Wednesday, November 26
6:30 p.m. – Korean Studies Auditorium

A newly married young husband mysteriously vanishes one night, leaving his confused and lonely wife to sort out the sordid details in Thai director Pimpaka Towira’s debut feature film, One Night Husband. Sipang (Nicole Theriault) and Napat (Worawit Kaewpetch) met and married in a whirlwind romance — so fast, in fact, that Sipang had begun second-thinking her actions. Her worries about her marriage take on a different, more frantic perspective after Napat disappears one dark and stormy night. After a few days with no word from her husband, Sipang begins to take matters into her own hands by visiting a number of Napat’s regular hangouts, but learns nothing new from her investigations. Soon, she checks in on her brother-in-law, Chatchai, and his demure wife, Bubasa, and slowly finds that her in-laws’ relationship has some serious flaws, which temporarily distracts Sipang from her quest. As Bubasa and Sipang grow to understand and respect one another, Bubasa helps Sipang find the answers to the questions surrounding Napat’s disappearance. The film premiered at the 2003 Berlin International Film Festival.

IMDB Website | A Nutshell Review | Original Poster

Wednesday, November 19
6:30 p.m. – Korean Studies Auditorium

“In a pig’s liver, one can see an entire life.” This porcine prediction, made by a sage street singer at the beginning of masterful Indonesian director Garin Nugroho’s gorgeous, otherworldly epic, establishes an appropriately superstitious and magical tone for the fateful narrative about to unfold. Updating an ancient Sanskrit love triangle among spoiled royals-reimagined here as married pottery artisans Siti and Setio and village fat cat Ludiro-Nugroho has fashioned an all-singing, all-dancing morality play that pits cultural tradition and marital fidelity against radical uprising and erotic freedom. When Setio embarks on a long journey away from home, Siti’s fidelity is tested by the fiery writhings of Ludiro (a scene-stealing Eko Supriyanto, who held his own against Madonna as a dancer on her Drowned World tour). Nugroho envisions this romantic intrigue through a heady yet sensual melange of haunting gamelan melodies, acrobatic choreography and Javanese shadow puppetry. Much like Matthew Barney, he is a wildly ambitious conceptual artist with a flair for cinematic excess, filling the screen with razzle-dazzle imagery-hundreds of candlelit masks, a maze of coconut shells, a beating heart wrenched from its lovelorn body-yet always attuned to the tragedy of his timeless tale. One of seven films commissioned by Peter Sellars for his New Crowned Hope festival commemorating the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, Opera Jawa is at once a requiem for victims of violence and natural disaster, a postmodern movie musical and a foot fetishist’s dream: Not even a long look at that telltale pig’s liver could have predicted the scene in which Ludiro caresses Siti’s face with his bare sole. – San Francisco International Film Festival

A special screening for International Education Week, a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education, co-sponsored by the Academy for Creative Media, the Center for Chinese Studies, the Center for South Asian Studies, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, the Political Science Department and the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library.

IMDB Website | Variety Review | Original Movie Poster

November 13, 12:00 p.m., Tokioka Room (Moore Hall 319)
Presented by Paul Lavey, Assistant Professor of South and Southeast Asian Art History, University of Hawai′i at Mānoa

The Prasat Andet Harihara and its eponymous artistic style have long been lauded as high-points of Preangkorian (7th – 8th cent.) Khmer sculpture and indeed of Southeast Asian art in general. Given the praise that this piece has continuously attracted, it is of considerable interest that during the past thirty years numerous additional, previously unknown, and unprovenanced sculptures of Harihara in the Prasat Andet style have come to light on the art market, including some that scholars have argued to be “copies”-whether ancient or modern – of the Prasat Andet Harihara.

Several of the recently revealed images, however, share unusual traits exclusively among themselves that distinguish them from previously known and unimpeachable examples and which place them outside the stylistic development of Preangkorian sculpture as it is currently understood. Through formal analysis of the various Prasat Andet style Hariharas and related images, the speaker argues that stylistic inconsistencies raise questions not only about the nature of “copying” in early Southeast Asian art and the way scholars classify Khmer sculpture, but also about the authenticity of many of the recently revealed images.

Paul Lavy, assistant professor of South and Southeast Asian Art History, University of Hawai′i at Mānoa, joined the art department in August, 2008. Professor Lavy has taught Art and Architecture of Maritime and Mainland Southeast Asia, Art and Architecture of Pre-Colonial South Asia, Monuments and Nationalism in Southeast Asia, and Hindu Visual Culture.

He has conducted field research in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Laos and Malaysia. Professor Lavy received his Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2004, where he did his dissertation on Visnus and Harihara in the Art and Politics if Early Historic Southeast Asia.

Wednesday, November 5
6:30 p.m. – Korean Studies Auditorium

The film series continues with another road movie, but the I-San Special is no ordinary bus trip home. Director Mingmongkol Sonakul channels Apichatpong Weerasetkul to focus her dream-like story on engaging themes found in Thailand’s contemporary cultural landscape. A bus leaves Bangkok for a small town in Northeast Thailand. As the film’s characters board the bus, they’re possessed by the prime-time spirits of a televised soap opera, speaking in dubbed voices. Using this creative device and employing professional dub actors for the voice overs and first-time actors for the passengers, Mingmongkol creates two sets of dramas for her films’ travelers, and each contains truths and fictions in exploring how pop culture affects Thai people.

Contrasting melodrama and realism, and an ingenious mix of sound and screenplay, we are left to wonder if Mathavee (Phurida Vichitpan) is an evil stepmother or opportunistic businesswoman? Is handsome Danny (Mark Salmon) a romantic hero or criminal drifter? You’ll have to get on the bus to find out! – Johnny Ray Huston

IMDB Website |Wikipedia Article | Original Movie Poster