23
May 10

We will go to the sea

Chaisiri Jiwarangsan, lover, student, photographer and artist to Apichatpong, wrote on his facebook:

Joe decided to leave for Cannes at the very last minute. He asked me if he should go or not, with concerns about his family and his lover. I said, “Please GO FOR US”.

He got a new passport with help from the Ministry. The Italian embassy was the last place left opened in Bangkok to request the EU visa, just two hours before an infinite closing.

On the way to the airport hotel, Bangkok was burning. Dark smoke covered the sky, with sound of gunfire. Both the city and people were dying.

The silent night of curfew passed so slowly. We talked about shooting sets, about people we met and about ourselves; the future mixed with the past.

At the airport, Joe was going to Cannes while I came back to the North. I said, “Don’t come back if it is too dangerous here. He said “No, we will go to the sea”.

Joe never lied, but to say the truth, someone could kill him here.

We believe in art, film, poetry and freedom. Worth dying for.


29
Jan 09

Memories of Cinema in 2008

2008 Film Montage

At the end of every year, as with anyone who love cinema, I’ll reflect on the films that I’ve watched and/or re-watched. I do not believe in ranking films. Films, like people, deserve a basic form of respect. Even films that we do not like personally. I do not know any filmmaker who goes out there to make a bad film. Like many who do make a list, I wish more would have seen these films that stayed with me long after I experienced them.

Contempt (1963) by Jean-Luc Godard
Diary of A Country Priest (1951) by Robert Bresson
Ecce Bombo (1978) by Nanni Moretti
Emerald (2008) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Flowers of Arabian Nights (1974) by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Go, Go Second Time Virgin (1969) by Koji Wakamatsu
Ivan’s Childhood (1962) by Andrei Tarkovsky
Kantata Takwa (1991-2008) by Gotot Prakosa and Erros Djarot
Last Year of Marienbad (1961) by Alain Resnais
Late Spring (1949) by Yasujiro Ozu
Mystery of the Organism (1971) by Dusan Makavejev
Night and Fog in Japan (1960) by Nagisa Oshima
Rabun (2003) by Yasmin Ahmad
Sansho the Bailif (1954) by Kenji Mizoguchi
Secret Sunshine (2007) by Lee Chang Dong
Shorei X (2008) by Kohki Yoshida
Si Mamad (1973) by Sjuman Djaya
The Eclipse (1962) by Michelangelo Antonioni
United Red Army (2008) by Koji Wakamatsu
Wanderlust (2008) by Daniel Hui