Mah nakorn

 

366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

DIRECTED BY: Wisit Sasanatieng

FEATURING: Mahasamut Boonyaruk, Saengthong Gate-Uthong, Sawatwong Palakawong Na Autthaya, Raenkum Saninn, Nattha Wattanapaiboon

PLOT: Pod leaves his remote homestead for the bright lights of Bangkok, ignoring his grandmother’s warning that he will grow a tail in the big city. There, he loses a finger working in a sardine factory, then falls head over heels for cleaning lady Jin, who is intensely focused on a book that she found after it fell out of a crashing passenger jet. Her curiosity leads her to monomaniacal environmental activism, leaving no attention for Pod, who tries to remain close to her through a series of odd jobs that bring him into contact with some of the city’s more unusual residents, including a man who licks everything, an undead motorcyclist, and a child-like woman in a passive-aggressive relationship with her teddy bear.

BACKGROUND:

• Based on a novel by the director’s wife, Koynuch, which Sasanatieng illustrated. The novel was, in turn, based on Sasanatieng’s unpublished screenplay.
• The title is a pun on the city’s name, “Bangkok, Great City.” By changing one letter in the Thai translation—Krung Thep Maha Nakorn to Krung Thep Mah Nakorn–-the name becomes “Bangkok, City of Dogs.”
• Narrated by director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, whose films include Last Life in the Universe.
• Boonyaruk is a musician (some of his music appears in the movie) making his film debut here. Gate-Uthong is also a film novice, having worked previously as a fashion model.
• The foreigner handing out protest leaflets who Jin dubs “Peter” is played by Chuck Stephens, an expatriate film critic for the San Francisco Bay Guardian and Thai cinema expert, who also worked on the movie’s subtitles. 

INDELIBLE IMAGE: Sasanatieng’s candy-colored Bangkok is rife with visual pleasures, but none as dramatic as the literal mountain comprised of plastic bottles that Jin recovers and carefully cleans, a peak which Pod and Jin separately ascend in a desperate search for meaning and jointly summit in celebration of love. Just as Bangkok itself is portrayed as an urban nightmare made beautiful by the people who live and love there, this mountain of trash is transformed into a wonder by the community.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: A chain-smoking woman-child’s love-hate relationship with her teddy bear; Grandma’s gecko rap

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: The one thing that’s guaranteed to come up in any discussion of Citizen Dog is a reference to that milestone of quirky romance, Amélie. The comparison is not without merit: the two films share a bemused enjoyment of life’s pleasures. Sanasatieng looks to do the French hit one better, though, marshaling all his resources to highlight the strangeness of his characters, be they main, supporting, or background. No one in Citizen Dog zigs when they could zag, and strangeness and silliness are very much the norm. The opening scene in which everyone sings along with the soundtrack would be a musical number in most contexts, but here it feels diegetic, the voice of a community singing as one.

Original Thai trailer for Citizen Dog

COMMENTS: Life in the big city is hard. Say you get a nice job slicing sardines and packing them into tin cans. You never know when the bosses are going to speed up the production line, causing you to chop off your own finger, which has already left the factory for a spot on local grocery shelves. Now you have to check every can, tapping the outside in hopes of locating the rogue finger. And even if you find it, can you be sure it’s your finger? Maybe it actually belongs to one of your co-workers, who lost his own finger under similar circumstances, and who is at this very moment about to use your finger to pick his nose. You had better act fast to restore your digits to their rightful hands. I tell you, it’s never a dull moment in this bustling metropolis.

Citizen Dog is many things, but foremost, it is a love letter to the big, beautiful, messy, impossible, hostile, dangerous, magical, glorious city of Bangkok. Pod and Jin are ideal tour guides: young and hopeful, idealistic and perseverant. In some respects, they are polar opposites. Jin is locked into her obsessions; her nose is perpetually buried in her found book despite the fact that she can’t even figure out the language in which it is written, and her interest in environmentalism has less to do with her concern for the Earth and more in her satisfaction in finding a repetitive task that might prove useful. Meanwhile, Pod lives in the moment, waiting for things to happen, changing his jobs and habits in hopes of improving his fortune. He is just as prone to fixate, albeit in a dreamier, more passive manner, such as when he sees Jin’s face in everything from a Bruce Lee poster to a takeaway order of fried rice, or when he envisions the whole city’s population wearing her blue cleaning uniform. Together, though, they represent the city’s steadfast resolve, never buckling when the hope of something wonderful awaits.

Sasanatieng can be at his most fantastic when depicting that determination. Consider Kong, the motorcycle taxi driver who gets caught without a helmet in the middle of a surprise storm of motorcycle helmets raining down from the sky. The resulting blow to the head proves fatal, but Kong loves his job too much to let an inconvenience like dying get in the way. Similarly, Pod’s finger-swapping pal Yhod is similarly unswerving, taking up a relationship with a girl that can only be consummated (literally) amidst the overcrowded mayhem of public transportation. Most memorable is Nong Maem—who claims to be 22 but looks 8 and resents all the disapproving looks she gets for playing violent video games and smoking (her worst vice is depicted via digital trickery)—and her walking, talking teddy bear Thongchai, who drinks to soothe his yearning soul. Their relationship is volatile, and often ends with the stuffed animal in a trash bin or underneath the wheels of a car, but they too keep coming back to a thing that gives them so much joy.

For a movie with as many wild diversions as this one, it’s to Citizen Dog’s credit that the central romance remains paramount. Running through all the slapstick violence and outrageous behavior and environmental catastrophe is the very straightforward story of two people trying to connect, and the closing montage serves to illustrate how all this lunacy was actually doing more to bring them together than to keep them apart. If coming to the big city means growing a tail, then here’s a story strongly in favor of growing tails. Clean those bottles, read that book, keep driving that motorcycle, do it all. Anything can happen, and isn’t it wonderful.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“People are able to swap fingers, they can grow tails, teddy bears are able to talk and sometimes it rains helmets. And that’s just a small selection of the weirdness this films throws at you. None of these things are ever properly explained, they’re just a part of the surreal world the characters inhabit and have to deal with on a daily basis…  a romantic comedy, but that label doesn’t even begin to describe the vibrant, unique, funny and creative film that Sasanatieng whipped up.”–Niels Matthijs, Screen Anarchy

“The peculiar oddities in Wisit Sasanatieng’s “Citizen Dog” roll out like a fable from a factory of quirks and macabre whimsy, and of hopes and dreams. Its ingratiatingly twee love story is accentuated by delightfully exaggerated visuals… delightfully embraces the offbeat while being blissfully dreamy.” – Justin Deimen, MovieXclusive

IMDB LINK: Mah Nakorn (2004)

OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST:

Making Of Citizen Dog – Thai Loop BTS – A visual effects reel showcasing the Thailand National Film Association Award-winning work that went into creating some of the movie’s most memorable images.

Film Review: Influence of Impressionism & Surrealism-Citizen Dog – This YouTube review from Angel’s Work Collection highlights examples of the stated art styles in the film’s photography, production design, and narrative

Chuck Stephens on the set of “Citizen Dog” – the film critic who played a small role in the film briefly reflects on the experience 

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: CITIZEN DOG (2004) – Gregory J. Smalley’s original candidate review

HOME VIDEO INFORMATION: Unfortunately, at the time of this writing Citizen Dog is not in-print on home video and is not available on streaming or VOD services. Used copies of the DVD can still be found on secondary markets, but if going that route check to be sure you get the 2007 subtitled all-region disc from Asia Video Publishing—unless you’re comfortable with Thai language and can play Region 3 discs. There are plenty of specialty physical media outlets out there who would love to have this highly-rated comedy in their catalogs; we’ll let you know if someone strikes a deal.