Customer Reviews

Wonderful Town

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's a few years after the tsunami of 04 and a Bangkok architect shows up in a rural town in S. Thailand to help rebuild a hotel. He falls for the hotel chambermaid and a romance ensues. I loved the sleepy rural pace of this and the soundtrack is perfect. Many extended silent looks and extra long camera takes, which seem typical of new Asian cinema these days. This indie is relaxing to watch, and there is little dialogue, so the subtitles don't get fatiguing.

Excellent movie from an indie ~
This Thai film is set in a small town in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami. Though it has been three years since the event, Takua Pa is still recovering from the catastrophe, and its inhabitants are experiencing that same difficulty. An architect (Supphasit Kansen) appears in town to help, but he builds an unexpected romance with the beautiful proprietor of a small hotel (Anchalee Saisoontorn). WONDERFUL TOWN marks the directorial debut of Aditya Assarat.

A great lesson to be learned from those who have suffered through a catastrophy ~ (Katrina victims).

It's funny, most critics either didn't like this (too thin,
boring) or loved it (delicate, tells somuch with so little).

I found myself in the middle, understanding both sides.

This gentle, quiet, slow moving romance between a Thai
woman who runs a nearly abandoned hotel, and an architect
who comes to town to help repair a local beach resort after it
was devastated by the Tsunami has moments of great grace
and tenderness, and moments that feel either heavy handed,
or not-quite earned.

There's an attempt to capture the spooky atmosphere of a
town that's been destroyed, leaving behind thousands of ghosts.
That works well when it's unspoken and vague, a little less well
when it's made concrete in the form of the lead woman's angry
rootless bother and her friends, who bring literal violence and
danger into the story, in a slightly forced way.

None-the-less, a well made, well acted, well shot, thought provoking first feature.

Takua Pa is a modern ghost town in southern Thailand,following the 2004 tsunami, situated between the mountains and the sea.The past,only obliquely alluded to, has drained the life and energy out of the place so that all that is left is bad karma.There are ruined houses and shells of hotels from the day when 8000 lives were swept away.One is haunted.The title is ironic(witness the local ne're-do-wells T-shirts).Na (Saisoontorn) says she feels trapped.She is the Chinese-Thai owner of the hotel.Ton(Kansen) is an architect from Bangkok who has volunteered to spend 2 months supervising the erection of sea-side hotels and prefers to stay in Na's quiet rooming house to noisy city life. Between Na and Ton a delicate romance develops.Their restraint is shown in her touching his clothes in his room,his in buying her oranges.This fragile love is pitted against an atmosphere of foreboding,a soundtrack of tidal rumblings,distant bells,industrial thrumming,incessant insect-chitter and a string-heavy score.They make love to a suitably swelling sea.There is a nice evocation of moods and atmospheres.

They get together on the hotel roof sofa at night,he plays her songs he's written(he used to be a musician,run a bar,be an alcoholic in the past and has fallen out with his dad) or takes her for a run in his Suzuki or for a ride on a motorbike to deserted tin mines.Na warns him to be circumspect.Her gangster brother,Wit(Yaambunying) seems to give his blessing,but his gang of hot-headed bikers have broken into his car and are continually harassing them,as if to move him on.Small town malevolence,people disliking the outsider,bring in hints of hostility and danger.Wit is an unreformed reprobate and should be helping his sister run the hotel,instead she looks after his son.Assarat suggests both Na and Ton have emotional baggage.The film is slow moving and has an undercurrent of foreboding throughout,despite its laid-back pace.The final part endorses Wit's narrow-minded prejudices via a revelation regarding Ton's private life,setting up an ending of total surprise and violence due to eroding our sympathies for Ton.The brother is seen working back at the hotel at the end.A metaphoric tsunami that leaves the tendrils of hope crushed in the doom and gloom,for offending the spirits of the dead.Yugala's cinematography has a drained palette,his camera glides hypnotically round the shabby hotel.Assarat here shows great promise for his 1st feature,but needs to develop his scriptwriting to greater depths.