Within the Thai Film Archive complex, a modern-style film museum has just been inaugurated, with a wax figure of R.D. Pestonji in the center, a Thai-Indian who made many seminal feature films Producer and Director. "He" was sitting next to a giant camera, shooting a set of crane shots in a mock-up set.
For the museum's researchers, the most successful collection was a trip to the British Film Institute in London to retrieve Pestongee's 1961 thriller. Black Silk, but found a copy of the 1954 romance Santi-Vina he co-produced. These two films were screened at Cannes Film Festival , and now, together with 17 other films, they have been recommended by the Archives to be launched on the Netflix platform . In the words of the director of the archives, Chalida Uabumrungjit, it is a symbol of "we are simultaneously facing the past, the present and the future". The
Archives Park covers a total area of about 1 hectare, where the three tenses of are indeed inseparably coexisted with . The film museum in the park is the only building in Thailand for the protection and storage of film films. Next to it is a larger building with three first-class theaters, a video, audio and film collection, and a gift. shop and a café, as well as several impressive permanent exhibitions of the World Film Heritage. In addition, the park also opens a multi-sensory experience project "Visual Residual" for school-aged children all year round. This project displays cave paintings, shadow play , diorama , etc. to create the illusion of "moving pictures" pre-film era equipment, thereby promoting children's understanding of the paths explored by their predecessors.
At present, the professional working team in the park manages about 8,000 documentaries, 1,500 feature films and nearly 50,000 newsreels. These films are the main witnesses of the Thai film industry that started before World War II. Although it is not difficult to make a digital copy of the original film, they still need to restore and correct the original film, this laborious work often takes months. The
park not only requires special machinery, but also is equipped with a large screen that is rarely seen in ordinary theaters. The park is also funded by the Thai government. These are unusual for a film and cultural complex, given that the Thai government has been described as having a "propensity to marginalize cultural undertakings."
Since the park is located in the suburban area of Salaya, 20 kilometers away from the city center of Bangkok, there are still many people in Bangkok who have not been able to visit the city's most complete movie center. " We had to give up something to get a large enough park area. " said Kong (Kong), a staff member of the Film Archives. The predecessor of the archives was just a branch of the fine arts department of the Rijksmuseum in the Old Town. In 1984, there were only five staff members in an abandoned mint. After three years, the Archives finally became an independent public organization, helped by UNESCO .
Today, Dome Sukwong, the visionary 71-year-old who led to the founding of the Film Archive campus, can still be seen roaming around the campus buildings, with disheveled hair and gray beard. The image is also more like a wise man in the Eastern tradition than an avid movie fan. Half a century ago, the film historian stumbled across a trove of precious old film in an abandoned warehouse, and launched a campaign to set up a proper institute for them. against his willIt is expected that this initiative eventually gave birth to the park, and he also became a consultant to supervise and manage it.
The legend once wrote in his memoirs, "I was full of passion for watching movies...it was hopeless." He had attended screenings held by various embassies in Thailand and realized that "these countries They all keep their films carefully.” Still, he "never imagined that he would be the one who was directly involved in founding the (Thailand) National Film Archive".
At first, he led a team around scavenging old film. They've been to studios, defunct movie theaters, etc., and Hong Kong, where many old Thai films have been post-production. "Actually, it's more difficult to get a digital version of a movie now, (because) everyone is worried that such content can be easily copied and pirated," Kong said. The
archive was relocated to Saraya in 1997, and moved to its current location in the early days of the pandemic. At present, the park is building a cold storage under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture. As Panu, a film practitioner, puts it, "Many studios used to feel that there was no need to donate to the archives, but now they realize that there are better experts out there than them." Going up is like a mini Disneyland: there is a Hollywood-style " Walk of Fame " with many Thai stars' handprints, footprints and signatures, and several rooms are full of local productions with storyboards, old costumes and horror film props room, etc. "We try not to appear pretentious," Kong said.
There are two special exhibits in the exhibition on the campus: the train engine, because Kamphaengphet, the prince who made early Thai films, also oversaw the construction of the railway, and his statue is now in the archives. Other statues in the pavilion include Thomas Edison (and his Black Maria studio, the world's first film studio), photographers Edward Muybridge and Charlie Chaplin (his statue peeks slyly from a corner) . In addition, the park also restores the appearance of imitation French hotels and early Thai movie showcases, and the hardwood chairs are meticulous. The
museum also features an 1897 newspaper ad for a mysterious manager S.G. Mykowski's Thai debut using a "Paris-imported cinema projector" to bring "images that move." Also on display is a collection of early equipment used in street dioramas, such as "nang kaprong" as the Thais call it, where "nang" refers to the cowhide used as a projection screen, and "kaprong" describes the shape of women's dresses. The word "nang" is still widely used today as a synonym for movies.
But for contemporary film lovers, perhaps the most worth seeing is , a related object of the award-winning film of the famous Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. He has generously donated all kinds of things, such as the igloo-like bamboo "spaceship" and the "ghost monkey" suit from " Uncle Boonmee who can recall past lives ", and even this movie He won the Palme d'Or trophy, the first time an Asian director has won this honor since 1997.
"The word 'archive' always seems to be associated with old age," says Kong. "To avoid this, we have curated a variety of events, of which we are particularly proud of the campus film project." With the slogan "Movies Are Good", the organizers also tried their best to prove at the event that movies are more than just entertainment. There is no charge for every screening and exhibition in the program, even school lunches during the program.
As Kong said: "The history of film art is actually social history, regional history." Every day, the archivesThe long development process is fully presented, from piecing together broken gears to creating cool computer special effects, every step is unreserved. The only question is, is the accustomed to the Thai people immersed in streaming media still interested in experiencing the journey?
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