1 post tagged “the elephant king”
Yesterday I saw a film called 'The Elephant King' which was shown as part of the Brooklyn International Film Festival.
Here is the cinema and one of America's future leading actuaries, Justin 'The Money'.
A review of the film on IMDB (where it scored 8.3) said that it turned ideas about Thailand on their head. I think that this was a fair comment. It is about two brothers, one shy, one irresponsibly care-free, who meet up in Thailand. Initially it shows Thailand from a typical American idealistic perspective: the large relative purchasing power of Americans, the seemingly carefree existence and exciting night life. But it then increasingly shows the reality. The shy brother is hurt badly when it becomes apparent that his Thai girlfriend sees him as 'a wallet on legs'. The hostility towards Americans by the Thai people becomes increasingly apparent and the country becomes more complex and the Americans start to look like fish out of water.
Afterwards, the director and the actor who played the shy brother came to the front and took questions, which was very interesting. One person asked whether the director had personally noticed the hostility towards Americans from the Thai people, and he answered rather equivocally. He said that he had certainly noticed it but he had noticed a lot of obnoxiously-behaving Americans there and so had expected to be treated with hostility and so was probably imaging it because he expected it.
We also learned from him that the monks in the film were played by actors who only ever played monks. They had shaved heads and the robes and specialised in playing Buddhist monks. So whenever you see monks in films set in Thailand, it is probably always the same people. This reminded me of an occasion when a listener of the BBC's rural soap opera 'The Archers' complained that there was actually only one cow in the entire village despite many of the characters having their own farms and supposedly their own cows. The BBC confessed that the listener was right and whenever the sound of a cow was played in the background it was the same cow. They said in their defence that it is hard to find a cow that moos with the desired degree of depth and resonance.
The prostitutes (in the film rather than in The Archers of course) were played by workers in a local factory who were friends with someone from the crew and were very interested in the film and keen to take part.
It was a great film and I would recommend it.
I also liked the area of Brooklyn. It had a cool independent feel with lots of reasonably priced cafes with ethnic food and boutique clothes shops. Also, judging by the openness of the advertisement for a gay chat line shown below to the right ('you'll find it here', it promises), it is an area of unusual tolerance.
But do gay men really wear black y-fronts?
Afterwards, the director and the actor who played the shy brother came to the front and took questions, which was very interesting. One person asked whether the director had personally noticed the hostility towards Americans from the Thai people, and he answered rather equivocally. He said that he had certainly noticed it but he had noticed a lot of obnoxiously-behaving Americans there and so had expected to be treated with hostility and so was probably imaging it because he expected it.
We also learned from him that the monks in the film were played by actors who only ever played monks. They had shaved heads and the robes and specialised in playing Buddhist monks. So whenever you see monks in films set in Thailand, it is probably always the same people. This reminded me of an occasion when a listener of the BBC's rural soap opera 'The Archers' complained that there was actually only one cow in the entire village despite many of the characters having their own farms and supposedly their own cows. The BBC confessed that the listener was right and whenever the sound of a cow was played in the background it was the same cow. They said in their defence that it is hard to find a cow that moos with the desired degree of depth and resonance.
The prostitutes (in the film rather than in The Archers of course) were played by workers in a local factory who were friends with someone from the crew and were very interested in the film and keen to take part.
It was a great film and I would recommend it.
I also liked the area of Brooklyn. It had a cool independent feel with lots of reasonably priced cafes with ethnic food and boutique clothes shops. Also, judging by the openness of the advertisement for a gay chat line shown below to the right ('you'll find it here', it promises), it is an area of unusual tolerance.
