Talking movies, Thai style

ONE OF THE most important cinematic events in Asia, this year’s edition of the Busan International Film Festival can probably best be described as wet. Typhoon Toraji chose the early part of the week to blow into the southern part of South Korea, leading to a significant drop in audience numbers for the last few days though not dampening the spirits of serious viewers.
Thai films have traditionally been welcomed at Busan and this year has been no exception, with the event boasting six Thai features, two of them in the New Currents competition, which awards US$30,000 (Bt930,000) to two winners.
One of them is “Concrete Clouds”, the long-awaited debut feature of Lee Chatametikool.
Lee, an experienced film and sound editor, has long been associated with leading Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul and has also edited such box-office hits as “Shutter” and “Love of Siam”. His 2001 short “Miami Strips, Hollywood Dreams” was shown at several festivals and picked up second prize at the Thai Short Film and Video Festival.
“I fell into editing work by accident and I’ve always wanted to direct,” he says. “After finishing my studies in the US, I came back to Thailand and my first job was as editor of ‘Blissfully Yours’. I kept trying to develop my own film project but I found out that I had a talent for editing and for 10 years that felt like enough. Then [producer and ‘Mundane History’ director] Anocha [Suwichakornpong] asked me about the film I wanted to make and together we submitted this project to the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum. Everything started from that point.”
Produced by Apichatpong, Anocha, Soros Sokhum and actress-director Sylvia Chang, “Concrete Clouds” stars Ananda Everingham as Mutt, a half-Thai, half-American who comes back from New York to attend the funeral of his father who committed suicide at the height of the 1997 financial crisis. Janesuda Parnto portrays Mutt’s socialite ex-girlfriend, who is facing money problems, and Apinya “Saiparn” Sakuljaroensuk plays the girlfriend of Nick, Mutt’s younger brother. Foreigners might have problems following the film, which is heavily critical of the country’s financial and social problems, but Thais in their 30s will have no problem going back to 1997 thanks to a soundtrack that includes The Back Up’s “Panpueng” Pukky Prissana Praisaeng’s “Kor Kae Mee Ter” and Billy Ogan’s “Yak Ta Gon”. In a homage to Thai music videos, the songs come complete with karaoke subtitles. Tik Shiro’s “Luem Mai Mod” (“Can’t Forget It All”) plays as the end credits roll to newsreel scenes of events from the 1997 financial crisis.
The other Thai contender for the New Currents Award is “The Isthmus”, the debut feature of Sopawan “Kru Yui” Boonnimitra and Peerachai “Kru Tery” Peerachai Kerdsint. Sopawan lectures at Chulalongkorn University’s Film and Still Photography department while Peerchai holds a similar position at Bangkok University’s Film Department.
“I worked with Peerachai for the first time on the production of one of MC Chatrichalerm Yukol’s film back in the ’90s. We’ve also collaborated on short films and in the field of visual arts. Back then Thailand didn’t have independent films so making a movie wasn’t an option. We did write lots of scripts though,” Sopawan explains.
Saengthong “Jeed” Gate-Uthong, who hasn’t been seen on screen since 2007’s “Muay Thai Chaiya”, plays Da, a woman who is completely mystified when her young daughter suddenly stops speaking Thai and only converses in Burmese, the language of her recently dead nanny. Believing that the girl is possessed by the nanny’s ghost, they journey to the southern Thailand’s Kra Isthmus in search of a cure. But when they arrive, they have to face up to surreal events, including the sudden paralysis of a bald Japanese pastor after seeing sinkholes in the ground. The two continue their journey until they reach Myanmar. All the stories are told in Burmese through the daughter’s point of view.
The directors have deliberately omitted part of the story surrounding the main characters from the film, instead choosing to focus on “invisible people” in Thai society. The film is dedicated to the unknown bodies in the Hin Dad cemetery at Ranong province.
Last year’s New Currents winner, “36” director Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit was back in Busan with “Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy”, which premiered last month at the Venice festival. An experimental tale pieced together from a teenage girl’s Twitter stream, “Mary” screened in Busan’s Window on Asian Cinema and received good feedback, with tickets selling out for almost every session.
Also in this category is “Together”, a family drama by Saranyoo Jiralak that premiered in Thailand last December but has yet to come out on DVD. “Together” is the first film starring Princess Ubolratana to be officially selected for an international film festival and was well received in Busan, where many of the filmgoers are women.
The omnibus “Letters from the South” also enjoyed its world premiere in the Window section, with director Aditya Assarat contributing one of the segments of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia.
Thai films also reigned in the Midnight Passion section, with the teen horror “Last Summer”, co-directed by Saranyoo, Sittisiri Mongkolsori and Kittithat Tangsirikit, going down well with the audience. Young starlet Sutatta “Punpun” Udomsilp was present for a Q&A session along with two executive producers from the film’s fledgling Talent One studio.
Finally, proving that festival audiences enjoy a good laugh, tickets for the screening of Thailand’s biggest box-office hit “Pee Mak” also sold out in minutes, though none of the stars, director Banjong Pisunthanakul nor executives made it to Busan.