DONSARON KOVITVANITCHA
SPECIAL TO THE NATION
LOCARRO, SWITZERLAN August 18, 2016 1:00 am
Although often regarded as a festival that focuses on European cinema, the Locarno event has screened some Thai films in the past. In 2004, the Swiss festival presented Wisit Sasanatieng’s “Citizen Dog” to thousands of film fans in an out-of-competition open-air screening at Piazza Grande, the city’s main square, while in 2013, Nontawat Numbenchapol’s documentary “By the River” won the special mention award from the Filmmakers of the Present sidebar competition.
This year, though, marked the first time a Thai film had competed in the prestigious main competition. The film in question was Anocha Suwichakornpong’s second feature, “By the Time It Gets Dark”, which was up against works by such veteran filmmakers such as Joao Pedro Rodriguez and Akihiko Shiota.
“By the Time It Gets Dark”, whose Thai title is “Dao Khanong”, took Anocha seven years to complete.
“I finished the first draft of the film’s treatment in October 2009,” she says of her dream project, which she started not long after the premiere of her first feature film “Mundane History” at the Busan International Film Festival in 2009. “Mundane History” went on to become a festival hit, winning the Tiger Award from International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2010.
“By the Time It Gets Dark” went to Cinemart, the project market of International Film Festival Rotterdam also in 2010, where it attracted the attention of a few international producers.
“It took a long time because of the filmmaking process, and the fact that I needed to find the money to film it,” Anocha says.
She did eventually manage to secure funding both from the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund, the Doha Film Institute and the Ministry of Culture of Thailand’s Thai Khem Kaeng’s fund and shooting began in 2014.
“I filmed some scene four years ago as a pilot without knowing if we would use the footage in the film. Two years ago, we filmed the scenes in Nan province, which we used as the main storyline. We filmed the last scene in February this year,” Anocha explains.
The narrative of “By the Time It Gets Dark” starts with Ann, a female film director, who wants to learn more about the Thai student movement in 1976. She takes Taew, a well-known female writer who was part of the movement to a remote resort to interview her
“Most people thinks the film is about myself. While some parts are based on my own experiences, I fictionalised the characters for the most part,” she says,
The film then goes back in time and explores Taew’s past before bringing the audience back to present to meet the other characters. There’s Nong, who keep changing jobs and changing herself and Peter, who is an actor.
“Actually the project started with the story of Nong, a girl who keeps changing jobs. Then I took a step back and reconsidered the relationship between myself and the subject. That led me to create the character of the female filmmaker. The film is about politics, memories, and also cinema. Sometimes we live in a world where the line between reality and fiction is blurred. Actors live in that kind of world too, and so I created Peter.”
Ann is played by three Thai female directors, Visra Vichit-Vadakan, Soraya Nakasuwan and Inthira Charoenpura. Taew is portrayed by both Rassami Paolueng- tong and Penpak Sirikul, while the role of Peter is taken by popular musician and actor Arak “Pae” Amornsupasiri.
“I went to see a film and Pae happened to be sitting in front of front of me. He has a unique charisma. When I wrote the script, I intended to cast another actor, but I decided to adapt Peter’s character to be closer to the real Pae,” Anocha explains.
Audiences in Locarno often ask about the meanings of the title, whether this is in English or the film’s native tongue, and “By the Time It Gets Dark” was no exception.
“The title ‘Dao Khanong’ came from the character of Nong, who was a factory girl. It comes from the lyrics of the song ‘Num Na Khao, Sao Na Klua’ [‘The Man from the Rice Field, the Girl from the Salt Pans’]. The song tells about how the man from rice field met the girl from salt pans at Dao Khanong. Dao Khanong is like a meeting point for workers. Whenever I drive on the highway, I always see the signpost to Dao Khanong. People live there but it isn’t a popular place,” Anocha says.
“The English title ‘By the Time It Gets Dark’ comes from Sandy Denny’s song, which I listened to quite often when I was writing the treatment. It was working title and I didn’t intend to use it as a real title, but it stuck.”
Anocha was delighted with her experience in Locarno and to be the first film director from the country to be selected for the competition.
“I am very happy with the screenings,” she says. The screen is big and the venue is not a movie theatre, so at first I was worried about the quality of the projection, but the quality was very good, better than in a normal movie theatre.
“And the response of the audience was nice. Many of them came up to me afterwards and said that they loved the film, though some of them didn’t really understand it, I was also asked how I convinced the investor to make this film and replied that wasn’t an easy film to make. We had to film and we had to look for money.”
“By the Time It Gets Dark” will be shown at the Toronto International Film Festival next month and at the Busan International Film Festival. No date has been set for its Thailand release though Anocha is hoping for an October release or at least before the end of this year.
This source first appeared on The Nation Life.