Comments

Diego, do you mean ‘grand design’ like Triumph of the Will? http://imdb.com/title/tt0025913/

In Handley’s “The King never smiles”, he mentioned about the use of historical films such as Suriyothai to ingrain the importance of the monarchy (read: Chakri dynasty) in Thai consciousness. He also discussed the relationship between Than Mui and the monarchy. Perhaps King Naresuan is an expression of the same grand design: the manufacture of consensus for the monarchy.

Google, for whatever reason, called Thai govt’s bluff by taking their own good time. We would hope they learned something after facilitating censorship in China.

The videos were sophomoric and Thai govt equally juvenile in its reaction. Thai public simply had the typical knee-jerk reaction where the monarch is concerned.

Censors always get drunk on the wine of absolute power and Thailand’s censors are no different.

IMHO the only good war film is an anti-war film or a film that reflects on the intrinsic horribleness of war like War and Peace or Kurosawa’s Ran. See Marguerite Yourcenar for the sublime in historical fiction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marguerite_Yourcenar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublime_(philosophy)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_von_Kleist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Kohlhaas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ran_%28film%29

Haven’t watched the Naresuan films yet, but being intimately familiar with that history, I doubt if they’ll bring out the intricacies of that era’s history since most people just repeat the same story line as Prince Damrong who was a wonderful historian but wrote this standard history 100 years ago. A fresh perspective would be nice, like looking at events from the perspective from people who are normally assumed to be minor participants, like Lao Lan Chang.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam_Yasothon
and Ghost of Mae Nak are good historical pieces, my favorites.

Suriyothai seems to have a certain poetic beauty to it, but you supposedly have to watch the long Thai version, and that requires oodles of time and patience.

Thai film makers have indeed made moves toward producing similar period dramas about relations with Laos. A film about Tao Suranaree (Ya Moh) as the heroine of the Thai nation was to be made in 2005 but was called off when the Lao ambassador to Thailand threatened to cut trade relations. There were also threats that electricity supplies would be halted if the film was produced. To the Lao, Suranaree is an insulting myth created to justify the Siamese sacking of Vientiane and defeat of the Lao king Anouvong. This is a much talked about piece of historiography, Charles Keyes has an essay on Suranaree and the alternative folk meanings she has in the local social memory of the people of Isaarn and Grant Evans has one on Anouvong and his problematic place in official Lao historiography, but neither have focused on the relationship between the two, which is what makes the movie such a volatile proposition. There is a long history of subtle and not-so-subtle antagonisms between Thailand and its neighbours inspired by its sometimes chauvinistic Bangkok-centred media culture. The sacking of the Thai embassy in Cambodia in 2004 (?) was attributed to the opinions of a Thai soap star (although more about local politics). Rumours have spread through Laos in recent years about Thai stars’ negative opinions of Lao women and even the odd Lao pop star’s negative opinions of her own country. Geopolitics is being played out on the big screen and has repercussions off-screen too.

German’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation was so kind to organize a round table so that the Thai delegation in Berlin could reach German multipliers in order to make them understand the true democratic nature of the coup.

Oh gosh, that trailer looked horrible. This in comparison to old rambos, darn, in comparison to any recent action movies was very VERY graphic violence and blood & gore. 🙁 I like action movies but this looked almost like splatter: cutting of head and showing it, shooting at close range the blood spilling to windows, ripping of throat and knive attacks. This was very gore and looks more like C class action movie if Rambos were B-class…This won’t get any rave reviews in the press for Stallone.

Somsak: i don’t see at all how you can include Thongchai is the “2 nos” group. He is among the very few who have been absolutely consistent.

Tara – re. tourism in Franco’s Spain, there’s a fairly good book called “Tourism and Dictatorship: Europe’s Peaceful Invasion of Franco’s Spain”.

I take your point (above). I just think the debate should be what kind of tourism is best for Burma rather than whether or not people should go. I also think if a couple of million people went, rather than a couple of hundred thousand, the SDPC’s ability to police, control, manage or just support it would fall apart. Either they would take their slice of a growing pie, or they would try and shut it down or restrict it, in which case I think they would start facing problems from within their own ranks (including their business buddies). But I’m open to other thinking on this.