There's a sense of immediacy in School Town King, a Thai documentary about two teenage rappers from the Klong Toey slums. On the surface, this is an advocacy film, one that patiently follows the two underprivileged ghetto boys with an unorthodox dream and their misadventures in Thai schools. But what makes School Town King feel urgent is its exposé of structural narrow-mindedness and the ideological straightjacket that leaves no room for kids who do not fit the mould. The conservative school policy, the film suggests in its visual clues and off-the-cuff asides is a chronic condition that has worsened by the arrogantly old-school regime of past years. In the year of Bad Students and Free Youth upheaval, School Town King is a deafening confirmation that the kids are not all right -- and it's surprising only for ignorant adults why they no longer want to put up with it.
The camera fixes its gaze on the two boys, Thanayuth Na Ayutthaya (or Book, or Elevenfinger, his stage name), and Nontawat Toma, or Nont. Growing up in the Klong Toey community -- the wrong side of the tracks in Bangkok -- they worship Eminem and Tupac. In the first sequence, Book, 18, and Nont, 13, are in the back of a car punching out raw verses about hardened life and slumdog stigma and we realise that rough-edged, expletive-laced rap music, here as in many places, has become a powerful protest melody of the 21st century.
Book and Nont broke to fame when the video of their sessions exploded on YouTube. They became a media sensation, with journalists and TV shows coming after them. They performed at community events, school stages, on TV, on TedX, while girls and boys swarmed them for autographs. The film follows them to their homes in the dense working-class community where drugs are common and struggling adults hope that their children will one day break out of the cycle -- by finishing school, to start with, then get proper jobs in companies and become good citizens of the country.
At school Book and Nont face their toughest dilemma: they might be doing well and even earning money from their performances but in the Thai school system none of that means anything if they fail in class. Book used to be an A student but rap begins to occupy all his time and his scores drop. Nont likewise has never cared much about class. In a scene shot almost off-handedly at a roadside stall, Book launches into a frustrated speech about how Thai schools glorify academic excellence and cast aside kids with non-academic talents as failure and pariahs. As he's speaking, his classmate walks past -- this classmate was seen earlier reciting the Prime Minister's 12 values, prescribed by the state and proudly emblazoned on the school building.
Like all good on-the-ground documentary films, School Town King perseveres in following their subjects and is rewarded with a scene like this that captures the essence of everything: teenagers can dream but that dream must fit into the officially prescribed definition of goodness and Thainess. This is especially true if the dreamers are slum kids where the freedom to dream, say, of becoming Eminem or Tupac, seems like a privilege not afforded to them. The film also has images taken on the fly that end up confirming its point about the way schools are being run in Thailand: Is it a place for education and moral grooming or a hotbed of covert fascism and casual violence? There are progressive teachers in the film, but the darker side of Thai schools we have lately heard in the news is also captured here.
School Town King was directed by Wattanapume Laisuwanchai, a filmmaker and media artist often known for his creative light-and-sound design. However, Wattanapume also has launched a few projects with the Klong Toey community kids that relies on image-making and storytelling. School Town King has ground-level visual proximity that brings us close to the two boys, their family homes, their classrooms, and to the slum alleys and railway tracks that are neither sordid nor romantic. Likewise, School Town King doesn't set itself up as an indictment of what the filmmaker may think is the roots of the ills but it believes that what we see -- and notice -- is enough to bring us to the conclusion: the 8am flag salute, the PM's now-infamous 12 values, the way charity and handouts are used to secure loyalty, the infrastructure of conservative indoctrination, and so on.
In a year where youth spoke up, this is a film that listens carefully to what they have to say. School Town King should be seen more widely, especially by the entire cabinet, if they really care about listening to the young, like they say they do.
- School Town King
- Starring Rattana Kalakate, Sorod Naayutthaya, Thanayuth Na Ayutthaya, Nontawat Toma
- Directed by Wattanapume Laisuwanchai
- Available at SF Cinema and Lido
