IN
THAI WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
Genre: Drama/Musical
Director: Ittisoontorn Vichailak
Cast: Anuchit Sapanpong, Adul Dulyarat, Arratee
Tanmahapran
RunTime: 1 hr 43 mins
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films
Rating: PG
Official Website: http://www.dahuangpictures.com/blogs/index.php?blog=7
Opening
Day: The Picturehouse - 24 May
Synopsis
:
Based on the life of Luang Pradit Pairoh, the most revered
traditional Thai music master who lived during the reigns
of Kings Rama V to VIII the movie traces the life of Sorn,
who picked up the ra-nad ek (Thai Xylophone) mallets as a
small child and young man, playing in a xylophone duel with
the intense Kun In, to the 1940s, when Thailand was under
Japanese occupation and Sorn's playing would provide some
inspiration to the opppressed citizenry of the time.…
Movie
Review:
In
“The Overture”, music is presented with a towering
sense of religious ferocity. The musicians are treated with
intense reverence, and their music a cause worth dying for.
The film is a fictionalised account that is based on the life
of Thailand’s Luang Pradit Phairao, the last master
of the ranad-ek (a classical instrument resembling a wooden
xylophone). He is manifested through the central character
of Sorn (primarily played by Anuchit Sapanpong), a master
of the instrument that becomes a sort of Christ-like saviour
to the instrument’s continued survival and its wielders.
In a scene early on, Sorn is seen as a child feeling his way
through the ranad-ek and witnessing his natural affinity with
the instrument’s notes. Underlining the spiritual tone
of the film, Sorn's prodigious talent with the ranad-ek is
akin to turning water into wine and his greatest obstacle
to greatness is overcoming an opponent clad in black whose
mastery of the instrument literally calls forth angry winds
of change.
Sentimentally
farcical, the main vein of its story understates Sorn’s
challenges with being a phenomenon in his village and his
rise through the royal court that culminates in a showdown.
The secondary narrative is the weakest but holds the most
promise. An elder Sorn is given a final challenge, pitting
him against the country’s changing cultural pursuits
and invading influences of Japan, keen to keep creative processes
down to a minimum by way of bureaucracy. It is admirable in
its suggestion of invoking a certain parallelism between the
generations but the jarring, feckless edits that include strident
political machinations with ludicrously over the top musical
set pieces makes it all seem like two different films spliced
together as an afterthought.
But
the endless fawning over its material is truly the film’s
inherent predicament. It is enamoured by its own self-importance,
so much so that it ignores coherency and papers over it with
its single most powerful factor in its technical proficiency.
Lush, full-blooded cinematography is employed throughout the
proceedings and the characters are framed luminously. The
dream-like aesthetics of the film can almost be used as an
excuse for its lax storytelling but an ambitious and underwhelming
double narrative introduced midway tarnishes any preferable
possibility that the story could have been a lazy afternoon’s
reverie.
Movie
Rating:
(Gorgeous, but extols nothing but
messy storytelling)
Review
by Justin Deimen
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