A Chronicle of Our Time:
Director Pimpaka Towira talks about her new film, a documentary on the life of media activist Supinya Klangnarong
By Kong Rithdee
June 29, 2007
For a while she had to shield her eyes from the glare of the spotlight. She was dubbed a lady David who flung rocks at Goliath, championed and glorified by op-ed columnists in every newspaper. For a while it looked as though she were bearing a cross; crucified, tormented and turned into a martyr in order to save the rest of us from the grip of tyranny.
In 2004 Supinya Klangnarong gave an interview to Thai Post newspaper, commenting that there was a conflict of interest between Shin Corp and the then-PM, Thaksin Shinawatra. Shin Corp promptly filed libel and criminal lawsuits against her - demanding 400 million baht in compensation - and, just as quickly, the controversial case was turned into a political symbol by both her supporters and her legal foes.
But were those turbulent times really representative of the life of media-reform activist Supinya? How did she feel about being cast as the featherweight who stared down and eventually floored a giant? How willing had she been to play the heroine? And, now that one autocrat has been replaced by another (at gunpoint), was it worth it?
These questions are addressed in Pimpaka Towira's new documentary, The Truth Be Told: The Cases Against Supinya Klangnarong, the first movie to chronicle the tortuous course of pre and post-Thaksin politics over the past three years. Told through the life of Supinya, the movie tiptoes along the sensitive lines that divide the country and instead of giving us a hard-edged anti-Thaksin, or bitter anti-coup, visual essay, director Pimpaka offers up a surprisingly gentle portrait of a woman who mourns the loss of our basic right to speak the truth.
"When I started filming in 2005, my intention was clear: I didn't want to make Supinya a heroine," says Pimpaka, an independent filmmaker and film lecturer. "I met her when we spoke at a panel in
The Truth Be Told juxtaposes the images of Supinya's personal life - her routines, her parents, her hometown in Surat Thani - with overtly political scenes: last year's street protests against the former PM, the acquittal of Supinya's cases by the court and the September 19 coup that finally ousted Thaksin.
Pimpaka aims to show the intersection of Supinya's private life and her public role as a frontline activist, basking in the spotlight and cheered on by thousands when she steps on stage. The simple drama of the doc lies in the fact that this petite, mild-mannered woman from a simple background is being sued for a farcical 400-million-baht in damages, her private ordeal having ballooned into something historic and larger than life.
"Her story makes me think that this thing could happen to anybody," says Pimpaka. "You're an ordinary person who makes an honest comment about your country, then you find yourself the enemy of a mega corporation. The process of making the film made me ask myself a lot of questions. It's not about Thaksin or Supinya per se; it's about how we can live in a society where you can't even tell the truth.
"In Supinya's case it's getting complicated because, for her supporters, she came to represent the fight for freedom - in a way she was used by them - and for her enemies she was like a pawn to teach a lesson to those who dared challenge the power - and that means she was being used by them, too."
Choosing not to disclose the names of those who funded her documentary, Pimpaka says The Truth Be Told was made possible by donations from different non-political donors - "they chipped in like when they donate pha pa money to a temple".
It's unlikely that this 90-minute doc will get a regular release in theatres; though harmless in nature, the film contains scenes that might prick the conscience of the censors. The director plans to show the film during August's Thai Short Film and Video Festival, a haven for independent movies, and would welcome any institution that might be interested in showing it for non-profit reasons afterwards.
The heyday of political filmmaking in
Working with a small crew of only three or four - cameramen Urupong Raksasat and Nitivat Cholvanich did a fine job with the digital video images - Pimpaka initially thought that the doc would end with the court's verdict of March 15, 2006. "I thought she'd lose, especially when Thaksin won a landslide for a second term in February," she says. "And the movie would end with the people's defeat." But the wayward wind of Siamese politics shifted course as the anti-Thaksin movement gained feverish support early last year, at about the same time as Shin Corp was bought by Temasek, who even offered an olive branch to drop the cases against Supinya, which she turned down.
The plot thickened after Supinya was acquitted. The moviemakers thought they'd finished their movie and started editing, but the September 19 coup added new dimensions to the essence of the film.
Director Pimpaka Towira: "I didn't set out to portray her as a heroine."
"I never meant this to be a hardcore political documentary," says Pimpaka. "I was interested in telling the story of this woman, especially from the angle that the public hardly saw - Supinya as a daughter instead of an activist - and how her private life, her family environment, has shaped her public character.
"But when the coup happened, it affected me a lot. I was sad, and Supinya was sad, because this wasn't what we were fighting for. There were even more questions and more confusion. And we realised that the film couldn't end with the 'victory', because it didn't seem like a real victory after all."
While no Thai movies appear capable of significantly influencing the public's political opinions, The Truth Be Told is sure to attract both flowers and bricks in our divisive atmosphere, where one camp sets out to crush the former PM while the other impatiently awaits his messianic return. In fact, what really matters in this documentary is not the scenes loaded with political significance, but the parts concerning the subject and her family, a group of ordinary folk who support her even if they don't quite grasp the magnitude of what's really going on.
"People came up to me and offered kind words of admiration for my daughter and for what she does, standing up to the powers-that-be and all," says Supinya's mother in the movie. "But they can do that only because it's not their daughter. If it were their own daughter they wouldn't feel that way. They would feel worried."
Love or loathe Supinya, it's her mother who makes this an interesting movie.
The Coup and the Cutting-Room Floor
By Veena Thoopkrajae
August 6, 2007
The Nation
The cameras had just finished rolling on 'Truth Be Told' when the tanks hit the streets, but the director stayed focused on Supinya Klangnarong's victory for democracy.
Pimpaka Towira was just making the final cuts to her film about Supinya Klangnarong's David-and-Goliath fight with Shin Corp when the coup pulled the rug out from under her.
"The Truth Be Told" - whose premiere will open the Digital Forum segment of the Thai Film Foundation's short-film festival on September 6 - was never intended as a political movie. It was a documentary about a gutsy woman who took on big business and ended up a heroine to many believers, both in
Supinya's victory over the mighty corporation founded by Thaksin Shinawatra - the company sued her and the Thai Post newspaper for a crippling Bt400 million for saying it had benefited from his premiership - seemed to be a victory for democracy.
But when the tanks rolled last September and Thaksin was flung from power, democracy's knees buckled and Pimpaka didn't know which way to turn.
"The coup changed the whole movie, and it also changed my way of thinking," she says.
Pimpaka met Supinya in 2004 when they jointly represented
Learning about the court case and finding Supinya's character "interesting" - as well as her role as an ordinary woman yanked into the limelight - Pimpaka proposed making the documentary.
"In the movie I never look at Kay as an activist," she says, using Supinya's nickname. "I focus on her as an individual who has a life beyond politics. I filmed her as a fellow female, not an activist. But certainly I touch on the issue of freedom of expression because that's what caused her all the trouble."
Pimpaka also shot footage of anti-Thaksin rallies, interviewing many of the participants. Politics inevitably played a lead role in the film, as it did in Supinya's life, but Pimpaka insists that she didn't set out to make a political statement.
"I look at her life, and there were political elements and the issue of freedom of expression, but that's not the focus of the film. I capture a lot of her ordinary life."
Pimpaka recalls the first time she accompanied Supinya to court and found only a few people taking an interest in the case. "All I saw during the very first times at the court were a few newspaper journalists," she says. "There were no broadcast journalists. The case didn't get much attention until it became high-profile."
By the time the verdict was handed down on March 15, 2006, everything had changed utterly. There was a big crowd of TV reporters as well as many cheering supporters. And Pimpaka had the perfect ending to her movie.
She had finished almost 70 per cent of the editing when
The September 19 coup raised a slew of fresh, challenging questions for Pimpaka. Democracy, as embodied in Supinya's freedom-of-speech court triumph, appeared suddenly pointless.
The director asked herself whether Thaksin was any different from others in power, whether the masses had been used, and whether Supinya had also been used.
The answers she settled on became part of the film, along with the clanking of tank treads on pavement, but Pimpaka refused to lose sight of her story about an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances.
"I just wanted to tell the story of a woman who is badly affected because she exercised her right to freedom of expression. I want to make it known that this could happen to anyone."
Once the documentary was edited, Pimpaka teetered with relief and exhaustion. "It's been my longest-ever film project - it took me three years, shooting on and off, and the story kept on changing!"
She anticipates a political backlash against the movie, possibly against Supinya, and that people will question its veracity and maybe even try to have it blocked.
For her part, Supinya is a rights advocate, so she's not about to question Pimpaka's rights as an artist. So far she hasn't seen the film, but she knows better than most that the truth should be told.