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as with the last attempt at film festival attendance, i packed my bag the night before. jacket? check.(thai movie theatres are sweet and cheap, but are notoriously cold!!!), money? check. time window?
it takes me under 5 minutes to reach the Mo Chit Sky Train BTS station. 15-20 minutes to get to the Chit Lom station, 10 minutes to walk to the EGV Metropolis cinema, and then just wait for the show to start. so all in all, around 35 minutes of transit(disregarding traffic, crazy foreigners screaming on the train, and people that just walk so slow, so slow, like move it, ahhhhhhhhh).
of course it takes me an hour for some reason, but i do get there. and this is what i saw (spoilers ahead, but who's going to see these in all honesty? no being mean, just realistic) [links and names are credited where available; some links require both thai font and reading comprehension of the thai language]:
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1. " the orphan with the magic voice" by miha mazzini, 14 mins. slovenia
- a cautionary tale of stealing (?) magical posters from flea market cinema memorabilia stands? this film opened with a couple going to a children's home to adopt a child, and then a boy named little willy steps out of the line and starts singing a song in italian. mama mama mama...and so forth. then a small musical-inspired interlude ensues. cut to the flea market, where a man is looking at a poster of willy, then steals the poster, unfurls it in his car, and little willy appears in his car and starts to sing the same song then chases the man and touches people on the forehead transforming them into other little willy's. like what?
i was entertained, i think.
2. "to you" by deja piyavhataku, digital, thailand
- a story shot in dingy-digi format, about a woman who shallowly goes out with a "lizard-faced" man who comes into her store to purchase stamps and letter writing materials, then dumps him in a fit of self-induced boredom after expressing that he'll never satisfy her dreams. the man dies and sends her a letter post mortem giving her the one thing she dreams about the most, plane tickets to germany. she cries and the shot shakily fades to black.
even though it's shot in crappy digital noisy-speckle format(which adds nothing but visual distraction in the piece), it does have a semblance of a story within it;s choppy editing and obviously not-too-well-thought-out singular plotline. there's hope among the unnecessary i-movie splices made.
3. "CIRCLive" by nitipohn sisatabut, BKK university, found photo and computer manipulation/animation, thailand
-a story about a tiny metal man comprised of engine parts and fuel injector fans living in a "daily grind" world of pollution and overwhelmingly mechanical cities.
told in hard metal rock music, this animation repeats itself twice in its repetitious attempt to bring home the point that we are all cogs and we live in a polluted hell of a world. at least i think that's what the maker was trying to state...either that or he forgot to delete the film-running-on-a-loop in the mpeg transfer.
4. "why do you want to fly?" by thiraporn v., digital + computer manipulation/animation interlude, thailand
- a story about a daydreaming greatly-in-need-of-ridalin child who dreams of flight, much to the dismay of his teacher and parent. he believes that by attaining flight, he will be "cool."
this digital short shows how little these students/makers are learning about the art of image placement, timing, and editing when talking about trying to maximize the cinematic format. the story is there, but it is lost in an MTV mix of flashy shots, unusable jump cuts, interludes that are unexplained and noisy(both visually and audibly), and it just loses my interest by the time it all-too-lately wraps up. the maker brakes the 4th wall on more than one occasion by changing the frame-size of the shots, and switching inbetween wide and distorted formats. there is a tinge of sentiment from the boy as he is all grown up, but by the time we "understand" him, we already don't care about him. one of the only redeeming things about this short is the animated sequence, which is really confusing, but way more effective as a fantasy explanation of the boy's mania.
5. "the last sky passenger: file 042" by tosapohn bunsinsuk/thammasat university students, various digital, thailand
- a day trip to Dream World by a group of students turn into a day of observation and reflection.
told in a first-person camera-as-the-eye POV, this short is split into three sections. alongside the obvious use of digital camera and handheld shakiness, this piece incorporates the "eyes" of multiple observers, looking at the sky, shots of trees and vegetation, and glimpses of concrete buildings. the first two parts are accompanied by songs by the french-duo AIR, which i can only guess is used because their songs kick ass, and their name coincides with the theme of the piece(s)? there is something that ties the three pieces together, and that is the notion or validation of the sky, air, wind, and cloud formations. the final section of the trisected short uses a technique seen in forgotten honda/toyota advertisements, whereby the camera spins forward on a set axis and shows shots upside down as well as seemingly falling forward. i assume the final section's makers wanted to say something about empty places, and something about the sky. the implications of technique do not translate or convey any solid theme, other than the existence of a sky, so i will leave it at that.
6. "PIK-BAAN-HAO" by supawut boonmahatakorn & samart suwanarut, thai indie/box films, digital, thailand
- a man from the I-san(north-eastern region) part of thailand ventures down into the work-for-peanuts world of bangkok, the capital city of thailand. will he succeed in making enough money to help his family and love back home?
this short is not really the cat's meow, but out of all, it was the most effectively used and well thought-out of the shorts. the main story line is one that has been used over and over in at least every single form of thai entertainment ranging from songs to soap opera plots. the interesting thing that the makers do in this short is voiceover a japanese tale of a mackerel who decides to explore the outer world, and ends up changed and disillusioned. the parallel between the two stories is that they are both fishes out-of-water. one of the more interesting passages is when the man becomes a salesman of stainless steel cookware, and trys to hock his goods to everyone that will give him ten minutes of their time. the protagonists' voice repeats over and over his sales pitch, interspliced with shots of bangkok traffic, people rushing from hither to thither, and him contemplating the "next step" by the train tracks. a use of a clip segment by the icelandic artist bjork, shows promise, but by repeating the beginning of the track "cocoon"(off of the album 'vespertine'), the makers overuse the loop and it begins to distract the viewer from the experience of the protagonist. he loves his home and speaks to his lover and his family by use of a cell phone(another overused theme seen in many 'luk thung' music videos), but by the end of the story he falls off a bus or something, and somehow arrives back home amidst a all-too-abrupt cut to black, then the credits roll. even though this is the best of the pack, it still is a little choppy, and ultimately shows promise for future projects.
7. "bus stop" by (?), so digital, thailand
- a tale of a boy's life in BKK who sells his body to men for money at a local bus stop, following a broken home at childhood, and seeks to control his own life on his own terms with and the trails and tribulations of his experience therein.
this is the one piece of of the rest that one can see that the intention of the piece overwhelmed the ability to convey it. it is a mini-epic and the story itself has a downward-spiral format; the male protagonist seemingly doesn't care about anything in his life, except cigarettes and the love-hate relationship with the use of his body. he shows disregard for any kind of sexual protection, and it is that which comes off stronger than the story itself; the lack of condoms. if anything the themes of this piece could very well be on the consumption of tobacco products, the sexual habits of today's modern youths, and the struggling disillusion of living in bangkok's polluted metropolis. there are glaring examples of digital camera use (however also shown in the successful hollywooded-up steven soderbergh's "full frontal") which overtake the "vision" of the director's, odd cuts and splices here and there that also do not help the piece, and a flip-flopping jilted timeline that keeps intercutting to prove a powerful parallel between the past/present but fails to deliver the emotional impact due to its overstylized/underutilized editing cuts. although the protagonist realizes the horror of his ways though a sexual interaction with his father figured out all-too-late, we still see this as the only consequence in his life. i mean, there is a montage of him having sex/anal raping/murdering(?) his girlfriend(?), and there is no audio/visual explanation of intent or consequence in his actions of savagery. the piece tries very hard to convey a tortured soul or something close to a destroyed childhood resulting in a young man on the tilt of the wrong path, but it fall flat, like a flan in a cupboard. in the end i really wanted to like it, but it had too many underdeveloped symbolycisms and unnecessary shots that took away from the spine of the protagonists journey. it just tried too hard, and didn't pan out well.
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the one thing about thai short films is that you have to give credit where credit is due. most of these makers were most likely first-timers and students, experimenting with their available equipment, and trying very hard to convey sometimes complex issues in the span of 7-17 minutes. i'm sure the actors are non-actors, or people who have the desire to act, but fall into the trap that is thai melodrama and soap operatic-style.
the sound is not mixed well at all; all on-location sound has not been tended to and breaks the 4th wall in all of the shorts that are not more experimental in format. the technical prowess of most of the makers show form of first-time users of the equipment, but this is almost overlook-able due to the fact that these people will most likely receive further guidance in terms of shots, framing, mise-en-scene, lighting, and montage, if they so choose to refine the more technical aspects of their chosen craft.
knowing this task is before these makers when creating their pieces, we also must understand that there is a very strict and nationally abhorred filmmaking system in place. there is no ratings system, and it is almost near to impossible to get anything not made for a large entertainment house screened.
it's not bad enough that thai films emulate the worst of hollywood, they're attempting to create smaller individual hollywood's out of all of the entertainment empire conglomerates. this pushes me more to try and make films here insanely enough.
[disclaimer: this post/review is (c)2004 and reflects my own personal view regarding the shorts themselves and the thai film industry]
kudos to the makers who got the works screened and also on their future projects, as i should be only so lucky in the near future.
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