideology, especially when we look at the character of her grandma who wears pearls and is more like a philosopher than an old lady. It makes me wonder how many old ladies in Iran are like Marjane's grandma. Are we touching on a highly rare case here?

The film itself says that the majority of Iranian people were illiterate, thereby voting for a Muslim nationalist party to take control after the Shah's reign. Marjane's family resented this, wishing that the communist party should really have taken control. However, I wonder if that really had happened, what'd happen to Iran now? Would it be even more oppressive? In this case, we find that Marjane's family was pretty intellectual and should by no means be taken as representative of Iranian culture. Her family is traced back to the Shah of Persia at one point and she was sent to study in Europe at high school. I wonder how many Iranian women would receive this privilege.

Perhaps at best we should treat this work as an autobiography which reflects Marjane's own singular experience. This experience, however, should not be exploited and universalised as Iranian women's, even though this tendency is tempting as the film and the book have been marketed as an ethnic-related story that tells the story of the whole tribe. I think this type of marketing is dangerous and misleading. In this case, I'd like to hear more from those working-class women. Perhaps they'd like to remain a devout Muslim and perhaps even view a woman like Marjane with contempt.

My opinion of this work is that I wish it could be less one-sided. It'd be better to consider this story from another point of view with a different set of rationales all together. In this story, we only see the Iranian State as the axis of evil while Europe is the axis of light. These rather facile stereotypes are in line with the two-dimensional graphic, which admittedly is well-crafted and charismatic in its own way. Perhaps it'd be a good idea to look for a second witness.

After Dark ราตรีมหัศจรรย์

2008-09-14T14:45:00.005+07:00

After Dark has just been translated into Thai and I didn't hesitate to buy it upon first seeing. Of course, you may accuse me of getting lazy to read the work in its English translation. But my rationale is that even the English edition is the translated one. So why bother?

Like Wong Kar Wai, Haruki Murakami has done a great job in making us believe that being lonely is cool, as well as listening to jazz and smoking in public places, coffee shops especially. In After Dark, Murakami revisits his signature themes, such as urban angst, loneliness, and alienation. Characters in this sleek novel loiter in the dark world of an anonymous city (probably none other than Tokyo). They are probably the Japanese version of those in Thailand who belong to the so-called Sleepless Society clan, engineered by the mastermind named Narongvit.

All the main characters are lost in some way or another in the big city, not knowing what they want or why they live. Mari likes to read a novel in a cafe at night-time; Takahashi likes to play his trombone in a secret place underneath a building. Then, due to the weird twist and turn of events, Mari needs to be an ad-hoc translator for a Chinese prostitute who has been maltreated by an unsatisfied businessman at a seedy hotel called Alphaville. But the irony is Mari never feels estranged at this hotel, even wishing to return there to talk to people at work there. Of course, she's more comfortable talking to strangers than to those she "knows well".

Some might say that this novel represents another optimistic turn in Murakami's career, when he sees some hope in this city life, when Mari manages to learn about love and care in one single night as she eventually returns home to help bring her sister Eri back from an existential slumber.

However, I choose to look another way. I'm more interested in violence in this novel. The guy who brutally beats up the Chinese prostitute turns out to be a simple guy, someone really normal who works in an unknown office somewhere in the city. His plainness is somewhat errie, as it means that we city-dwellers are prone to commit such an act of violence. Life in the city has somehow bestowed pressure upon us, whether we realise it or not. And this violence is infectious, spreading like a plague. For those who wish to survive in this urban arena, you must either be an alpha-male slaving away during the day time and becoming a sadistic evil at night, or you must retreat from the whole thing, sleeping yourself away like Eri in a condition of social withdrawal called hikikomori.

One of the scenes I like is the Chinese prostitute's mobile phone, which is left by the businessman at a 7-Eleven, to be found later by Takahashi and a sales assistant. Threatening messages from a Chinese gangster are heard by these Japanese characters. By such a symbolic gesture, violence is committed across time, space, and even language, to those who are not directly involved in the original act. But then can we really say that they are completely absolved from the crime? In this cityspace of intertwining, net-like human relations, we are all connected in some way or another. Without knowing, I by listening to the music of Pink Martini today may contribute to the genocide in a far-away country tomorrow.

Perhaps what Murakami is saying is that it's difficult, if not impossible, to avoid an act of violence (either us being victimised, or on the contrary us hurting other people) in the city where the relationships among city-dwellers are both complex and ultra-sensitive. To live (or to just survive) therefore means simply to acknowledge this and to help each other go through. But then where's the destination? No destination but really just another site of darkness perhaps.

Brazil

2008-08-31T09:34:00.006+07:00

Directed by Terry Gilliam, Brazil is a touching film for those (me included) who are swamped with paperwork and lost in the administrative labyrinth. Had I watched this film five years ago when I didn't start my career, I wouldn't have understood it or sympathised with Sam Lowry, the protagonist who works in the Ministry of Information.

The plot is simple: Sam is a normal office worker, soullessly slaving away under the dominion of Mr Kurtzmann. Until the day he meets Jill, the woman that has appeared in his dreams, he falls in love and decides to escape his dreary world of officialdom. Of course, things are not easy because everything that happens is recorded and monitored by the authorities. Those who decide not to conform to the State's stringent rules and regulations will be 'deactivated' and vanish without traces.

From this perspective, Brazil may be regarded as a Kafkaesque prototype of such dystopian films as The Matrix and Minority Report, in which people are trapped and closely monitored by the State through technological advances. Looking back, I think Brazil can easily be compared to such films as Blade Runner, which similarly portrays a futuristic world that is both unlivable and soulless. The tone however is different: while Ridley Scott's Blade Runner touches upon this dystopian world through a rather serious and poetical viewpoint, Gilliam's Brazil chooses dark humour and satire (something quite British, I guess).

There're quite a few memorable scenes, including one in which Sam is ushered into his new windowless office partitioned in half by a thick wall. He even needs to share the desk. The reason I find this amusing (and sad at the same time) is simply because it resembles my office, which is similarly divided into two by bookcases. Another scene is the beginning when a bug is hit and falls into a machine, producing a printing error that leads to a series of mistakes and the unnecessary death of a wrongly accused man. This is rather chilling: it not only shows how we depend so much on machines, but also how chance works its way into this apparently foolproof system. No matter how much we try to systematise and regulate our world, things are bound to go not according to plan.

The ending, which I'm not going to reveal, is also very touching and worth waiting for.

My Blueberry Nights

2008-08-23T23:43:00.005+07:00

Wong Kar Wai never changes. His is the spirit of a loner, a city-dweller who loves aestheticising his own alienation. Non-smokers may start to smoke after watching his films.

My Blueberry Nights is his first feature-length film that speaks English. I couldn't help but recall those days of yore when I first watched Chunking Express and Fallen Angel (lent to me by Celine herself). These two films became the first in the series of eye-openers that have completely changed my viewing experience. Before this, I had thought that watching films was all about trying to grasp what's going on. But Wong Kar Wai's films were so emotional that sometimes grasping what it meant was not the point; getting the feeling right was perhaps more of what he aimed at.

That's why I rather treat My Blueberry Nights as another confectionary, an object that appeals to the senses rather than to the critical faculty. Compared to a type of dessert, what else could it be but a blueberry pie, a savoury pastry that is shunned by the majority of people (who would of course go for chocolate cake or apple crumbles) but is a precious item for the marginalised, myself included. I don't know why I love blueberries but I like the colour and its sour yet sweet taste, especially when the berries themselves ooze their dark aromatic juice. This film is like blueberries and I just like it for the sake of its appeal to my senses. If you use reason, you probably wouldn't enjoy this film. You are bounded to have the following questions. How come Norah Jones (as Elizabeth in the film) is so naive? Can you still find such an innocent girl in New York? Haven't all New Yorkers been transformed into cynical senseless automatons? Why has Jude Law (as Jeremy) been so loyal to her waiting for her for almost a year? Can you still find such a nice man in New York? These questions are just starters. Some people out there will have more queries, I guess.

The thing is, you need to relax when watching this film and just get the pure emotions. Relish it. All the better if you smoke and have a glass of wine while watching it. Not because having lung and liver cancer is fashionable, but because watching the smoke linger and enjoying a glass of wine makes you ponder as things around you are becoming slower. If you follow these instructions, things start to make sense.

However, it still doesn't mean that I really enjoy this film and give it a thump-up. Not really. I don't mind it being stylised but I do mind when it gets too cheesy. Like when Lessie's father dies in hospital waiting for the stray daughter to return. But some scenes do bring about powerful emotions, like Lessie's loneliness and Arnie's acceptance of his failure. But in my opinion, what somehow mars these is arguably the acting. Of course I think they're all great actors, especially David Strathairn starring Arnie. But wouldn't it be better if the acting had been a bit more understated? That's perhaps what makes this film differ from Kar Wai's other films, such as Chunking Express and In the Mood for Love, in which characters reveal less emotion and more weird, eccentric action that functions as key symbols. Of course, symbols abound in this film too, such as the collection of keys, Elizabeth's wish to buy a car, and the blueberry pie.

The ending makes me think though: isn't Elizabeth such a cunning slut, pretending to be asleep so that Jeremy can kiss her at the end? Perhaps travelling turns her into a sophisticated girl in the end, making her realise that men are indeed important and it's infinitely better to die as a wife rather than as a single spinster.

Wall-E

2008-08-16T22:09:00.005+07:00

We went to see Wall-E this evening. I didn't know anything much about the film, but the company name Pixar would naturally guarantee its quality. Of course, I wasn't disappointed and was even able to sympathise with both robots in the film -- Wall-E and Eve. Perhaps ironically if the characters had been real people I wouldn't have been able to do so. Perhaps I've simply lost faith in humanity.

The message of this film would probably please Al Gore, as it aims to criticise all of us (even Al Gore) who can't stop consuming and eventually making the world an ugly big junk heap. I couldn't help but feel depressed after watching the film even though there's some sort of hope at the end of the film when people are willing to give it another try, i.e. to make the world a better place.

But isn't this self-contradictory? To live is to consume, I believe. And as long as we breathe, we eat, drink, be merry, and produce rubbish. Perhaps the world will actually fare better without us. In this line of thought, the ending is not perhaps as optimistic as it may seem. Of course, humans will start rebuilding their civilisation, but we have seen the downside of civilisation -- rubbish and more rubbish.

I'll attempt another reading of the film. I believe what the Auto decides is right -- to abort the world and thus force people to remain on board in permanent exile in space. But this is not because the world has become unlivable, but because if we return we just do more damage to the world. Towards the end, you can see that plants do grow on earth without any help from us. The world has already begun the process of self-healing and it's us once again who return to destroy it.

What right do we have to claim that the earth is our home? What right does the captain have when he says that he wishes to return home? As long as we continue to think in this anthropocentric vein, the earth will continue to suffer.

The Dark Knight

2008-08-16T13:19:00.003+07:00

I know some blog readers might've thought I've completely vanished from the Blog world. The belief is, I must say, not totally unfounded as I haven't updated my blog for more than a month. Some might've thought that after reading a self-help book like Compass of Life, Dechito would've been brought back to sanity and started living as a monk, filling his time with meditation and religious chanting. Well, sometimes cynicism dies hard, even though there're a lot of films and books nowadays that elicit a need to believe, to have faith in mankind, not to give up hope that mankind is essentially virtuous and capable of positive sensibilities.

Yes, I'm talking about The Dark Knight. I know there're a lot of people out there who love it and begin seriously thinking about putting it in the list of the top ten best films of all time. I like the film too, especially the Joker, who is just so indifferent to social order. For me, he's more 'amoral' than 'immoral', especially in the sense that his anarchy makes us acknowledge the imaginary foundation of our ethical system, i.e. that our belief in what is right and wrong is just our own imagination. Like Iago in Shakespeare's Othello, the Joker makes us realise that our ethics doesn't exist prior to the birth of mankind, but 'after' our society begins to take root. For some reason, this reminds me of Nietzsche's philosophy.

That's perhaps why people are so scared of the Joker, not only because of his appearance, but mainly because his presence reminds us of something even starker. We can find no determinate cause for his evil making. Even his stories vary. Perhaps, the Joker might like to remind us, we're not decent animals after all; we just want to believe that we're a far superior race, but in fact we're simply not. The case of Harvey Dent as a man losing faith in humanity even drives us further into the abyss of pessimism and hopelessness. One couldn't help but feel sorry for this guy, but alas it's even more terrible to learn that there're a lot more people out there in the real world facing the similar crisis of faith.

That's why we need the Batman. He's a confirmation that we as a race are capable of unconditional sacrifice and virtuous acts. In the modern day when people tend to do something out of their interest, unconditionality becomes a marker of good and the Batman's role at the end to shoulder the responsibility somehow gives us hope. This film perhaps heralds a significant shift in our Zeitgeist -- we can no longer be cynical and indifferent towards everything around us, we need to act and hold on to our ethics 'even though' we know that it's all imaginary. (But of course when we come to seriously think about it, the Batman is so terribly rich he could afford to be good. Is it possible that good acts are reserved to rich people only?)

This doesn't mean that I agree with this ending. I couldn't help but be embarrassed when Commissioner Gordon extolls the Batman at the end, saying to his son that the Batman is an outsider, destined to live in the dark, blah blah blah, ending with the words 'he's the dark knight'. I almost fell off my seat. It's such a shame, with an ending as cheesy as that.

The other thing that I feel could be improved is the role of the betrayers. When it turns out that it's Detective Anna Ramirez who betrays everyone's trust, I couldn't help but wonder who she is. Her role is too marginal in the film and this twist really needs someone more significant. I think if the betrayer had been Commissioner Gordon himself, it would've been much better in terms of suspense and surprise. (Of course, LA Confidential is a very good example of this kind of twist.)

Well, the film does raise a lot of interesting questions. Like The Mist, it's not just a Hollywood blockbuster, it's also a philosophical tract rewriting what such philosophers as Kant and Nietzsche pondered and wrote long time ago.

Compass of Life เข็มทิศชีวิต

2008-07-12T12:00:00.005+07:00

It's probably not too far-fetched to claim that The Compass of Life, a self-help guide by Thitinart na Pattalung, is a big phenomenon in Thailand. The version that I possess is a copy from its fifty-fourth printing, with other roughly half a million copies currently spreading on the surface of Thailand and other parts of this planet. The reasons I bought this book vary: (1) I wanted to know what the fuss was all about; (2) I saw it's on sale (more than 50% reduction) at my local 7-11; and (3) I was bored.

Reading the book was a pleasure but still didn't give me any clues why it's distinctively so popular, whilst there are tonnes of other self-help guides on sale too. It took me a couple of weeks to ponder on the issue (as long as my free time allowed) and I've finally come up with some conclusions.

(1) The marketing. Even though it claims to be a self-help guide that uses Buddhist teachings, we don't see any pictures of Lord Buddha or amulets in this book. In their place, we find minimalist, yet stylish, illustrations by a hiso woman. This strategy probably appeals to those who are atheists or those who think that straightforward Buddhism is not cool. However, Buddhist teachings are anything but absent in this book. There are quite a few parables that show how our desirous mind is perhaps the cause of all our suffering; this is one of the main tenets of Buddhism.

(2) Preface. Famous celebs, such as Marsha and Udom Tae-Panich, wrote prefaces to this book. Normally you wouldn't imagine them in the prefaces of any self-help. Apart from these famous celebs, you have the big names, including those of Dr Prawes Wasi and Khunying Chamnongsri, to endorse the quality of this book. The mix-and-match of these big names and those of the celebs is ultra-chic for contemporary middle-class people who want glamour as well as intellect. Ergo: possessing this book means they are both glamourous and intellectual at the same time. What more do you want?

Also, needless to say, the author herself once was a hiso. Look at her surname. She may now still be a hiso, if we take a look at how many books actually have been sold.

(3) The content. Of course, in the age where the rise in oil prices happens almost everyday, people are bound to suffer, especially those who don't need to drive but need to keep up their appearance. These people suffer more, partly because they know that they don't need to drive to go to work or to uni. This rise can be compared to a slap at their middle-class cheek, to make them acknowledge that they are living on the surface, on the need to have others acknowledge their materialist credibility.

This book caters for such middle-class people whose immanent threats are not immediate or urgent. Their problems may concern debts arising from their wish to live in a good neighbourhood, even though they could've bought a cheaper home. Another threat is perhaps they just want to imitate the lifestyle of those four women in Sex and the City but couldn't earn enough to pay for it. All these problems may perhaps be accounted for by the middle-class veneration of the exchange value, rather than the use value, of everyday items. Sorry to sound like Marx, but I believe that it's time for us to stop and have a serious look at how we, as part of the ever-bigger always-expanding group of the middle-class, lead our life. Or to use Baudrillard's terms, perhaps we are now surrounded by hyperreal images projected to us through mass media and these images (or simulacra) in turn instigate our desire and appetite. (It's thus my belief that all those working in marketing or advertising should be shot or at least sent down South to help the police. Perhaps they need to see what 'real' life is like.)

From this perspective, perhaps The Compass of Life is famous because it emerges at the opportune time when we no longer know who we are anymore, no longer know what we want anymore, simply because mass media and society dictate our life to the extent that we can't just live, but need some navigational instruments to guide us.

Teeth

2008-07-06T16:17:00.003+07:00

Teeth, a film by Mitchell Lichtenstein, was fun to watch, as it is based on the imaginary plot of one interesting what-if. What if a girl has a vagina dentata (toothed vagina)? The film manages to show how teenagers nowadays are surrounded by temptations, both through peer pressure and mass media, to be sexually active before marriage.

Dawn, a female protagonist, tries to steer her life through this modern-day labyrinth of corporeal desire and materialist society, in which premarital sex is getting increasingly commonplace. She tries to stick to her belief that virginity should be kept until marriage (this sounds like Ronan Keating of Boyzone). However, it is not until she meets a series of men like Tobey and Bill that she realises that her promise is hard to keep and that men around her are just a bunch of desiring machines who know what abstinence means but never bothers to seriously practise it.

After such encounters with wrong men, Dawn starts to realise her mutated private part and gradually learns to acknowledge its potential power to punish men. All in all, it's a very good film that sheds light on how the vagina dentata can be used as a tool to perpetrate poetic justice.

However, when one dwells on something below the surface, I think the director plays upon the characterisation that is too facile. Men are always hunters and women are always preys. In the real world, one wonders whether such a disparity on that terms can be seriously held true. One such scene is when a male doctor probes into Dawn's vagina. Of course, a message is got across of how this doctor can make use of such a situation to fulfill his own sexual fantasy under the disguise of science, but one also wonders why Dawn does not particularly choose a female doctor to handle her case.

In fact, when one comes to think seriously about it, the myth of vagina dentata is mainly created by men because they are afraid of women, especially their dark cavern where men's vital force (semen) vanishes. This film is perhaps then directed by a man to men rather than to women. If the vagina dentata is just a myth, it still means that men are still safe and their conjured fear is unfounded. Moreover, their fear of the female private part is no longer just an anthropological and psychoanalytical truth, it can also milk money. When viewed in this light, women are still exploited paradoxically through their empowerment.

Queens | Reinas

2008-06-15T00:36:00.005+07:00

Directed by Manuel Gomez Pereira, Queens is a feel-good film perfect for a Saturday afternoon. Some may be put off by its rather banal plot of homosexual couples being discriminated by their own families, but the film manages to add some spices into this seemingly overused plot. Sticking with the Spanish tradition of romance, Queens showcases the confusing, yet humane relationships centering on three gay couples who are to wed on the same day, the first day that homosexual relationships are officially legalised.

What I like about this film is that it doesn't linger on how gay couples survive through discrimination and hatred, but how their families, especially their mothers, learn to cope with their sons' sexuality and become supportive in the increasingly liberal social atmosphere. What is beautiful in this film is that it's life-affirming and so self-reflexively melodramatic (something which can be aesthetically done in films from Spanish-speaking countries where the strong, direct expression of passion is natural). Somehow through the sentimental lens mainly reserved for soap opera, it manages to portray how parental prejudices are indeed still present and difficult to eradicate, but also manages to show how they can be overcome or at least lessened through acknowledgement of love. I know it's another cliche. But believe me they know how to make it fresh and witty.

The main plot of homosexual relationships is just the tip of the iceberg. Other themes touched on in this film include class difference, political manipulation, the status of Latin Americans in Spain, and business-love complications. The overcoming of sexual barriers leads the characters to reflect on other imaginary borders set up through prejudices and of course realise the possibility to overcome these too.

The ending of this film offers something significant too. Watching it makes me realise that after all we're just a bunch of humans with desire and longing. We need to struggle (i.e. to live) to prove that we're still alive and to make us forget our unavoidable death. This is so Spanish!

The Happening

2008-06-12T21:45:00.005+07:00

Sorry. Can't talk about M. Night Shyamalan's film without spoiling it. Those who haven't watched it please beware. I've warned you ...

A new film directed by Shyamalan, The Happening just can't be compared to The Sixth Sense. It's an apocalyptic film about a new plague that makes people lose their will to live and attempt to kill themselves. However, after the film finishes I'm sure a lot of the audience will still feel that they probably need more information about the plague. It's not clear what causes it and why it lasts for just a day ... Of course, explicative attempts have been made by way of dialogues and news clips, but they just don't add up. We feel like there should be more to it than just some plants oozing some toxic gas.

Another point that needs mending is the cheesy love story between Elliot and Alma. I just don't see that they have any chemistry together. Their relationship suffers because of Alma's character. She's a bit weird with her glaring eyes and rather eccentric personality, while we're not given enough details how Elliot is seen as irresponsible. For me, he's quite a nice guy throughout but it's her that needs mending. The fact that the plague stops when both of them decide to come out from their hiding place is just too cheesy and embarrassing. I just can't believe that this can still happen right now in the twenty-first century when coincidences and happy cheesy endings only happen in those films that set out to be cheesy and shamelessly romantic. The Happening doesn't set out to be like that and I couldn't help but feel disappointed.

In comparison, The Mist is far better both in its deployment of mystery and in its political message concerning the existential condition of humankind and the fear of the unknown. What is the message of The Happening? Sometimes nature works wonder and sometimes it may make you want to commit suicide. Or it's we who have destroyed nature and it's her turn to destroy us. Well, have we heard this a million times already? But Shyamalan's means to get this message across still needs mending.

Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture

2008-06-12T14:50:00.003+07:00

It's been a while since I had time to sit down and read a good novel. I still don't have time but I recently managed to 'create' some time to read Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture by fine Greek writer Apostolos Doxiadis. It's been sitting on one of my bookshelves for a long long time. I picked it up the other day just on my way to the toilet, hoping to just cast a quick glance through it. But the book turned out to be great fun and 'unputdownable'. The experience of reading it reminded me of the old days when I could simply sit down and read piles of books I liked. Alas, those good times were not destined to return.

The novel centres around Uncle Petros, a math genius, and his nephew, who tries to pry into Uncle Petros's eccentric personality and learn a lot from it. Uncle Petros spends (or rather squanders) all his life trying to find the proof of Goldbach's conjecture that 'every even number greater than 2 is the sum of two primes'. Needless to say, I'm not good at maths but I really enjoy seeing how a person can be passionate about one thing and put his whole life at stake. Compared to Uncle Petros's dedication, I can't help but realise my own cowardice, afraid to take a big plunge to do what I really like. Perhaps what's even worse is that I don't really know what I like ...

The writer is also a mathematician of his own right and was admitted to Columbia University since he was fifteen years old. It's great to hear from these 'beautiful minds' whose stories don't necessarily involve just passion and success. On the contrary, there are also a series of frustrated attempts and failures along the way. Yet, what distinguishes these men from others is not just how they cope with their heavenly gift but how they cope with their deterioration and downfall since they can't simply retain that gift forever. Some can steer through with dignity while others simply can't acknowledge it at all.

Sex and the City

2008-06-07T19:11:00.006+07:00

Carrie and the gang are back again, this time in the cinema! When I heard the news for the first time, I was jubilated. Do I need to tell you I've been a die-hard fan of Sex and the City since it came out in its TV series avatar like a decade ago? At that time it provoked a lot of debate and criticism, as the show was one of the first which dealt with the subject of sexuality quite frankly. It was fun watching these four women in their early thirties talking about good and bad sex.

Ten years later, SATC made it into a bigger screen and for some reason I just don't think they have that fizz anymore. I mean, it's still a fine movie with great dialogue, but the audience who have seen all six series would love to see some surprises. However, there're not a lot of 'great surprises' that make you ponder deep into the issues of sexuality and relationship, but somehow the film is just an extension of an average episode. I know there'll be SATC fanclubs out there that will stone me to death but I need to say it: the film doesn't go anyway and it seems that it just comes in circle. Love, breaking up, making up, and friendship. Perhaps these are all life is. Perhaps I'm expecting too much.

Perhaps, when I come to seriously think about it, is it possible that all the six episodes have pretty much covered everything? Perhaps making this film is not a good decision, as the ending of these series is already perfect? That's why the ending of the film exactly corresponds with that of the last series, with Big and Carrie finally made it in a fairy-tale style. Would've it been better if they, let's say, become more adventurous, like making Carrie face an early menopause or having Samantha really die of cancer? These twists would be realistic in their own right and would provide the director and his whole team a lot of ground to explore. But perhaps, true to its own style, SATC may want to remain what it is, a contemporary fairy tale with a glaze of sex and fashion.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull

2008-06-07T18:40:00.004+07:00

How many people out there would (care to) know that the real name of Indiana Jones is actually Dr Henry Walton Jones, Jr? I just knew about it when I was collecting some information before writing this entry. I saw the latest of the Indiana Jones series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull, a while ago, but due to an enormous amount of paperwork and other stuff that I wouldn't care to mention I didn't have time to write anything about it until today.

I'm sure it's a film that people have been waiting for and along with this wait have gathered a significant amount of expectation. Director Steven Spielberg did a great job in providing us with a fun-filled flick but I regret to say that it's just that. If you don't expect too much, I'm sure you'll come out of the cinema feeling you've had a great time. But if you expect something like a parody or a political revision of the film's ideology, you'll be sadly disappointed. Spielberg is great in making an irony-free epic film which aims for a tear-jerking or jingoistic effect. But when it comes to a rather I'd say 'ironical' film, I have yet to see his masterpiece. I guess that's because Spielberg belonged to an earlier era when people are less cynical and more (I'm at a loss for a word here) ... 'faithful'.

For the modern crowd with no faith but a hell lot of cynicism, his film fails to reach their expectation. Sad to say, I'm one of this crowd and I expect Spielberg to at least question what's going on without saying in the film. The film is still very patriotic and unashamedly makes manifest the discrimination against the Eastern bloc, epitomised in Cate Blanchett's odd character and parodied accent. I know the director would have justified that it was the Zeitgeist at the time when the Eastern bloc was the arch enemy. But we're now in the twentieth-first century and have come a long way from that! The thing is ... you can still make a good retro film but you don't need to sport the outdated ideology. To play fair, Spielberg could have at least shown how Indiana Jones himself was equally an intruder into the sacred realm of the 'exoticised' natives. Yet, the whole film still glorifies the old man and death become the whole lot of the natives and people from the Eastern bloc.

I couldn't help but wonder why Spielberg has invested so much in this Indiana Jones character. Is it possible that he sees himself in this character? Is it possible that if Indiana Jones still thrives despite his old age, it also means that the director himself can likewise triumph amidst new directors who are good at doing irony? Perhaps we're touching on something very delicate here.

Pink Flamingos

2008-05-17T18:01:00.004+07:00

I just don't know what's got into me lately. My choice of films is increasingly more transgressive. Perhaps it's a male monopause. Perhaps it's stress from work. Perhaps I overworked. Perhaps I'm bored of films that show the problems and complexity of middle-class people or those experimental films that want to appear more clever than they actually are. So yesterday I picked up John Waters' Pink Flamingos and it proved to be one of the most enjoyable films I've seen this year.

Of course I'm sure a lot of people who have heard of the film will probably think that I've gone out of my mind, choosing to watch this epitome of trash (which of of course has been banned in many countries) rather than a complex French film full of complex symbols, deep emotional subtlety, and multilayered plotlines. Somehow Pink Flamingos with its simple plot and the incredibly flat yet grotesque characterisation of Divine, Crackers, and the Marbles, turns out to be a breeze of fresh (well, quite stinking actually) air. It's purely irreverent and angry, and its prime target is (like Funny Games in my previous blog entry) the middle class. I really like the scene when Divine and her "son" go into the house of the Marbles and lick everything to put the curse on them. Of course a lot of people will certainly think this is bad taste. But it's precisely what John Waters sets out to do: to transgress what the bourgeois deems proper. If their identity project is to create a clean, proper human, Divine and her clans are simply the opposite, as they want to be 'the filthiest people in the world'. Her politics is simple: 'Kill everyone now. Condone first-degree murder. Advocate cannibalism. Eat shit.'

Of course, needless to say, this is not my personal politics. But this film is perhaps a good index of how middle-class lifestyle has entrapped people, becoming more like a norm that imprisons the public. Pink Flamingos in this case can be considered a carnivalesque play that enacts an imaginary, yet wistful scenario.

However, there's one scene that I don't like. It's the scene when Crackers and Cookie have sex and a couple of hens die in the process. Despite my liberal outlook, I personally don't condone violence, especially when it's done to people or animals who are unaware of what's going on. This is the same argument I would use in paedophilia and domestic violence, when the victims are underaged children who are not aware of what this might have damaged their mentality in the long run.

Funny Games

2008-05-10T15:46:00.005+07:00

Are you bored of those slasher films in which annoying teenagers are victims like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer? Do you want to see 'normal' middle-class people being killed instead, not because they are loud and talk like American kids, but simply because they are just normal they should deserve to die? If you like this idea, I recommend you watch Funny Games. Directed by Michael Haneke in 1997, the film addresses the issues of bourgeois complacency and fragility -- complacency because they think that everybody should be like them, fragility because it's in fact so hard and difficult to uphold that facade of bourgeois perfection without realising that it's all just a game. Haneke did a perfect job in turning the whole thing around and surely making viewers feel ill at ease about their own bourgeois conditions.

The premise is simple: one family goes to their second home during a holiday and lets two guests in their house out of pure bourgeois courtesy. They are, however, unaware that these guests will invade their territories and play a series of violent games that lead to a tragedy. The invasion of these guests is significant: they are not robbers wanting to steal their money, but are purely there to take revenge on this family, simply because they are perfectly middle-class and seem to fit in so well with social rules. In fact, they are what the ideal family should be like: two loving parents, one pleasant boy, and a lovely dog. They seem to be well-off enough to have a second home and arrange to play golf with their neighbours. It's this complacent condition that is perhaps oppressive, especially as it sets a rule for other people who are 'different' to follow suit. Perhaps it's this reason why they should die ...

What is interesting about this film is that Haneke seems to be reticent in giving details of this family (who are they, what work does the father do, etc.) and the two guests. We don't know where they're from and what they say in the film should be taken with a pinch of salt. I guess these two guests function somehow like 'avenging angels' in the modern era who control our fate and serve as perpetrators of poetic justice. But what's chilling about all this violence is that the middle-class family deserves to be punished simply because they exist. The moral of this story is perhaps this: don't be too perfect because you just make people around you jealous and uncomfortable (as you set the rule where other people need to follow). Poetic justice has changed: it's not being good or evil in the traditional sense that counts, but being too perfect and becoming a stepford family are perhaps the evils of the twenty-first century.

The film uses surreal techniques at times (such as the actual rewinding to undo an event and the asides by one of the guests) to let us know that it's highly ironical and self-reflexive and this elevates the status of the two guests as 'God' or 'the director'. In this way, Funny Games is aware of its own status as a film and the audience is exposed as a group of conniving participant-cum-voyeurs, with whom one of the two guests occasionally talk. Of course it can't be denied that most of the viewers are quite likely to be middle-class and this film will function like a slap in the cheek of the audience themselves. Perhaps, when I come to think about it thoroughly, the whole film is one of Haneke's own funny games.

Madeinusa

2008-05-05T10:14:00.007+07:00

Madeinusa is an interesting film from the Latin American continent that touches on native Peruvian Indians. When I say 'interesting' I mean that it chooses to portray the natives from a different vantage point: it does not show how these people are oppressed by the State but how they as well can be corrupt and fall prey to their own desire.

Madeinusa is a name of our female protagonist who grows up in Manayaycuna, a small town that is not even on the map. However, what perhaps distinguishes this film from other films of overt political nature is its choice to portray the village not as an idyllic place, but a rather underdeveloped space where the mayor manages to have his own daughter elected the Virgin in the annual Easter procession and where Christianity has made an indelible mark at its most superficial. We are led to believe that perhaps these Indians in the Andes do not really understand the true message of Christianity but practise it as a kind of superstition. In the film we see these interesting rituals and processions, such as Jesus being blinded, symbolising his temporary death, and Madeinusa herself dressed as the Virgin.

Perhaps this is why the director Claudia Llosa is under attack from various fronts, especially those who disagree with her biased representation of the Indian natives. But this criticism should not blind you to the film's merits, especially if we try not to see these people as oppressed Indian natives but as a human. They are victims of their own desire and this victimised state is clearly put on show during the carnivalesque three-day Festival where there is no sin as Jesus is dead. We see the corrupt Mayor who tries to rape her own daughter and the daughter herself, who is clearly desirous of leaving this small oppressive town and can't help but feeling excited when there's a man from Lima who happens to get in her way.

Taking this perspective, I think the dimension that the director chooses to tackle these village people is not only racial, but sexual and social. Madeinusa is not oppressed solely because she is a native Indian, but also because she is a female and because she is a daughter. Also worth pondering is that her desire to flee the village is perhaps 'made in USA', the country which supports the ideologies of freedom and individuality. The complexity of this representation is perhaps why we should consider that the film's merit actually outweight its criticism.

4 Bia สี่แพร่ง

2008-04-29T23:52:00.005+07:00

Hey, do I need to tell you that there are some spoilers? But I know you want to read it anyway.

A horror film from GTH, also the producer of the critically acclaimed Shutter, 4 Bia (in my opinion quite an awkward pun on phobia) or 4 Praeng ('an intersection' in Thai) is fun to watch. There are four mini-stories that are barely connected, probably a good sign that we nowadays are beginning to suffer from short concentration span. A long, epic film is probably too tedious and we are too lazy to follow all the action and details. These mini-stories are better, like mini-cornettos or mini-kitkat, in that they are not too formidable but cute and approachable.

I am one of those 'mini' fans, preferring of late to watch The Simpsons or CSI rather than an epic film. 4 Praeng is also enjoyable in this sense too. I think that horror films should not be too long that the audience (who nowadays are very hard to please and become increasingly sophisticated and senile at the same time) start to get bored. However, 4 Praeng is still conventional in the sense that it uses ghosts to teach moral, and at times not even a good, acceptable one.

Let me transform myself into a feminist (something quite hard to imagine!) to give examples. In the first story centering around a young woman who is confined in her cramped apartment room socialising with an unknown man through text messages. She is killed at the end, presumably because that man is already dead and finally comes to take her to live with him in a ghost world. What has she done wrong? Perhaps the moral is: don't be a slut because you may be killed by an unknown man (who happens to be handsome). Also, another moral is: don't break a man's heart, because he can take his own life and become very vengeful. Pretending to be a feminist, I couldn't help but find this short film really misogynistic, as it functions as a didactic lesson for all women out there not to be a slut. But what's wrong with that? Women also have desire and living in such a bleak urban space one is bound to desire to have a friend of the opposite gender. Why don't you punish men who are real hunters out there?

This is exactly the point that leads to gender bias in the last short film, Flight 224, in which an air hostess is asked to take care of the corpse of a princess who has earlier died from food poisoning. It turns out that the air hostess has been seeing the princess's husband and the princess becomes a ghost who tries every means possible to scare the air hostess shitless. What I find about this film is that, despite its powerful suspense, the real culprit is not brought to justice. Yes, I'm talking about the prince, who is probably seeing another woman by now. Sadly I think the princess is punishing the wrong person, who turns out to be a victim just like her.

Women are also victims in the second short film too. One of them is presumably punished because she is a slut who kisses a friend in a library. Another is dead simply because she refuses to help or do anything. But the real victim is a young abused boy who is also killed simply because he seeks supernatural help. I couldn't help but wonder what's the message of this. Does this victimized boy deserve to be killed too? Perhaps long gone are old traditional horror films where evil people are punished and good people are rewarded. In their place is a new streak of horror films where everyone dies! For what sake? Or simply for the sake of its pure spectacles of violence?

The moral of this story is: do not fall into the role of a victim or a victimiser. Just run away from them all! But doesn't it also mean that we in contemporary Thai society should just avoid 'action' or refuse to join any political event because once you let your voice be heard, you take sides. And taking sides can be very dangerous ...

Another moral: violence sells.

Let me finish this review with the third story, which involves four young men camping in a forest. Perhaps for me it's the allegory of all four male directors who have done a great job in delivering good horror films that keep the audience in suspense all through (though I don't quite like the CG in some places). But does this third story also signal that these directors may not fully realise the deeper layers of the messages they convey that effectively serve the mainstream ideologies in both sexual and political dimensions. Perhaps what they have done unwittingly is carrying on the legacies of political inactivism and ruthless patriarchy through the disguise of pure violence.

I Don't Want to Sleep Alone เปลือยหัวใจเหงา

2008-04-20T14:15:00.007+07:00

Another poetical film by Tsai Ming-Liang, I Don't Want to Sleep Alone touches on the issues of sexuality, desire, and loneliness in a Malaysian cityscape. Homosexuality features in the film as well, but only as a form of desire caused by loneliness. The three main characters, Hsiao-Kang, Rawang, and Chyi, are labour immigrants whose lives are limited in loitering in a loveless city or liminal spaces where they're allowed to live. In this sense, the film offers a sharp critique of how the authorities deal with the problem of immigration that may be in conflict with the issue of human rights.

But I think that the target of the film is also more general than that. City living, which makes people become strangers to one another, may perhaps be a reason why these people feel so alienated and lonely. I Don't Want to Sleep Alone in this light is not different from Help Me Eros or Bangkok Love Story, which portray the city as a breeding ground for such negative feelings. However, what distinguishes this film from Bangkok Love Story is a superb storytelling. Like Help Me Eros, by reducing the dialogue down to a minimum and letting the silent narrative tell the story, I Don't Want to Sleep Alone manages to make us feel uncomfortable, thus forcing us to look back at our own empty life. Cinematography may not be as good as in Bangkok Love Story, but the choice of angles and perspectives manages to convey the senses of discomfort, loneliness, and despair.

Symbolism plays a great part in the film. The smoke that is believed to have come from Indonesia makes the whole city look like a ghost town. The smoke actually impedes human intimacy, as can be seen in the scene whereby Chyi and Hsiao-Kang try to make love. A paralysed man whom Chyi needs to take care can denote how we urban people are left in a state of emotional indifference and become essentially unresponsive to what happens around them.

A mattress also functions to denote a form of both spiritual and physical sanctuary and it is moved more than once all around the city. The ending scene whereby the mattress is shown floating adrift in a pool in a construction site is perhaps a telling image of how these labourers are being cast adrift in the big city jungle. I think the director not only portrays the negative senses of despair and loneliness these people feel, but also manages to show how they survive all these obstacles. However, long gone is the recourse to natural imagery. The mattress itself is man-made and the lamp that Hsiao-Kang buys for Chyi is also very artificial. These artificial objects somehow tell us how far removed we are from nature in this comtemporary urban setting.

However, the use of such artificial settings as makeshift living areas, lonely roads and a neglected construction site does not mean that beautiful things do not exist. It is actually in the construction site that a butterfly (not a colourful one, but one that looks more like a moth) flies and perches on Hsiao-Kang's shoulder. If we take butterflies to mean love and desire, perhaps it means that in such a desolate space there is still desire and love and it can potentially turn this space into a magical land. From this point of view, we can still see that great things still exist. The fact that Rawang, out of his love and forgiveness, decides not to kill Hsiao-Kang and even let him have the mattress to sleep with Chyi, is worth mentioning here. We are however not told what happens to Rawang but understandably we can see how painful this may've caused, especially if we take into account that it's Rawang, who has helped Hsiao-Kang to recover from the beating. Rawang's unrequited love for Hsiao-Kang is sad but his forgiveness is heroic, especially when one thinks that he hasn't got much and the mattress seems to be his most precious object.

Some people may find this film sad and ugly, but I find it very beautiful and optimistic.

Design + Culture ดีไซน์ + คัลเจอร์

2008-04-18T23:30:00.008+07:00

I just read Design + Culture by Pracha Suveeranont (Sameskybooks, 2008) and I was impressed with a wide range of cultural issues that this book touches on. The book itself is divided into five parts: identity, style, icon, information, and object. Each part consists of essays on things from everyday life, ranging from toothbrushes to the fist symbol. For Pracha, design is not there just to impress lookers-on, but entails a complex system of meaningful production. A fist, for example, can represent different political ideologies in different contexts. The design of a map is not always a realistic rendition; sometimes it means abstraction and unavoidable simplification.

I think the publication of this book is timely, as our culture is getting increasingly visual. We are forced to see more or make sense of our life through our eyes much more than other sense organs. What we see is not always innocent but those who work in design and advertisement tend to hide something underneath. In other words, it is not only aesthetics but commercialised politics that plays a significant role. Reading this book then is perhaps indispensable for those who wish to decode modern-day commercials or other visual propaganda in a properly informed way. By the way, this book is reader-friendly and jargon-free. You don't need to be a semiotic guru to read it, but you may wish to be one after you read it.

So what's next? I just wish we'll have our own Thai version of Judith Williamson's Decoding Advertisements. Our ads industry is very vibrant right now and perhaps it's also very timely to have a good book that is about the development and trends in Thai ads. Anyone out there wants to accept this challenge?

Shortbus

2008-04-16T18:19:00.006+07:00

Wednesday afternoon. The last day of the holiday season, the last hours of relaxation and peace before hectic life resumes tomorrow morning. I've heard of Shortbus for a long time and the DVD has been on the shelf for a long time. But the problem is I didn't have time to watch it. So today is a good day to fulfill my wish -- watching the film and writing something about it.

I'm sure a lot of prudes will be put off by the first five minutes of the film, when there're scenes of strong sexual nature like self-fellatio, orgasm, and weird sexual positions. These scenes are meant to draw attention and set the general tone and as the film progresses we start to realise that these sexual scenes are not there to make you cum but are there to make you think. (I think this is a good reason why it's not porn -- but hey what's wrong with porn anyway!) Sex in Shortbus is a substitute for love and the film is strategically set in New York after the 9/11 incident. John Cameron Mitchell wishes to portray, I believe, how the tragic incident has changed how people, including him, view their lives. Along with other cultural manifestations of the same era, Shortbus shows how cynicism doesn't help, how such a blase feeling of been-there done-that is suddenly out of place. Cynicism and such a blase attitude (which is very urban) desensitise people, making people 'feel' less and becoming more reserved and indifferent, insensitive to their own and others' emotion. Somehow this also incapacitates their ability to love.

This indifference to love is rendered symbolically through some bodily taboos -- how Sofia hasn't experienced orgasm and how James hasn't allowed anyone to 'penetrate' him. Sex is used here not as a celebration of life, but as a reiteration of how we are left unfulfilled emotionally. I think this is especially the case with cosmopolitan people who have so much sexual experience of many kinds and with many species of beings, but have so little time to reflect on them. After all, who wouldn't want to impress their friends with their sexual escapades?

Like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shortbus manages to give an optimistic view on this premise. Perhaps what we need in this new millennium is once again a spirit of camaraderie, a rapport among those who are equally 'lost' in the big city. And this has never been more true than in a post 9/11 New York, when people realise that at least there's something 'real' in their lives. It's sad though to think that one needs such a tragedy to affirm that their life is real.

The soundtrack of the film is also good. If you like the songs in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, you will probably like those in Shortbus too. They're kind of uplifting and perhaps good to sing along in your bad days. Let me give you my favourite part of the song at the end:

there's a past stained with tears
could you talk to quiet my fears
could you pull me aside
just to acknowledge that i've tried ...

Love in the Time of Cholera

2008-04-13T00:28:00.009+07:00

If you don't have anything to do during the Songkran Festival, when people become so mad with hot weather that they just splash water to others, I would recommend you go to see Love in the Time of Cholera. Of course, a lot of people would say that it cannot be compared to Garcia Marquez's novel, but I think at least if you want to see what the atmosphere of Colombia's tropical town of Cartagena is like, you'd better not miss it. I read the actual novel quite a while ago, and I was quite intrigued by Gabo's portrayal of love by two old people, something that will probably be looked upon with contempt by youngsters or middle-aged people. Of course, it's a sort of melodrama, playing on the ideal love of Florentino Ariza for Fermina Daza which hasn't changed for over fifty years. If you expect this novel to be like One Hundred Years of Solitude, where magical events abound, this one is different: it doesn't show Colombia as peopled by flying carpets or supernatural events, but a country where real passion still exists and, along with it, dignity and charm.

Watching the film brings these features to the fore, as we see how Florentino Ariza, the source of which is Gabo's own father, who was also a telegrapher, stays 'loyal' to his love. Well, at least it's 'loyal' in the sense created by Latin men influenced by the cult of machismo. Florentino still sleeps with other girls (622 to be exact) along the way while Fermina is married to a prestigious doctor. However, as can be expected, Florentino finds these sexual encounters empty and just a form of temporary release. (I'm sure there can be a very interesting feminist perspective on this.) His ultimate quest is for the hand of Fermina in a marriage after the death of her husband. Yes, he plans to wait until his arch-enemy dies. The beauty of course lies in his patience and his 'loyalty' to Fermina.

However, Love in the Time of Cholera doesn't choose to depict only the good side of love, where the hero and the heroine are happily in love ever after. Florentino himself, for instance, needs to wait for more than half a century to have his dream fulfilled. Florentino's mother becomes mad because she can't forget her husband and what he has done to her. But of course what Gabo beautifully portrays is the heroism of these people who remain sincere to what they believe. In this light, Fermina pales in comparison as she gets married to the doctor, whom she grows to love. I've seen quite a few Ferminas in my life; I have some friends who choose to get married to those they don't fall in love simply because they don't want to be single or because they think that they'll eventually fall in love. I don't think they're wrong but it does make me wonder that in the modern world of fast love, such heroism is perhaps out of date. Or perhaps is it possible that nowadays we're so afraid of disappointment that our system of self-preservation and defence mechanism only works too well to prevent us from knowing what 'love' actually is? Or ... are Florentino and his mother just wrong in sporting such an idealistic view of love?

Another point that is worth mulling over is desire. I believe what makes Florentino stay so loyal to Fermina is because they're not together. The impossibility of their consummation leads to Florentino's own limitless fantasy. It may be possible that if they end up together for real, they may start bickering after the first month or so. Perhaps that's why the experience of heartbroken sadness lasts longer or becomes more intense than that of marital bliss. Or are we such a masochist being that we cannot stop torturing ourselves with sad memories? That can perhaps explain why sad songs are more popular than happy ones. Also, that can explain why such tragic films as Brief Encounter win a lot of people's hearts.

Before I digress any further, I think this narrative touches on these love follies with a certain degree of self-reflection and irony. At least you can see that there're no longer 'ideal' characters as such; everyone is both the perpetrator and the victim in some respects. This certainly makes it different from other melodramas where we see a pretty clear-cut categorisation between the bad and the good. Also, it doesn't make a judgement whether what Florentino does is right or what Fermina does is wrong. This is how life actually is and how human we are. Perhaps in love there is no right or wrong, the point of which I need another occasion to elaborate on.

Eat Drink Man Woman

2008-04-07T15:15:00.004+07:00

Little that I knew that it's going to be a double bill today, but it's a national holiday today, a perfect time for clearing up outstanding bills. Eat Drink Man Woman is one of those things that have remained on my desk for a long long time. A student lent it to me. I watched it long time ago on VHS and have since wanted to refresh my memory of it.

On my second viewing, I discovered that I could get a lot more from the film and could identify more with main characters. The setting is Taipei in the time of change and modernisation, not unlike Bangkok. Like Ang Lee's other films of this period, especially The Wedding Banquet (1993), it deals with the clash between traditional and contemporary cultures or the inter-generational conflict of cultural perspectives.

The aforementioned clash is between the old father and his three daughters who have grown up and acquainted themselves with the new ways of life. The whole plot centres around confessions and dialogues during the Sunday dinner time when a Chinese family normally spends time together, mine not excluded. The film is about female sexuality and its growing acceptance in modern-day Taipei where women do tend to have more and more recognised rights in making their own decisions. However, the film says that this growing recognition does not go in line with happiness, as sometimes they do make mistakes and somehow advice from parents is still indispensable, though the parents are also no less confused in the modern urban landscape where change is quick and unpredictable.

The house is a poignant symbol; it can effectively symbolise Taipei, an old city that needs to constantly adjust itself to change. There's no time for those who linger or hold onto an old tradition. The father himself realises this in the end and chooses not to 'go gentle into the night', letting one of his daughters, Jia-Chien, to take control of the house. If we take this as an allegory, it may mean that modern Taipei is now in the hand of a capable beautiful woman, who is a great cook as well as a successful businesswoman. Gone is the day when one can take hours cooking food for a whole family. Replaced is a compromise between work and life, family and friends. But Jia-Chien is still alone, while her two sisters are married. We're not quite sure whether she's happy but she survives nonetheless.

By ending thus, the film portrays an apt picture of contemporary Taipei, where an influx of western modernisation and capitalism has replaced its old Chinese tradition and way of life. It doesn't promise happiness but it does imply that self-adjustment in face of these changes is necessary.

A Trivial Conversation

2008-04-07T09:55:00.002+07:00

This entry has nothing to do with a film or a book, but a person. I read Daily Express, a new Thai newspaper that is given free of charge at various outlets in Bangkok. It's run by the Nation group and I think it's quite a good attempt to please both readers and advertisers. After all, who wouldn't love freebies?

But the subject today is not about this newspaper, but an interview inside with a Thai tennis player. He's just finished his time as a monk at Wat Bowonniwet. According to the interview, he said that 'I used to be consumed by rankings and ended up playing poorly. But now I let go.'

Reading up until then, I thought that his time at the temple must've changed this man as it'd made him contemplate on life and desire for material goods or superficial stuff, such as winning and rankings. However, I continued to read on and couldn't stop laughing, especially in the last paragraph when he said 'before I left the temple, I prayed to the Buddha that if I ever crack the top 100 again I will come back and be a monk for three months.' What? I thought he no longer cared about rankings and stuff!

I couldn't help but wondering now how little he had gained from his temporary monkhood. It does give a telling index, though, of how Thai people in general approach Buddhism. How much do we understand the religion? Do we practise Buddhism as a sort of superstitious belief? Or is betting our incurable nature, so indelible that we need to bet even when we practise a religion?

Reading the whole interview once again, I couldn't help but feeling sad that we seem not to realise how Buddhism can effectively be beneficial to our way of life if we do understand its essence. Our lack of understanding and the general malpractice by some practitioners of the religion may one day destroy this religion from the face of the earth. Let's hope this is not going to happen.

A Streetcar Named Desire

2008-04-06T11:29:00.006+07:00

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), directed by Elia Kazan, proves to be another mesmerising classic film. I remembered watching his On the Waterfront (1954) quite a while ago in Buenos Aires (which was quite opportune as it was a harbour city) and Kazan did a very great job. In this film, based on Tennessee Williams' play of the same name, Kazan managed to sympathetically portray the descent into madness of Blanche Dubois, with the aid of her brute brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski.

The film intentionally plays on the binary opposition between female fragility and male brutality. Patriarchy is tacitly symbolised by Stanley himself, who never stops terrorising his wife and her sister. However, what complicates the matter is that male charisma is closely tied to that brutality and that's the reason why Stella cannot stop loving him despite his coarse behaviour. I believe there's some sort of attraction there, not dissimilar to "I'm drawn towards bad guys", an expression Thai girls like to use (and exculpate themselves in the process) whenever they fall in love with wrong men. Hence, the portrayal of Stanley in the film is both sexually alluring and threatening. Marlon Brando is thus not a wrong choice, though I think that he's more of the former than the latter.

I can't help sympathising with Blanche and her wild imagination. Her descent into madness somehow is not her fault but signals her entrapment in patriarchal codes where they have until then led her to the 'illusive' construction of selfhood. But who can say that it's illusive when in fact women have no choice but to identify themselves as men dictate or in accordance with the ideological appellation of patriarchal society? Stella is likewise weak and has no choice but subjugating herself to the manipulating Stanley (though at times he's not aware of his scheming as he is subject to his own emotional tantrums).

Thus, it's symbolically suitable that Blanche asks Mitch, one of her suitors, to put a fancy cover over a bare light bulb, as it means that Blanche depends on the kindness of men around her to construct her own fanciful imagination. What is sad is the fact that Blanche cannot do this without male intervention. Besides, what is even sadder is in the film she's portrayed as buying the cover herself. In fact, it's men who are the reason for her destruction, yet patriarchy always has a way to hide itself and graciously bestow the guilt onto women, to make it appear as though women were the ones who ask for and should thus be responsible for their own downfall.

Is there a glimmer of hope at the end when Stella escapes from home with her baby? I doubt that. As soon as Stanley pleads her to come back, she will be unable to resist her own temptation. I think this is precisely the point that feminism should take a close look at. Some of the feminist works I have read have simply repudiated patriarchal codes tout court, yet what they should pay attention to are the allure of patriarchy and how it makes itself indispensable to women's dependent construction of selfhood. Why does this ambivalent attitude occur? Does it mean that the love-hate relationship between women and patriarchy is unavoidable?

The film begs a lot of questions that need further scrutiny. But I've found touchingly sad is that, despite more than half a century that have gone by, we're still talking about the plight of women and their inescapable situation. What I am wondering now is whether we should stop talking about escape and find a new perspective to look at female entrapment. This will probably need another fifty years or so ...

Soak ชุ่ม

2008-03-26T23:51:00.003+07:00

Soak is a new short film by Thunska Pansittivorakul, who has made a series of controversial short films for the past eight years. Of course, you can't watch Thunska's films in mainstream cinema as they are mainly shown in film festivals. Soak features in the 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (BEFF 5) at Esplanade only once and it's this evening.

I don't know how to define it -- it can be considered a long short film or a short long film, dependent on from which perspective one prefers to judge. It's highly autobiographical as it's based on Thunska's personal past with his ex-lover. On the surface, it may resemble a home video showing two men going to the beach and enjoying their time together. But on a deeper level, Soak effectively conveys such feelings as impossible desire, anxious anticipation, and uncertainty. What's interesting about all this is that Thunska doesn't use much dialogue to directly convey these feelings, but let the action and the interaction, at times very subtle and complex, between the two actors (one of which is the director himself) tell the story.

The scene that I like is the one whereby the two of them are on the motorbike at night time going out. It's not clear at first where they're heading but we could sense the quiet longing in this scene where the director doesn't want to end. Thunska deliberately uses real-time narration in this scene so some people may feel puzzled watching these two guys on the motorbike for like twenty minutes barely talking together. They end up not knowing where to go either, but decide just to go to a Seven-Eleven. The journey here is more important than the destination. In the same way, whether love is requited or not in this film is not as important as the process -- the tumultous feelings of anxiety and anticipation. Most people who have been in love must've known these, especially when they're guessing whether their loved one will reciprocate or not.

However, as in most Thunska's films you are likely to find that "happy ending" is impossible. Contemporary lifestyle makes intimacy embarrassing and impossible, if not already obsolete. Even though the two actors in Soak spend time together, their relationship seems strained and fragile. One is always on the wait for the other's mercy. One is always more sensitive than the other. The fact that the two protagonists are men complicates the matter as it is widely known that gay people generally are more sophisticated and skeptical of "true love", thereby establishing a thick layer of reservation for fear of heartbreak. Taking this line of thought, I think Soak is a very sad film, another manifestation that we humans are born to be individual and can never be truely related to others around us. Alienation thus stays close and love (in the sense of spiritual intimacy) just flips away.

...

The Mist มฤตยูหมอกกินมนุษย์

2008-03-10T18:46:00.002+07:00

I didn't know much about this film but I heard that there were people talking about it in the Pantip webboard, especially about its ending. So today we headed to Esplanade to watch it, hoping to see what all the fuss was all about and I was not disappointed.

A lot of people would've thought that it's a plain monster film, but halfway through I started to feel that there's definitely something more to it than that. For me, The Mist is a cross between H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds and William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Beneath the surface of the monster thriller lies Stephen King's exploration of human nature and anxiety especially when they are scared of the unknown.

Because of this reason, I found myself deeply engrossed with the film, but the feeling was more of depression than excitement. I don't mean that I was saddened because King didn't do justice to what he promised to deliver. Far from that, the dialogue and the plot were so well-crafted that I was led to believe that we humans are capable of a lot of atrocious acts that can turn us against one another or even make us kill one another without any trace of remorse. In the film, King touches on such sensitive issues as religion, faith, and human frailty in the face of the unknown. The mist functions like darkness, serving as an apt setting that contributes to uneasiness and fear. In this atmosphere of uncertainty, we humans are capable of everything, both good and bad, only for the sake of self-preservation.

I won't give away the ending. Suffice to say that it's also an important turn that drives home the existential questions of the film -- whether God exists and whether we are so infinitesimal compared to Him.

Bangkok Love Story เพื่อนกูรักมึงว่ะ

2008-02-24T23:57:00.007+07:00

I believe that there isn't a better way to finish off a weekend than watching a romantic film. Hearing mixed reviews, I entrust upon myself that it's time to watch Bangkok Love Story which happened to be on the shelf for a while. I didn't buy it and Madge didn't either, so there's only one culprit ...

However, expecting the worst, I found the film not as bad as some people said. Well, it'd be a lot better if you press the mute button on your remote control and just sit back and watch the beautiful landscapes and skylines of Bangkok. Cinematography was great and I thought that the whole film was like a long music video with some really beautiful shots of unseen Bangkok. The soundtrack was also good and I liked the sad melody that accompanied the tragic love between the main two men.

However, the film would've been perfect if these flaws had not occurred.

(1) Bad script. The film suffered from bad script, especially the dialogue on Ith's part -- how he uses 'khun' all the time. It just seemed too unnatural and fake. Some dialogues are too sweet; it's more like from a mouth of a teenager, than a mature cop.

(2) Bad acting. Ith's cute face couldn't hide his acting flaw, especially his voice. When he sees Mek in a glass room and tries to give him a ring, he doesn't seem to plead. His voice lacks emotion and the whole scene looks like Ith is chanting a Pali scripture to Mek. No wonder Mek tries to run away. Also, when Ith is waiting in front of the house of Mek's mother, he seems more like a ghost from behind wanting to strangle Mek?

(3) Bad plot.

3.1 Is this just me? I just don't believe in Mek's killing policy, i.e. his intention to kill only bad people. I just don't believe that Ith would desperately want to help Mek so much after all that has happened, even helping bathe his own assassin. Come on. It's Bangkok, for God's sake! Ith even talks to his own assassin using 'khun' all the time. What a polite man.

3.2 What's this hi-so wooden bathtub on top of the building? Why does Mek suddenly decide to splash his cash on this expensive item? Maybe Mek's a hi-so after all but likes to pretend he's poor. And what's more incredible is Ith's scrubbing Mek's body with a loofah. A LOOFAH? Yes, a loofah. Of all the things in the world, it's a loofah. Don't ask me why such a poor assassin who doesn't care much about appearance needs to properly scrub himself. I laughed so hysterically watching this scene that my partner closed his eyes with annoyance.

3.3 What's this thing with underwear? There seems to be underwear sale next to where Mek lives, because both Ith and Mek seem to love wearing underwear a lot, both during daytime and nighttime. What's weird is when Mek kicks Ith out of his place, Ith comes home wearing only underwear to see his wife after disappearing with his new lover for three days. Imagine that -- walking all over Bangkok in underwear. The weather must've been terribly hot! His wife would probably think that Ith's a nutcase.

3.4 What's this thing with the face of Mek's mother? Why's it always dirty? I know they're poor but do they need to be dirty?

3.5 Why does it rain too often in Bangkok? In the film, it rains whenever they make love. Maybe if Isan suffers a draught, we will ask them to perform this sacred ritual to help Thai farmers.

3.6 Who kills Mek at the end? Is it one of the bad people who survive Mek's killing spree and who wait twenty five years to serve Mek just desserts? Is it the doctor who couldn't cure Mek's brother? Is it the ghost of Mek's mother? Is it Ith's wife? We never know and the filmmakers don't seem to care to give us a clue either.

(4) Excessive melodrama.

The scene where Ith tries to touch Mek's hand though there's a window in between is one of my favourite. I remembered laughing my brain out. Also, the scene in the jail when Mek puts Ith's hand next to his heart almost sent me to heaven. The film also pays too much time and attention to those scenes where Ith tries to look for Mek. What they should've done is to elaborate on how love actually occurs, not how both become lovelorn.

The point is ... it's such a romantic film, but Bangkok Love Story seems to be a bit late in the Thai cinema history. Had it been made twenty years ago, surely the audience would've loved it, a lot too. But not nowadays when people are more corrupt and too cynical to buy this sentimental melodrama. Wisit Sasanatieng also directed a melodrama once, but at least he parodied himself by narrating the film in a touch-in-cheek manner. I'm talking about Tears of the Black Tiger here where he uses excessive, bold colours to express extreme sentimentalism.

Don't take me wrong but the film in general is not that bad. I still like its cinematography. I think it's one of the best that I've seen. They took particular care in choosing where the actors need to stand and what position to film them. Bangkok has never looked so cool.

OK I admit that I'm a bit too sarcastic today. But I've read a bad thesis that needs a considerable amount of revision. Don't even get me start talking about this ...

Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios | Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

2008-02-23T00:28:00.004+07:00

I can't recall how much I'd been fascinated by Mediterrenean culture until I watched an old film by Pedro Almodovar the other day. Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios is its title and I was not disappointed. The bright colours of the actresses' dresses and their excessively stylised acting are probably Almodovar's intention to highlight the melodramatic overtone. For some reason, I was not appalled by his use of melodrama as it's self-reflexive, parodying its own appearance while managing to get their points across -- unlike those dramas on Thai television which are not wary of their powerful effect in dumbing down the audience.

My first impression is how these actresses have lives, how their emotion and passion make them human. They have fears, desires, and other powerful feelings such as arrogance and rage -- all of these are incurred by their tendency to fall in love with wrong men. Coincidences abound; needless to say that Almodovar probably takes less care in making the whole plot believable than in creating a masterpiece of violent yet totally human emotion. One of the characters, I believe it's Lucia, brilliantly played by Julieta Serrano, reminds me of Iron Pussy in the eponymous film by Apichatpong. Like Iron Pussy, Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios is a film that glorifies the marginalised gender and how they need to cope with the omnipotent system of patriarchy. They shine, nonetheless, even though they know that they are losing the battle, as most of the female characters are lovelorn or heartbroken. Yet, there's something beautiful in their choice to confront these uphill struggles of gender politics.

Compared with Almodovar's later films, this one may not have brilliant, perfect plots like Hable con ella or La mala educacion, but there's certainly something electrifying there.

There's an overly melodramatic song in this film -- 'Soy infeliz' is its title.

SOY INFELIZ
Lola Beltran

Soy infeliz porque se que no me quieres para que mas insistir
vive feliz si el amor que tu me diste para siempre resenti
soy infeliz porque se que no me quieres, piensas que ____ morir

que me sirvan otra trago, cantinero, yo los pago
pa' calmar este sufrir
vive feliz en tu mundo de ilusiones
no pienses mas en tu amor y tus traiciones
soy infeliz porque se que no me quieres, piensas que ____ morir

que me sirvan 4 tragos, cantinero, yo los pago
pa' calmar este sufrir
vive feliz en tu mundo de ilusiones
no pienses mas en tu amor y tus traiciones
soy infeliz porque se que no me quieres, piensas que ____ morir

que me sirvan otra trago, cantinero, yo los pago
pa' calmar este sufrir

Atonement ตราบาปลิขิตรัก

2008-02-17T14:32:00.004+07:00

Again, this blog entry contains spoilers, as I'd like to comment on the whole film. The surprise ending of course is crucial to my interpretation. Those who haven't watched the film but wish to do so are advised not to read this just yet.

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I've heard about the film for a long time and the novel has been sitting somewhere on the shelf since time immemorial. But it's only Friday that I had a chance to see Atonement. While others may like it because of the tragedy that befalls the relationship between the upper-class Cecilia Tallis and Robbie Turner, a man who comes from a different class but tries to move socially upwards through his medical study at Cambridge. But of course this film is set during the World War so the class structure was then pretty volatile.

But I don't like the film because of the romance as much as its beautiful storytelling. Everything is so stylised and I think it's aimed to be that way, as the whole film borders on the thin line between fiction and reality. The whole thing might just as well have come from Briony's own imagination from the start. The attempt to stay away from the realist mode of narrative can be seen from the repetition of two crucial scenes that lead to Briony's own renditions that in turn lead to catastrophic results. The repetition is superbly done: one is the scene whereby Cecilia and Robbie has a row in front of the fountain, and the other is their sexual scene. Briony also witnesses these incidents and interprets them in her own way, influenced by her childish fantasy.

The repetition of these two scenes, significantly from two different perspectives, shows how the whole film is self-consciously aware of its own imaginary potential and that's perhaps why it 'unashamedly' flaunts its surreal side. Notice the scenes when Briony visits Cecilia again or when Robbie is at war in France. Of course part of the fantasy is to shed light on how Briony 'rewrites' the whole narrative from her own point of view and it's her story that is aimed to be her atonement. I think this is a pretty smart twist, albeit one wonders whether she actually feels guilty, considering the fact that she probably earns a lot of money from this 'last' novel of hers. Cynical as I am and have always been, I think Briony exploits her own atonement by turning it into a business that earns her both plaudit and money. Even though some people may sympathise with her thinking that it's the best she could've done, I wonder whether perhaps it'd have been better if she had decided to apologise and to remedy the whole situation when there's still time -- not when it's too late and you only see her victoriously voicing her own guilt on air with her eyes brimful of tears. She's a wicked girl, indeed, from the beginning to the end.

But another reason why fantasy is portrayed in the film is the war. War is ludicrous and the whole thing looks terribly absurd in the time of war. Soldiers have bad memories and terrible nightmares, simply because the reality is so harsh and brutal. Imagine you walk into the woods like Robbie and see twenty innocent people killed for apparently no other reasons than they're on the opposite side. Personally the scene that touched me the most is when Briony needs to be by the side of a dying soldier whose skull is split open. His brain is injured, causing him to imagine and mix up scenes from the past. Briony is there with him trying to play a part in his own imagination so that the soldier can die happily. Sadly to say, Briony should've learnt from this incident and at least gone to see her sister Cecilia and Robbie and help construct or at least remedy past memories before it's too late.

The film does make me wonder: what's the point of writing a novel to atone for those who don't have the chance to read your work? Is it fair that Briony confesses to her crime just before she loses her memory due to dementia and in the process gains acceptance and forgiveness from those who actually are not the victims? I think not. She's at least not forgiven by me.

Enchanted มหัศจรรย์รักข้ามภพ

2008-02-09T23:46:00.001+07:00

Yesterday after work we decided to see a film at Paragon. I was wavering between Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd and Walt Disney's Enchanted. I didn't know what possessed me and made me choose the latter; perhaps it's a long day yesterday and I wanted to see some feel-good films. And tell you what -- Enchanted is in fact a really feel-good film, and it can make you feel so good you can puke.

Despite rave reviews, I didn't like the film that much. It's too clean and the plot seems directed to a certain 'happy' ending it has planned no matter ludicrous many events can appear to be. I know Walt Disney tries to offer a new version of fairy-tale by having it set in the urban background of New York. Disney even agrees to have cockroaches and rats accompany Giselle (our Princess-to-be) in her singing act. Disney even allows Giselle to fight the evil stepmother who takes the form of a formidable dragon to save the life of her urban prince (notice the gender reversal).

But of course I went to see the film expecting something more transgressive and radical, such that the princess is transported into New York and along the way she is transformed into a lesbian or a transvestite. Or the fairy-tale prince who decides to come to New York to help her is turned into a toad or a singing washing machine. I don't know why I'm not that impressed with this sugar-coated facade; perhaps of late I've seen so many weird films that I can no longer relate to reality or the beauty of fairy tale. Perhaps I'm still too cynical to enjoy it. Perhaps I just hate the happy ending. Perhaps, more important of all, I just don't believe it!

I admitted that Walt Disney has tried hard to put some mildly transgressive elements into the film, but I think the film is still mainly targeted to young children or those adults who pretend to believe, or delude themselves into believing, that such a fairy-tale world and such a fairy-tale turn of events can happen in the real world.

Besides, I still believe that the film dwells on certain prejudices such as the casting of the evil as a woman, whereas all men in the film are good, even Nathaniel who was originally the wicked queen's sidekick but who subsequently chooses to help the prince and Giselle instead. Also, the prejudiced use of colour -- blonde and brunette -- is also significant. Giselle has blonde hair while Nancy has brunette hair. Giselle has always been the superior princess with her blonde hair, her innocence, and her easy-going character. She's quite easy to be tamed. Nancy, efficient and sophisticated, is not allowed that role because she's not as easily tamed. Hence, the plot gets rid of her by sending her to Andalasia to marry the fairy-tale prince instead (which for me is more like a punishment).

The princes are also interesting. Giselle's final decision to be with Robert Philip instead of Prince Edward reveals a stark message: even though Philip is not as good-looking as Edward, but what he has is money. The scene where Giselle is out with Philip's daughter shopping and using Philip's credit card is to me quite 'dirty', as it somehow tells the audience that princesses in the modern world should like to go shopping and spending money to make themselves look beautiful. What is worse is that they are not beautiful for their own benefit, but they're beautiful for men's benefit. In this case, Giselle dresses up to please men, both Edward and Philip, at the ball. Perhaps Giselle's choice turns to be quite realistic: in the real world of fully-grown capitalism you should go out with someone who is wealthy enough to pay your bill, rather than with a handsome guy with just idiotic dreams but no money.

Sad, init? But I think this message is well-hidden behind Giselle's melodious voice and a cute chipmunk (who I think is the best character of this film).