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FILM COMMENT
November/December 2002
THAILAND: JEWELS IN THE LOTUS
By Chuck Stephens
above: Blissfully Yours
There isn't a simple way to summarize the strange history of Thai filmmaking. The English-language literature available on Thai films made before 1998 runs to a few scant pages, and a comprehensive history of Thai cinema in the Thai language has yet to be written. To make matters worse, 75 percent of all Thai films ever made have already been lost, including films made as recently as the Sixties. And yet, Thai film today is undergoing a renaissance, reaffirming its existence with both a string of mainstream box-office successes at home and a series of internationally recognized experimental and eccentric works that rarely accrue an audience inside of Thailand at all. Two major figures from the vanguard of current Thai cinema are Pen-ek Ratanaruang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. No, you can't find their films in the corner videoshop or on the shelves of a Thai grocery store; you'll be lucky to catch them at a festival, or perhaps for purchase on a website somewhere. But seek them out you should, for while Thai cinema's past may seem as remote as lost Atlantis, its future is already here.
© 2002 by Chuck Stephens
You can read the complete version of this article in the November/December print edition of Film Comment.
