08-05-2025
Four experimental Thai films from the early 2000s return at Bangkok Kunsthalle
A ghostly trace runs through Fathom in Absence, the first in a series of guest-curated film programmes at Bangkok Kunsthalle. These are not just films, but cinematic relics from the early 2000s – forgotten, fragmented and half-remembered, like dreams recalled mid-commute. The programme resurrects four Thai experimental works, each shrouded in its own particular strangeness, screened on Saturday evenings across May (May 3, 17 and 31).
Organised in collaboration with the Thai Film Archive, the series avoids nostalgia in favour of excavation. Here, the past isn't polished; it flickers, uneven and unsteady. Screened on Saturday evenings throughout May, each film arrives like a message in a bottle from a cinematic era many have tried to forget or never knew existed. They are not tidy cultural artefacts; they are jagged, unresolved and defiantly strange. Their return feels less like a retrospective and more like a séance.
Entry is free – an invitation rather than a transaction – and each work will be shown in its original Thai with English subtitles. These are films that resist easy summary and, frankly, demand to be seen rather than explained. But if you're wondering what to expect, here's the lineup:
May 3, 7pm The Cruelty and the Soy-Sauce Man+ (2000), directed by Phaisit Phanphruksachat
May 17, 5.30pm Mae Nak (1992), directed by Pimpaka Towira
May 17, 6.20pm (after a 15-minute intermission) Kon Jorn (1999), directed by Attaporn Thihirun
More details about talks and discussions will be announced soon, though it's safe to assume this isn't the sort of programme that wraps things up with neat Q&As. Instead, it gestures towards the elliptical, the marginal and the unresolved. The Kunsthalle isn't simply screening films – it's calling them back. And perhaps, in watching, you're not just a spectator. You're a witness.
