In the wake of other Asian countries, Thailand lived through a small yet vivid period of international interest at the start of this millennium. Some very fresh and unique films reached our shores because of that, of which Mah Nakorn is definitely one of the most impressive and memorable. Mah Nakorn put Wisit Sasanatieng on the map and even though he made some other interesting films, none of them has been able to match the magic of this one. While Sasanatieng's Tears of the Black Tiger proved to be a little too inaccessible for most people, he improved himself considerably when he released Mah Nakorn (Citizen Dog). While stylistically just as kitschy and in-your-face as his first, Mah Nakorn exists well outside the realm of...
- 10/28/2011
- Screen Anarchy
Citizen Dog
Screened at Locarno International Film Festival Piazza Grande
Wisit Sasanatieng's riotously colorful, wittily musical and utterly charming fantasy Citizen Dog is what is technically called a hoot.
Drawing influences from everything from PeeWee Herman's Big Adventure to the Coen Bros. Raising Arizona to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie, the film achieves its own high originality with a marvelously inventive production design and using any number of cinematic devices including animation, slow-motion, and bizarre close-ups.
With its infectious weirdness, high energy and appealing music, Citizen Dog could catch a wave that propels it to become a major cult must-see not only for youngsters but also for anyone who recalls when it was great fun to go to the movies.
A helpful narration explains that a guileless young man named Pod (Mahasamut Boonyarak) is a country bumpkin who moves to Bangkok determined to thrive in the big city. He gets a job at the Dog & Helmet Brand Sardine Company chopping the heads off fish on a conveyor belt. The first hint that everything will be more than a touch weird comes when Pod accidentally cuts off a finger and it ends up in a can of sardines.
What's odd about it is that there's no blood and Pod immediately goes searching in every grocery store in the city looking for the can that contains his finger. Sure enough he finds a can with a finger in it but, sadly, it's not his finger.
One of his co-workers, the wacky Yod (Sawaswong Palkawong Na Ayutthaya) has lost a finger too but as luck would have it Pod manages to grab his own digit back just before Yod picks his nose with it, and jams it back on his hand.
Soon after that, Pod runs into a lovely young woman named Jin (Sangthong Ket-uthong) who speaks to the people in the magazines she reads and spends much of her time trying to read a foreign-language book in a white cover that fell out of a plane.
Pod is smitten and for the remainder of the film he attempts to show his love for Jin as she takes on various causes including the massive one of trying to protect the world from plastic, which results in a mountain of plastic outside her house.
Among the many outrageously strange characters Pod encounters as he pursues his love is an 8-year-old who thinks she's 22, smokes a lot, plays violent video games at the mall, and carries around a talking Teddy Bear that she's always abandoning, only to run back and rescue.
There's a grandmother reincarnated as a gecko, a Chinese beauty who runs Yod ragged, and a motor-cycle taxi driver who is killed but stays on the job as a ghost.
Somewhere in the all the nuttiness there's a point about conformity and finding happiness but it really doesn't matter as the adventures of Pod and Jin provide a whirlwind of good fun.
Credits:
Writer, director: Wisit Sasanatieng
Producer: Rewat Worarat
Director of Photography: Rewat Preelert
Production designer: Surat Kateeroj
Editor: Dusanee Puinongpo
Sound design and music: Amornpong Methakunawut of Wild at Heart
Cast:
Pod: Mahasamut Boonyarak
Jin: Sangthong Ket-uthong
Yod: Sawaswong Palkawong Na Ayutthaya
Narrator: Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 99 mins...
Wisit Sasanatieng's riotously colorful, wittily musical and utterly charming fantasy Citizen Dog is what is technically called a hoot.
Drawing influences from everything from PeeWee Herman's Big Adventure to the Coen Bros. Raising Arizona to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie, the film achieves its own high originality with a marvelously inventive production design and using any number of cinematic devices including animation, slow-motion, and bizarre close-ups.
With its infectious weirdness, high energy and appealing music, Citizen Dog could catch a wave that propels it to become a major cult must-see not only for youngsters but also for anyone who recalls when it was great fun to go to the movies.
A helpful narration explains that a guileless young man named Pod (Mahasamut Boonyarak) is a country bumpkin who moves to Bangkok determined to thrive in the big city. He gets a job at the Dog & Helmet Brand Sardine Company chopping the heads off fish on a conveyor belt. The first hint that everything will be more than a touch weird comes when Pod accidentally cuts off a finger and it ends up in a can of sardines.
What's odd about it is that there's no blood and Pod immediately goes searching in every grocery store in the city looking for the can that contains his finger. Sure enough he finds a can with a finger in it but, sadly, it's not his finger.
One of his co-workers, the wacky Yod (Sawaswong Palkawong Na Ayutthaya) has lost a finger too but as luck would have it Pod manages to grab his own digit back just before Yod picks his nose with it, and jams it back on his hand.
Soon after that, Pod runs into a lovely young woman named Jin (Sangthong Ket-uthong) who speaks to the people in the magazines she reads and spends much of her time trying to read a foreign-language book in a white cover that fell out of a plane.
Pod is smitten and for the remainder of the film he attempts to show his love for Jin as she takes on various causes including the massive one of trying to protect the world from plastic, which results in a mountain of plastic outside her house.
Among the many outrageously strange characters Pod encounters as he pursues his love is an 8-year-old who thinks she's 22, smokes a lot, plays violent video games at the mall, and carries around a talking Teddy Bear that she's always abandoning, only to run back and rescue.
There's a grandmother reincarnated as a gecko, a Chinese beauty who runs Yod ragged, and a motor-cycle taxi driver who is killed but stays on the job as a ghost.
Somewhere in the all the nuttiness there's a point about conformity and finding happiness but it really doesn't matter as the adventures of Pod and Jin provide a whirlwind of good fun.
Credits:
Writer, director: Wisit Sasanatieng
Producer: Rewat Worarat
Director of Photography: Rewat Preelert
Production designer: Surat Kateeroj
Editor: Dusanee Puinongpo
Sound design and music: Amornpong Methakunawut of Wild at Heart
Cast:
Pod: Mahasamut Boonyarak
Jin: Sangthong Ket-uthong
Yod: Sawaswong Palkawong Na Ayutthaya
Narrator: Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 99 mins...
- 8/8/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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