The Golden Snail Series

Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s Birth of Golden Snail (กำเนิดหอยทากทอง) will be shown this weekend as part of The Golden Snail Series (วัฒนธรรม​หอยทากทอง), a programme of five short films by the artist that feature his golden snail motif. There will be two screenings, each followed by Q&A sessions with Chulayarnnon: at A.E.Y. Space in Songkla on 18th January, and at Lorem Ipsum in Hat Yai on the following day.

The other short films in the programme are Golden Spiral (โกลเด้น สไปรัล), The Internationale (แองเตอร์นาซิอองนาล), ANG48 (เอเอ็นจี48), and How to Explain “Monument to the Fourth International” to the Dead Golden Snail (เรารักภูมิพลังวัฒนธรรมละมุนละม่อมนุ่มนิ่ม). Golden Spiral was first shown at Ghost:2561. ANG48 was first shown at Shadow Dancing, and later at Wildtype 2023, ใช้แล้ว ใช้อยู่ ใช้ต่อ (‘I’ve used it, I’m using it, I’ll keep using it’), The 27th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 27), and the Short Film Marathon 27 (หนังสั้นมาราธอน 27).

Birth of Golden Snail was banned from the Thailand Biennale in 2018, and had its first public screening at the following year’s 30th Singapore International Film Festival. Its Thai premiere was at the 23rd Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 23), and it was shown last year at Infringes. Chulayarnnon discussed the film in an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored.

How to Explain “Monument to the Fourth International” to the Dead Golden Snail was also the title of Chulayarnnon’s installation at the Silpa Bhirasri Creativity Grants 23 (นิทรรศการทุนสร้างสรรค์ศิลปกรรม ศิลป์ พีระศรี ครั้งที่ 23) group exhibition, on show from 15th September to 23rd November last year at Silpakorn University Art Centre in Bangkok. The installation included a framed letter from the Office of Contemporary Art and Culture asking the director to cut ‘objectionable’ footage from Birth of Golden Snail.

The Grandmaster:After Tang Chang

Vichit Nongnual’s new exhibition The Grandmaster: After Tang Chang (สนทนากับปรมาจารย์ จ่าง แซ่ตั้ง) pays homage to one of Thailand’s greatest modern artists. Using a diverse range of media—acrylic paint, wool, wax, and ceramic—Vichit has produced meticulous recreations of Chang’s works.

One of Chang’s most famous self-portraits, ตัดมือกวี ควักตาจิตรกร (‘cut the poet’s hands, remove the painter’s eyes’), shows the artist symbolically self-mutilated in an anguished reaction to the massacre of pro-democracy protesters that took place on 14th October 1973. Vichit has rendered this monumental oil painting as a woven tapestry, retitled The Grassland.

Chang translated the Chinese novel The True Story of Ah Q (阿Q正傳) into Thai in 1975, though it was banned and burnt along with hundreds of other books in the anti-Communist purges following the 6th October 1976 coup. Vichit has transformed piles of Chang’s books into ceramic sculptures using the Japanese raku firing process, a technique that results in black scorch marks, in a reference to the book-burning of the 1970s. (Sirisak Saengow also created ceramic versions of banned books, in Unforgetting History.)

The Grandmaster opened at La Lanta Fine Art in Bangkok on 11th January, and runs until 26th February. A lavish exhibition catalogue has also been published, featuring an informative essay by Sheryl Gwee. (Since relocating from the Sukhumvit district in 2018, La Lanta has been part of the N22 group of contemporary galleries, which also includes Gallery Ver, Cartel Artspace, and VS Gallery.)

Skyline FilmThe Graduate

The Graduate is the January highlight of Skyline Film’s monthly outdoor movie programme. Previous Skyline screenings (including Pulp Fiction, Annie Hall, and Singin’ in the Rain) were held at River City, though this year they have a new location: the rooftop of the impressive Siamscape building in Siam Square, in the centre of Bangkok.

The Graduate will be shown on 25th January. Directed by Mike Nichols, it was one of the first films of the New Hollywood era, released a few months after Bonnie and Clyde. It also has one of the greatest soundtrack albums in film history, by Simon and Garfunkel.

The film is clearly a favourite of Quentin Tarantino’s, as he has referenced it in three of his own films. The opening of Jackie Brown, with the camera following an airport travelator, is a direct imitation of The Graduate’s title sequence. In Pulp Fiction, a toaster pops up to punctuate an awkward silence, as it does in The Graduate. And in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, a lip trill matched to a sputtering car engine echoes the moment when the music slows as Ben’s car runs out of gas in The Graduate.

The Graduate was previously screened at the Thai Film Archive in 2020, as part of the World Class Cinema (ทึ่ง! หนังโลก) programme. It’s a classic comedy, and one of Dateline Bangkok’s 100 greatest films.

Smell Like Thai Spirit

Smell Like Teen Spirit, a new solo exhibition by graffiti artist Headache Stencil, opened at Rere Khaosan in Bangkok on 20th December last year. The exhibition, whose title is a pun on the Nirvana song Smells Like Teen Spirit, runs until 4th February.

One of the highlights is Cheese or Shroom, screenprints of Thaksin Shinawatra’s face in various colours. The initial series featured yellow and blue polka-dotted prints, representing the cheese and mushrooms of the title. The artist has also added red and white versions, and Thaksin has agreed to sign the red edition before it’s sold.

Headache Stencil’s real name is Pang-samornnon Yaem-uthai. His previous exhibitions in Bangkok include Thailand Casino, Do or Die, and Propaganda Children’s Day (วันเด็กชั่งชาติ). His one-day group exhibition Uncensored was followed by Uncensored 2 in Chiang Mai and a longer exhibition also titled Uncensored (ศิลปะปลดปล่อย).

Headache Stencil’s work is featured in two books on Thai graffiti artists: Bangkok Street Art and Bangkok Street Art and Graffiti (สตรีทอาร์ตกับกราฟฟิตีในกรุงเทพฯ). The Faith of Graffiti was the first study of graffiti as an art form, and Trespass is a global history of street art.

To a Friend I Have Never Met

Today is New Year’s Eve, though lèse-majesté suspects, and those who have fled the country to avoid lèse-majesté charges, are unable to celebrate with their families. Chatchawal Thongjun, director of From Forest to City (อรัญนคร), has made a new short film for the new year dedicated to lèse-majesté prisoners: To a Friend I Have Never Met (แด่เพื่อนที่ไม่รู้จัก).

The documentary shows footage of protesters campaigning for the release of Arnon Nampa and all other political prisoners, while its soundtrack is a conversation about the plight of those in self-exile who are unable to return to Thailand. The speakers compare the dire situation to dystopian fiction: “It’s as hard as in Squid Game [오징어 게임]. If you want to stay here you have to bow your head and respect them. No questions allowed. No doubts allowed. Because otherwise, it’ll be like in 1984.”

With its compassionate focus on the plight of those charged with lèse-majesté, To a Friend I Have Never Met is similar to Koraphat Cheeradit’s Yesterday Is Another Day, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Ashes, and Vichart Somkaew’s Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy (ไตรภาคการเมืองร่วมสมัยไทย). (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the impact of the lèse-majesté law on Thai filmmakers, and their responses to it.)

SK13: Kubrick’s Endgame

Stanley Kubrick died in March 1999, and his final film, Eyes Wide Shut, was released posthumously four months later. Questions have always surrounded the film’s post-production, as Kubrick was known for making alterations to his films right up to—and sometimes even after—their theatrical releases. Kubrick screened Eyes Wide Shut for its stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in the days before he died, but this was not the final cut, and subsequent changes were made by the studio after his death. (Full disclosure: having seen a rough cut of Eyes Wide Shut that was significantly different to the later theatrical version, this is not mere speculation on my part.)

In their book on Eyes Wide Shut, Nathan Abrams and Robert Kolker dismiss rumours about the film’s state of completion as “ultimately irrelevant and certainly counterproductive to our understanding of the film and the pleasure we take from it”, though in their Kubrick biography they call it “the most serious controversy of Kubrick’s career”. Tony Zierra clearly agrees with the latter position, and his new documentary SK13: Kubrick’s Endgame attempts to clear up some of the questions regarding Eyes Wide Shut’s post-production.

In a voiceover narration, Zierra describes the reaction to Eyes Wide Shut when the film was screened for Cruise, Kidman, and the Warner Bros. studio heads: “It was widely reported that the private screening in New York was a success, that what was shown that night was Kubrick’s final cut, and the studio executives were happy. But after years of research, I discovered that what happened after the screening contradicted what was publicly reported. Although the two stars were enthusiastic, the film everybody was waiting to see for years was viewed by the studio executives as shockingly bad”.

While Zierra doesn’t provide any evidence to back up that bold claim, his film does feature revealing new interviews with former Warner Bros. executive Julian Senior and Eyes Wide Shut cinematographer Larry Smith, who hint at the unease surrounding the film’s post-production. Like Abrams and Kolker, Zierra found production documents in the Kubrick Archive listing the changes required to the film. It has been previously reported, for instance, that the voice of the character played by Abigail Good was later redubbed by Cate Blanchett, and SK13 includes a rare recording of Good’s original audio track.

The documentary also contains other exclusive material, including a brief appearance by Kubrick in actress Marie Richardson’s audition video. Extracts from Michel Ciment’s interviews with Kubrick are played at several points in the film. Some of these Ciment clips were also featured in Grégory Monro’s earlier documentary Kubrick by Kubrick (Kubrick par Kubrick). At one point, SK13 uses artifical intelligence to recreate Kubrick’s voice, though the disclaimer that the recording is AI-generated is buried among the end credits.

Although it raises important issues about the release of Eyes Wide Shut, SK13’s analysis of Kubrick’s thirteenth feature film is hard to take seriously. It points out continuity errors as if they had some special significance—they don’t—and identifies unconvincing hidden symbols in the film’s props. Bizarrely, Zierra seems to believe that an accidental split-second reflection of a crew member was a deliberate artistic choice of Kubrick’s, and he presents this as a major revelation (which it certainly isn’t). SK13 ultimately has too many echoes of the implausible conspiracy theories in Rodney Ascher’s documentary Room 237.

Fall

Nipan Oranniwesna’s solo exhibition Fall was held at Jing Jai Gallery in Chiang Mai, from 1st March to 2nd June. The exhibition included several works from 2020 that refer to events leading up to the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University. An installation from the exhibition, Then, One Morning, They Were Found Dead and Hanged, was previously shown at the Thailand Biennale in Chiang Rai.

Then, One Morning, They Were Found Dead and Hanged dominated the gallery floor, with capital letters carved from teakwood that read “THEN, ONE MORNING, THEY WERE FOUND DEAD AND HANGED. IT WAS LATER ESTABLISHED, THAT THEY WERE DONE TO DEATH BEFORE THEY WERE HUNG.” This text refers to Choomporn Thummai and Vichai Kasripongsa, two men who were hanged by police from a gate in Nakhon Pathom on 25th September 1976, after they campaigned against military dictator Thanom Kittikachorn’s return from exile.

Thammasat students staged a reenactment of the hanging on 4th October 1976, and the right-wing Dao Siam (ดาวสยาม) newspaper reported this on its front page two days later, with a photograph of one of the students, Apinan Buahapakdee. Apinan bore a slight and coincidental resemblance to King Vajiralongkorn, who was Crown Prince at the time, and the newspaper accused the students of “แขวนคอหุ่นเหมือนเจ้าฟ้าชาย” (‘burning the Crown Prince in effigy’). It was this incendiary and false headline that led vigilante groups to storm the campus.

Nipan’s teakwood text appears on painted clouds, which are based on a photograph taken by the artist on 24th June 2020, the anniversary of Thailand’s 1932 transition to a constitutional monarchy. This metaphorical reference—the sky as an indirect allusion to the monarchy—has also been employed by other artists: t_047’s single ไม่มีคนบนฟ้า (‘no one in the sky’), Jirat Prasertsup’s exhibition Our Daddy Always Looks Down on Us (คิดถึงคนบนฟ้า), and Wittawat Tongkeaw’s installation Creation-Conclusion (เริ่ม-จบ). Wittawat commented on the metaphor with the title of his painting It’s Just the Sky, Nothing More.

The gate from which the two activists were hanged was rediscovered by Patporn Phoothong in 2017. A photograph of the gate (simply titled Gate) was also part of Fall, shown alongside framed reproductions of a twelve-page account of the Thammasat massacre—titled Ungpakorn [sic]—typed by Puey Ungphakorn (a former rector at Thammasat) on 25th November 1976.

Patporn made a short documentary about the case, The Two Brothers (สองพนอง), and exhibited the gate itself at Thammasat in 2019. A split-second image of the gate appears in Tewprai Bualoi’s short film Friendship Ended with Mudasir Now Salman Is My Best Friend (มิตรภาพสิ้นสุดกับ Mudasir ตอนนี้ Salman คือเพื่อนที่ดีที่สุดของฉัน). The gate has inspired several paintings, including Jirapatt Aungsumalee’s ประตูแดง (‘red gate’) and Pachara Piyasongsoot’s What a Wonderful World, and the poster Just Because You Can’t See It, Doesn’t Mean It Didn’t Happen.

Oblivion: The Original Texts

The short film Oblivion: The Original Texts (เลือน: บทประพันธ์ดั้งเดิม), a collage of found footage woven into a magical realist allegory, begins with the sound of gunshots, stills from the recent film Taklee Genesis (ตาคลี เจเนซิส), and a voiceover in which a student, Burindh, describes the 1976 massacre at Thammasat University: “A gunshot has been fired. Sending its vibrating wave upon my chest.”

As the poetic voiceover continues, the narrator recalls how he fled not only from the Thammasat campus but from Bangkok itself, which “is not the city of the people. It is not the city of ordinary people”. (These lines are juxtaposed with vintage newsreel footage of the Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall and the Grand Palace, symbolic buildings that have also featured in some of the director’s previous short films.)

As he escapes from his attackers, Burindh asks: “if I don’t possess this ideology that’s different than them, would they still aim their bullets at me?” The question is as relevant now as it was in 1976, as riot police fired rubber bullets at student protesters in 2021 and 2022. The film uses footage of a protest against Ampon Tangnoppakul’s conviction for lèse-majesté, taken from the short film Ashes, to hint at the ideology of Burindh and the recent protesters.

In 1976, a prominent monk, Kittivuddho Bhikku, pronounced that killing Communists was equivalent to merely catching fish, in a signal to the royalist vigilante groups who stormed the Thammasat campus a few months later. Images of fish in the documentary The Terrorists (ผู้ก่อการร้าย) were metaphors for the monk’s comments, though Oblivion goes a stage further: Burindh transforms into a goby fish and swims away from Bangkok.

Burindh’s metamorphosis is similar to that of Boonsong, the monkey spirit in Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ), another student who fled from persecution and transformed into an animal. Burindh meets Boonsong, his (literal) kindred spirit, who reassures him that his memories (and, by implication, Thailand’s political traumas) will not be forgotten as long as they are retold.

Oblivion is the latest of more than fifty films that refer to the Thammasat massacre. (The previous examples are discussed in Thai Cinema Uncensored.) It was directed under the pseudonym Burindh the Golden Goby, and it will be followed by Oblivion: The Non-human Interpretation, which will be shown next year as part of Bangkok Design Week.

Save it with Our Eyes

Twenty short films will be shown this evening at the Ready for the Weekend coffee shop in Khon Kaen, as part of the ‘save micro cinema’ campaign. The Save It with Our Eyes programme includes Vichart Somkaew’s The Letter from Silence (จดหมายจากความเงียบ) and Chaweng Chaiyawan’s Please... See Us (หว่างีมอละ).

The campaign began earlier this week, after Bangkok’s boutique Doc Club and Pub cinema announced that it could no longer screen films. On 20th June, Doc Club began showing Sarawut Intaraprom’s Pup (สุนัข และ เจ้านาย), which was rated ‘20’, and three staff from the Ministry of Culture were on site to ensure that audience IDs were being checked. They discovered that the venue had never applied for a cinema licence, and advised that it could continue to operate during the application process.

However, Doc Club’s licence application was ultimately rejected, as its location, the Woof Pack building, does not have sufficient access. (The cinema can only be reached via narrow staircases.) In a statement posted on social media on 16th December, Doc Club explained (perhaps naively) that they had not realised that a cinema licence was necessary, and that they were attempting to find a more suitable location.

The Letter from Silence was previously screened as part of The 28th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 28) and the Short Film Marathon 28 (หนังสั้นมาราธอน 28). Please... See Us was shown at Maejo University in Chiang Mai earlier this year, at Chiang Mai University, and at a Chaweng retrospective in Phattalung. It had an outdoor screening in Chiang Mai last year. It has been screened twice at Doc Club, in 2021 and 2023. It was shown in Phayao as part of Wildtype 2021, and in Salaya at the 25th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 25).

Nosferatu:A Symphony of Horror

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (Eine Symphonie des Grauens), made more than a hundred years ago, is returning to the big screen. It will be shown tonight at Ruammitrhouse in Chiang Rai, with live musical accompaniment by Count 3–0 (as part of the Silent-Cine: Interlude programme), and at House Samyan in Bangkok on 2nd–9th, 11th, 12th, 15th, 17th, 18th, and 19th January 2025.

F.W. Murnau’s classic film, an unauthorised adaptation of Dracula, is a masterpiece of horror and German Expressionism. It contains some of the most iconic images in silent cinema, especially the sequence in which the vampire, seen only as a shadow, glides up a staircase and extends his talons to clutch his victim’s heart.

Nosferatu was also shown in Bangkok earlier this year at GalileOasis, and in 2018 at Cinema Winehouse. It had a gala screening at the Scala cinema in 2016, as the opening film of the 3rd Silent Film Festival in Thailand (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์เงียบ ประเทศไทย ครั้งที่ 3).

Unleashed

Boris Johnson’s memoir Unleashed is almost 800 pages long, though there are only a handful of genuinely interesting passages amid the self-congratulatory prose. The most curious of these is an anecdote implying that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planted a bug in the UK Foreign Secretary’s private bathroom: Johnson writes that Netanyahu used the room during a visit to the Foreign Office, and that during a subsequent security sweep “they found a listening device in the thunderbox.”

Johnson is clearly aware of his reputation, characterising himself in his opponents’ eyes as “the monstruous Johnson, the beast of Brexit and the big bullshitting bus, the Pied Piper who played the devil’s tunes and led the people to perdition.” He later describes the Vote Leave campaign bus as “the great red bus of truth”, just one of numerous misleading and unretracted claims about the European Union. When he decided to campaign for Brexit, he says that David Cameron told him: “I will fuck you up forever.”

He acknowledges making “many goofs”, though he is unrepentant about his major failings. He refuses to accept the Supreme Court’s ruling that his prorogation of parliament was illegal, and nicknames Brenda Hale “Spiderwoman” after a brooch she wore while reading the judgement. He is also unapologetic about ‘partygate’, and in fact he now regrets the “rather pathetic apologies” he made at the time. Despite a Privileges Committee report accusing him of repeatedly lying to the House of Commons, he insists that he “hadn’t misled Parliament, certainly not intentionally,” and calls the committee members “my enemies.” This is a consistent theme, as he also blames his partygate fine on people “determined to bring me down.”

Anthony Seldon’s Johnson at Ten is a much more objective account of Johnson’s premiership (as is Tim Shipman’s new book Out), and Sebastian Payne’s The Fall of Boris Johnson is a detailed study of the final months of the Johnson government. The other recent memoirs by former UK prime ministers are A Journey by Tony Blair, My Life, Our Times by Gordon Brown, For the Record by David Cameron, and two less conventional examples: The Abuse of Power by Theresa May and Ten Years to Save the West by Liz Truss.

“ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump...”

ABC News has agreed to pay Donald Trump $15 million in an out-of-court settlement, after he sued the organisation for defamation earlier this year. Trump filed a lawsuit against ABC News and one of its anchors, George Stephanopoulos, when Stephanopoulos asked Republican politician Nancy Mace on air why she had endorsed Trump as a presidential candidate despite Trump having been “found liable for rape.”

Stephanopoulos interviewed Mace on This Week, in a segment broadcast on 10th March. He began the interview with a reference to a civil prosecution in which Trump was found guilty of sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll: “You’ve endorsed Donald Trump for president. Donald Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury. Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape. It’s been affirmed by a judge.”

Mace, who is herself a rape victim, stated that she found the premise of the interview “disgusting.” Stephanopoulos again asked her to justify her endorsement of Trump: “I’m asking a question about why you endorsed someone who’s been found liable for rape.” Mace accused Stephanopoulos of victim-shaming her, and Stephanopoulos attempted to clarify: “I’m questioning your political choices, because you’re supporting someone who’s been found liable for rape.”

Stephanopoulos then pressed Mace again to answer his initial question: “why are you supporting someone who’s been found liable for rape?” She replied that the question was offensive, to which Stephanopoulos responded: “You don’t find it offensive that Donald Trump has been found liable for rape?”

Trump’s libel claim hinged on the fact that he was convicted of sexually assaulting Carroll, rather than raping her. His lawsuit quoted Stephanopoulos on previous broadcasts referring to sexual assault, in an attempt to prove that Stephanopoulos was aware of the distinction and had used the word ‘rape’ in the combative Mace interview either recklessly or maliciously.

Trump also sued Carroll for the same reason, after she accused him of rape despite the sexual assault conviction. That lawsuit was dismissed, however, as the judge in the sexual assault case issued a written clarification: “that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was “raped” within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump “raped” her as many people commonly understand the word “rape.” Indeed... the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

The previous references by Stephanopoulos to sexual assault were all made before 19th July 2023, when the clarification was published. His comments in the Mace interview, however, were made afterwards, so it could reasonably be argued that he was using the term ‘rape’ “as many people commonly understand the word”, as per the judge’s clarification. Nevertheless, ABC settled the case yesterday and issued a cursory statement: “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace”.

The 7th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival

After a hiatus of thirteen years, the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival will return next month. The 7th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (เทศกาลหนังทดลองกรุงเทพฯ ครั้งที่ 7) will take place next year, from 25th January to 2nd February, at the new One Bangkok cinema. The festival’s theme this time around is Nowhere Somewhere (ไร้ที่ มีทาง), and it will include the virtual reality version of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s A Conversation with the Sun (บทสนทนากับดวงอาทิตย์) that was first shown at the Thailand Biennale in Chiang Rai.

The Bangkok Experimental Film Festival was founded by Apichatpong and curator Gridthiya Gaweewong in 1997, which was a pivotal year for Thai cinema. The Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น) also began in 1997 (and is still going strong). 1997 also marked the start of the Thai New Wave, when Nonzee Nimibutr’s debut film Dang Bireley’s and Young Gangsters [sic] (2499 อันธพาลครองเมือง) broke domestic box-office records and Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s debut Fun Bar Karaoke (ฝันบ้าคาราโอเกะ) premiered at the Berlinale. (Thai Cinema Uncensored describes the “confluence of events” that took place in 1997.)

The Bangkok Experimental Film Festival was last held in 2012, at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. The previous event took place in 2008, at the Esplanade cinema.

“une exploration inédite du cinéma thaïlandais...” (‘a unique exploration of Thai cinema...’)

Thai Cinema Uncensored is reviewed in the new issue of the Journal of the Siam Society (pp. 149–152). In his review, written in French, Bruno Marchal describes the book as “une exploration inédite du cinéma thaïlandais... une ressource précieuse pour ceux qui cherchent à comprendre l’évolution et la diversité du cinéma thaïlandais à travers les époques” (‘a unique exploration of Thai cinema... a valuable resource for those seeking to understand the evolution and diversity of Thai cinema through the ages’).

JSS (vol. 112, no. 2) was published this month. Thai Cinema Uncensored has also been reviewed by the International Examiner and Bangkok Post newspapers, the journal Sojourn, the magazines Art Review and The Big Chilli, and the 101 World website.

Bangkok Through Poster 2024Thailand Postlitical Fiction

The fifth annual Bangkok Through Poster exhibition opened at Kinjai Contemporary in Bangkok yesterday. This year’s theme is Thailand Postlitical Fiction: poster designs for imaginary movies commenting on Thai politics. Sixty-seven posters were selected from works submitted by artists, students, and design studios, and many of the posters are accompanied by synopses for the fictitious films they illustrate.

A handful of posters in the exhibition refer to past political violence. One example is a spoof horror film titled Cursed Siam (สาปสยาม) by Canyouhearcloud, referencing the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University. Two posters refer to the 2010 crackdown at Ratchaprasong: All the Light We Can(not) See by Wonderwhale Studio (which uses candles to represent the red-shirt victims), and Animal Sanctuary by Chonlatorn Wongrussamee (which emphasises the killing of wounded protesters sheltering at Wat Pathum Wanaram). Two posters—More Conceal, More Reveal (ยิ่งปกปิด ยิ่งเปิดเผย) by Deepend Studio, and Unfortunately by Njorvks—highlight former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s statement that “unfortunately, some people died” at Ratchaprasong. Kawinnate Konklong’s short film Unfortunately (แค่วันที่โชคร้าย), released last year, also refers to Abhisit’s dismissive comment.

Most of the posters, however, focus on more recent events. Thaksin Shinawatra and his daughter Paetongtarn (the current Prime Minister) are the most common theme, featuring on ten posters: The Missing (You Too Much) (ผมคิดถึงคุณ) by Setthawuth K. (a spoof of The Shining), The Chair of the Promise Land [sic] by Genji Kun, The Zone of Shinnawatra [sic] by Nam.Ni.Ang, The Successor by Gaw Chutima, Hereditary by Kritsaran Hanamonset, The Loop by Thalufah, The Invisible Storm by Antizeptic, The Landslider by Sina Wittayawiroj (a diptych inspired by The Lobster), and Closing the Scenes (ปิดฉาก) by Thiraphon Singlor.

The student protest movement inspired almost as many posters as the Shinawatras, including Chorn Yuan’s A Smile. There are two that refer to 16th October 2020, when riot police used water cannon to disperse protesters at Siam Square: 16 10 63 by PrachathipaType, and Sky Flood, Stars Fall (น้ำท่วมฟ้า ปลากินดาว) by Tnop Design. Panita Siriwongwan-ngarm’s Here at Din Daeng Police Station, a Boy Named Varit Died (ที่นี่ (สน.ดินแดง) มีคน ตาย ชื่อ ด.ช.วาฤทธิ์) honours a 15-year-old boy who was shot at a protest in 2021.

Protest leader Arnon Nampa appears in two posters: The Lawyer Devil (ทนายปีศาจ) by Shake and Bake Studio, and The Letter (จดหมายรัก) by Tanis Werasakwong (known as Sa-ard). The Letter refers to letters he wrote to his family from prison, as does Vichart Somkaew’s short film The Letter from Silence (จดหมายจากความเงียบ), released this year. Arnon’s fellow protest leader Parit Chirawak features in The Penguin 112 by director Chaweng Chaiyawan (a reference to Parit’s nickname and the lèse-majesté charges he faces).

Article 112 also inspired perhaps the strongest poster in the exhibition, Pssyppl’s Lèse-majesté, which depicts blue figures strangling red ones with nooses, a comment on the maliciousness and severity of lèse-majesté prosecutions. Bangkok Through Poster 2024 runs until 22nd December, and Neti Wichiansaen’s documentary Democracy after Death (ประชาธิปไตยหลังความตาย) will be shown on the final day of the exhibition. (The film was also screened in Chiang Mai last year and in 2022.)