Pen-ek: "I'm going into the jungle"

David Cronenberg's excellent Eastern Promises is showing at the Lido in Siam Square, and I caught the 6:30 show there last night.

Blown away by the film, I wandered out of the theater in a daze and somehow stumbled onto the Skytrain. I was standing in the carriage, when I looked across and noticed Pen-ek Ratanaruang standing right across from me.

I'd only briefly met him before, so I had to go over, get in his face and introduce myself. I then said I'd just come from Eastern Promises, hoping that would explain why I was acting kinda freaked out. Well, he understood, because he'd been in the same show!

"It's the first film I've been to in three months," he said. "I've been taking a break from film."

After noting that he'd picked a great film to break his film fast with, and chatting enjoyably about the film we'd just seen, I had to ask him what his plans are, and he says he's been writing.

"I want to make a film this year," he said. "I'm going into the jungle."

He said he hopes to start production on the project sometime in October, for possible release in 2009. In terms of the scale and scheme of the production, it will likely be similar to Ploy, though maybe a bit bigger.

At that point, for reasons I still can't explain, I got off the train, stumbling away into the night, reeling with the double-whammy of being wowed by David Cronenberg, and then meeting another great filmmaker in the flesh.