Socio-politi-cultural Layers and Beyond

Krabi, 2562 (2019) - Rivers, Suwichakornpong The filmmakers Ben Rivers and Anocha Suwichakornpong met at the Thailand Bienniale and decided to work together on a project: specifically on Krabi, a touristy Southwestern town. And no Doubt, the collaboration between two of the most adventurous contemporary filmmakers produces a multi-layered and intoxicating work that is a part travelogue, part ethnological study, part Antonioni-esque mystery, part contemplation on artificiality of cinema and part Spatial-temporal musing on human existence.

Krabi concerns a nameless woman (Siraphan Wattanajinda), tall and slender with the central Thai dialect who comes in to the touristy beach town. She looks like she is in 'pictures'. She is location scouting for a movie, or she is doing market research, or she is tracing steps to her parents honeymoon where she is conceived.(?) She hires a local tour guide who also dubs as a film crew for a commercial shoot. The mystery woman visits the famous fertility shrine located on the beach, takes a kayak ride into one of the numerous dark water caves along the shoreline, then visits a shuttered movie theater, now a home of hundreds of flying starlings and warn out B-movie posters. Then she disappears. The interviews with the tour guide and the movie theater manager and various others confirm this incident.

Collision and blurred line between the artificial and the real - the actors playing their parts mixed in with the locals, cinema as both business and nostalgia, neanderthals both reanacted and parodied, first world and third world, the symbiotic relationship of tourists and locals in popular tourist destination are all presented, in layers upon layers and they are delicious. Rivers and Suwichakornpong are less interested who is exploiting who, but the delicate dance that is human existence between real and imagined world both in physical and spiritual sense. Injected are the hint of Thailand's militant history, as the woman rides with gaggle of school children in the back of the truck in city proper with the sound of military marching, reminiscent of her masterpiece By the Time It Gets Dark, grounding the film from more surreal elements usually associated with Rivers work. Krabi, 2562 is one of the most exciting cinematic endeavor I've encountered in recent memory.

Billyoh

I Know Where I'm Going (2009) - Rivers




A scientist narrates about the significance of human existence on the earth as we separately follow three eclectic, troll-like men living out of the grid (one of them is Jake Williams, the sole subject in Two Years at Sea). What would remain of our actions or traces a hundred million years from now? Are we leaving an indelible mark on the earth to be remembered? When the earth recycles itself and brings out what's been buried above ground again, would someone find our intact fossilized city? Probably not.

Another lovely short (30 minutes) musings on human existence by Rivers in the backdrop of Scottish Highlands, shot in grainy anamorphic 16mm. His color stuff is even lovelier. Can't get enough of Ben Rivers. I'm hooked!

Two Years at Sea Review

Some nice person put this on youtube in its entirety as I just found out:

 

Lovely Solitude

Two Years at Sea (2011) - Rivers









To call Two Years at Sea an observational documentary is too simplistic, inadequate description at best. We follow a bearded fellow who resembles poverty-stricken Gandalf, a wizard on skid perhaps. He lives in a dilapidated, cluttered old house in the woods. He does house chores while listening to some Ravi Shanka tinged music on his tape deck or turntable. He constantly whistles and sometimes mumbles to himself. Seasons change. He finds his trailer on the treetop one morning. Hmm, nice tree house idea. Let's do some fishing on a makeshift raft made out of window frames, an air mattress and some plastic water jugs. There are remnants of his past, shown in cutaways- the old postcards and photographs of children, women. We don't know who the bearded man is but we get to live in his house, intimately observing his life weathering seasons in the English wilderness together.

It's rarely the case for me to look into those DVD extras of any movie: the making of docs, interviews and whatnot. I honestly have absolutely no interest in seeing technical, logistical side of filmmaking in general. Ben Rivers's name was mentioned here and there before and have seen some of his experimental shorts. I hear Rivers develops his own films, often exposing the negatives to the environs each film was shot in. Two Years at Sea seems apparent that this is the case. Its grainy B & W anamorphic photography, blinking, stuttering exposure and all the blemishes and scratches are quite lovely.

But more importantly, I wanted to know more about this Jake Williams (we only get to know his name at the end credits). Unlike the title suggests, there is no hint of loneliness in Williams' life. As the film's only inhabitant (not counting his cat), Williams seems to be in complete ease at being alone. While watching the film, even though I knew some aspects of it were staged, I had a strong desire to communicate with him. I wanted to get his attention when his back was turned. What are you thinking? What are those photographs? What are you writing in that notebook? Aren't you at least a bit lonely sometimes? As the 8 minute ending sequence comes to a close where he falls asleep in front of the bonefire, I thought to myself, I'd love to be like him. This ends up in my year end top list.