In the opening episode of Ten Years Thailand, a group of soldiers arrives at an art gallery to inspect a potentially subversive artwork. What constitutes a kernel of subversion, however, is hard to lay a finger on. So the story shifts: one of the soldiers begins to chat up a pretty maid, and as the Sun is setting the two of them look out from the gallery to the horizon full of shadows. Maybe of hope.
Ten Years Thailand, an omnibus of four short movies by four directors, lets us glimpse shadow and light, fear and hope, absurdity and beauty, sleep and wakefulness. Tomorrow at 7pm, the film will have its world premiere at the 71st Cannes Film Festival, which kicked off with glitter and pageantry yesterday and continues until May 19. Invited into the non-competitive Special Screening section, Ten Years Thailand is the sole representative from this country at the world's most prestigious film event, attended by thousands of journalists and industry professionals.
It's an honour and a surprise. An ensemble of short films -- by Aditya Assarat, Wisit Sasanatieng, Chulayarnnon Siriphol and Apichatpong Weerasethakul -- that address deeply local topics doesn't seem to be typical Cannes material. But in a year when the red-carpet festival is said to make a slight turn toward the political, the Thai project that sets out to discuss the state of being in the land ruled by the military seems pertinent (Cannes this years also shows Iranian and Russian films whose directors are under house arrest; a Kenyan film that has already been banned by the government; and a film about Yazidi female fighters up against the jihadists).
Ten Years indeed began with a political impetus -- in Hong Kong. The original Ten Years anthology came out in 2015, and in it five Hong Kong filmmakers were asked to imagine their city in the next 10 years after Chinese rule. In one episode, a protester sets fire to herself outside the British consulate; in another, "youth guards" prowl the city to catch people using taboo words. The film was a huge success in Hong Kong -- and was banned in China, naturally.
The Hong Kong producers later expanded the franchise to Thailand, Taiwan and Japan; the Thai edition, Ten Years Thailand, is the first to be completed. The Cannes premiere has been an added prestige that raises the profile of the international franchise.
"We didn't commission Ten Years as copies of the original Hong Kong one. Our intention was that the filmmaker would explore pressing issues specific to their own countries," said Lorraine Ma, one of the Hong Kong producers. "Out of the three Ten Years films we've commissioned, the Thai version would appear the most politically urgent, probably because Thailand's political situation is at the forefront of people's minds."
Despite the political nature of the project, the four films in Ten Years Thailand are unlikely to cause any controversy, since they're remarkable for their use of symbolism and aesthetic choice rather than for their hard-hitting attitude. The quartet of filmmakers in the set are known, some of them internationally, for their penchant for allegory, formalist stylisation and humour. All four films have a critical edge that belies a mild manner.
The episode called Sunset, by Aditya Assarat, concerns the aforementioned drama at an art gallery. In the part by Wisit Sasanatieng, called Catopia, Thailand is ruled by a feral tribe of cat-people who hunt down the human population -- a metaphor for rabid ideological witch-hunting. The entry by Chulayarnnon Siriphol, called The Planetarium, is a sci-fi black comedy that teases authority figures, through a wacky time-travelling story and home-made space programme. And finally, the respected filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul -- who made history by winning the top prize of Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2010 -- contributes an episode called Song Of The City, a reflective, humorous sketch about a man who tries to hard-sell a sleep-inducing machine to a doctor.
"When the Hong Kong producers contacted me about the Thai version, I thought it was a good opportunity," said Aditya, director of the Sunset episode and also producer of the project. "Our political situation means we have stories to tell. Had we lived in different times, I might not have been interested in it."
Funding for the film partly came from the Hong Kong and Japanese producers. On the Thai side, Aditya and other local producers -- Soros Sukhum, Cattleya Paosrijaroen and Teerawat Rujintham -- raised money through private investors and a crowdfunding campaign.
Song Of The City.
How much an artist, writer and filmmaker is able to speak freely under the present military regime -- in fact, how much any person can -- is a literal as well as meta question that weighs on the Ten Years Thailand directors. Though moviemakers have been less affected by post-coup censorship than, say, activists and academics, testing the limits of what is allowed is always a tricky game. The Sunset episode, for instance, is based on a real incident from last year when soldiers inspected a photographic exhibition and practically forced the cancellation of the show.
But still, the way the four filmmakers have shaped their stories is subtle, mild-mannered and perhaps too obscure for censorious eyes.
"The original Ten Years films are clear what they're addressing: the fear of China's intervention in Hong Kong," said Aditya. "For us, things are more abstract. The films are against dictatorship, but the way we do it is not so direct, not in-your-face. The four directors are more interested in practising their own styles and the use of metaphors."
That approach is visible in all four films -- for instance, the cat people lusting for the blood of those from a different species in Catopia, or the iconography of power that appears in the background of Song Of The City. In the case of Chulayarnnon's The Planetarium, the use of objects, costume and location takes on a surreal dimension.
"Of course I have to find a way to soften what I want to say," says Chulayarnnon, 32, the youngest in the pack. "I use satire and humour to address a topic that might have come across as provocative had I told it straight -- the topic of authoritarianism and thought-control. I see my film as a science-fiction [piece] in which the future of Thailand in fact looks like the past. Time moves backward here."
After basking in the limelight of the Cannes premiere, Ten Years Thailand will open in Bangkok in a few months.
"I think that while politics can be polarising and divisive, cinema can be this beautiful tool to open up dialogue between people," says Lorraine, the Hong Kong producer. "We didn't start the Ten Years project to criticise regimes or governments; we wanted to inspire people to reflect on their countries' futures and their personal responsibility in shaping it.
"Our international project's slogan is 'The Future We Share'. Through the films, we want people to be able to speak freely and honestly about their concerns for their country, and to really take ownership of their social and political future."
