What's history if not what we remember? Or what we choose to remember? Or what we think we remember? Or what we want to remember? Or what we're told to remember? Or what we're swept into the wave of what everybody remembers? I thought I had said it in my review yesterday, but please spare me a few hundred words more on the curious cases of the two hottest Thai movies of the moment; two films that draw heavily on the still-gushing wellspring of history, real or remembered, actual or imaginary.
One is a folk legend now enshrined as a pop-phenomenon: the film Pee Mak, a retelling of the ghost yarn Mae Nak Phra Khanong, is fast on its way to become the second highest-grossing Thai film of all time. Part slapstick, part love story, it inspires giggles and sobs and even a streak of political analysis as certain pundits read it as a debunking of historical orthodoxy and the straightjacket of storytelling tradition (true, to an extent). It must be noted, however, that of the 10 highest-grossing Thai films in history, five of them are blood-rushing patriotic tales about Ayutthaya-Burmese fighting, and two are based on the same story of the lovesick banshee Mae Nak, including the hit new version. What's history if not what writers want it to be? Maybe the Mae Nak saga is as bogus, or as real, as the sagas of chest-thumping heroism of our 16th century Ayutthaya. Still, what has fired up the politically minded pundits is Pee Mak's blithe abandon of familiar rules in period recreation: The characters speak with 21st century jargon; monks are useless and no longer the moral bedrock who can crush evil spirits; and most tear-jerking is the movie's suggestion that man and ghost can happily co-exist. This final point is crucial, for it's interpreted by some to show the film's "progressive" attitude - the possibility of harmonious existence between people of different leanings and nature is precisely at the heart of our current social conflict. The "ghosts" are among us, and if you haven't already, you should start learning to accept them.
Oh well. It's possible to read it that way, and it sounds, like what dear Mae Nak looks like in life and death, sexy as hell. But when you toss the coin and catch it fast enough it's the tails and not the heads that show: that man-ghost co-existence doesn't necessarily mean that Pee Mak is "subversive" but that it's naive. Love conquers all - yes, in your dream. The whole thing sounds like the dubious "Together We Can" banner once splashed around the city to lull us into oblivion, a gloss over the chasm, a half-functioning parachute above the yawning abyss. Mind you, I like the film for what it is, and the reason Pee Mak makes crazy money is because it's loose and funny, and perhaps because it triggers this cool, shallow belief in the star-crossed lovers overcoming the odds set by ideology and death.
Or war. Which brings us to the second movie of the moment - the movie that, to many of us, abides in our understanding of a particular period in history more than any textbook or story. Khu Kam ("ill-fated couple") is another bumpy, nearly impossible romance between a proud Thai woman and a Japanese soldier during the Emperor's Army's sojourn in Siam as World War II kills millions of people elsewhere. Again, love is more powerful than B-52s and death, but unlike Mae Nak, which is a folk story, Khu Kam has the sheen of a classic and the status of elite literature. In short, even though it's a dramatic construction, the story has over the decades cultivated a "historical" respect more than the apocryphal and sometimes vulgar Mae Nak.
If history is nothing except what we've come to believe, Khu Kam, especially in the latest movie adaptation, has had a strange and unique effect on us: it has made the Japanese, feared and loathed everywhere else in Asia during those years, friendly, lovable, romantic. (Two weeks ago I related the plot of Khu Kam to a Korean friend and he began to laugh hysterically, in public, slapping my back in total disbelief). Of course, an individual - the Japanese soldier in the story - doesn't have to represent the entire nation or its ideology, but the incontrovertible romanticism of Khu Kam has had a tremendous impact on the way we remember World War II, especially the later generations who have grown up more on pop-cultural influences.
Love beyond life, love beyond war, love beyond maggot-infested graveyards - there's no point spoiling the fun by discounting these fantasies. I advise, sincerely, that you go see both movies if you haven't already. It is said that history is written by the winners. I repeat again that no, from Lincoln to Argo and Khu Kam, it's the movies that write history, and keep rewriting it, forever and always.
Kong Rithdee is Deputy Life Editor, Bangkok Post.