ACF 314: 'Soi Cowboy' being released in London on June 11th, 2009

The 2008 Thai film Soi Cowboy, directed by Thomas Clay will have an exclusive run at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London from Thursday, June 11 through Thursday, June 25th. There will be a Q&A with producer Joseph Lang, hosted by Rebecca Jameson, after the screening on Friday, June 12th.

Link to trailer

No word yet, at least none that I've come across, on whether or not the film will have a theatrical release here in the States.

Here's some very interesting info, courtesy of Network Releasing, holder of the U.K. and Ireland rights:

SYNOPSIS

In Bangkok, a corpulent European man and a young, pregnant Thai woman live together in near silence. His large body stands out in marked contrast to her tiny frame. He gives her presents – she has a growing collection of stuffed animals – and takes viagra pills. She is looking for security and he is the best way to stay out of Soi Cowboy, the red-light district where they met. She likes him but sleeping with him is a duty. Meanwhile, in the countryside, a teenage mafia enforcer is employed to deliver his older brother’s head.

ABOUT THOMAS CLAY
Born in Brighton, England, 1979, Thomas Clay studied 16mm film production as a teenager at the CFU, London. At the age of 19, he made his first medium-length film, Motion, together with
producer and co-writer Joseph Lang. This was followed by his feature debut, The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael, which made a deep impression at Critics’ Week in the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

Filmography:

2008 Soi Cowboy

2005 The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael
2001 Motion (CM)

INTERVIEW WITH THOMAS CLAY

After The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael, how did you get the idea, the subject of Soi Cowboy?

The remnants of my fee on another screenplay went towards Soi Cowboy, along with some private equity and receipts from Robert Carmichael. The script for Soi Cowboy I wrote in two days, but I’d been living in Thailand for close to a year and these thoughts and images had been growing inside me for some time.

How did you cast and choose the actors and actresses? The main actor is a professional. Are the Thai ones professional or amateur?

First of all, you have to understand the difference between the Bangkok Thais, the urban elite who are benefiting from the economic prosperity, and the people of Isaan who are the largest ethnic group in Thailand and the protagonists of my film. These people are an underclass in the Dickensian sense of the word, subsistence farmers, street sellers, sex workers. They have
different features, darker skin and they also speak a dialect that is closer to Lao than Thai. The only time you will hear Isaan in a Thai cinema is on the dub track for Mr. Bean. Our only option, therefore, was to do open casting calls, to scout and street cast. Mo (Pimwalee) won the lead role due to her enthusiasm, her intelligence and her ability to take direction.

Of course, it was a tougher shoot for Mo than for Nicolas, being her first time in front of a camera, but she gave everything she had and I think it’s an excellent performance. In the finale, we are then transported into a different kind of arena, one that requires a certain exaggeration and largess, so this is where I decided to use some Thai personalities. There is Thai boxing gold medallist Somluk Kuamsing, accompanied by his real life business associates: Pornthip Papanai, co-star of last year’s Ploy, singer and soap opera star Art Suppawat and also Amporn Parnkratoke, the Oliver Reed of Thailand.

How did you prepare the shooting on location? How many days have you shot there? How were the working conditions?

I had most of the locations in mind whilst writing the script. Only in the finale did we have to go through a pretty radical design to create the correct atmosphere and colour scheme. I also had my shot list and compositions worked out in advance and spent a fair amount of time rehearsing with Nicolas and Mo. The shoot lasted for three weeks, completely out of sequence, with three and a half days of dolly work and the rest either on a tripod, or with a handheld rig in the case of
the second narrative. We used high speed S16mm stock to be able to adapt and compliment the available light, both indoors and out.

P’Song’s total lighting kit for the film comprised of a bag of domestic bulbs and fluorescents, two redheads and one kinoflow. We had no safety net, no contingency and no insurance against negative damage or scheduling disruptions. We did pay Thai commercial rates to the crew and received a very high level of dedication, so that helped to keep things moving. Perhaps, technically, we weren’t able to be quite as perfectionist as on my last film, where we had four times the budget and twice as much time, but I feel I was lucky to achieve most of what I wanted and bring everything in on schedule.

Have you some special films or artistic, cultural references for Soi Cowboy?

Antonioni remains an enduring inspiration, both as a filmmaker and a world citizen. No-one else captured the 20th century with the same degree of precision, insight, texture and depth of feeling and his passing was a sad moment for cinema. There are a couple of scenes in Soi Cowboy that may be accused of homage, although I’ve tried to exclude anything that is not internally justified by the material.

Why have you chosen to shoot the first part of the film this way (black and white, in a contemplative manner and well-composed, precise frames) and switch after that to saturated color and a handheld camera?

The phase of script development that I went through following Robert Carmichael certainly had an impact, having to think at the same time about many different kinds of film, each constrained by a particular style or genre. With Soi Cowboy, I quickly decided to approach the material from two different angles, two distinct narratives with differing cinematic approaches. This was also a
response to Thailand itself - the stark divide between rich and poor, urban and rural, that is such a defining feature of the social, political and visual landscape.

The first part of Soi Cowboy is thus a depiction of surface reality, the minutiae of the day-to-day. Danger lurks beneath the surface yet never shows its face. I was aiming for stylistic consistency and, unlike my debut feature, there is an intended closeness to the protagonists. Ebbing away amidst the intangible ruins of Ayutthaya, the house lights could rise after 85 minutes and the job would seemingly be done. Yet, to rest here would leave the picture incomplete. Tobias’ western perspective still lacks context. The omnipotent power-structures that shape and govern this society, this relationship, remain elusive, undefined. A different approach is needed to get to grips with the underlying, hidden nature of things.

The second part thus begins with a quasi-docu naturalism, but the picture is then transformed through a sieve of genre familiarity, narrative into fable, character into archetype, all moving inexorably towards a point where stasis is achieved, when the camera returns to the dolly and these have ceased to be characters at all, just as the narrative has drifted away in a puff of gun-smoke and we are left with only essence.

How would you describe the relation between Tobias and Koi?

For me, what is interesting about the relationship is that it is founded on a commercial exchange, with the inevitable problems this entails and yet, at the same time, they are trying to overcome
those problems and make the relationship work, for the good of their offspring, for the future. This resembles the struggle that I believe we all have to go through if we are to retain our humanity in a world so driven by competition and avarice. As Michel Piccoli says in Le Mepris, everything has been commodified, our bodies, our minds, our happiness. But I’m a father now myself and I think we have to try to overcome this situation somehow, if we are not to be
thrown to the winds as a civilisation and as a species.

INTERVIEW WITH NICOLAS BRO

How were you cast in Soi Cowboy?

I met Joseph Lang (producer of Soi Cowboy) at a film festival in Spain some years ago when I saw there The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael. I was totally blown away by the film and
very passionately discussed it with Joseph. At the same festival, Joseph Lang saw me in Dagur Kari’s Dark Horse and I think he liked my acting. We enjoyed each other’s company for the rest of the festival. Then I made a film called Offscreen by Christoffer Boe. It was at the London Film Festival and Joseph Lang saw it there. At that time, he and Thomas Clay were casting for Soi Cowboy. Thomas saw the movie and decided to cast me as Tobias in Soi Cowboy. I really loved the script.

How did you work the part?

I think Thomas Clay wanted me to be his alter ego, so for me it was about making a mix between me and Thomas.

How would you describe the relationships between your character Toby and Koi?

I think he is deeply in love with her, and she needs him. They have two very different views on love through their own culture. It’s a clash between Thai and Western ideas of love and security.

What did you think of the script?

I really loved the script. And I think the movie is everything the script was.

ABOUT NICOLAS BRO

Nicolas Bro was born in 1972 in Copenhagen. He has become one of the most famous actors in Denmark, with Mads Mikkelsen and Ulrich Thomsen. He studied at the prestigious Danish National Theatre and Contempory Dance School, and has since played in many Danish films inclunding Kira’s reason – A Love Story (2003), Old, New, Borrowed and Blue (2003), The Green Butchers (2003), Reconstruction (2003), Stealing Rembrandt (2003), King’s Game (2004), Adam’s Apple (2005), We Are The Champions (2005), Murk (2005) Sky Master 2006). He recently appeared in Dark Horse by Dagur Kari. He is acting in numerous plays at the Danish Royal Theatre.