Samui Song
directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, Thailand 2018, 108' (English friendly)
Viyada, a thirty-year-old actress who plays in popular series, specializes in the roles of villains. Her private life is also becoming more and more reminiscent of a film plot: a woman is stuck a cold marriage with a rich foreigner, an unfulfilled sculptor, getting ever more involved in a religious movement under the guidance of a stern guru. The heroine will be forced to resort to drastic measures to get out of this increasingly oppressive situation. The brilliantly conducted, tense narration leads the viewer into a psychological drama. The stylish, cool frames are contrasted with a deeply hidden whirl of emotions that in the end have no choice but to explode. The director does not hide the fact that he was inspired by Hitchcock, but his story of dark sexuality, masks, and institutions that profit from spiritual searches turns out to be quite contemporary and universal. This ironic black detective story is not only criticizing Thai society.
