Last Sunday, the Thai Film Archive and Ministry of Culture announced 25 films that have been registered as National Heritage, the fifth year that such a list has been compiled in order to enshrine important audio-visual records.
The 25 films announced this year are an eclectic repertoire of historical clips, state advertisements, propaganda shorts, classic fiction films as well as popular movies of the recent decade.
Politics, social development as well as historic events feature heavily in this year's list. The oldest film announced is a 63-minute news documentary from 1918 about Siamese soldiers joining World War I in France -- starting from the troop's arrival to their assignment in various stations -- regarded as one of the rarest and most important historical records. On a lighter note, there is also an anonymous seven-minute clip shot from around 1927 showing a group of children playing traditional games and imitating gestures that they must have seen in Western movies. From 1956, there is a 13-minute news reel shot by an American news agency, which documents HM the King's royal ordination as the crowd gathers on the streets to bask in his aura.
A curious artefact in the list is a 25-minute propaganda film from 1963 made by the Thai intelligence agency with the roughly translated title of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat Performing The Duty For His Nation As Head Of Government And Military Commander Until He Fell Ill And Died -- such a deadpan, direct and egoistical title goes some way to explain how the dictator in the 1960s exploited the medium of film to promote his power and legacy.
A number of feature films have also been honoured in the list. Piak Poster's classic Choo (1972) is a moral drama that has been hailed as one of our best. Wai Tokkra (The Freckled Age) is Chana Kraprayoon's 1978 film that stars elderly actors, which was rare back then and even now. Another film by Piak Poster on the list is Ngoh Pah, a 1980 film adapted from a traditional singing play by King Rama V. A social realist film On The Fringe Of Society (1981) by Manop Udomdej also made the list -- this is one of the gritty films about social hardships that reflect the situation in Thailand in that heady decade. Also on the list is Cherd Songsri's classic love story Puen-Paeng from 1983, about two sisters who fall in love with the same man.
Surprisingly, a cut-rate horror film that is sometime derided as nonsensical also made the list: Ban Phi Phob 2, a low-budget ghost comedy that succeeded in capturing the imagination of Thai viewers in the early 1990s, with its mix of pure buffoonery and irreverence.
A number of "new" films have also been included in the National Heritage list. Not surprisingly, The Legend Of Suriyothai (2001), a historical epic about the 16th century queen and her courage, was named in the list. Others are smaller films of various flavours, though all have made some contribution to the evolution of Thai cinema over the past 15 years: Pen-ek Ratanaruang's crime thriller 6ixtynin9 (1999), Thanit Jitnukul's war drama Bang Rajan (2000); Mekhong Full Moon Party (2002), a supernatural comedy by Jira Malikul; the global smash hit Ong-bak (2003); the horror film Shutter (2004); and the teen gay drama The Love Of Siam (2007).
Some of the films will be shown next month and in December at Thai Film Archive in Salaya.
A propaganda film about Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat (1963).
Puen-Paeng, by Cherd Songsri (1984).
A short clip showing Thai kids at play (around 1927).
