Citizen Dog (ScreenDaily Review) (Tears of the Black Tiger)

[dleedlee]

Citizen Dog (Ma Nakorn)

Geoffrey Macnab in Locarno 22 August 2005

Dir/scr: Wisit Sarasatieng. Thai-Fr. 2004. 100mins.

Co-produced by Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp, Wisit Sasanatieng’s follow-up to Tears Of The Black Tiger is a film of undeniable charm: a romantic fantasy already touted by some as a Thai equivalent to Amelie. Shot in the same iridescent colours as Black Tiger, full of surrealistic humour and musical interludes, it is inventive and often moving.

Alongside the more fantastical sequences, Wisit throws in plenty of barbed asides about life in contemporary Bangkok. Certain viewers may find his tendency toward whimsy a little self-indulgent, but the film looks likely to achieve cult status at the very least.

The challenge is how to turn Citizen Dog into more than an arthouse novelty item. International distributors are understandably wary about the film despite Citizen Dog’s obvious crowd-pleasing aspects. They haven’t forgotten the hype surrounding Tears Of The Black Tiger, bought by Miramax amid tremendous fanfare at Cannes in 2001. Despite a hugely aggressive marketing campaign, featuring everything from fridge magnets to Thai food, Wisit’s debut feature underperformed almost everywhere it played.

Citizen Dog is a more mature and accomplished film, but many will still look with alarm at the box-office figures for its predecessor. Unlike Tears Of The Black Tiger, Citizen Dog is set in contemporary Thailand. If the visuals weren’t so stylised, this could almost pass for a piece of social realism.

The title refers to those at the bottom of the heap: anonymous workers in dead-end jobs. Pod, Wisit’s engagingly feckless hero (played by Mahasmut Bunyaraksh), is a poor country boy who has come to the big city. He is barely eking out a living in a sardine factory where his job is to cut off fish heads.

One day, the foreman cranks up the pace of the production line and Pod ends up cutting off his index finger which disappears into a sardine tin. He roams round town trying to re-discover the missing digit. This sets in motion the sequence of events leading to his meeting Jin (Sanftong Ket-U-Tong), a beautiful office cleaner with a mania for tidiness.

Pod begins to court Jin in his own eccentric way, setting up as a taxi driver so he can take her to work. She, however, seems more interested in saving the world from environmental disaster than in paying any attention to his romantic overtures. Wherever she goes, she carries a white book. It’s in a language she can’t read, but she is convinced that its pages contain the answers to the riddles of existence.

Wisit is not above a few cruel jokes at the expense of his ingenuous heroine. In one of the funniest, most poignant, scenes, Jin discovers that her sacred tome is, in fact, a volume of gay Italian pornography.

Early on, the film rattles along at a tremendous clip. The story of Jin’s misadventures is told in voice-over, with set-pieces which play like sequences from silent comedies illustrating the key events in his life. The factory scenes are staged with an elan reminiscent of Chaplin’s Modern Times. Wisit has a telling eye for telling detail. Again and again, we see Jin fussing to make sure that bottles or cups are immaculately tidied away.

The normal rules of realism do not apply. At one stage, Pod’s grandmother reappears re-incarnated as a lizard at the very moment he is trying to commit suicide. Characters come to life from the pages of romantic magazines. Pod’s friend is killed by a storm in which motorcycle helmets rain from the sky. Commuters in densely packed buses and trains burst into song or begin romances after rubbing up against one another at rush hour.

Wisit takes the most outlandish ideas and characters and then treats them in utterly earnest fashion. Generally, he skirts a skilful line between humour and pathos. At times, Citizen Dog risks becoming cloying and repetitive. Wisit relies a little too heavy on a sardonic, knowing voice-over (read by fellow auteur Pen-Ek Ratanaruang) to hold together a narrative which wanders all over the place.

Even so, this is a romantic comedy buzzing with invention. For every idea that falls flat, there are always plenty which take wing. With its eye-popping visuals, pop music and fey scenes of chain-smoking teddy bears, the film is undeniably kitsch in the extreme, but scrape away the surface gloss and there is an affecting love story at its core.

Production companies
Five Star
The Film Factory
EuropaCorp

International sales
Five Star

Executive producers
Charoen Lamphungporn
Francois Da Silva

Producer
Rewat Worarat

Cinemtaography
Reewat Preelert

Editor
Dusanee Puinongpo

Production designer
Surat Kateeroj

Music
Amornpong Maetakunvudh

Main cast
Mahasmut Bunyaraksh
Sanftong Ket-U-Tong
Sawatwong Palakawong Na Ayuthaya
Nattha Wattanapaiboon
Pattareeya Sanittwate
Pen-ek Ratanaruang
Chuck Stephens

[MrBooth]

Been meaning to write a review of this for brns.com for ages (need to watch it again to refresh my memory!). The short version... "Monrak Transistor meets Amelie" :p Great film, deserves to be seen widely.

The Thai DVD doesn't have English subs, unfortunately, but one of the KFCC members created some very good ones that I could hook a curious person up with.

As far as I'm aware, Miramax never released TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER anywhere, let alone with a "hugely aggressive" marketing campaign. I guess he must mean in other territories, but the only place I'm aware of that got a release was the UK, where it went straight to DVD.

[dleedlee]

As far as I'm aware, Miramax never released TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER anywhere, let alone with a "hugely aggressive" marketing campaign.

I don't remember it either. If it came through this little burg it was a one week/one theater run. The reviewer probably refers to L.A., the center of the world. Fridge magnets?