More than that, it's a family drama, and a story of first love, love lost, and then found again.
That's my impression of Love of Siam, which I saw in a half-empty (half full?) cinema yesterday.
That's my impression of Love of Siam, which I saw in a half-empty (half full?) cinema yesterday.
There is nothing remarkable about the gay relationship which develops between Tong and Music, as many young men will have encountered something similar when they were young. I don't think the movie makes more of it than it is, either - there is one discreet kissing scene, and that's it.
The two boys have just had a happy night, with Tong's family putting on a party to celebrate the 'return' of missing daughter Daeng. She comes back to their lives in the form of June, a young woman who is managing Music's band, and looks remarkably like Daeng.
Tong persuades his mother to hire June to look after his father, who has turned to alcohol since Daeng's disappearance.
Tong's family would not have had the opportunity to meet June were it not for Music, so the boys have plenty of reason to be happy. The family appears whole again. Alone in the garden at the end of the party, they hug each other and exchange a brief and touching kiss.
As someone remarked in a comment left on this blog, June gives the family a second chance to heal itself, after it became fractured with the disappearance of Daeng on a trek in Chiang Mai years before.
Tong's mother, Sunee, pays her to impersonate Daeng, to trick her husband into thinking that his daughter has come back into their lives. June spends time with him reliving childhood memories, and making him feel whole again. She has a healing effect on the whole family, whose members, after drifting apart, find a reason to look back at each other and unite as one.
Away from the family, in the solitude of her own condo, we see June checking her bank balance often, as she saves for a trip overseas. By the end, she has either saved enough, or has decided she had better leave anyway, as she is getting too involved in the family's life. We are invited to believe that the family will rebuild itself and carry on without her.
'What if someone you love disappears, but then years later, that love returns to your life?' June gives a family which has been driven apart by grief, an opportunity to come together as one again.
now, see part 2
now, see part 2
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are welcome, in English or Thai (I can't read anything else). Anonymous posting is discouraged, unless you'd like to give yourself a name at the bottom of your post, so we can tell who you are.