We're in the news, and it's not all okay

We're in the news, and it's not all okay

‘So what’s happening in your country?”

“C’est complique.”

“Protests, I saw in the news.”

“Yes.”

“Yinglook resigned?”

“Yingluck, not resigned, she was sacked.”

“An election then?”

“Not yet, maybe, I don’t know. It’s complicated, I told you.”

I’m writing this in the midst of the frenzy typical of the Cannes Film Festival. From the first day, friends and acquaintances from many places approached me not to talk movies — which is mostly what crazy people here only talk about — but to ask with curiosity and concern regarding what’s happening in our Land of Smiles and M79s. Our spectacular unraveling is in the news, everywhere from France to India and even Algeria, but the particulars of our protracted mess elude most. Indeed, because it still eludes most of us back in Thailand as well.

The conversation took place with a French friend. Minutes later, in the screening room before the film started, an Algerian man, seeing my press pass which indicates the Bangkok Post, started to chat.

“So is everything okay now in your country?”

“Not really.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, I like Thailand, I’ve been there.”

“I’m sorry too, and thank you. What about Algeria, everything okay there?” — I thought, stereotypically, he was from Algeria, a place so battered by war and terror, and I’d be able to show my concern over the trouble in his home just as he did over mine. But that wasn’t the case.

“Okay,” he said. “We’re doing okay in Algeria.”

I thought of the film Battle of Algiers. Then I remember that the film was from 1966, and a sour premonition struck me as I imagined the Cannes crowd, three of five or seven or 10 years from now, watching the film Battle of Bangkok. “Based on a true story,” the first frame would proclaim, and a cold gust of wind woke me up from the nightmare.

Algeria aside, there are more recent examples on the screen in Cannes, the world’s most prestigious film festival that’s running until next Sunday. On Thursday, there was a screening of Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait, a documentary by exiled director Ossama Mohammed, who fled his country three years ago. Death is all around in that movie, which is outstanding not because of its quality but its immediacy. At one point, a man is beaten as he is forced to kiss an image of President Bashar al-Assad. Such violence — so glaring, so heartbreaking and so undeniable — would exclude anyone from asking a Syrian that necessary and yet dumb question: “What’s happening in your country?”, because what happens is so real that it requires no more explanation.

In another film, Timbuktu, by Abderrahmane Sissako, jihadists descend on a Malian village to impose shariah law upon its Muslim inhabitants. The situation seems remote from ours, but look again, maybe not: Timbuktu is about an ancient force buying into its own illusion so it can rule the present. The jihadists are brutal, but also pathetic, their ignorance disguised as moral authority, and we almost feel sorry for them.

There’s more. Next Tuesday, Cannes will screen Maidan, a documentary about the Ukrainian uprising, a situation that has mutated into something as complicated and cancerous (if not much more, given its Cold War undercurrents) than our never-ending Bangkok saga. No, despite the daily M79s and the war cries of both sides, what’s happening in Bangkok isn’t as nasty as in the Black Sea — and we’re less jinxed since we don’t have the world’s superpowers playing chess behind us. But who knows, the downward spiral can be swift and unforgiving. Who’d have thought six months ago that we’d be where we are right now? There’s a saying in Thai, doo nang doo lakorn yon doo tua — watching movies and plays then looking at yourself. I’m constantly reminded of that while the world’s troubles play out on screen here.

There’s another conversation I’d like to relate to you. After the Frenchman and the Algerian, an Indian couple — a film programmer and a lecturer — talked to me at a party. This time, instead of letting them open fire with “What’s happening in Thailand?”, I began the salvo:

“So, what’s happening in India?”

“An election,” the wife replied.

“Did it go well?”

“Pretty much. My husband is upset he won’t be home when they announce the final results. It’s so important to us.”

Me: …

“An election,” the husband spoke as if to drive a stake through my chest, “that’s what’s happening in India.”


Kong Rithdee is Deputy Life Editor, Bangkok Post.

Kong Rithdee

Bangkok Post columnist

Kong Rithdee is a Bangkok Post columnist. He has written about films for 18 years with the Bangkok Post and other publications, and is one of the most prominent writers on cinema in the region.

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