Pen-Ek Ratanaruang – Monrak Transistor (2001)

“This, the Thai candidate for the Foreign Academy Award, has more mood changes than the life story of Elizabeth Taylor. It is almost as if each chapter of the protagonist’s life is played out in a different genre – musical, comedy, crime, prison, romance and melodrama. It can take a bit of time to adjust to these swiftly changing moods, but the ultimate picture that emerges is one of how life so rarely follows the dreams of your youth and how sad and painful it can become. In a very loose and much less heroic manner, the film is a poor man’s tale of Ulysses. A young man leaves his pregnant wife for the army and then has a series of misadventures before finally finding his way back to her. All the way it seems as if the Gods are laughing at this fellow and playing games with him. Phaen is a simple country boy who has a talent for singing and he is in a small band that plays fairs and events.

One evening he sees the lovely Sadao in the crowd and the two begin a sweet courtship that leads eventually to marriage. This entire section is candy-flossed romance – it feels as if the world is just one big glazed apple. Then though he is drafted into the army and things begin going wrong (even with an amusing musical number thrown in). He enters a talent contest and unfortunately wins – without thinking too deeply he deserts the army to make it big in a singing career so that he can give Sadao everything she deserves. Instead though he finds himself cleaning floors in Bangkok for a few years – while Sadao pines for him back in the country. The film begins taking on a fatalistic sadness in which bad luck just seems to have its eyes set on Phaen and we witness this genial singer’s life slowly fall apart. All he wants to do is get back to Sadao, but instead he seems to get further and further away from her. It’s an odd film to watch – at times you feel impatient with Phaen – other times you really sympathize with him and eventually you feel broken up inside at how life has treated this sweet couple with such whimsy. But by the end, its simplicity also says something about the endurance of the human spirit and true love. Reacting to this film while watching it is difficult – but it is the type of the film that has stayed with me ever since and one that I think about often – Phaen and Sadao were lovers; Oh, how they could love; Swore to be true to each other; Just as true as the stars above; He was her man; But he done her wrong.”

Monrak_Transistor.2001-WebDL.1056p.h264.AAC-SeeingMole.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	2h 0mn
Size: 	4.52 GiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	1900x1056 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	5 238 Kbps
BPP: 	0.109
Audio
#1:  	Thai 2.0ch AAC @ 126 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/E4ABA95B9417713/Monrak_Transistor.2001-WebDL.1056p.h264.AAC-SeeingMole.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/5C737814735AB63/Monrak_Transistor.2001-WebDL.1056p.h264.AAC-SeeingMole.srt

Language(s):Thai
Subtitles:English