What does contemporary Thai cinema tell us about

contemporary Thai cultural concerns and anxieties?

To answer this question, I will touch upon a number of

contemporary films; February, Monrak Transistor, Rahtree:

Flower of the Night and Sydnromes and a Century, in order

to discuss key sources of fear as portrayed by Thai

Cinema. I will then conclude that contemporary Thai

cinema acts as a window into Thai realities, whilst the

most interesting cinematic comment seems to be one of

reflection; reminiscing in order to inspire how best to

proceed in an environment influenced by Westernism,

crisis and ‘others’.

I will begin by touching upon the economic crisis, before

looking at Western encounters and then dystopias, the

perceived result of the aforementioned Westernism. I will

then look at forms of nostalgia that have risen out of

contemporary anxieties, before arguing that perhaps this

nostalgia is not about a return to the past, but

‘rerooting’ - taking influence from the past. I will

finish by discussing the concerns surrounding the

fracturing of society and state censorship.

Economic Crisis

Firstly, it is important to set the scene for

contemporary Thai cinema by acknowledging the Thai

economic crisis of 1997-1998. Tejapira describes it as

“the worst economic crisis in Thailand since 1929” (2001,

221), and Knee goes on to acknowledge the subsequent

“turn-of-the-millenium cultural and economic upheavals”

(2003, 102). Post 1997, Thailand bore a number of

reactionary films, loaded with different perceptions and

responses to the societal instability.

Western Encounters

February, by Yuthlert Sippapak and Monrak Transistor, by

Pen-ek Ratanaruang are two example of films that bring to

life contemporary concerns and anxieties revolving

around encounters with the West. Harrison describes this

exposure to Western environments as having a

“destabilising and emotionally debilitating impact”

(2010, 11).

This literal and metaphorical debilitation is most

visible in February, which becomes the visual site where

concepts of the national (Thai) and the Foreign (‘Other’)

dramatically collide. This collision is not only a

cultural one, but a dramatic reality when Thailand and

New York meet for the first time through a taxi driver’s

abduction of Kaewta. Kaewta comes to represent the Thai

geo-body, a body that is nearly destroyed by being hit by

a car, and hit by Westernisation.

Yuthlert plays with space and light to portray the danger

of the two protagonist’s situations. Night time shots,

dark lighting and repressive, claustrophobic spaces

transform the metaphorical darkness and danger of the

West into a literal darkness.

February does not only present the issue of the home and

the foreign to the viewer, but invites them to actively

engage with the protagonist’s desperate questioning of

home, identity and the self, so that the two might find

their way home, to Thailand, together.

Dystopia

In February, Kaewta may have made it home to Thailand,

but in My Girl, Killer Tattoo, 6ixty 9ine and Monrak

Transistor cinematic pictures are painted of what happens

when ‘home’ (Thailand) becomes tainted by modernising

forces. The dystopia that these films portray is a

comment on the contemporary fear of both westernisation

and globalisation. The idea of the urban dystopia warns

its audience away from such a vapid existence and towards

the vastly different, (imagined) utopia of the

countryside.

At the beginning of My Girl, the main character, Jaeb, is

in Bangkok. His city life is portrayed as a lonely,

dystopian existence, with little human contact. His urban

life lacks intimacy. This stilted existence is starkly

contrasted by his childhood memories which come gushing

forth upon a wave of catchy pop songs.

Whilst My Girl carries us from the city to the

countryside, Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s Monrak Transistor

begins with Pan and Sadao leading an idyllic, if not

clichéd, life in the countryside.

The couple’s combined and individual trials present the

audience with important comments on the gradual

degradation of traditional Thainess. Pan’s character

warns us away from the urban dangers of Bangkok, whilst

Sadaw, his literal (wife) and metaphorical (countryside)

counterpart, reminds us of ‘Thai’ morality.

As the film progresses, Pan is carried further away from

his rural beginnings. The further away from the

countryside, the more things begin to degrade. Pen-ek

plays with this concept of space; Pan’s location becomes

representative of the void growing between his true Thai

values, and urban corruption.

In a poignant shot, we watch as Pan, who has been

relegated to backstage garland making, sings to his

reflection in the mirror. The mirror however, is cracked

and broken, just like Pan’s city dreams. The film teaches

us that city life is not the dream existence that so many

aspire to, but instead, is a strange bubble where nothing

is as it seems: Pan is a cleaner; the choreographer is a

transvestite; and Dao, the folk singer, slept her way to

a ‘stardom’ that is far from starry.

It is safe to say that the film presents such bleak

disillusionment that it is near comical: Pan came to the

city to be a singer, yet ends up a cleaner, a murderer

and narrowly escapes becoming a victim of homosexual

rape. Pen-ek’s dark sense of humour comes into play once

more when Pan and his friend find themselves at a city

party thrown to raise money for the poor. The rich

Bangkokians have all come out to partake in the worthy

cause, which involves a wonderfully satirised competition

for who can dress in the most convincingly impoverished

outfit. Pan and his friend are the bedraggled belles of

the ball until it is realised that they are genuinely

poor, at which point they are assaulted and thrown to the

gutter. The comedy of this scene is an important comment

on the distortion of society and class structures at

play.

Through Pan’s tumultuous journey back to the countryside,

and the lessons that he learns along the way, Pen-ek

simultaneously maps out lessons that Thailand too needs

to learn in the face of modernisation, Westernisation and

internationalisation. We see Pan develop from a buffalo-

horned country bumpkin sitting in Daddy, the dubious luk-

toong manager’s office, to a man that returns to the

countryside to uphold his familial duties.

The character of Sadaw also carries with her an important

comment on the emotional state of society. Knee argues

that she represents “a concern for basic human needs and

emotions that are, by implication, under threat in modern

Bangkok and modern Thailand” (Knee, 2003, 119).

Nostalgia and State Nostalgia

Nostalgic films are contemporary Thai cinema’s most

common response to the the country’s cultural concerns

and anxieties. Through the popularity of nostalgic films,

and of course the state’s exploitation of this sentiment

to create ‘state nostalgia’, Thai cinema demonstrates

that post 1997, contemporary society was eager to escape

social realities.

My Girl, was a huge success at the Thai box office. So

successful in fact, that it was the ninth top grossing

Thai film of 2000-2010. This popularity reflects that in

the wake of the economic crisis, and an influx of post-

modern films such as Tears of the Black Tiger and 6ixty

9ine, Thai audiences welcomed an easy-to-digest film.

My Girl created a nostalgic space that was a safe

distance from Thailand’s crisis. In essence, the film’s

six directors invited Thais to step out of their adult

lives and enjoy nostalgic reflection through the vehicle

of childhood.

Whilst Tears of the Black Tiger is a nostalgic film, its

lack of national success demonstrates that it was not

accessible to the Thai masses. My Girl, however, is

safely located in childhood. As Kong Rithdee writes, film

is an “effective tool in helping us remember, and the

cute kid flick Fan Chan is a romantic feast of

remembering.” (2003)

Whilst the film is located in Jaeb’s memory, the ending

pulls the audience back to the present. We, along with

Jaeb, witness how much of his rural town has been changed

by time. The family run corner shop has been taken over

by 7/11, dusty lanes have become busy roads, and Noi Nah

is getting married. It is safe to say that we are no

longer within the realms of childhood Narnia. As the film

draws to a close, Jaeb says that “the trip back home made

me realise how much things had changed”. Despite these

physical changes, Jaeb’s memories remain unweathered by

time, just like his frozen image of Noi Nah, just like

the perceived idea of what it is to be Thai. Both are

preserved within the audience’s memory, ready to be

carried into the uncertain future.

State Nostalgia

State Nostalgia tugs upon similar heart strings, however

in a way which is more calculated and finds it roots in

propaganda.

The Legend of Suriyothai and The Legend of King Naresuan,

both by Chatrichalerm Yukol, present us with a different

type of nostalgia, and a different bundle of cultural

concerns and anxieties. These two films exemplify the

commoditisation of nostalgia, and the creation of state

nostalgia. McCormick describes “nostalgia’s political

potential” (as quoted in Sprengler, 2009, 22), something

that was very much exploited by these two national

blockbusters.

Such extensive exploitation of nostalgia seems to

demonstrate that the Thai government would like the

audience to forget that they have the capacity to forge

out a new future, one that takes influence from both the

past and present. Through epic battle scenes, warriors,

and admirable royal saviours, they foster (create) a

national pride in an effort to quash the perceived threat

of the foreign.

This ‘national nostalgia’ suggests an increase of Western

influence in Thailand and the state’s subsequent reaction

to it. It could be argued that the dedication of so much

money and air time to the monarchy in fact implicates the

monarchy’s declining influence, and subsequently, a

rather desperate attempt to reignite some semblance of

royal pride and nationalism.

Rerooting

McCormick (as quoted in Sprengler, 2009, 22), argues that

nostalgia “calls to mind a past, utopian time to which

the present should aspire and which it should make

efforts to recreate”. I would instead argue that rather

than recreating the past, nostalgic Thai films such as

Tears of the Black Tiger call for contemporary life to be

inspired by, rather than based upon, a fondly remembered

past.

Wisit Sasanatieng’s Tears of the Black Tiger is a

fantastic illustration of nostalgic rerooting; taking

nostalgia and blowing it up into a technicolor dream-

coat.

In the wake of the 1997 economic crash and the influx of

nostalgic film making, the film creates a new and

important type of nostalgia. The fake set, brilliant

overacting, and loud colours powerfully suggest that

Wisit is not being nostalgic because he wishes the

audience to step back in time, but that he does so in

order to pay homage to a passed time, in the hope that we

can take inspiration from the past and the foreign, in

order to transform the present. This is strongly conveyed

by the fact that Wisit has taken the classic cowboy genre

and turned a Western into a Thai.

Wisit uses prominent Thai actors from the seventies,

taking the old and making it new again. Another example

of this is Wisit drawing inspiration from Thai film,

director Rattana Pestonji.

Fractured society

In considering what contemporary Thai cinema tells us

about contemporary Thai cultural concerns and anxieties,

it is interesting to look at Thai horror, and the way

that this genre manipulates ideas of death, abandonment

and deceit to represent fractured Thai society. I will

use the examples of Nonzee Nimibutr’s Nang Nak, and

Yuthlert Sippapak’s Rahtree: Flower of the Night to

demonstrate this.

In Nang Nak, there is the fleeting possibility that the

dead Nak and her husband Mak can live in some sort of

harmony together. Similarly, in Rahtree: Flower of the

Night, Buppha begins a similar post-mortem relationship

with Ake. That is before we realise that Ake too is dead,

and what we have seen is the relationship of two ghosts,

alive, yet dead. This strange crossroads between life and

death reflects the social conflicts within Thai society.

Kong Rithdee writes that “the possibility of harmonious

existence between people of different learnings and

nature is precisely at the heart of our current social

conflict. The ‘ghosts’ are among us” (Rithdee, 2013).

Rahtree: Flower of the Night, is classified as a horror,

with the most obvious source of horror being Buppha: a

girl who bleeds to death after an abortion. However, I

would argue that the real horror resides within society

and their treatment of this young girl, who is raped,

lied to, impregnated, forced to abort, abandoned, and

murdered by society’s apathy.

The film is also an unflinching and comical comment on

‘Others’. At first, it seems Buppha is the ‘Other’, the

deathly monstrous feminine that must be banished. Indeed,

all of the characters in the film are desperate to evict

her not only from the apartment block, but from the face

of the earth. However, the characters that so fear Buppha

because she is different (ok, dead) are a group of

misfits themselves: corrupted, questionable, foreign, or

all of the above. They are the living ghosts of the urban

world. Perhaps then, we can understand their absolute

fear of Buppha as symbolic of a fear of their own

‘otherness’.

We have two fat, transgender hairdressers who never have

customers, a lazy and inept shopkeeper and his disabled

assistant; the corrupt, unfeminine, unloving wife who is

the apartment landlord, and her husband who does nothing

but pray; the landlord’s main employee who is also

disabled; Buppha’s sexually abusive and paedophillic

father-in-law; and finally Ake, a rich Bangkokian youth

who destroys Buppha’s life in order to win a bottle of

liquor, not to mention a parade of inept exorcists. It

does not look too promising for Thai society.

Censorship

Films such as Syndromes and a Century powerfully convey

the political and social realities of contemporary

Thailand. Being bound and gagged by Thai censorship laws

is perhaps what makes these films such important comments

on contemporary Thai cultural concerns and anxieties. The

imposed gag order forces directors to find new means of

expression and therefore opens the door to a different

type of storytelling.

I would argue that Apichatpong’s work is the most

accurate and truthful portrayal of contemporary Thai life

and all of its concerns and anxieties, in that he does

not ascribe to a Thai ideal and throws off the chains of

‘Thainess’. In an interview, Apichatpong said of

Sydnromes, “my film will look back at the past in order

to see into the future. Just people living life, inhaling

and exhaling, meeting each other—these are already

miracles.” (Pansittivorakul, 2006)

Apichatpong’s works are often hard to grasp, but it is

this transience that is so integral to his work, that

transforms his films into an experience. Rather than

explicitly rampaging against a social and political

straightjacket, Apichatpong deftly creates a feeling that

conveys Thai realities. In Syndromes and a Century, the

majority of the film takes place within the walls of a

hospital. A place of healing, sickness, birth, life and

death, and all of it restricted within the hospital

walls. Not to mention doctors who hide alcoholic spirits

in artificial legs, folk singing dentists and tea

offering monks.

A particularly striking scene sees us in the bowel of the

hospital, watching a metal tube extract smoke. I

interpret this as Apichatpong’s visual representation of

the vapidity of life, having lost its spirituality and

concrete uniformity.

Schager (2006) writes that Syndromes is “not only a

loving tribute to the past, but [an] attempt at

experiential preservation”. I disagree with this and

argue that despite having a past and present aspect to

the film, one of Syndromes key features is that the past

merges with the present, memories mix with reality, and

time becomes timeless. Rather than understanding

Apichatpong’s work of art as an ode to the past, I

understand it as an unflinching ode to reality, where all

of the fragmented pieces of life and fractured society

come together to form what we perceive to be our own

reality.

Whilst Monrak Transistor, 6ixty 9ine, Killer Tattoo,

Hotel Angel, February

(and the list goes on) all explicitly comment on the fear

of Westernisation, and portray individual battles against

the urban evil, Syndromes accepts, embodies and consumes

the nostalgia, the dystopia, the fear, and produces a

drugged yet lucid, clear yet confusing, concise yet

intricate depiction of Thai life. All of the

contradictions and confusions act as building blocks

which convey an important message about Thai identity:

that there is not one. The fact that the film is hard to

understand is perhaps Apichatpong’s most important

comment on contemporary Thai cultural concerns and

anxieties. Rather than constantly trying to understand

the inexplicable social, political and economic ups and

downs of Thai society, perhaps it is better to accept the

political transience and proceed with the sentiment that

we are left with after watching one of Apichatpong’s

films.

Rithdee writes that

“The Thai word for nature…is dharma-chart, whose

linguistic root is based on the word dharma. In the

Buddhist dharma teachings we’re told that everything

is impermanent. It’s just illusion, or dream, or

memory. [Apichatpong’s] is the cinema of dharma-

chart—the cinema of impermanence. As he himself is

learning how to let things go, to not feel attached,

perhaps we should do the same when watching his

films.” (Rithdee, 2007)

Conclusion

To conclude, the multitudinous diversity of contemporary

Thai film portrays a whole host of Thai cultural concerns

and anxieties.

Particularly in post 1997 cinema, as well as in more

contemporary films such as Apichatpong’s, there is a

clear discomfort surrounding the acknowledgement of the

changing times, and a subsequent search for how to

proceed. The prevalent search and return to Thainess

through nostalgia is the most common answer. In spite of

this, the overarching message from contemporary Thai

cinema seems to be that there is no singular Thai

identity or Thainess to return to, and that instead, Thai

society should take inspiration from the past in order to

inform their present.

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Kong Rithdee

http://criticine.com/interview_article.php?id=25

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