SHUTTER
Thailand, 2004, 93 minutes, Colour.
Ananda Everingham, Natthaweeranuch Thongmee.
Directed by Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom.
Another Asian ghost story, this time from Thailand. It was remade in 2007 with Joshua Jackson and Rachael Taylor and set in New York and Tokyo with a Japanese director, Masayuki Ochiaia.
The film is adapted for Thai audiences with many local references. It is a Japanese style story (where this kind of ghost story has more traditions and credibility). The subject is ‘spirit photography’ where either a white blur or the figure of a dead person registers when a film with a negative is taken. A young couple Tun and Jane have a car accident on a lonely road where Jane runs into a young woman. Search reveals that there is no trace of the woman. white blurs appear and spoil his photoshoot. Who is the ghost? Why is she following Tun and Jane?
While the film is spooky, it is not too spooky and the screenplay plays fair in the last half hour giving a reasonable (if not rational) explanation of all that has happened. It is one of those ‘sins of the past finding you out’ moral scary fables.
1. Asian horror films? The tradition from Japan, developed in Korea? A Thai variation?
2. The Bangkok locations? The road? The country towns? Authentic and realistic atmosphere? The contrast with the supernatural? The ghosts and appearances?
3. The plausibility of the plot? Tun and Jane, their friends, the initial talk? The drive, the accident? The fleeing the accident? The consequences for Tun, seeing the ghost amongst the people he photographed? Jane and her nightmares? The search in the newspaper, the information about ghosts? Their friends and their suicides? The decision to search for the body, no body found? Going to Natre, Natre’s home, her mother? Her body, the issue of the cremation? The shift in credibility with the appearances of the ghost, the light in the photos? The persecution of Tun, his accidents? The shift after the cremation? The growing sense of menace? Tun and his falling out the building, his seeing the ghost? The finale in the cell – and Jane going in to Tun and the ghost?
4. The students, their drinking, talking, studies? Emphasis on sex? Their later suicides? The final revelation about the rape and their involvement?
5. Tun, student, photographer? Relationship with Jane? His past relationship with Natre? The drive, his not wanting to stop after the hit-run? The consequences, seeing the ghost in the groups for photography? The information, the search out about ghosts? The body? The visit to the mother? His seeing Natre, her various appearances? His fears, on the side of the wall, his fall? The cremation? Everything seeming all right, Jane and her finding the photos, his revelation of the truth? Natre and her confronting him, falling from the building, in the hospital, going mad? Natre and her continued presence with him?
6. Jane, with the group, her studies, the drive and the chatter, the accident? Her driving off at Tun’s insistence? Sharing the search with Tun? The photos? The body, the cremation? Her concern about Tun? The holiday together, the photos, discovery of the rape scene, the explanation? Her final visit to Tun?
7. Natre, loving Tun, the rape, his taking the photos, victim? Her attempts at killing herself? As a ghost, her appearance, her manner of stalking Tun, climbing, on his shoulders …?
8. A satisfying ghost story – with the Asian tradition of spirits, their appearing to their friends, their enemies, vengeance?
