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Made in Thailand. Thainess, Performance and Narration in Contemporary Thai Cinema

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Made in Thailand. Thainess, Performance and Narration in Contemporary Thai Cinema Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2010 Made in Thailand - Thainess, Performance and Narration in Contemporary Thai Cinema Böhler, Natalie Abstract: Her dissertation focuses on Thai cinema, nationalism and cultural globalization and contributes to an understanding of local cinema experience, as seen in the context of local exhibition practices, storytelling traditions and orality, and transnational media culture. Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-132492 Dissertation Published Version Originally published at: Böhler, Natalie. Made in Thailand - Thainess, Performance and Narration in Contemporary Thai Cinema. 2010, University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts. Made in Thailand. Thainess, Performance and Narration in Contemporary Thai Cinema Thesis presented to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Zurich for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Natalie Boehler of Mellikon AG Accepted in the spring semester of 2010 on the recommendation of Prof. Dr. Christine N. Brinckmann and Prof. Dr. A. Riemenschnitter 2012 Natalie Boehler: Made in Thailand. Thainess, Performance and Narration in Contemporary Thai Cinema Table of Contents 1. Introduction 5 2. Contemporary Thai Film and Its Role as National Cinema 10 2.1 Post-1997 Developments in Thai Cinema 10 Transnationality 14 Outlook 18 The Economic Meltdown and the Resurgence of Thainess 19 Thainess, State Representation and Censorship 21 Independent Film 29 2.2 The Idea of the Nation in Contemporary Thai Film 33 Nang yon yuk and Folklore: Stories of the Nation 33 The Country, the City and the Golden Age: «Authenticity» and Nostalgia 37 Images of the Self and the Foreign Gaze 42 Mirroring the Foreign Gaze: Deconstructive Thainess 44 2.3 National Culture and the Global Market 51 Transnational Influences and Coproductions 51 Thainess «Goes Inter»: Self-Exoticization and Dual Readings 55 «Made in Thailand» – Ambivalence and Source of Inspiration 60 3. What Makes a Thai Movie Thai? On Film Form and Narration 65 3.1 Re-telling Stories 71 Revisiting the Familiar: Adaptations of Legends, Myths and Literature to Film 72 Remakes and Re-Remakes 76 The Value of the Past and the Pragmatics of Film Conservation 79 Multi-Adaptations and the Early Retelling of Film in Print Media 84 The Influence of Orality 85 Retelling and the Updating of Stories 89 2 Natalie Boehler: Made in Thailand. Thainess, Performance and Narration in Contemporary Thai Cinema From Orality to Literacy: Cinema as Indicator of Change 93 3.2 Genre, Story Structure and Formulaicism 95 Thai Genres and Their Multiple Origins 95 Genres and Cultural Coding 96 Story Structure: The Concept of Flavors 99 Viewing Practices, Orality and Additivity 109 Genre and Formulaicism 109 Genres, the Industry and Censorship 110 Contemporary Thai Genres 115 3.3 Characters and Acting Style 118 Characters as Stereotypes 118 Archetypal Characters in Thai Drama 119 Character Psychology in Television and Film 122 Acting Style 127 Acting Schools and the Star System 130 3.4 Narrators and the Gestures of Narration 133 Emphasized Narration 133 Personalization, Naturalization and Highly Visible Narrators 135 Narration About Narration: Self-Awareness 141 The Narrator as Moral Entity: Storytelling Traditions 144 The Narrator as Mediator: Thai Drama and Early Film 147 3.5 Performance Inserts 152 Performance Inserts as Magic Moments 154 Characteristics: Performance Scenes as Effect 159 Performance Inserts and Self-Reference: A Break with Classical Hollywood Style 160 Performance Inserts in Nonfiction Film 161 Possible Explanations 164 3 Natalie Boehler: Made in Thailand. Thainess, Performance and Narration in Contemporary Thai Cinema 4. Reperforming Thainess: Representation and Concepts of Realism 171 4.1 Performativity as Narrative Tradition 171 The Audience as Mirror for Performativity 177 Shared Narration in Dokfar nai meu marn 179 4.2 Fiction, Interrupted: Excessive Unreality and the Aesthetics of Discontinuity 182 Ruptured Mise-en-scène and Notions of Realism 185 Realism and Representation: Performing National Identity 189 Subversive Performativity 191 4.3 Negotiating Thainess: Independent Cinema 194 Between the Lines: Jao Nok Krajok and Saeng Sattawat 194 Revisiting Performance Traditions: Isarn Special and Apichatpong’s Early Work 200 5. Conclusions 206 From Here Onwards: An Outlook and Some Key Issues 209 6. Bibliography and Filmography 214 Bibliography 214 Filmography 224 4 Natalie Boehler: Made in Thailand. Thainess, Performance and Narration in Contemporary Thai Cinema 1. Introduction On a journey to Thailand in 2002, a movie poster caught my attention. It advertised the Pang Brothers’ Khon hen phii (The Eye, HK/TH 2002) and was all over Bangkok. By coincidence some days later, I saw the movie’s trailer. Like the poster, it looked sophisticated and sleekly up-to-date. Its polished aesthetics and production standard reminded me of Japanese horror films, and I realized this was a remarkable change from Thai film as I knew it, although that was, at the time, not very well. Having grown up in Thailand in the mid-Seventies and early Eighties, I had vague memories of Thai cinema being present in the public space, but regarded as a somewhat questionable cultural product. Among my early movie experiences were Hollywood blockbusters such as Disney animations and Steven Spielberg’s E.T., shown in cinema halls, glimpses of period martial arts dramas from Hong Kong, screened outdoors, their soundscape audible from far away, and Thai films, advertised on huge, hand-painted billboards. The latter had a reputation for being notoriously soppy, cheaply produced and low-level entertainment, especially in comparison with imported films that were deemed more interesting. Yet at that moment in 2002, Thai film suddenly seemed very visible and highly regarded. It was making its appearance in Thai movie theaters, on the international festival circuit and at times even in European cinema programmes. International screenings featured works by directors such as Wisit Sasanatieng, Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Pimpaka Towira. Various magazine articles I discovered on a development called the «Thai New Wave» echoed the impression that something significant was going on in Thai film. Indeed, the local film scene seemed to be blossoming, a significant discourse on local movies had sprung up in the media, and Mangpong, a large local home entertainment chain, even had «Thai film» sections in their stores. This upswing seemed to oppose the common view that all so-called developing countries are dominated by American film and television as a form of cultural colonialism. 5 Natalie Boehler: Made in Thailand. Thainess, Performance and Narration in Contemporary Thai Cinema Curious, I viewed whatever was accessible and was astonished at the broad range of genres and styles. There hardly seemed to be a common denominator of recent Thai film, save for its strong interest in self-representation: an obvious issue of the movies was their being Thai. This concern showed up in terms of subject matter as well as film style, and matched the resurgence of Thainess that gained prominence in local everyday culture from the mid-Nineties on. The following chapter studies the emergence of Thai cinema after 1997 and its preoccupation with Thainess, examining historical developments behind this trend. It further inquires into the various ways in which Thainess expresses itself in film. Amidst the globalization of culture, the worldwide film industry has grown increasingly transnationalized in recent decades. This can be seen in the cultural production of nations, as well as in their understanding of themselves as producers of culture. Thai cinematic self-representation is strongly marked by the foreign spectatorship newly interested in Thai film and by the possibility of international marketability. The next, and main, part focuses on the expression of Thainess in film form and narration by examining recurrent characteristic elements of narrative structure in mainstream film, drawing on descriptions and analysis of several sequences. To assess the background of this style, the text studies how Thai mainstream film refers back to traditional Thai performing arts and their understanding of narration. It also briefly inquires into how various cinematic styles, stemming from various cultures, have influenced Thai cinema in the course of its history, especially the strains of Hollywood, Hong Kong and India. Chapter four synthesizes the results from the previous analyses, sketching a generalized aesthetics and poetology of contemporary Thai film and tracing as key characteristics its background in orality and performativity. Departing from here, the text discusses further the understanding of realism and representation in Thai cinema, placing this understanding in relation to the reception of Western cultural modernity, and asks how cinematic forms of the present express Thainess by reference to traditional modes of representation. To offset the description of mainstream film and to balance the picture, 6 Natalie Boehler: Made in Thailand. Thainess, Performance and Narration in Contemporary Thai Cinema the text concludes with a discussion of the ways independent productions negotiate Thainess, and analyses several films to this end. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the text and provides an outlook for the state of Thai cinema at
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