Thursday, April 2

Review: Best of Times (Thailand, 2009)

Best of Times
(Kwaam Jam San..Dtae Rak Chan Yaao)

Directed by
Youngyooth Thongkonthun (Iron Ladies)
Starring
Arak Amornsupasiri (Body sob 19), Yarinda Bunnag

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it. ~Michel de Montaigne

Memory is a whimsical beast. It surfaces without warning, submerges without a sound as if it never made ripples. Memories being unique to a person, we can assume that we own them, that we can subject them to bend to our will, chronologically sorted and easily pulled out as needed.

Keng (Arak Amornsupasiri) is a snobbish, awkward veterinarian who never got over his first love, Fai (Yarinda Bunnag), who married and later got divorced to his best friend. Keng pretends that he doesn't remember her when she stumbles into his clinic carrying an injured dog.

Kind and eternally compassionate Fai can't forget her ex-husband and secretly wishes that they would get back together soon. But she also remembers Keng, the once shy, admonishing high school kid who had recorded a love mix for her, and is now showing her the kind of affection and attention that her ex-husband couldn't give.

Sompit and Jamrat met at a computer club for the elderly. Eventhough her family doesn't agree with her blossoming relationship with Jamrat, Sampit flees to Chumporn to be with the man she loves; she insists on staying with Jamrat even if her family is relocating to the U.S. But Jamrat, due to an illness, is slowly losing his memory. He will soon forget every memory he holds dear. Pretty soon, he wouldn't even recognize Sampit.

Best of Times is a thoughtful, lighthearted examination of memory and its ironies. Director Amornsupasiri is in no rush to tell a story and there is a languid, relaxed flow to the mistakes and realizations that the characters make along the way. Beyond a logical progression from point A to point B, Best of Times is fattened with moments that make each character more endearing----Fai rushing off to a bookstore to buy her ex-husband's missing DragonBallZ vol. 18 manga but ends up getting the entire set because the books weren't sold individually; Keng pretending to be asleep and secretly smiling when droplets of water from Fai's newly washed hair trickle down his cheeks---moments not exactly integral to moving the story forward but in themselves are memories waiting to be kept.

The movie also keeps it real as much as possible and veers from romantic-comedy predictability right from the outset. Fai and Keng make an odd couple; they never really become comfortable with each other's company with Fai still attempting, maybe even faking, to move on from her divorce. And I like it that the movie leaves it at that, with one still unable to forget and the other quite willing to never forget and continue waiting.

If there is a weakness to the movie, it is the contrived metaphors (the tree, the goldfish) that weigh down Sampit and Jamrat's story, the almost too obvious emotional anchors that cue the melodrama (of which I am not immune to because I admittedly had to pretend to clean my glasses when I was really quickly wiping off tears).

The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

I liked Best of Times more than I should. Memory is triggered randomly and the DragonBallZ manga bit hit too close to home. Out of nowhere, with one hand freezing from holding a soda and the other half-buried in a popcorn bucket, there it was, this thing I thought I had forgotten.

If there's one thing that the movie is successful at it is making us remember that the past is as fluid as the future and that all we can do when it does rear its head---nostlagic, regretful, or whimsical---is sit back and enjoy the view.

4/5

Official website: www.kwamjumsan.com
Trailer:



12 comments:

Theo Martin said...

SAN MO TO NAPAPANOOD! mayroonkaya nito sa MCS o sa metrowalk?

Thor Bee said...

Sa Bangkok, last week ko napanood. :)

Bad trip nga kasi Thai dramas don't have english subs when they get released on DVDs unless they get a Hong Kong release. Still, it's not assured.

Theo Martin said...

haha, it would benefit a lot of people (hehe: me!) if you tell us events or where we can buy DVDs to watch these films. Gusto ko tong mga asian dramas/romantic comedies ever. hehe:) tsaka art house films op kors.

Thor Bee said...

Haha! Surely, Theo!

Right now, Korea's 200 Pound Beauty is out on original DVD, P250 ata. The ending's quite mushy but it's funny and bittersweet all the way. My review is in pelikulangsingkit.blogspot.com aka Korean Bug: Hollywood ends here.

My Boyfriend is Type B is also out in Astrovision. It stars Lee Dong-Gun of Lovers in Paris fame. It's a romantic-comedy and the premise is that one can determine a suitable boyfriend through one's blood type. Hehe.

Have you seen the gay teen drama The Love of Siam? That one's absofrakkinglutely beautiful.

:D

Theo Martin said...

I think i already watched 200 pound beauty. Is this about the fat girl who sings for a pop star diba? maganda siya! love the guy there!

Shet everyone's raving about the love of siam. shet i shall watch it if i have time.

haven't watched My Boyfriend Type B. Interesting. :)

Im not a fan of original DVDs dahil walang pera. hehehe. :) hope you dont mind.

Thor Bee said...

Hahaha! No judgment here, Theo. :) Sayang nga nawala na yung mga maraming Korean DVDs sa MetroWalk.

May mga fansub na Love of Siam sa net. Must watch talaga to.

Visual Velocity said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Visual Velocity said...

This is Thai, right? Haven't seen this one yet. The lone Thai film I've seen so far is Bangkok Love Story, ehehe.

Hey, is Love of Siam locally available?

And, by the way, where's my Chacun son cinema? Hmmm? I'm not too demanding, am I? :p :p :p

Thor Bee said...

Andy, have a little faith and patience. Hehehe. Got buried under so much work after my leave so ngaragan ang drama. Wala akong DVD burner sa house, have to wait til my sister gets back. Puwede ko ring i-convert ng avi. Hmmm...

Yep, Kwam Jam Sam is Thai. Sayang nga walang Eng subs ang Thai dramas. Got a Love of Siam DVD even if it didn't have eng subs. Collector's item ba, hehe. Am planning to get the 3-disc set from yesasia very, very soon. May fan sub copy din ako, kung type mo. Di ko naman peyborit di ba? Hehehe.

Visual Velocity said...

Wow, ang dami mong DVD versions ng Love of Siam!

Wait, did I hear you right? You're going to send me a copy soon? Ehehe, just kidding! But if you could send me a copy, I'd be delighted. :-)

Added pressure nanaman in addition to Chacun son cinema. Ehehehehe. :p

Thor Bee said...

Send you a copy?

Pa-cheeseburger ka naman dyan tutal madalas ka naman sa Galle. Nyehehe!

WARDEN aka Halimaw Sa Banga said...

you can dl this film on http://www.yellowcinema.com/