Bangkok Film Festival

[Khun_Kong]

Let me just start by saying:

 

Great idea, shitty implemetation.

 

Went to the first film for me last night. Saw "Motorcycle Diaries" at Major Cinema World Trade. 120 baht. Popcorn and Coke, large, 80 baht. Spanish language, English subtitles. Sold out 2030 hrs show.

 

The film:

 

Great cinematography. The film is an adaptation of Che Guevarra's diary that he kept on a long trip through S. America in his pre-revolutionary days. There are some hauntingly beautiful and sad images of native peoples displaced from their ancestral lands, somewhat reminiscent of the Thai hilltribe peoples.

 

The story is basically that of a buddy movie, a romp of 2 young guys who start off looking for some adventure and good times. Unfortunately, their relationship was barely explored. It is easier to see the bond between Ren and Stimpy than these two guys.

 

Being that it was written by him, it is a somewhat self-serving account. The high point of the self-serving nature was brought out when he swam across the Amazon River to be with "his people", the lepers. Doubt it!

 

There was also an appalling lack of development of Che's revolutionary character, something that you would think he might have discussed at least once with his best friend and travelling buddy at some point during their 12000+ Km. journey! Rather, his revelations of his left-leaning thoughts towards the end of the film seem to take his fun-loving partner by surprise.

 

The film was set entirely before Che became the Cuban/Bolivian revolutionary that he is most (in)famous for being. One of the sadder parts of the film was that this man, Che Guevarra, an intelligent and well meaning Argetinian-trained almost-a-doctor, actually ended up hurting and murdering so many of his people before he was executed by the CIA in 1967.

 

It is also rather ironic that his sidekick, presented as a womanizing con-man/buffoon in the film (remember, it was based on Che's actual diary) is still alive today, in his 80's and probably contributed much more to alleviating humanity's suffering thrugh his life-long medical practice in Cuba and his care and treatment of thousands of people.

 

All in all, a well done, professional film, probably getting the best out of Che's limited "screenplay", although the die-hard, left-leaning Che-as-hero-not-the-murderer-that-he-was types will see it as a masterful homage to their guy.

 

 

 

The festival:

 

As I've said to several friends, if one wanted to write a parody of a film festival, they need look no farther than BKK for inspiration.

 

C'mon, guys: this is an international capitol city of some 11 million or so people. My hometown of 35,000 in Central Virginia has a better grasp of film festivals. See VA Film Festival

 

To begin with, the only apparent criteria for the chosen films seems to be "Well, we can get this one." There seems to be no rhyme or reason or common threads tying together the chosen films, except for this:

 

NOT A SINGLE FILM AT THAILAND'S INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL HAS THAI SUBTITLES!

 

I'd love to take my GF to see many of the entries with me. There are some excellent films in the lineup. But, as she doesn't read English nor speak Spanish/German/Japanese/Flemish/whatever, the subtleties that mark those films as excellent would be lost. Hell, forget the subtleties- chances are the whole plot would be lost.

 

Now, of course, you might encourage us to see the English-speaking films. Which ones would those be? Who the hell knows? There is nothing that I can find on the BKK Film Festival 's website to indicate either the native language of the film nor the subtitles.

 

The lack of a coherent theme would not be so bad, if it was easy to locate what films are playing where at what time. Don't have internet acces. Tough shit, buddy. There is a booklet listing all of the films. Somewhere in that booklet is a description of each film. Somewhere else is a listing of movietimes. But it's organized by date. There's just no easy way to find where a particular film is showing. Oh, you could ask the girl behind the Festival counter at World Trade- she holds in her hand an alphabetical list of the films, with the location and times of the multiple screenings of each.

 

KK: "Can I have a copy of that, please?"

 

Girl: "No. Have only 1."

 

And the list of stars that might appear at a typical festival? That list has no flaming hot supernovas, just a bunch of cold brown dwarves. Extinguished stars, rather than distinguished. And the guy who was supposed to be at our showing cancelled!

 

Announcer: "Ladies and gentlemen, tonight's distinguished guest, the 2nd electrician's brother, was forced to cancel due to a more important engagement- he suddenly had to take a shit."

 

Maybe I'm just annoyed by all of the bobbing-headed Che fans who were "uh-huh'ing" at every Che'ism shown.

 

Then again, maybe it is a shitty excuse of a film festival.

 

You be the judge.

 

 

BTW, it's probably much better than I've indicated. Sometimes, I'm just a spoiled, elitist twit!

[Khun_Kong]

BTW- if anybody out there has a particular film they might like to see, PM me. Might be fun to do in a group, followed by some intelligent discussion, good food and cold drink.

 

I will be seeing "Antares" at 2030 Tuesday night at Emporium and "Born to the Brothel", about children of prostitutes in Calcutta, on Friday night, 1800, at RCA.

 

Still painfully making my way through the schedules.

[Sukhumvit]

I think the problem with a lot of film festivals is because the entrants pay to enter. I don't think they're generally run on the basis of the actual organisers going out and finding great, exciting films. They simply trawl through the dvds sent to them and then select their own favourites. Bit hit and miss.

[ultras67]

I seem to have missed the couple I wanted to see, they put them on in the first couple of days while I was at work - why are they only showing the Sound of Music twice?

[Khun_Kong]

On Tuesday, I saw "Antares", an Austrian film, at Emporium. Decent seats there. Theater a bit hard to find. 6th floor, all the way in the back, hidden behind all of the little restaurants and food joints. Tix 120 baht, medium popcorn, medium Coke and pack of Mentos, 79 baht. German soundtrack, English subtitles, easy to read for this old man!

 

I would call this film "Amores Perros Light". Like AP, this was a film revolving around several dysfunctional relationships.

 

In this case, there were 3 couples, all living in the same depressing, industrial style apartment complex somewhere in Austria. There were some clever connections made between the 3 couples that I don't want to reveal.

 

The first couple had a bored wife with a meaningless life, presented to us by the director in an excruciating manner. The boredom and tedium in both her home and work life made ME feel like killing myself. Not really, of course, but the director laid it on very thick. Her solution was to have an equally meaningless affair with a former lover, a guy whose name she couldn't even remember in one embarrasing scene.

 

The second couple had an insanely jealous girlfriend. For thse of you who think you have had a PGF (Psycho Girl Friend), I can guarantee you, she wasn't as nuts as the girl in this film. Unfortunately, she had good reason to be jealous, due to the behavior of her philandering Yugo boyfriend.

 

The third couple had one of the most misogynistic, racist characters that I've seen on screen. One look at the guy and you just want to smack him. You really have to see this hooligan in action.

 

One outstanding feature of this film was the graphic sex, probably the most graphic film I've ever seen outside of true porn, certainly the most graphic non-XXX that I've seen in Thailand. I'm surprised they let this one go through the cracks. We had a discussion after the film ended about whether the oral sex portryed was real. There was no doubt at all that the actress had her hands around the guys hardening dick. Sucking, eating, fucking, exhibitionism, bondage, voyeurism, etc- you get all of the -ings and -isms with this film.

 

But don't see it just for that!