Mon-Rak Transistor
(Transistor Love Story)

Programme Notes

Directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
STARRING: Supakorn Kitsuwon
Siriyakorn Pukkavesh
Ampon Rattanawong

RUNNING TIME: 1 HOUR 55 MINUTES
LANGAUGE: In Thai
Subtitled in English

Director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang was born in Bangkok in 1962 but studied film at the Pratt Institute in New York from 1977 to 1985. He made his film debut, Fun Bar Karaoke, in 1997; this received a showing at the Berlin Film Festival. His next was the multi-award winning 6ixtynin9. Monrak Transistor is his third film. His latest release, Last Life In The Universe, has taken the Upstream Prize at the 2003 Venice Film festival.

Tears Of The Black Tiger, The Iron Ladies, Blissfully Yours and the thrillers such as Bangkok Dangerous and The Eye, as well as the work by Ratanaruang has brought Thai cinema to a wider audience. Although blessed with a long history of film making very little of Thai cinema survives. It is estimated that at least 75% of all Thai films ever made have already been lost. There is no history book available and given the virtual impossibility of the task, it is unlikely that one will be written soon.

That any film has survived is, surprisingly, down to the Royal family. Thai Kings have long been amateur filmmakers and their efforts have been stored in the Thai Film Archive. However, not all Royal footage has been of the purely private variety - some members of the Royal family have made feature films for the wider public audience. The most famous, Prince Chatri Chalerm Yukol, is still making films today. Francis Ford Coppola has recently worked with the Prince on Suriyothai (an epic tale of the 16th century Queen who died in battle defending her husbands Empire). To date this is the most expensive and highest- grossing Thai film. And like the film archive, Suriyothai's financial backing came largely from the royal family itself. (No UK release date as yet).

Who knows what will be next for Thai cinema. For the moment it is certainly enjoying a renaissance. Given the quality of recent output, long may it continue.

Writer-director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's idiosyncratic fable, whose title loosely translates into English as "Transistor Love Story", is dedicated to the murdered 60s Thai C&W star Surapol Sombatcharoen, several of whose songs adorn the film's soundtrack.

Adapted from a popular Thai novel, the film is narrated by an elderly prison guard, relating the picaresque tale of the handsome but naïve country-boy Phaen (Suppakorn Kitsuwan), who marries the beautiful Sadaw (Siriyakorn Pukkavesh) against her father's wishes.

Having been conscripted into the army, however, our hero goes AWOL and heads to Bangkok, aiming to win fame and fortune as a singer. Two years later and still afraid to contact his family, Phaen finds himself relying on a break from untrustworthy gay impresario Suwat (Somlek Sakdikul), who's taken a shine to the young man's looks. Back in the countryside, a lonely Sadaw finds herself falling for a smooth-talking travelling salesman...

Made by the producers of the ambitiously stylized Thai Western "Tears of the Black Tiger", "Monrak Transistor" is a colourfully shot illustration of life's unpredictable twists and turns.

"A piece of candy with just a taste of satirical poison at its centre," is how Ratanaruang himself describes his film, and he certainly avoids travelogue clichés in his vision of his homeland.

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