Thai films invade Vancouver

The Vancouver International Film Festival played host to a dozen or more Thai films. An online review of a couple of the films barely scratched the surface.

All playing in the fest's Dragons and Tigers category, the films were:

• The Adventures of Iron Pussy - Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Michael Shaowanasai, this campy romp is about a transvestite Thai secret agent. Thankfully, it is also finally showing in Bangkok.
• OK Baytong - This is the most recent film from Nonzee Nimibutr. It delves a bit into the unrest in Muslim southern Thailand while also getting inside the head of a young former Buddhist monk who moves there.
• - The biopic about Thai boxer Nong Toom continues its international tour. It was named as a runner-up for the People's Choice Award for Most Popular Foreign Film.
• The Macabre Case of Prompiram- This gritty crime drama has gotten good reviews at other film festivals. But not at this one. This website filed it under "mediocrity". "Nothing here is surprising or hard-hitting," it said. "In the way of social critique something far sharper and harsher is required."
• The Overture - Somewhat dull film has some good musical performances and is a decent overview of Thai history from the late 1800s to the WWII occupation.
• Tropical Malady - Half romantic comedy, half a dark thriller, this won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
• Motorcycle, Waiting - Two shorts by Aditya Assarat (now developing his first feature at the Sundance Institute). In Motorcycle, an elderly couple in a village receive bad news from Bangkok, news which strains their already very limited resources. In Waiting, an elderly man travels the length of the country in search of a woman he once loved: a woman whose husband just died, a woman whose face he no longer remembers.

Straight.com has a couple more capsule reviews:

• The Macabre Case of Prom Pirom - The Accused meets Murder on the Orient Express in this numbingly effective police procedural spun from an actual sex crime that tends to lower our opinion of people in general and men in particular.
• The Overture - When Dad isn't sure he wants you to carry on the family tradition of playing the wooden Thai marimba called the ranad-ek, what do you do? Well, you go out into the forest and practise, practise, practise--until you are so good you can win all regional contests and maybe get some royal patronage. And if this happens to be during the height of the Second World War, you'll have the additional burden of defying the military, which has decided to "cleanse" the country of its archaic traditions. The passion for music is lovingly rendered, with several performances bordering on the astonishing. One, mixing old and new skills on an Irving Berlin song, is just plain wonderful.