Errata
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Hua jai tor ra nong
2003, Thailand
directors: Michael Shaowanasai, Apichatpong Weerasethakul

I suppose the real auteur of The Adventures of Iron Pussy is Michael Shaowanasai, the writer and star who has apparently played the eponymous transvestite superspy on stage for some time, but co-director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is to blame for bringing the cinephiles to the theater. His debut feature, Mysterious Object at Noon, is a mysterious object, indeed, neither strictly a narrative nor strictly a documentary but a wandering, collaborative fantasy in the tradition of an exquisite corpse. Although it's too loose to amount to much, it signaled Weerasethakul as a creative new voice in Thai cinema. His second feature, Blissfully Yours, which I haven't seen, has a strong reputation, and his latest, Tropical Malady, polarized audiences at this year's Cannes Film Festival where it was not only the first Thai film ever to compete for the Palme d'Or but the winner of the Jury Prize, as well.

But before that he and Shaowanasai made Iron Pussy, a low-rent, PG-rated pastiche of caper movie chestnuts, musical cliches, and fabulous costumes, all captured on garish video. It doesn't sustain its initial energy level for very long, and, like most other attempts to create camp rather than discover it, the movie feels too self-aware to be very funny, but it's further evidence that Weerasethakul is a wildly unpredictable force to watch.

screened2004.03.06
San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival
Posted by davis | Link