Movie Madness

[george]

Movie madness

PREVIEW: Coming soon to theatres near us is a twelve-day blitz of the year's most interesting films, courtesy of the greatly expanded second annual Bangkok International Film Festival.

Story by KONG RITHDEE

A sequel, as tradition goes, inherits the task of striving for grander, louder, braver effects left unfulfilled by the original. And here comes a sequel movie-goers won't want to miss.

Once again the Bangkok International Film Festival, bankrolled by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, is trumpeting its arrival next Thursday. After last year's relative success, save some ticket tumults and the media's fickle complaints regarding the fest's bloated glitz, the TAT is throwing an even larger party this year with a more comprehensive programme of films, complemented by a film market, sidebar events, and technical seminars _ in all an ambitious fanfare to kick off the year.

The hype has begun in earnest the past two weeks with the posters of a faceless juggler splashed across town, especially in the Siam Square area where the lights-camera-action will be at its dizziest.

Covering 12 days from Jan 22 to Feb 2, the BKK IFF is set to spread out 150 titles, long and short and documentaries and fictions, at various venues from Scala to Lido, Grand EGV to Major Central World, SF Emporium to EGV Metropolis.

It turns out that the TAT has successfully lobbied with theatre owners to allow the tickets to be purchased through the pool system of Thai Ticketmaster, which means more convenience for audiences.

This is one of the optimistic signs. A cynical rebuke always has it that the TAT cares less about film culture than about handcuffing film to tourism _ at an exorbitant cost to boot _ and up on this year's objective lists, the organiser still insists that a high-profile festival is mainly to serve as a promotion for the country as a glamorous tourist spot; meanwhile the BKK IFF is also exploited as part of the scheme to tempt foreign producers to use our jungles and beaches as filming sites.

But look at this year's design closely and we can discern the attempt of the organiser to capture the gist of a good cinefest _ one that puts an emphasis on movies rather than on image-making stratagems. It looks like the TAT has cut back on the celebrity brouhaha, and invested more effort in finding fine movies from around the globe as well as from the treasure trove of Siamese celluloid.

In this the TAT entrusts the responsibility of programming the festival to an American firm called FFM, Film Festival Management, led by experienced programmer Jennifer Stark. On the homefront, two respected film scholars, Kittisak Suwannapokin and Chalida Eubumrungjit, are working as consultants for the Thai and Asean categories _ and their work will ensure representation of homegrown faces in this homegrown event.

From the projected 150 titles, around 60 are Asean offerings, with about 30 Thai productions, including recent premieres and 50-year-old classics, from Thailand.

"My main goal is to establish the BKK IFF as a world-class international festival and to create an environment that brings film-makers from all over the world to meet and exchange ideas _ a melting pot for film-makers," says Stark, a Canadian whose background includes organising the Palm Springs Film Festival.

"I'm also excited about promoting the film-making abilities of the Asean countries because I feel that the film-makers in this region have a very unique voice that needs to be heard."

Besides the Asean movies, there are titles culled from the world's latest hits that should make film-buffs drool into their popcorn buckets. There are the arthouse heavies (Dogville, The Dreamers, Goodbye Dragon Inn) and the indie ambushes (Lost in Translation, 21 Grams, Osama, see sidebar for more), many of which have collected honours from various festivals. One can only hope that this year there won't be too many last-minute cancellations to this list of supposedly "confirmed titles".

Last year's punchline was that the BKK IFF will put Bangkok on the map of festival circuits, a premature sentiment that the organiser has avoided this year. The timing of BKK IFF is precariously overlapped with other established festivals, namely the well-established Sundance and Rotterdam, which command higher priority among celebrities. "Absolutely the BKK IFF stands a great chance of growing to be internationally recognised in a few years," says Stark.

"The festival made a smart decision in creating a film market this year and supporting it by bringing in international buyers. To succeed, a festival must also have a 'hook': in this case, I believe that creating a series of competitive programs will push up the festival's profile. Most important will be the Asean programme and we are really committed to promoting this."

Asean movies in general _ frankly we have little familiarity with our neighbouring cinema _ will claim a fair share of spotlight, but naturally it's Thai cinema that will receive special attention. Chalida Eubumrungjit, general secretary of the Thai Film Foundation, has done a worthy job of packaging the latest pics as well as little-seen classics and obscure-yet-valuable documentaries in the programme. Apart from a premiere of the long-awaited Tawipop (The Siam Renaissance), a high-budget time-travel drama, outstanding Thai films from last year (Fan Chan, OK Baytong, Last Life in the Universe, Kuen Barb Prom Piram) will enter the "Asean Panorama', with a dozen more commercial Thai flicks from last year to be featured in the "Thai Panorama" section.

"The purpose is simple," Chalida says. "In a film festival, Thai audiences should be exposed to global cinema, meanwhile international audiences should be exposed to Thai cinema as much as possible.

"Say, when I visit a festival in Korea, I'm keen to update my idea of Korean cinema. So it's the same for foreigners who'd come here to get an idea of which direction Thai cinema is taking. That's why we have to show movies that have already been released."

Even more tantalising is not recent outputs, but a repertoire of little-seen movies that should attract not only film-worms but a general public that might have lost faith in our local pictures due to the stale quality of our commercial cinema. Leading the pack is the selection of Ratana Pestonji's works from the 1950s, including Rong Ram Narok (Country Hotel), Prae Dam (Black Silk), and the rarely-seen Namtan Mai Wan (Sugar Is Not Sweet) and Niew Petch (Diamon Finger). Long cherished as one of our best, Ratana was a cinematographer and director whose movies show biting sensibilities well ahead of their time.

But perhaps the most interesting category conceived by Chalida is "In the Realm of Thai Reality", in which she culls documentaries and feature films that express strong social commentary. "We have movies that have been made with social and political passions, but they've hardly registered in the consciousness of most viewers," Chalida says. "The festival is a perfect channel." Among the selections are Anutin 14 Tula (October 14 Appendix) by Shin Klaipan, Prachachon Nok (On the Fringe of Society), by Manop Udomdej, and Hara Women Workers' Struggle by Jon Ungpakorn.

The time may yet to come when a film festival pulses along with the heart of our city, as it does in Berlin, Cannes, Rotterdam, Pusan or Park City (even a cab driver in Berlin can recommend you a few movies). But there's no denial that Bangkok certainly sees a promising line-up of movies and activities at our 2004 cinefest, one that strives for a balance between world and regional cinema, and between the ideas of film as culture and film as entertainment. It's unwise to judge a book by its cover, yet the cover of this year's Bangkok International Film Festival, for better or worse, is truly tempting.

Selected previews

Indeed, the line-up of this year's BKK IFF is genuinely promising. We see a fair inventory of "important movies", most of them veterans of last year's festival circuits. The films are categorised into six programmes: International Competition, Asean Panorama, Asian Short and Documentary, Windows on the World, Thai Panorama, In the Realm of Thai Reality, as well as sidebar tributes to Ratana Pestonji, John Schlesinger, and Christopher Doyle.

To simplify this surfeit of titles, I'll offer my hot picks (based on my own past viewing and on the early buzz) and suggest a path for your own discovery.

TOP DRAWS: I expect that these movies will provoke catfights at ticket counters....

Lost in Translation (USA) Sophia Coppola's second feature stars Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson as two jet-lagged Americans who, stranded in the Tokyo Hilton, develop a heart-melting romance over the city's ever-blinking neon. Up for five Golden Globe nominations, the movie is the biggest indie hit in the US in 2003.

Dogville (USA) This is one of last year's best, well, isn't it? Danish provocateur Lars Von Trier constructs a brutal allegory about a woman (Nicole Kidman) who runs away from the mob and seeks refuge with the townspeople of Dogville, who finally reveal their supercilious colours _ before the film itself reveals its nasty supercilious colours and smugly slaps our face. Shot on video and staged on a real stage with props and chalkmarks, this three-hour movie is an arthouse heavyweight that earns cheers as much as jeers for its difficult, challenging attitude.

Zatoichi (Japan) Takeshi Kitano's exuberant, bloody new work stars himself as a blind samurai who rescues a village (and a cross-dressing geisha) from terrorising mobs, whose henchman is an introverted warrior played by Tadanobu Asano. What will unseat the viewers is an oddball diversion when the film turns into a semi-musical.

Distant (Turkey) A triumph of emotional subtlety from Turkish ace Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the film was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at last year's Cannes Festival. This poignant story centres on two protagonists, a photographer who has left his country home to live in Istanbul and now facing an existential crisis, and his visiting cousin who's looking for a job to support his family.

The Barbarian Invasions (Canada) Denys Arcand's offbeat comedy revolves its witticism around the unlikely subject of death, as a dying man is visited by a parade of estranged relatives, particularly his spurned son. Like all good movies about death, this one turns out to be as much a study about life.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.. and Spring (Korea) Kim Ki-duk's movie was the sole representative from Korea in the competition at Cannes Film Festival in 2003. His tapestry of sex, poetry and violence is weaved through the life story of a Buddhist monk from his early childhood to old age.

Maqbool (India) A Hindi version of McBeth, Maqbool is a mob boss's henchman who murders his employer after falling in mad love with his manipulative mistress. Transcribing the vortex of violence and emotion from Shakespeare's play, director Vishal Bharadwaj strives to craft a film in which the characters drown in the madness of their own primal instincts.

Carandiru (Brazil) Director Hector Babenco, who gave us the unforgettable Pixote, returns with a story of sordid tragedy in Sao Paolo's state prison called Carandiru, as told through the eye of a doctor who's volunteering for social work behind the barbed wires. Based on a real story, the film climaxes with the prisoners' uprising that inevitably leads to a massacre.

The Flowers of Evil (France) Claude Chabrol was there in the 1950s unknowingly charting the roadmap for the French New Wave. Fifty years later he's still going strong: His latest murder mystery retains all the saucy elements of a family intrigue, with juicy incest, scathing irony and a bloody corpse found in the mansion of a wealthy Bordeaux bourgeoisie caught in the political crossfire.

21 Grams (USA) Alejandro Gonzalez Iarritu made a thundering debut with Amores Perros, and here he's back with a movie proclaimed one of last year's best by many critics. The strongest element is the performance by the three lead stars, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts, whose destinies converge after an accident that plunges them into an abyss of irrevocable sorrow.

Goodbye Dragon Inn (Taiwan) Tsai Ming Liang's latest pic follows the structural rigour of an immobile camera, amazingly unveiling buried layers of melancholic, eccentric, and comedic human drama. Set entirely in a movie theatre that's operating for the last day, the movie, virtually without any dialogue, is populated by a crippled clerk, an invisible projectionist, insomniac gays, and perhaps a few ghosts.

The Dreamers (France) Three movie-crazed teenagers lock themselves in a Paris apartment baring their bodies and souls in a psychosexual game that involves forced masturbation, bloody deflowering, teasing incest and an attempted mass suicide. Bernado Bertolucci's latest film stirred controversy when it premiered in Venice, prompting some to compare it to his famed Last Tango in Paris.

HIDDEN GEMS:If you hate to compete for the hot tickets of those obvious hits, consider these lesser-known offerings...

Eliana, Eliana (Indonesia) An indie Indonesian fare that spins a delicate mother-daughter relationship when Eliana is paid a surprise visit by her country-dwelling mum.

Osama (Afghanistan) This post-Taliban Afghan movie recounts the ordeal of a family caught in the pit of desperation during the Taliban rule. Crimson Gold (Iran) The name Jafar Panahi (The Circle) is enough to confirm this as an unmistakably Iranian arthouse, all the more so with Abbas Kiarostami as the scriptwriter; the movie is a character study of a first-time robber marginalised by the Tehran society, told in a winding, complex structure.

Madame Sata (Brazil) A portrait of a transvestite gangster boss in 1930s Rio de Janeiro. Winged Migration (France) A celebrated documentary that records migratory paths of birds, evoking the arcane miracle of nature. Bird Man's Tale (Indonesia) This new film by respected Indonesian director Garin Nugroho derives its hook from the story of a Papuan boy who's haunted by the image of a mystical lady he sees at the port.

The Saddest Music in the World (Canada) Cult director Guy Maddin is little-known outside the circle of fans who adore his fantastical wackiness; his latest flick is a semi-musical set in Winnipeg during the Depression era, where a competition to find the saddest music in the world is taking place.

The Kite (Lebanon) Rarely we get a chance to see movies from the Levant; this Lebanese drama uses a 15-year-old girl's rite of passage as a metaphor for the country's transformation. Satin Rouge (Tunisia) A Tunisian tragic-comic centres on a widow who discovers the pulse of life once again when she becomes a cabaret belly-dancer. Travellers and Magicians (Bhutan) Yes, a movie from Bhutan; apart from the magical landscape of the country, this film is full of mythical wisdom embedded in the story of a man who's made a chief of his village, but his discontentment prompts him to embark on a spiritual journey.

Spare Parts (Slovenia) Honoured as one of the competition entries at last year's Berlin Film Fest, this social drama concerns the misadventures of two Slovenians smugglers who take immigrants across the border to Italy, while their own lives in a small Soviet-era town is cursed by chronic poverty.

Japanese Story (Australia) sets a cross-cultural romance between an Aussie woman and a Japanese businessman amid the supernatural landscape of the continent.

Wondrous Oblivion (England) features an immigrant Jewish boy who tries to prove his Englishness by honing his skills as a cricket player. When a pilot and his passenger crash-land on the Arctic in The Snow Walker (Canada), they embark on a journey that will transform their lives. Another indie hit is Noi Albinoi (Iceland) in which a fjord-dwelling loser plans an escape from his icy bastions with a city girl.

We will feature highlights of new Thai movies that will be part of the festival next week.

--Bangkok Post 2004-01-16

[george]

Update:

Film marathon begins

BANGKOK: A movie marathon kicked off yesterday, with 345 eager film buffs ready to watch up to 40 films in one non-stop sitting, and be part of a world record attempt by sitting through 80 hours of film screenings.

The current record for movie watching in one sitting was set by film fans in the United States, who clocked up 66 hours and 18 minutes.

Major Cineplex Group and the Tourism Authority of Thailand are organising the event, which began with the first screening at 10 am at Major Cineplex Ratchayothin's theatre 14.

Several celebrities, including Naowarat Yuktanant and Charoenporn On-lamai ("Go Tee"), are taking part.

The organisers said more than 3,500 people applied to take part in the event, but only 345 made it. Of those that did, the youngest are two 13-year-old boys - Annop Rojanakorn and Piyapon Wiwarin - and the oldest Sompong Fuang-arom, 65.

Participants were eager to get started. Rawiwan Imsomboon said: "I hope I can make it to the 40th film at this marathon. I am a big movie fan."

Contestants are required to watch the films continuously and are allowed a five-minute break after each movie. A 15-minute break is given at the end of every three films.

The contestants must remain at their seats throughout the screenings and must not close their eyes.

Night-vision cameras and 25 staff are on hand to spot dozing contestants.

Comedian Go Tee was the first contestant eliminated after he dozed off only two hours into the marathon.

The organisers said those watching 70 hours of film screenings would share in a Bt400,000 cash prize.

Bt100,000 will be shared among viewers lasting the full 80 hours.

--Bangkok Post 2004-01-19