Dao khanong

This was a trippy film - to be honest, I'm not quite sure what it was about, exactly, but I think that's kind of the point. One of the scenes that stood out to me the most was when Suwichakornpong incorporated a whimsical clip from A Trip to the Moon (1902), right after a shot of mushrooms we had seen growing earlier. In this sequence, men curiously and excitedly encounter space mushrooms. This unexpected cut, referencing the first science fiction film ever made, felt like a nod to cinema's illusionary nature and how storytelling is always, in some way, constructed.

Anocha Suwichakornpong interweaves fragmented storylines with fantastical imagery - glowing mushrooms, children in animal costumes wandering through the woods - creating a dreamlike atmosphere that blurs the line between reality and fiction.

Even if I didn't always understand this film, I really liked it. I thought the main characters provided a super heartfelt performance, and this movie taught me about the The 6 October 1976 massacre in Thailand, which I had never heard about before.

This film felt emotional and raw, and it made me reflect on history, memory, and how both are portrayed. It left me thinking - about film, about truth, and about life in general.

Right, well I sat down in 2021 to watch the 2016 Thai drama titled "By the Time It Gets Dark" (aka "Dao khanong") from writer and director Anocha Suwichakornpong. Sure, I hadn't even heard about the movie prior to sitting down to watch it, much less knowing what it was about.

What made me pick up this movie was two things, first of all it had actor Arak Amornsupasiri on the cast, and secondly it being a Thai movie that I hadn't already seen also made me have an interest in it, of course.

And I have to say that "By the Time It Gets Dark" is slow-paced. So very, very slow paced. Nothing happened, literally, in the entire course of the movie. There was a whole lot of filming nothing, showing scenes where the actors weren't even in the screen, but doing something outside of the screen. This movie is definitely not a movie with a broad appeal to everyone in the audience. For me, this was a massive swing and a miss.

I managed to endure a painstaking 1 hour of pure torment and absolute boredom as I watch nothing transpire as the movie trotted on. Then I just tossed the towel in the ring and gave up. This movie was so boring it was unfathomable. And just prior to hitting the 1 hour mark, actor Arak Amornsupasiri showed up in the movie, but by that time it was too late and I had already lost interest in the movie.

"By the Time It Gets Dark" is not a movie that I will recommend to anyone, and it surely wasn't a gem in the Thai cinema, And I can honestly say that I have absolutely no interest in returning to watch the remaining 45 minutes that I was missing to watch.

My rating of "By the Time It Gets Dark" lands on a generous two out of ten stars.

A very brave choice of topic (i.e. the bloody events of 6 October 1976, which are rarely talked about in Thailand) but what is even more impressive is the way the story is told. On the surface, BTTIGD is about a young female director preparing for making a movie about the events of '76. The story slowly unfolds, in the present days, as she is interviewing one of the leaders of the student protests against the military coup. However, the movie's clear linear structure quickly erodes and each scene, each event, each recollection of memory, and even person(!) gets multiple interpretations thus making it harder and harder to tell what has really happened (and what is happening on the screen). Director Anocha compared it to a photo or a painting that is never limited by its frame, since our brain can always add more details beyond the physical boundaries. But with each addition, with each filling of the gaps, our memories lose a tiny bit of their authenticity making it practically impossible to recall and understand past events, especially traumatic ones. And although every scene is banal and everyone acts completely normal, the movie slowly becomes a surrealistic piece of art culminating in a rather unexpected final shot (about which the director had to warn the projectionist in advance).

This film recounts the events surrounding the 1976 Thammasat University massacre without ever directly referencing the event itself. All of the scenes feel distant yet significant, which made me constantly question what is real life and what is spectacle. The film also has fragmented timelines and follows several distinct characters, which contributed to my disorientation. This makes the film feels awkward at times, but I think that it accurately captures what the unresolved, confusing feeling of national trauma feels like and made me continually reassess earlier scenes, which kept me engaged. Its nonlinearity and interpretive scenes reminded me a lot of the surrealist elements used by Murakami.