One of the things that I miss most about Australia, outside of the people I call my friends and family, is the Thai food, people continue to tell me about great Thai food places in the UK, and when I go to these places I try to hide my bitter disappointment from them, many places over here that advertise 'Thai food' seem to be populated by Chinese chefs, the dishes are a lot more greasy then I seem to remember that they should be, the cashew nuts are soft, Chinese dominates here still, one Vietnamese restaurant near London Fields seems to share the same staff and kitchen as the takeaway Chinese place next door, in contrast I have been lucky enough to encounter authentic Thai cinema over here without any of the grease, and I found it being served in the Institute of Contemporary Arts, a cinema that was also recently serving authentic but fat heavy Australian cinema, I am not as acquanited with thai cinema as I am with thai food, which is surprising considering the number of Thai chefs and wait staff that must live in Sydney, one night in Thailand I did have the pleasure of going along to the first part of the nation's epic trilogy Naresuan in an Americanised cinema in a town where few Americans, or tourists, seem to go and happily found that the film still featured English subtitles, the film was fun but there wasn't much to it, Wonderful Town has very much to it though and is best film I've seen so far this year, it is entertaining in a way that Western cinema could never understand, in a quiet way that doesn't need much dialogue or action or even much of a story beyond a romance in a town trying to recover from the 2004 tsunami, it is all the more impressive as it is director's Aditya Assarat debut feature and he shows no sign of trying to be like anything else, indeed this film is the most far removed film from mainstream cinema that I have seen recently, the characters' diverging responses to the loss and memory of that diaster, from resentment to indifference to silent grieving, are handled with a subtle and delicate touch, the event itself is rarely mentioned, but images of a calm ocean weighted by the catastrophic event are repeated throughout the film, the film balances both a sense of loss and a sense of dread for the life that continues with expression, posture and camera position rather than dialogue or music, everything doesnt have to be explained as is thought important by so many other films, this review is my love letter to this film, and I hope I can continue to be served such Thai cinema with crunchy cashew nuts and plenty of spice.
