Pen-Ek Ratanaruang likes listening to people

Thai film director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s most recent film ‘Samui Song’ played at Sydney Film Festival. The film follows a soap opera actress who’s trying to get rid of her husband. Addy Fong sat down with him to chat about cults, giant penises and football:

Thanks for answering my questions today, first off, what were your influences for the idea of the film?
I was shopping near my house in my neighbourhood, I was in the supermarket and I saw an actress, a famous actress. She was shopping with a foreigner, a western guy… I don’t know… maybe her boyfriend or husband. I was just following them a little bit in the supermarket to see what they were buying [laughs]. It’s not everyday I see an actress you know, so I was following them a little bit and that was the start of the idea. After that they paid, they left and few days later, while I was swimming, I thought of this couple, so obviously something about them kind of stuck in my head. So I was swimming and thinking of them and wondering what they were like at home. So, you know, they watch television together, they cook, they eat, they do this and that and I think after I finished my swim I was in the bathroom, I was showering then I finished my shower and she was about to kill him! Yeah. So I thought I would write it up as a script and that’s how it started. It’s strange…

So is that where most of your ideas come from, observation of people? It’s a very simple, organic way to come up with ideas for films, people watching?
I like listening to people. When I’m in restaurants, when I’m in a coffee shop or something I always like to eavesdrop because I like conversations [laughs]. A lot of my films happen that way. I think of some people around me. I’ve made a few films based on some novels but usually by the time the screenplay is finished you don’t recognise the novels anymore. They become kind of observational about the people around me. Another place where you get your ideas for film is from the news. If you live in Thailand our local newspapers are so full of incredible stories. You would open the newspaper and there would be news about the entire village somewhere in Thailand where everyone comes and prays and worship a sanitary napkin because… I don’t know… somebody read into the blood on the napkin as numbers and then somebody would go and buy a lottery and they would win the lottery because of that number [laughs].

So you have these kind of incredible stories or like people killing one another for no reason or just about for something like $5. I like these kind of absurd stories and situations but I take them really seriously, I don’t take them lightly, I don’t take them as a jokes even though they sound like a joke. I take them seriously in order to write my scripts. You have to believe in it first.

Samui Song touches on a lot of really serious themes such as the religious cult. Is that a criticism of religious practice in Thailand or your observation cause it’s so absurd that it’s almost novel?
I don’t see it as a critique of the religion. If it was going to be a critique I think it’s more of a critique of the people who devote themselves to the religion. I mean, they do anything to get your hooked but the idea is why do you get hooked so easily? Because most people are lost they need something to hold onto. Thailand now, our society now, we say we are buddhist country but I would say most of the people especially in the big city, most the people are kind of so fed up, so sick of the mainstream buddhism because everyday you read the newspapers or you check on your Facebook or whatever, there are monks doing bad things everyday. You think monks… some monks… do worse than what I do with my life and I’m not even a monk but there’s sins and there’s terrible things that they commit. It’s worse than me, it’s worse than normal people, so I think a lot of people have kind of become fed up, because disillusioned with the mainstream buddhism. A lot of alternative cults start to happen and people believe in those things. Actually it’s good that you mentioned this religious aspect in the film because actually it was not intentional. When I first wrote the script there was none of this in the script it was just the husband and wife and their problems.

For me it definitely added a layer to it…
I said that at one point the wife has to get rid of her husband to free herself. I was thinking of some kind of mechanism that would be a reason for her to get rid of him, to kill him, and of course the only things I can think of were really lame and so terrible; like the husband had a mistress or she had a boyfriend… that kind of thing, so I said ‘that’s terrible’ and ‘I can’t write this’. I got stuck and one day I was driving in my car and heard this news about this monk who was caught doing some terrible things, either with women or with money. He was expelled, they got rid of him from the monkhood and all his dedicated followers, he’s had so many followers because he’s quite a popular monk. I don’t know why with these monks mostly their followers are women, maybe the women have a harder life men in Thailand and that’s why they cling to this kind of thing. The men can go drinking and go to prostitution or whatever they go and have no way out so they cling to this kind of charismatic cult leaders. So I heard this news and he was expelled from the monkhood and he left the country. I think he went to some foreign country like The States or Canada or Australia, I don’t know, he left the country and started a new religion and all the followers still are following him.

That’s how a lot of cults end up starting…
Exactly. When I heard that news in my car, it kind of unlocked the script for me that maybe this could be the reason she could kill her husband [laughs], so I said her husband could become involved in this religion. That’s how this aspect came into the film; it was purely accidental.

Did the husband and wife’s ethnic differences play a factor in casting? Is there an issue in Thailand with Asian and White couples?
No, the fact that I made this film is because I saw the actress with her husband in the supermarket. Nowadays it’s super common in my neighbourhood in Bangkok where I live. In one day I would hear as much English as Thai as Japanese. They are the three common languages around my neighbourhood, but this was not the case 10 years ago.

So, attitudes overtime have shifted?
Right. This film is kind of like an observation of this situation. Seven years ago when there were more foreigners coming into Thailand to live, not just to holiday, to live. These foreigners, wherever they go they go to the supermarket, if they go to the markets, if they go to coffee shop, they would speak english and the Thai people who would serve them had to guess what these guys want because they’re speaking English so fast, they speak like they’re in America or Australia or England. It was a nightmare for Thai people when these guys came to buy stuff, but nowadays it’s totally changed. They come in, speak Thai. So, yeah it’s a strange phenomenon and the film is kind of an observation of that.

It felt like there was this disconnect because he was speaking English and she was speaking Thai, like it showed how their relationship was broken because of the fact they were communicating…
…differently but couldn’t understand each other? [laughs]. No, this was modelled after one of my friends who’s also a film director in Thailand. Originally he’s from Argentina but lived in London for a long time and he has lived in Thailand for the last 35 years. He lived in Thailand for a long time, even longer than me. When he worked with the Thai crew he could understand everything, but he would not speak Thai; he would speak English. I think that maybe even after 35 years he felt that he had an accent he was a bit shy to speak Thai, but if someone bad mouthed him he could understand immediately. So this relationship, the way they speak in the film, is modelled after this friend of mine and also partly because many years ago, maybe like ten years ago, I made one film where the cast were from different countries. The main actress was Japanese, the lead actress was Korean and the boss in the film was Thai and the priest is from Hong Kong. I tried to make them all speak English and the result was really terrible, so I thought ‘oh maybe I shouldn’t do that anymore’ [laughs]. Even for Stéphane, the French guy in the film.

I read that he’s a director?
Yeah, he’s a music video director. No, he was a famous photographer in the 90s he was like super, super famous. He was the ex-boyfriend of Bjork and Kylie Minogue I think.

Even the casting was really strong. I read that the person who plays Vi’s also a soap opera actress.
Oh she’s like super, super huge. I think the cast was big yeah, I never before worked with this big cast but Stéphane the photographer is not an actor, so you have to kind of coach him along during the filming. He was already uncomfortable speaking English but I thought for the wife to speak Thai and the husband to speak French is a bit too much, I think it’s a bit too much of a stretch.

Was it intended for the film to be in English and Thai? For the audiences?
Not from the audience point of view from but from my own point of view. I think if he speaks French she speaks Thai it’s a bit of a stretch, English maybe it’s okay you know. From the actress’s point of view she might not feel comfortable to speak English anyway, even with her husband, and if her husband can understand Thai, why not?

You know the scene where the husband gets killed by a clay penis? Why clay?
It’s supposed to be bronze.

Was it bronze? Such a novelty.
[laughs] Well he’s impotent. I think he’s impotent and that’s why they don’t sleep together. We thought that in the script he’s an amateur sculptor, as a hobby he does sculptures for him to release himself from being impotent; all his sculptures are like kind of sexual. I think it was the idea of my producers, saying that when he was killed maybe he should be killed with a penis or something. But it’s his own creation whatever it is [clay or bronze] and my producer thought ‘oh why don’t we have him being killed by a giant penis?’ But then I thought a lot of people will that I’m copying Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange where the woman is being killed by the penis.

I read you’re a football fan?
I’m a football player. [laughs] I play midfield, someone in the middle of the field who distributes the balls to the forward. I’m small, you know, I cannot be in the back because the back has to be tall and they have to defend, and if you’re upfront you have to be a really fast runner because the ball is kicked to you. I’m not a fast runner, so I’m kind of in the middle.

There was a scene in the film where they’re playing football, kicking a ball around. I thought it was a nod to your love of football… like, let’s just subtly put this in.
[laughs] Well I have to find a way for the boy to be alone so that he could be kidnapped so I thought why not in the woods playing football?

Is that what you like to do in your spare time? Filmmaking and playing football?
No, I think I make films in my spare time [laughs]. With filmmaking I’m not so serious, I’m serious up to a point of course because I love filmmaking and I don’t want the result to be embarrassing. But with the football like I’m super super serious, I yell at people [laughs]. When I’m directing a film I never yell at anybody, I never lose my temper, I’m really cool but on the football field I’m so different. I haven’t been playing much because I’m so busy. I haven’t been playing for like 3 months now and after I get back I will be busy for another two months.

Just with festivals and stuff?
No, I’m making films. I have two more commercials to shoot and then I have to finish one film. Commercials are how I make a living because when I make films I don’t make any money at all, I lose money. I pay my own money for films but commercials I make money, but I don’t do so many now because I have less time.

What’s the weirdest commercial you’ve made?
Most of the commercials that I have to do are kind of strange. They are not the kind of beautiful ones. I don’t know how to do those because to do those kind of things you have to have so much patience, the hair swinging and stuff like that. In my case, my commercials are more like short films with a product in it… whatever it is. I don’t do the beautiful ones.

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Find out more about Sydney Film Festival here: https://www.sff.org.au/

Interview by Addy Fong.