The Bangkok International Film Festival got off to a start Friday after a glitzy and glamorous Thursday night gala opening.  Some of the highlight films are attracting a large crowd, but many of the screenings I’ve attended have been maybe 10-20% full.  Considering that only about 30 of the 120+ films have Thai subtitles, it is no wonder that attendance among locals is light.

Right: Central World Plaza decked out for the festival.

How are the films?

What I’ve seen so far has been a mixed bag with some nice highlights:

• Indonesian Riri Riza’s road trip movie, Three Days to Forever, was an interesting story of a young man and woman, cousins, taking a three day drive to attend her sister’s wedding.  Along the way, they undergo several formative experiences.  It didn’t delve as deeply into some of the issues of generational expectations and intercultural conflict as I would have liked, instead hinting at them and then moving on.  Overall, a nicely made movie.
• Charlie Nguyen helmed Vietnam’s bigest budget picture to date, The Rebel, which is a martial arts-heavy period action drama set in the 1920s.  This film is unique not only because of its budget but also because its director, producer and primary cast are all Vietnamese-Americans.  Regardless of the heritage of the talent, it is a very slick looking piece with well-choreographed fight sequences.  The downfall of The Rebel is its reliance on action over story development, which is a shame given that the story – a French-educated Vietnamese intelligence agent defects to help the anti-French rebels after torturing the rebel leaders daughter who was caught during an assasination of a French official – has so much potential.  Current heaththrob Johnny Nguyen and former heartthrob Dustin Nguyen star.
• Malaysian director Yasmin Ahmad made a lovely teenage coming-of-age film Mukshin (right).  Ten-year old Orked comes from a “bohemian” family and she does not fit in with the local children.  During school break, she meets twelve-year old Mukshin, an orphan who lives with his aunt, and they strike up an intense friendship.  Their very different social circumstances begin to insinuate themselves into their friendship.  Beautifully shot and well-acted, Ahmad gets the most out of this story and her actors.
• Chinese director Liu Hao illustrated the importance of having a good script in a poorly-conceived and absurdly boring The Basement.  It starts with what could be an interesting premise: a lady and her boyfriend, with whom she’s disatisfied, catch an intruder in the basement television studio in which they’re working.  The captured man switches places with his captors, psychologically, as he begins to exert enormous control over them, causing them to examine their relationship and ultimately reignite their passion.  Thanks to a poor script, it takes an hour just to get to the point where the intruder enters the story and then once captured, the psychological trading of places is just not believable.  Quick, there’s another person with a half-baked idea: get them a digital video camera and they’ll make a movie!

I don’t mean to sound harsh about it, but this democratization of movie making – a byproduct of lower entry costs to potential filmmakers – makes the necessity of having a good story to tell even clearer. 

Above: Live music and displays of Thai handicrafts are part of the expenses that the Tourism Authority’s film festival budget supports, doing little to improve the quality of the festival itself.

So how’s the festival?

As for the festival itself, there are some aspects that are really going well.  The programming is stronger than in past years and there seems to be no shortage of money being thrown at the festival by the Tourism Authority, its main sponsor.

There are lots of beautiful signs, splashy graphics, and swanky soirees.  The mall in which the festival is being held is all decked out for the event.

But the actual operation of the festival is disorganized: of the seven programs I’ve attended, four have had technical interruptions including two film breaks where the audience was treated to watching the film jam and melt on-screen.  Always a crowd pleaser.

All of the movies are being shown with the same twenty-plus minutes of previews and advertisements that the cinema places on their commercial movies.  This is something I’ve never experienced at another festival and it is very annoying.  On the positive side, I can show up twenty minutes late and still be able to catch a few ads before the feature starts.

Three times I’ve been stopped while exiting shows and asked to complete a survey.  Each time I’ve done so and on the third time included my name and email and offered to provide free consulting for next year’s festival.  It is such a shame that many other festivals have to work so hard to get funds, but manage to pull off a nice festival nonetheless.  And then here is this well-funded festival that can’t seem to use the money to actually run the festival.

Above: Unrelated to the festival, Central World Mall was also sponsoring some sort of Hello Kitty event.  You could enter your name to win this Hello Kitty Honda Jazz.  Now how cool is that?