There's an archaeology of narrative in Krabi, 2562, a film by Anocha Suwichakornpong and Ben Rivers currently showing in select Bangkok cinemas. Layer upon layer, stratum upon stratum, dust on dust, it gives us a glimpse of how history, legend and biography is constructed. Like playful excavators, the two filmmakers peel off the palimpsest of a place and its people, real and imagined.
The film is an extension of the Thailand Biennale 2018, an international art exhibition that took place in Krabi between late 2018 and early 2019. Set in that southern province, Krabi, 2562 -- the number refers to the Thai Buddhist year -- tells the loose-limbed story of a woman (Siraphan Wattanajinda) who arrives in Krabi either to scout locations for a film or to do market research. Her inconsistent answer is just one of the delicious ambiguities permeating the film. In another thread, an actor (Arak Amornsupasiri) is shooting some sort of commercial in which he plays a caveman, posing before Krabi's tourist-postcardy azure water and limestone islands.
Then there are more depositories of fact and fiction, past and present, as the film contemplates the province's geological and cultural history while exploring its "stories" through its inhabitants, real or imagined. There is a documentary-like section about an abandoned cinema and an interview with an old man, while the parts concerning the two fictional characters open up more mysteries.
Krabi, 2562
Anocha, director of the acclaimed By The Time It Gets Dark, and Rivers, a British artist and experimental filmmaker, have found a way to ease in and out of cinematic reality in their first collaboration, and turn the southern province known for its beaches and outcrops into a realm of spatial and temporal enigma.
We talk to Anocha, who's now a visiting film lecturer at Harvard University, about her experience working on the film.
The title Krabi, 2562 sounds straightforward to us but to non-Thais, it could come across like a sci-fi film about the future.
We were definitely leaning into that idea -- that it sounds a bit sci-fi, while in fact it is not. It also sits well with the notion of time being something slippery as portrayed in the film. There's a sense of ambiguity, the present [2562 in Thai context] and what may signify the future for the others, coexisting at the same time.
How did you and Ben Rivers work out the process of conceptualising and shooting the film?
We were not being too methodical about it. Ben and I spent some time together visiting some places in Krabi, first for the Thailand Biennale, which was how the film was conceived. After we came back to Bangkok, we kept talking and putting together some key elements and even sketches for scenes, some of which ended up in the final film, and some [of which] didn't. We didn't agree on everything, of course -- that would have been boring and for me would defeat the purpose of co-directing. I believe that collaboration is a process of negotiation. You want to work with someone because you can see in them something that you may not necessarily have.
The film isn't part of the Thailand Biennale per se. But how is this related to the Biennale, which was one of the biggest art events of the past two years?
This film was born because Ben and I did a piece for the Biennale. Ben was invited to create a video installation for the Biennale and he wanted to collaborate with me. The research trips to Krabi for the Biennale gave us the opportunity to spend time developing the project together. Soon, we realised that we needed a bigger canvas, and hence we decided to expand the project into a feature film.
How did Krabi as a place influence you and Ben on this?
In a way, the place chose us rather than we chose it. Krabi is the film's raison d'être. The province was Ben's first introduction to Thailand, save for a few days he spent in Bangkok before we travelled down together. I think there was a fascination that came with it, naturally, being in a new place with really different culture, language, climate, etc from your own. I was looking at it with probably a slightly different perspective, although I also considered myself an outsider. I actually grew up in very touristy towns (Pattaya and Phuket), so some aspects of Krabi were very familiar to me. But I would never assume that just because I'm Thai, I was more local than he was. I was a tourist, like him and like most of the crew who worked with us on the film. We just spent one month there, after all.
Mixing fact and fiction, history and archaeology, reality and cinema: You did that in By The Time It Gets Dark, but with this one the shape-shifting is more casual, more liberating.
Maybe the casualness came from Ben, as his films tend to have more humour than mine. That's probably a good thing. Also it may come from the fact that we didn't have a full script, and that allowed for some freedom to mess around and experiment with certain ideas without overthinking it, at least not while shooting. During editing, this sense of playfulness became apparent and we wanted to retain it in the finished film.
The film seems to have a loose structure. How much of the film was decided during the shoot as opposed to during the editing?
We didn't have a script, actually. Only a detailed treatment. Ben actually doesn't really write scripts, and I was quite into the idea of not writing one, as By The Time It Gets Dark took a few years to write and I wanted to try something new. So the process of shooting became the process of collecting materials according to the treatment. Editing was when we did the real "writing".
The film contains a section that features a short film, Birth Of Golden Snail, by Chulyarnnon Siriphol, which was banned by the Thailand Biennale. What made you decide to do that?
Birth Of Golden Snail, among other art works from the Biennale, was included because we wanted to have at least part of the film shown. That film deserves to have its place alongside other works. Whether or not the film was being disrespectful to the locals and their beliefs, as a few people claimed it to be, is not for me to judge -- I am not a local. But the film was made, it was selected, and it deserves to be seen.
Krabi, 2562 is showing now at Lido Connect, House Samyan and the Bangkok Screening Room.
