Interviews with Pen-ek Ratanaruang
"Using Hitchcock as a starting point, the film serves as homage to the kinds of movies I enjoy, from Buñuel to Thai retro cinema from the ‘60s"
GWEN MANICKAM - MALAY MAIL
"I had the idea of starting a film in a certain ‘genre’ and as the story unfolded, the style of the film changed and shifted until it became almost unrecognisable by the end, making it hardly resembling the film in the beginning. The film transformed itself as our protagonist transformed herself and this felt very challenging to me. That’s what made me sat down and began writing. It was an opportunity to play with different kinds of cinema I love, and I knew would have so much fun."
JOHN LI - MOVIEEXCLUSIVE.COM
"I've started to realize that it's not only the condition of Thai women. I think it's condition of a lot of women in a lot of countries, a lot of societies. Of course in Thailand I can relate to it more, because I see it every day. Thai women in general are like actresses, because a society put a lot of roles on them to play. If you are an employee in a company you have to be obeying the boss, don't talk back to the boss. When you're at home with your husband, you're a housewife, doing thing for him. With your parents you have to be obedient, be submissive, you have to do whatever they tell you. Among themselves, among the women, they talk to each other how bad their husbands are. They have to play many, many roles in order to have a decent life. That was an idea that I've had for a long time, how to portray this."
VENICE DAYS - GIORNATE DEGLI AUTORI 2017 [VIDEO]
"It's very hard when you write a script or when you make a film - the beginning and the ending are always very hard. [...] So at one point im my career I just decided I'll stop writing the ending. I'll just go with it and then it will just show itself. [...] If I can choose, I don't want my film to end, it's kind of dumb bit. Sometimes you just can't wrestle with it. I think a good film has its own life. It's like your child, you can control your child up to a point when he was young, she was young, you can buy clothes for them the way you want them to wear, or they can wear all this cartoon thing. But after a certain age, they don't listen to you. But you still can have a succesful child, not to become a drug addict or something. You still have to look after it, but you don't control it."
