European Films

Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Tropical Malady) might have found a European acolyte in the surprising person of UK director Thomas Clay, who shot his second film Soi Cowboy on location in Thailand. The story of a portly European (Denmark’s Nicolas Bro, Offscreen) and his local girlfriend "saved" from the red-light bars is also a bifurcated drama with two only loosely connected stories, but rather than reaching the heights of the Thai Boy Wonder’s films, Clay’s follow-up to the promising if extreme The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael only proves that it requires more than just pointing a camera somewhere to create mystery and meaning. The fact that the first twenty minutes are without dialogue and that more than half of it is in black-and-white will mean the death knell for this film in any commercial ventures. The film is part of the Un certain regard section at the recent Cannes Film Festival.

 

That Clay has a fondness for the ennui generated by simply waiting is clear, as both Robert Carmichael and Soi Cowboy share a structural similarity in which the running time is used against the viewer in an attempt to generate a quiet before the storm-type anticipation that cannot but end with a violent catharsis. The problem with Soi Cowboy is that this quiet before the storm is awfully quiet. Antonioni, to whom this film pays "indirect homage" as the director puts it, made ennui exciting cinematographically, but Clay’s screenplay and editing leave out almost anything that might make the two main characters worthwhile to take an interest in for an hour or two.

 

In the film's black-and-white first half, Clay explores the daily lives of Bro's Tobias (who could be seen as an alter ego of the director, as Tobias does "something" in the film industry) and his local, girlfriend Koi (Pimwalee Thampanyasan). Using static shots and prolonged silences, it soon -- much sooner than this section's running time -- becomes clear that these two people are together more for their personal convenience than for any strong emotional attachment to one another. The fact that she is pregnant seems to be almost irrelevant to their being together (it is never clear if it is his child as well as hers).

 

The only time there is any sense of affection between the two is when they are on a terrace sharing a drink together using straws, shown by Clay with a point-of-view shot of each character as they look at each other, doe-eyed. But even here the question lingers whether these two people are happy to be together or are simply happy to have found an arrangement that suits their own purposes without being too much of a hassle. 

 

Thai cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, who shot several of Weerasethakul's films, certainly shows his versatility with this feature. The second part of the film, which is much shorter than the first, features Cha (Petch Mekoh), the brother of Koi, travelling back to the rural area of Cha and Koi's family and is shot in colour in a heavily saturated and handheld style that is the polar opposite of the first half's languid -- and at times flat -- black and white. The film's surreal closing scenes are set in a nightclub in the Soi Cowboy red-light district that gives the film its name and are directly influenced by David Lynch. Violence is on the agenda in this second part, though it is shown in a much more restrained manner than the out-and-out, in-your-face gore of The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael. 

 

How exactly the two parts are related and what the nightclub scenes have to do with anything is anyone's guess. Atmosphere and mood are more important here, though some directorial digressions, including a wandering camera that sometimes inexplicably strays from protagonists and an overall lack of purpose, will make this film less interesting for those not well-versed enough in cinema to spot all the "indirect hommages" to some of cinema's greatest directors.