48/ The Treachery of the Moon

2012
By Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Duration: 12:37 min.
Recommended by Tyler Rollins

About the work:
”A Thai royal princess – who escaped from Bangkok to the Penang, the Southern territory, after the 1932 Siamese revolution – translated a chronicle written by a foreigner about Thai people. The translation described the Thais as dark-skinned and lazy, and Thailand as land without statesman, but full of politicians. Her writing leads us to a video accompanied with songs celebrating nature and romance by a retro popular band. The music overspreads. Inside a house, a woman and a dog eat in front of a tv, watching a soap drama about envy, class division, hatred and wrangle, and excessive bragging and excessive humility. At the end, the witless male protagonist, who could not follow the situation because he is a man, is married to an innocent female protagonist. All characters eventually boringly submit their lives to destiny.

An endless extreme discordance between political poles invades the serenity of the woman and the dog. After repetitive political unrests in the capital city, the work ends at an image of the disagreement between officers and Muslim protestors from the Southern sea city. The song about the wind and the Southern ocean wave sweetly comforts the people who are grieving.

This is another incident that the moon, floating above all the crisis, acts as the treacherer to the world.” —Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook