Sun City & Other Stories

An exhibition at Alliance Francaise in Delhi, Sun City & Other Stories: Paris - San Francisco - Delhi, by photographer Sunil Gupta, has been shut down following a request from the police. The exhibition opened on 23rd March, and was due to run until 15th April, though police intervened a day after it opened.

MDNA

Madonna's new album MDNA includes Masterpiece, a ballad from her film W/E, and Give Me All Your Luvin', which she sang (or mimed) at the Super Bowl earlier this year. Madonna has described the album's title as a triple-entendre. It's a pseudo-blend of her name (with every second letter omitted), it resembles M DNA (i.e. Madonna's DNA), and it's a pun on MDMA (the rave drug). One of the album's producers, William Orbit, previously produced Ray Of Light and remixed Justify My Love.

The album is surprisingly aggressive (Gang Bang) and confessional (I Fucked Up), though it also contains some pure dance tracks, such as the catchy Turn Up The Radio and Love Spent. Masterpiece is a ballad with a weak first line ("If you were the Mona Lisa, you'd be hanging in the Louvre"). Superstar, like the earlier non-album track Superpop, references some of Madonna's heroes ("You're like Brando on the silver screen").

Several songs - notably I Don't Give A and Best Friend - refer directly to her failed marriage, recalling Till Death Do Us Part on her earlier Like A Prayer album. In another link with Like A Prayer, there are numerous references to Catholicism: Girl Gone Wild begins with a confession, and I'm A Sinner includes a list of saints. MDNA represents a real return to form, with the insubstantial B-Day song being its only weak track.

The double-disc track-list is: Girl Gone Wild, Gang Bang, I'm Addicted, Turn Up The Radio, Give Me All Your Luvin', Some Girls, Superstar, I Don't Give A, I'm A Sinner, Love Spent, Masterpiece, Falling Free, Beautiful Killer, I Fucked Up, B-Day Song, and Best Friend. A single-disc version, containing fewer tracks, is also available, and both versions are also available in non-explicit editions.

100 Ideas That Changed Film

100 Ideas That Changed Film, written by David Parkinson and published by Laurence King, is a guide to 100 significant technical and stylistic innovations from the Cinematographe to CGI. Each entry is allocated a single page of text accompanied by a full-page, full-colour photograph.

It's refreshing to see film-theory concepts like mise-en-scene, and structural elements such as flashbacks, given equal coverage alongside more mainstream entries. This will hopefully promote an awareness of film grammar (close-ups, zooms, continuity editing, etc.) and the historical development of the medium. Conversely, the chapters on major topics such as film noir are inevitably condensed.

The book, with its extensive and well-chosen illustrations, provides a practical and accessible introduction to film studies. It's a useful supplement to film-history surveys such as Cinema: The Whole Story and film-analysis primers like How To Read A Film.

La fête 2012

This year’s La fête arts festival runs from 2nd February until 29th March, at various venues around Bangkok including Alliance Française. A highlight of last year’s festival, Museum Siam’s Cinema Picnic by Moonlight (Cinéma pique-nique au clair de lune), returned on Valentine’s Day with an outdoor screening of the Georges Méliès classic A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune).

A Trip to the Moon, silent cinema’s first masterpiece, was presented in 35mm, in a hand-coloured version discovered and restored last year. The film has been shown in Bangkok before, on DVD at the 5th World Film Festival, though last month’s screening was in 35mm.

Top Gear

The defamation case brought by Elon Musk’s Tesla motor company against the BBC2 series Top Gear has ended, after Tesla lost its appeal today. Tesla had sued the BBC last year for libel and malicious falsehood after Top Gear reviewed the Tesla Roadster electric sports car.

According to Tesla’s epecifications, the Roadster has a driving range of over 200 miles when fully charged, though Top Gear claimed that it would only achieve 55 miles under track condiditions. The show was broadcast on 14th December 2008, and is included on DVDs of the twelfth Top Gear series released in Australia and the US.

Tesla filed its lawsuit on 29th March last year. The libel case was dismissed on 19th October 2011, and the malicious falsehood case collapsed on 23rd February.

Boadwalk Empire

The premiere episode of Boardwalk Empire’s first season was originally broadcast by HBO on 19th September 2010. The episode was directed by Martin Scorsese, and is perhaps the most expensive TV show ever produced.

Boardwalk Empire (the title of the premiere episode and the series) is a historical crime drama set in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during the introduction of prohibition. At that time, Atlantic City was noted for its casinos and organised crime — a reputation that would later be inherited by Las Vegas, as portrayed in Scorsese’s film Casino. Thus, Scorsese is in familiar territory, having directed gangster films such as GoodFellas and The Departed.

In fact, the episode contains potentially self-referential plot points, such as a casino owner dealing with an unwanted customer (as in Casino) and a gangster’s well-educated crew-member being an FBI informant (as in The Departed). A brief montage at a police training centre looks remarkably similar to the FBI training sequence in The Departed. There is even a moment of arguable self-parody, with a boxing match between two dwarves (surely evoking Scorsese’s masterpiece Raging Bull).

In the past decade, HBO has led a renaissance of creativity in American television drama, a welcome contrast to the prevalence of trashy ‘reality TV’. Boadwalk Empire is the latest in a long list of acclaimed HBO shows, including The Sopranos (inspired by GoodFellas), The Wire, Oz, Deadwood, Sex and the City, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Six Feet Under. Being an HBO production, the series is not subject to the restrictions imposed on network television, thus it contains the strong language and flashes of extreme violence associated with Scorsese’s films. Another of his directorial trademarks, the freeze-frame (as in GoodFellas), is also present.

Scorsese has previously directed documentaries for television, such as A Personal Journey Through American Movies, though Boardwalk Empire is his first TV drama. Alfred Hitchcock also ventured into television drama, with Alfred Hitchcock Presents; similarly, Hitchcock and Scorsese have also both added prestige to 3D cinema: Hitchcock with Dial M for Murder, and Scorsese with Hugo.

The Battle Of Algiers

The Battle Of Algiers, Gillo Pontecorvo's classic and realistic portrait of urban guerilla warfare, will be shown tonight at the FCCT in Bangkok. The screening is free.

Red Issue

Copies of Manchester United FC's fanzine Red Issue were seized by police last month, after the magazine printed a Ku Klux Klan mask on its back cover, with the slogan "SUAREZ IS INNOCENT". The slogan was a reference to Liverpool FC player Luis Suarez, who has been accused of racism. The magazine has now been reprinted with an alternate cover.

The Artist

The Artist, directed by Michel Hazanavicius, is, like Martin Scorsese's Hugo, a tribute to silent cinema. However, while Hugo was filmed in 3D, colour, and widescreen, The Artist is a black-and-white, silent film, in the Academy ratio. (Steven Soderbergh attempted a similar technical tribute with The Good German, his black-and-white, Academy homage to Casablanca.)

Hazanavicius recreates, with impressive fidelity, the experience of watching a silent film, though he does bend the rules occasionally (notably in a dream sequence with synchronised sound effects). Inter-titles are used to convey dialogue, though it's often possible to read the actors' lips anyway, because they perform in the traditional overly-dramatic silent-film style. Only in the final few seconds do people actually speak audibly, a moment comparable to the fleeting movement at the end of Chris Marker's photo-roman La Jetee.

The Artist's plot is clearly inspired by A Star Is Born, with a young starlet (Peppy Miller) beginning her career while an established star (George Valentin) fades away. The film belongs in the same company as classic backstage dramas such as 42nd Street, All About Eve, Sunset Boulevard, The Bad & The Beautiful, and The Player. Specifically, as it explores Hollywood's transition to sound after The Jazz Singer, it invokes comparisons with Singin' In The Rain. (The Artist isn't a musical like Singin' In The Rain, though it does include Astaire/Rogers-style tap dancing.) There are also references to Citizen Kane, such as breakfasts revealing the deterioration of a marriage.

The lead male character is partly based on Douglas Fairbanks, and clips from Fairbanks's The Mask Of Zorro are included; his last name, Valentin, also refers to Rupolph Valentino. The heroine quotes Greta Garbo ("I want to be alone"), and insists that the studio hire Valentin just as Garbo demanded a role for John Gilbert in Queen Christina. The strong supporting cast includes John Goodman (playing a movie producer, as he did in Matinee), James Cromwell, and the dog Uggie.

The film's technical sophistication and cine-literacy make it fascinating, though it's also incredibly witty and entertaining. For cinephiles, it's (almost) as exciting as Hugo, though it works just as well for mainstream audiences, too. It has an engaging narrative and it makes silent cinema accessible, and achieves both for 100% of the time. [In contrast, Hugo is 50% exciting plot for kids (the story of the two orphans) and 50% film history for adults (the life of Georges Melies), though the two halves don't quite fit together.]

Attounissia

The publisher of Attounissia, a daily Tunisian newspaper, has been arrested and charged with disrupting public morality. Nasreddine Ben Saida has been held in custody since his arrest on 15th February, the day that his newspaper printed a front-page photograph of footballer Sami Khedira and his girlfriend, Lena Gercke. The photo, taken from the March issue of GQ magazine in Germany, shows Gercke topless, though her breasts are covered by Khedira's hands. Ben Saida faces up to five years in prison if found guilty.

The Human Clay

The Human Clay, a joint exhibition by provocative Thai artist Vasan Sitthiket and Australian photographer Diane Mantzaris, opened today at Number One Gallery in Bangkok. (Vasan's solo exhibitions Obsessive Compulsive and Ten Evil Scenes Of Thai Politic [sic] were also held at the same venue.)

Vasan has painted a self-portrait as a skeleton holding a machine gun (People Can Do No Wrong), and an auto-fellating monk (Intrend Smart). Mantzaris has photographed herself posing as classical sculptures while urinating (Fountain Of Eve and Fountain Of Venus).

Both Vasan and Mantzaris have used art as a means of political protest; they previously collaborated in the 1990s, shortly after the Black May massacre by the military. The Human Clay will close on 3rd March.

Newsweek

The 20th February issue of Newsweek Asia has been banned in Malaysia. The magazine included reproductions of paintings by Egyptian artist Weaam El Masry that were deemed offensive by Malaysian censors. One of the paintings is reprinted as a thumbnail photo in Newsweek's current issue.

El Pais

Last Thursday's edition of the Spanish newspaper El Pais has been banned in Morocco, as it contains a caricature of King Mohammed VI. The cartoon, by Damien Glez, was first published in Le Monde in 2009, and distorts the King's head and body into the shape of a keyhole.

Walid Bahomane, a Moroccan man, was arrested after he uploaded the cartoon to Facebook this month. A Facebook group, Mohammed VI: Ma Liberte Est Plus Sacree Que Toi, has been set up in solidarity with him, and now contains numerous King Mohammed caricatures. Persecuted cartoonist Khalid Kadar has drawn a portrait of the King which has been censored with the word "INTERDIT", highlighting Morocco's lack of free expression.

(A previous edition of El Pais was also banned in Morocco for similar reasons in 2009. Other foreign publications - Le Nouvel Observateur this year and last year, Courrier-International in 2009 and 2011, Pelerin this year, L'Express in 2011, and L'Express International in 2008 - have also been banned in Morocco, and the Moroccan newspaper Akhbar Al Youm was closed down in 2009.)

Hugo

Hugo is Martin Scorsese’s first film in 3D, and also his first film aimed specifically at a family audience. Like Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, Scorsese’s film adds prestige to the 3D fad, and demonstrates that stereoscopic cinema can be used creatively as more than merely a gimmick.

Ben Kingsley is, of course, excellent, in his second Martin Scorsese film (following Shutter Island). Ray Winstone (also in his second Scorsese film, after The Departed) has merely a cameo role, as does Jude Law. It’s ironic that Law repairs an automaton in Hugo, as he previously played a robot in AI.

The Hugo Movie Companion

The Hugo Movie Companion is a guide to the making of Martin Scorsese's latest film, Hugo. The book's author, Brian Selznick, also wrote The Invention Of Hugo Cabret, the graphic novel on which the film is based. Like the novel, the Movie Companion is extensively illustrated, with images from Scorsese's influences including A Trip To The Moon, The 400 Blows, and even the Mona Lisa.

Selznick covers every aspect of the film's production, and has seemingly interviewed all of the key cast and crew, including Scorsese. Numerous on-set photos are included, along with script extracts, storyboards, and pre-production sketches. Scorsese has contributed a short essay on the influences of the Lumiere brothers and Georges Melies.

Given Selznick's proximity to the film's source novel, he's not really objective enough to write a making-of book. Fortunately, though, self-references are kept to a minimum - except in the final chapter, when he describes his own cameo role with false modesty and excessive detail.

Le Nouvel Observateur

The 2nd February issue of Le Nouvel Observateur has been banned in Morocco, because it includes a drawing of God from the animated film Persepolis. A previous issue of the magazine was banned in Morocco last year. (Other foreign publications - Pelerin this year, Courrier-International in 2009 and 2011, L'Express in 2011, El Pais in 2009, and L'Express International in 2008 - have also been banned in Morocco, and the Moroccan newspaper Akhbar Al Youm was closed down in 2009.)

Retro Ver-Spective

The group exhibition Retro Ver-Spective opened yesterday at Gallery VER in Bangkok. The exhibition includes a video by Thunska Pansittivorakul, excerpted from his film The Terrorists (though, at the time of writing, the video was not working).

Retro Ver-Spective will close on 8th April. Gallery VER previously hosted an exhibition of Thunska's photography (Life Show), and a retrospective of his short films (Inside Out, Outside In).

Taschen Art and Collector's Editions

Taschen Art & Collector's Editions: An Art Book Exhibition opened at the Serindia Gallery in Bangkok on 2nd February, and will close on 15th April. The exhibition features a selection of culture and architecture books published by Taschen, including a signed copy of Steve Shapiro's Taxi Driver monograph.

Taschen's catalogue includes some of the world's greatest art books, though they've become synonymous with rather risque material since publishing their (initially censored) Jeff Koons monograph. They're probably my favourite publisher, because they celebrate high and low culture equally. Also, unlike most other publishers, Taschen continue to produce lavish editions that highlight the value of printed hardback books.

Taschen's Napoleon is the largest and most expensive book I own. Their other titles include 100 All-Time Favorite Movies, Some Like It Hot, Modern Architecture A-Z, Photographers A-Z, Letter Fountain, Horror Cinema, Art Cinema, Cinema Now, A History Of Advertising, Trespass, Film Noir, Atlas Maior, Harmonia Macrocosmica, Chronicle Of The World 1493, Codices Illustres, The Eiffel Tower, Fashion, The World Of Ornament, The Complete Costume History, Atlas Of Human Anatomy & Surgery, Decorative Arts From The Middle Ages To The Renaissance, Architectural Theory From The Renaissance To The Present, Art Now, Industrial Design A-Z, Design Of The 20th Century, Architecture In The 20th Century, and 20th Century Art.

Their directors series includes introductory books on Stanley Kubrick (Visual Poet) and Alfred Hitchcock (Architect Of Anxiety), and their books Sculpture: From The Renaissance To The Present Day, The Stanley Kubrick Archives, Leonardo da Vinci: The Complete Paintings & Drawings, Michelangelo: Complete Works, Picasso, and Andres Serrano: America & Other Works are definitive surveys.

Pelerin

A special edition of the journal Pelerin, published last month, has been banned in Morocco as it contains five images of a veiled Mohammed. (Other foreign publications - Courrier-International in 2009 and 2011, L'Express and Le Nouvel Observateur in 2011, El Pais in 2009, and L'Express International in 2008 - have also been banned in Morocco, and the Moroccan newspaper Akhbar Al Youm was closed down in 2009.)

Hugo (2D)

Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese, is nominally the story of Hugo Cabret, a Parisian orphan, but its real focus is filmmaker Georges Méliès, played by Ben Kingsley. Méliès sells toys at a small booth, though Hugo discovers his past as a cinema pioneer. Méliès directed A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune), silent cinema’s first masterpiece, excerpts from which are included in Scorsese’s film.

Hugo also features clips from other silent classics, including The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) (which set the template for Scorsese’s Shutter Island) and The Great Train Robbery (which inspired the final shot of Scorsese’s GoodFellas). The scene depicted on the poster is, of course, a reference to Safety Last.

At a time of digital film production, exhibition, and distribution, Hugo emphasises the medium’s mechanical origins, and hopefully the film will introduce silent films to a new generation. (Scorsese has promoted early cinema before, writing the foreword to Silent Movies.) It’s a charming film, and an evocative tribute to the first artist of cinema, though the Méliès storyline might not be sufficiently engaging for children.

Hugo also has parallels with Scorsese’s own life. Like the title character, Scorsese was captivated by the cinema as a child, and he rehabilitated the reputation of director Michael Powell, just as Hugo brings Méliès back into the limelight.

Carnage

Carnage, Roman Polanski's latest film, after The Ghost Writer, stars Jodie Foster, John C Reilly, Christoph Waltz, and Kate Winslet. After their son hits another child, Waltz and Winslet visit the victim's parents, Foster and Reilly, to discuss what to do next. The two couples are initially cordial to each other, though the veneer of civility is gradually removed. The action takes place entirely within Foster and Reilly's apartment, resulting in a claustrophobic though theatrical chamber piece. It sometimes feels like a prologue to The Exterminating Angel or Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, both of which feature the baser instincts of the bourgeoisie.

Polanski has confined his dramas to domestic spaces before, in Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, and Death & The Maiden, though Carnage is too blackly comic to achieve the intensity of those earlier films. The dialogue is consistently witty, though the action ultimately becomes unrealistically exaggerated and at the end nothing seems to have happened. Waltz and Foster dominate, and they are both satisfyingly unsympathetic, but Reilly and Winslet's characters are under-developed. Waltz was much more charismatic in Inglourious Basterds.

The 6th Bangkok Experimental Film FestivalRaiding the Archives

The 6th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (เทศกาลหนังทดลองกรุงเทพฯ ครั้งที่ 6) begins on 28th January, and runs until 5th February. This year’s theme is Raiding the Archives, with screenings taking place at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. (The previous festival took place at the Esplanade cinema.)

Highlights include Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s A Brief History of Memory (ประวัติศาสตร์ขนาดย่อของความทรงจำ) showing as part of the Was Here, Was Now programme on 29th January, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s 0116643225059 in the Poetics of Longing programme on 4th February, and Taiki Sakpisit’s A Ripe Volcano (ภูเขาไฟพิโรธ) in the No-where? programme on 5th February. 0116643225059 was previously shown at Tomyam Pladib (ต้มยำปลาดิบ), and Apichatpong is one of the festival’s co-founders.

9th World Film Festival of Bangkok

The 9th World Film Festival of Bangkok (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์โลกแห่งกรุงเทพฯ ครั้งที่ 9) opened yesterday, and runs until 27th January. (It was originally scheduled for 4th to 13th November last year, though the dates were postponed due to flooding in Bangkok.) Whereas the 6th, 7th, and 8th festivals were held at Paragon, the 9th will return to the festival’s older venue, Esplanade Cineplex. The 5th festival (the last one held at Esplanade) featured several retrospectives and sidebar events, though subsequent festivals have been less extensive.

The 9th festival includes Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Werner Herzog’s documentary about primitive art filmed at Chauvet, France, which will be screening in 3D on 23rd and 25th January. Exceptionally, Herzog was granted permission to film inside the Chauvet cave, which contains the earliest paintings ever discovered. The cave walls contain paleolithic images of wild animals painted approximately 32,000 years ago, and the 3D camera captures the undulations of the cave’s geology.

Hiroshima Mon Amour

Last week, Bangkok's Alliance Francaise screened the horror classic Les Diaboliques, and this week's classic film is Hiroshima Mon Amour. Directed by Alain Resnais, who also made the disturbing Nuit & Brouillard and the cryptic L'Annee Derniere A Marienbad, Hiroshima Mon Amour is set in the aftermath of the Hiroshima bomb; it will be shown on 18th January, and the screening is free.

Criss+Cross

Criss+Cross: Design From Switzerland 1860-2012 features a broad range of Swiss designs, from fashion to safety equipment. Familiar brand names, such as Victorinox and Swatch, are displayed on pine crates. The exhibition opened at TCDC last year, on 25th November, and will close on 22nd January.

Les Diaboliques

The classic thriller Les Diaboliques will be screened at Alliance Francaise, Bangkok, on 11th January. Les Diaboliques is a masterpiece of Hitchcockian suspense, and the screening is free.

Le Nouvel Observateur

A special edition of Le Nouvel Observateur, titled Les Arabes, has been banned in Morocco on the grounds that it contains images of Mohammed. However, the magazine, published on 28th December, does not actually include any depictions of Mohammed's face. There have been inaccurate press reports about the magazine, as some articles have confused it with L'Express, which was also recently banned in Morocco and does feature images of Mohammed.

Le Nouvel Observateur did, however, publish unveiled cover images of Mohammed on 10th March 2005 and 30th November 2006. (Other foreign publications - Courrier-International in 2009 and 2011, El Pais in 2009, and L'Express International in 2008 - have also been banned in Morocco, and the Moroccan newspaper Akhbar Al Youm was closed down in 2009.)

L'Express

An edition of L'Express magazine has been banned in Morocco, as it contains depictions of Mohammed. The issue dated 21st December, featuring a history of Arab culture, includes two traditional images of Mohammed. L'Express was banned in Morocco for the same reason in 2008, when it featured a veiled Mohammed on the cover of its international edition. (Other foreign publications - Courrier-International in 2009 and 2011, and El Pais in 2009 - have also been banned in Morocco, and the Moroccan newspaper Akhbar Al Youm was closed down in 2009.)

The Visual Dictionary Of Photography

The Visual Dictionary Of Photography, by David Prakel, is an alphabetical guide to the art and technology of photography. It includes definitions of technical terms and capsule profiles of famous photographers. Each entry occupies a single page, typically with a large photograph or diagram illustrating a few sentences of text.

Primarily a guide to terminology and techniques, the book explains crucial variables such as shutter speed, aperture size, and ISO. It also provides an overview of photographic equipment and camera accessories.

This is a handy little reference guide to the practicalities of photography, covering both analogue and digital technologies. For more comprehensive studies of the art and history of photography, see Photographers A-Z, A World History Of Photography, and The Focal Encyclopedia Of Photography.

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei, part of Phaidon's Contemporary Artists series, is the first book to explore Ai Weiwei's entire artistic career. Ai is China's most famous artist, and one of the leading names in international contemporary art.

The book features an interview with Ai by Hans Ulrich Obrist, a survey of Ai's oeuvre by Karen Smith, and a profile of Ai's sculpture Descending Light by Bernard Fibicher. Descending Light resembles Vladimir Tatlin's Monument To The Third International, the never-constructed Constructivist tower; it also looks like an enormous red lantern, and the director of Raise The Red Lantern, Zhang Yimou, was a contemporary of Ai's at the Beijing Film Academy.

Ai co-curated the notorious Bu Hezuo Fangshi exhibition (the Chinese equivalent of Charles Saatchi's Sensation), which introduced a new generation of provocative and taboo-breaking Beijing artists. Always an iconoclast, he was originally known for smashing priceless Han vases. He has also produced Duchampian 'readymades', beautiful porcelain sculptures, and large-scale wooden installations constructed from ancient Ming and Qing furniture.

Phaidon's monograph is a necessary introduction to Ai's background and early work, though Ai is now better known for his political activism. He has become a vocal critic of the Chinese government (unlike Zhang Yimou, who has been accused of producing propaganda), exposing state corruption and cover-ups. He was jailed earlier this year on (presumably trumped-up) tax-evasion charges; he was eventually released, though discussion of his arrest is suppressed and his associates continue to be harassed.

BBC Radio WM

I appeared on the Mornings show hosted by Joanna Malin on BBC Radio WM today. As this weekend is Christmas, the show was about families separated over the festive season. (I have previously appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live.)

Sex

Sex, a group exhibition at Toot Yung Gallery in Bangkok, opened yesterday after several delays due to the recent Bangkok floods. The exhibition includes Thunska Pansittivorakul's video The Altar (from last year's Another Side), though as of today the video had not yet been installed.

Sex will close on 20th January next year. It borrows its title from Madonna's controversial book of erotic photographs (Sex, 1992). Also, Mae West wrote a play with the same title (Sex, 1926), for which she was jailed for eight days.

4th French Open Air Cinema Festival

The 4th French Open Air Cinema Festival begins tomorrow, with a screening of Jean Cocteau's classic fantasy La Belle & La Bete at Lumpini Park, Bangkok. While last year's Festival ran for over a week, this year's has been reduced to only two days: it will close on 17th December.

The French Open Air Cinema Festival is organised by Alliance Francaise, and screenings are free. La Belle & Le Bete was also screened earlier this year, as part of Thammasat University's Que Reste-T-Il De Nos Amours season.

Headshot

To promote Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Headshot, Au Bon Pain restaurants in Bangkok are selling a dossier containing booklets, posters, photographs, sketches, and stickers related to the film. This unusual film souvenir is limited to 1,000 copies (mine being #584).

Who's There?

The director (Ejaz Ahmed), producer (Washim Sheikh), and publicist (KA Jauhar) of the Hindi horror film Who's There? have been arrested in Mumbai. The three men are facing charges of blasphemy, as a newspaper advertisement for the film depicts Jesus being stabbed while he is crucified. The advert was published by two Indian newspapers, DNA Suday and Sunday Mid Day, on 13th November.

Headshot

Headshot, the new film by Pen-ek Ratanaruang, stars Nopachai Jayanama as Tul, a hitman who wakes from a coma to find that his vision is upside-down. Tul, a former police officer, was framed for murder when he refused to drop an investigation. After serving time in prison, he is hired to assassinate well-connected organised criminals. (As in The Red Eagle, Headshot's sub-plot highlights and condemns Thailand's endemic political corruption.)

Headshot is a self-styled 'crime noir', and it does feature many film noir characteristics: the plot is told in a series of flashbacks, betrayal and deception are major themes, the female characters are femme fatales, and much of the action takes place at night. Although Tul is an ex-cop, his brutal intensity is far removed from the suave detectives of classic noir (epitomised by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep). Headshot shares its inexorable fatalism and moral complexity with Double Indemnity, Touch Of Evil, and Out Of The Past.

The film begins as an exhilarating and violent thriller, establishing its noir credentials and revealing Tul's motivations and loyalties. In these early sequences, Tul's obsessions with guns and exercise, and his shaved head, are presumably inspired by Taxi Driver. Pen-ek is in familiar territory here, as his previous films Fun-Bar Karaoke, 6ixtynin9, Last Life In The Universe, and Invisible Waves have also dealt with crime and murder. Headshot is a return to those earlier themes, after his recent films Ploy and Nymph (the latter also starring Nopachai).

Unfortunately, Headshot's second half can't quite sustain its initial energy and inventiveness: the plot twists seem like excuses for unconvincing story elements, and Joey Boy is an unthreatening bad guy. Joey Boy's character tortures Tul by dripping candle wax onto his crotch, though the scene reminded me of the risible Body Of Evidence; riding a bicycle and wearing tennis whites (in a tribute to Funny Games?) further undermine Joey Boy's potential menace.

[In one scene, a hitman dresses in a monk's robe as a disguise, and carries a gun concealed in an alms bowl. For the Thai release, Pen-ek was required to digitally erase the gun from the bowl, as the censors felt that it was inappropriate for a monk to be seen carrying a gun.]