CITIZEN DOG

Thailand, 2004, 99 minutes, Colour.
Mahasmut Bunyaraksh, Sanftong Ket- u- tong.
Directed by Wisit Sasanatieng.

Citizen Dog is an unusual film from any country, especially unusual coming from Bangkok.

The film was written and directed by Wisit Sasanatieng, the writer and director of Tears of the Black Tiger which was a pastiche of the action adventures of the past. This time, the director lets his imagination go – and anything is possible.

The focus is on Pod, an ordinary citizen, Citizen Dog. He comes from the country, works in a sardine factory and loses his finger – then going around to the various supermarkets in order to find it. He then decides to change his job, becoming a security guard. When he meets a maid, who has a mysterious book even though she cannot read it, he falls in love with her, a girl who dreams one day she will be able to understand the book. Other odd factors in the screenplay include a grandmother who grows a tail – who, after her death, can come back as a talking gekko.

The film is entertaining, imaginative, thoughtful.

1. An entertaining comedy, fantasy, message film?

2. The director, his lavish style, blending realism, magic realism, parody? Gentle and serious? His use of added colour tones? Surreal atmosphere? Musical score, songs?

3. The Thai sensibility, the picture of the countryside, Bangkok, the flats, the streets, the workplaces? The title – and the city people calling the country bumpkins citizen dogs?

4. The musical score, the range of songs, the style, the being inserted at various dramatic points?

5. The storytelling? Pod, his grandmother, her later appearing as a gekko,(?) her sayings, reincarnation, the end and her being the baby? Pod leaving for the city, high hopes? His working in the sardine factory, the picture of the factory and the assembly, the speeding up of the assembly line? Losing his finger, searching everywhere for the tins of sardines, in the supermarkets, the rattle, his tapping his finger? His finding the finger, replacing it? Hearing the finger tap at the restaurant, his friend and their exchanging fingers?

6. The city and Pod, not at home, naïve, after the fiasco of the factory work and his losing his finger, going to Security? Living in the city, working? At a character in himself? The jobs and his relating to the others, especially to the women gossiping when he worked for Security? The attraction for the girl? His being quiet, learning to communicate? The innocent abroad?

7. The girl, her work, having found the book – and the flashbacks and the humour of the book falling from the sky? Her inability to read it? Its being in Italian? Her love for magazines, magazine stories, her imagination, the drawing and the hero disappearing? Her wanting to read the book, going to the language classes? With Pod, liking him, sometimes communicating, sometimes not?

8. Pod working in Security, falling in love with the girl, wanting to drive her in the car, becoming a taxi driver? Driving her, her reading the book? The growth of their relationship, going out? The little girl and the teddy bear, his passengers, the girl talking like an adult, the bear and his story, his continually being thrown out, run over, recuperating and the girl rescuing him? The end and their remaining friends, the girl marrying the teddy bear?

9. The friend who lost his finger, the tapping, the bond between the two, his entrepreneurial style, business, success?

10. The girl and the protester, his arrest, thinking he was dead when he wasn't – and his reappearance, his name not being Peter? Her going to protests, her enjoying this, the campaign against plastics, her diligence in collecting all the plastic bags, the huge mound in her apartment, the hill?

11. The hill of plastics, the location for romance?

12. The girl and her going to be the head of the company, sabotaging it from within? Pod, nice, the memories of his grandmother? His settling in the city?

13. Audiences enjoying the joke, the surreal experiences, the touch of the fey and naïve? It being played straight? The overall effect in terms of human nature, goodness, romance, social message?