Fear and censorship
AFP reports on Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who recently collected the top Palme d’Or prize last month at Cannes. Yes, he really was at the Cannes film festival, unlike some royal pretenders.
His victory was said to “have boosted Thai national pride…”, even if his “Uncle Boonme” film does show “a disfigured princess having sex with a talking catfish.” Of course, Apichatpong “still has censorship battles to fight with the Thai authorities, slamming their restrictions for muzzling the country’s movie-makers.” Back in 2007 he came up against the film laws and said he felt “ashamed to be a Thai citizen” after the blocking of seemingly harmless scenes in his “Syndromes and a Century” film.
He now “believes the new film law since passed — under which censors can ban films deemed to threaten the social order, moral decency or national security — is dangerously broad.” He takes the issue broadly: “People try to — especially from the government — they try to tell you what is the right thing to wear, the right thing to do or what is the proper national language and stuff like that…”. He adds that “Fear is the key word,” and compares “Thailand’s current situation to Eastern Europe in the past. Set in the Thai northeast the film is “also a tribute to the rural region, which has its own distinct culture and dialect.”
On the red shirt protests, Apichatpong “pointed the finger at central government control for fuelling their grievances, although he denied taking a political side.” He said: “All the power is in Bangkok. So I think that’s why there’s resentment.”
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