The big picture: prizes vs popularity

The big picture: prizes vs popularity

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
The big picture: prizes vs popularity
Winners at the 24th Subannahongsa Awards on March 1, from left, Best Actor Jirayu La-ongmanee, Best Actress Jarinporn Junkiat, Lifetime Achievement honoree Sombat Metanee, Best Supporting Actress Apinya Sakulcharoensuk and Best Director Lee Chatametikool.

When Birdman won Best Picture at the Academy Awards last week, a New York Times headline read: "Oscars show growing gap between moviegoers and Academy", referring to the fact that a small, semi-art-house film that wasn't seen by many people received the industry's highest honour. The article goes on to quote film historian Philip Hallman, who says "most people have to finally accept that the Oscars have become elitist and not in step with anything that is actually popular".

Last Sunday, at the Subannahongsa Awards — the Thai Oscars, for the sake of convenience — a small, semi-art-house film, Pawang Rak (Concrete Clouds), overcame the odds and won the major prizes, Best Picture and Best Director for Lee Chatametikool. Immediately, you could detect the murmur of surprise. Soon after, the social media was abuzz with questions. What is this film? Why haven't I seen it? Why didn't I even know it exists? How could it win when so few people have seen it?

Film prizes never — I mean never — satisfy everyone. You're elitist and snobbish if you go one way; you're populist, cowed by pressure of popularity if you go the other.

Titanic's Best Picture win in 1998 and The King's Speech trumping The Social Network in 2012 caused as much artistic contempt as Birdman's victory stirred debate on the Oscars' "growing gap with moviegoers".

At the Subannahongsas, an acting prize once went to a daughter of a studio boss (she's not bad), sparking whispers of nepotism. Thai independent films have won big four times in the last six years, including a sweep by 2014's politically charged yet little-seen Tangwong, which edged out the hugely popular Pi Mak Phrakanong.

But the lack of consensus, the fact that someone is always unhappy, isn't a bad thing. It's actually healthy because it stirs discussion, argument and counter-argument, which in the end doesn't decide the "best movie", but keeps our critical atmosphere, official or otherwise, fresh and lively.

In the Thai industry, what's more troubling than the absence of unanimity is the absence of diversity in film distribution — and perhaps in taste. Large cinema chains dedicate the majority of their screens to titles that make money (in most weeks, Hollywood blockbusters or Thai films with star power), and are ruthless in axing showtimes of titles that do not perform well in the first few days of release. That's business, of course.

But in the long run, the monopoly of moneymaking films also means a systematic exclusion of films that are less crowd-pleasing but more worthwhile in other regards. Concrete Clouds — a love story set during the 1997 financial crisis — isn't that invisible anyway.

It was shown at SF Cinema for a few weeks in September (to its credit, the cinema attempts to champion small films and has brought back Concrete Clouds, showing it once a day beginning this week).

The film had a longer run at House RCA, a sanctuary of independent film. So it was surprising, and frustrating, to see people asking about it in bewilderment after its Subannahongsa wins — which it deserves, because it's definitely the strongest of the other nominees. Some of the complainers went so far (on popular web boards, for instance) as to sneer at "the cool indie film" that nobody had heard about. This gap between prize and popularity is widened not because of any film, award-worthy or not, but because of the narrow-mindedness of the system and sometimes of the audience, schooled in the comfort of blockbusters.

There are popular films that deserve awards, and there are independent films that are plainly horrible — the point is to have an open-mind toward diversity, as well as our need for more public screening spaces that don't totally rely on box office figures but rather promotion of smaller films that can't maintain cineplex slots. Such space needs government support, and that seems unlikely at best, a daydream at worst.

Some of complainers seemed to be upset that a film they didn't see won the big awards, when other Best Picture contenders were mainstream products. Concrete Clouds took in less than 1 million baht. Kid Tueng Wittaya (Teacher's Diary), a fellow nominee, made 100 million; I Fine, Thank You, Love You made over 300. Even a modest performer like Plae Kao (The Scar) made around 20 million. Traditionally, the Subannahongsas have used a jury system (I was asked to join the panel of judges a few times). This year, the awards for the first time decided the winners through the votes of over 1,000 industry professionals, a similar system to that used to decide the Oscars.

An award says much more about the judges than the actual winners. Either we're talking about Cannes (nine judges), the Oscars (6,000-plus voters) or the Subannahongsas (1,000-plus voters). Sometimes they get it right, and sometimes not.

The way to close the gap between "film snobbery" and "people's favourite" is to watch different kinds of films and expand your taste, and coming to the realisation that that there is more than one way to say that a film is "good".

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