254
Film · 2001
Monrak Transistor
มนต์รักทรานซิสเตอร์Phaen is a country boy in rural Thailand who loves singing luk thung music. After marrying his sweetheart Sadao and giving her a small transistor radio as a wedding gift, he is conscripted into the army. Eager to perform, he sneaks away from his military post to enter a singing contest in Bangkok, leaving Sadao behind pregnant and waiting for his letters. His decision pulls him away from the stage and into a sequence of bad luck, from menial labor and an accidental killing to forced work on a sugarcane farm and prison.
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To the above list of accomplished Thai filmmakers the name Pen-ek Ratanaruang can now be added, as his creative drama-cum-musical Monrak Transistor is yet another winning achievement for Thai film. Sometimes fun, sometimes emotionally wrenching, this lively tale has enough ups and downs to keep the viewer interested throughout its two-hour length.
Chris Hyde on Box Office Prophets Director Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s racily picaresque and sentimental tale pays homage to traditional Thai pop/folk music and also to Thai cinema, with a tongue-in-cheek allusion to the well-known export Tears of the Black Tiger.
Peter Bradshaw on The Guardian The acting, cinematography and sound would be enough to make any movie stand out, but it's the story that really puts MONRAK TRANSISTOR at the top of the pile. It takes the characters (and the viewer) in quite unexpected directions, creating a unique and original movie. Nothing outlandish or bizarre happens - in fact the whole movie feels very realistic. That's what makes it unexpected - things don't turn out like they do in the movies.
Simon Booth on BRNS
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