This film start out almost like a farce comedy. We have a jester, there is an old man shooting a rifle screaming nonsense, etc. It fades into a romantic story too good to be true, but makes a turn into dark social realism of poor Thailand meets rich Thailand. There is violence and abuse, both drugs and sexual on display, very far from the silly humor the film started with. Towards the end, some slow motion scenes like in an action film appears, before finally we reach the end, but the transistor (the symbol of the joyful start of the film) is broken and rusty.
As seen, this film is a huge mixture of genres. When I had watched this film, I asked myself: what was the purpose of this mixture, was the grim end a mocking of the joyful beginning? Could it be that the ever smiling jester (Pan, the principal character) on his multicolored stage with his sugar sweet romantic songs, the idealogical cute Thailand, is mocked and stripped to the hard, poor, sexually raw and abusive Thailand as the film progresses? Is this why the film maker mixes all these different genres in the story instead of keeping the form fairly fixed, that it in fact is the appearance that is criticized?
A lot of questions, but I fail to really answer them, because I am torn. Sometimes I feel that this indeed is the fact, other times I wonder if the strange mixture is a failure of the film to put the rather traditional story of rise and fall (only in the setting of Thailand instead of Europe or America) in an interesting and challenging form. I end up giving the film 7/10, but I recommend it since I at least was stimulated to think on the matter of film genre and how to escape, criticize and more deeply connect it with the story.
As seen, this film is a huge mixture of genres. When I had watched this film, I asked myself: what was the purpose of this mixture, was the grim end a mocking of the joyful beginning? Could it be that the ever smiling jester (Pan, the principal character) on his multicolored stage with his sugar sweet romantic songs, the idealogical cute Thailand, is mocked and stripped to the hard, poor, sexually raw and abusive Thailand as the film progresses? Is this why the film maker mixes all these different genres in the story instead of keeping the form fairly fixed, that it in fact is the appearance that is criticized?
A lot of questions, but I fail to really answer them, because I am torn. Sometimes I feel that this indeed is the fact, other times I wonder if the strange mixture is a failure of the film to put the rather traditional story of rise and fall (only in the setting of Thailand instead of Europe or America) in an interesting and challenging form. I end up giving the film 7/10, but I recommend it since I at least was stimulated to think on the matter of film genre and how to escape, criticize and more deeply connect it with the story.