This Girl of Thai Dreams

The same thing happens the next day when the film repeats. Film fiends who wander the globe in search of the next hot thing? Check. Festival volunteers, wearing salmon pink tees, check. Audiences, rushing into the theatre? No.

Quite apart from the fact of it being a window to all the latest in Asia, especially Vietnam, S. Korea and Japan, the fifth edition of the Bangkok fest has an instant connect for an Indian film journalist: it has a Hema Malini (sounds like ‘Emmalini’ on the Thai tongue) retrospective. She flies in to inaugurate her section in a gala opening, and Sholay gets on to everyone’s ‘must watch’ lists. As opposed to Bips’s beedi, Hema’s famous clarion call Chal Dhanno brings the house down. Bangkok can take Billo, or leave her. But it is smitten by Basanti.

Why Hema, I ask Victor, programming head of the fest, and an old India hand. Why not, he shoots back. The Thais love her. She is such a big star here.

Excuse me for asking, but we are talking about the same Hema, whose last film, Baabul, got her into the frame about six and a half times, leaving Amitabh and Rani to chew up the scenery? The film and its prequel, Baagbaan are both here in Bangkok. As are Khushboo, and Lal Patthar. This huge outpouring of love for Hema, says Victor, was part of the passion that the Thais felt for Bollywood back in the sixties and seventies. Everybody, it seems, watched Hindi movies back then, and most of the blockbusters, including Sholay, featured the Dream Girl in a leading role. So when she said yes to coming to Bangkok, I was like, that’s so cool, says Victor, and leans back on one of the chairs at the media centre, as if that explains everything.

What was not so cool is that he couldn’t get all the movies he wanted. It was a nightmare, because the rights are with so many people. I really wanted that one in which she plays twin sisters. Does he mean Seeta aur Geeta? Yes, yes, that one, he says, and beams.

Like with all festivals around the world, there are glitches. It was meant to be held early in the year, but the political turmoil in Thailand threw all schedules out of gear. The American partners, who had been part of the organising team were politely shown the door. So this is the first time the Thais are doing everything on their own. You can see a great deal of enthusiasm, evident in the sea of young volunteers. I have to battle, softly at first, and then vociferously, an odd rule they trot out every time I want to get into a movie: press and delegates are restricted to three screenings a day, and you have to book seats in advance. Inviting film critics to cover the festival and then not letting them into movies doesn’t make sense.

Like a good resourceful desi, I get over that hurdle by coaxing and cajoling my way into the near-empty theatres. The only time I get to step on the toes of people cramming the aisles, is in Bangkok Time, a Thai film, fresh out of the box, very moody, very elegiac. A perfect festival film.

There’s also an ongoing search for focus and identity. Right now, we are heading in all directions, says Chattan Kunara Na Ayudhya, aka Chattan, festival director, who comes from a background in tourism, and is manic about the movies. But we are very clear that from now on it has to be by the Thais, for the Thais.

The other thing they are working through is the question that our own international festival in Goa, in its fourth year, is struggling with. Is the film festival about films or tourism? Judging by the spread of 130 films over 10 days, it is clear that the Thais know that it has to be films first.

The day I leave, I hear that Rakeysh Mehra is on his way for the screening of his Rang De Basanti (showing tonight). Aamir, by the way, is not well known here. Nor is Shah Rukh. Tata Young’s song in Dhoom became the rage; not the movie.

You want star attraction? That’s Emmalini.