SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s 1999 movie, Rueang talok 69, exemplifies the cultural effects of Thailand’s Tom Yam Kung economic crisis that befell the country two years earlier. Its plot suggests a necessary retreat from the globalized, materialistic, and hence corrupted environment of Bangkok to the simplicity of the countryside. As such, it echoes the self-sufficiency advice proffered by King Rama IX in his speech of 1998. I reflect on the complex positionality of Thailand’s “new wave” directors in relation to globalization, whereby their aspirations for international recognition are countered by their persistent affiliation to the national, the local, and the rural by way of subject matter. Arguing for the double image of the rural as an idyllic refuge and unruly periphery, I view the closing scenes of Rueang talok 69 and Nonzee Nimibutr’s Nang Nak through the lens Siam/Thailand’s semi-colonial relationship to the West. Cognizant of the continuity that filmmaking of this period draws between past and present, further exemplified by Suraphong Phinijkhar’s 2004 movie Thawiphop, I conclude that the aspirations of Thailand’s “new wave” of filmmakers to international recognition and success, despite their rejection of globalization at the narrative level, can be understood in relation to the country’s history of semi-colonial desire.