Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's "6ixtynin9"

Ratanaruang’s second film, always the hardest, was joint winner of the FIPRESCI award at the 2000 Hong-Kong International Film Festival for proving that a commercial feature can be as formally interesting and as insightful as an experimental art film. Ratanaruang’s black comedy is indeed one of the finest films yet to emerge from Thailand’s burgeoning commercial film scene.

The films opening scenes highlight Thailand’s emerging economic crisis as our erstwhile heroine Tum (Panyopas) finds she must draw lots to discover if she is to loose her job. Loosing the draw she returns to her flat where she contemplates suicide until discovering a large box of money sitting out side her front door. When two mean Thai boxes come to collect it sometime later she accidentally kills them plunging her into a desperate situation that quickly spiral even more out of control as the corpses start to pile up.

Ratanaruang studied at the Pratt Institute in New York and worked as freelance designer before returning to his native Thailand in the early 90’s to work as an art director. This background has given him a brilliant grounding in imagery which he used to good advantage in his début film Fun Bar Karaoke and this his first commercial success. Ratanaruang may have Thailand socio-economic conditions playing upon his mind as he created this movie, but he never takes his eye off of the commercial requirements that they have placed upon his production, as he turns his wickedly dark sense of humour upon them.

Panyopas’ turn as the astoundingly unlucky Tum is pivotal to the entire film, the rest of the cast barely get a look-in before there lifeless bodies are added to the pile in Tum’s apartment. Thankfully the performance, awarded with a well-deserved best actress nomination at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival, is nothing less than astounding as Panyopas mixes a doe-eyed innocence with a mile-wide stubborn streak to create a truly sympathetic character that you take to your heart despite the horrendous outcome of her actions.

Ratanaruang manages to maintain the suspense, by playing upon our concern for Tum, despite the film’s increasingly absurd sequence of events, laying the farce on thick and fast as the film builds up to a disappointing denouement. The ending is something of a conservative cop-out for such a brilliantly wicked film but I guess that is to be expected from a commercial production whatever its origins.

Ratanaruang’s wickedly comedic farce provides a suitable introduction for any to the world of Thai film.

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