Movies and art meld together

Movies were the interlinking theme of the performances and art in “Live at the Scala”, a “micro-festival” that took over Bangkok’s historic and lone-remaining standalone cinema last week.

Put on by the British Council and curated by the UK’s Forest Fringe, which brought in a half dozen or so acts, the event featured performance art, installations and video. It aimed to make use of the entire theatre, chiefly the Scala’s spacious lobby and the sweeping namesake stairway.

Following the ketchup-flavoured spaghetti western performed in the lobby by the UK duo Action Man, the audience was invited to explore the festival’s various other offerings. While most of the attendees were content to hang out in the Scala’s beautiful art-deco lobby, I did what I do there almost every weekend – head into the main auditorium to watch a movie.

On the screen was “Live Long and Prosper” by the Gob Squad, a group of UK and German artists who recreated death scenes from such famous movies as “Midnight Cowboy” and “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”. They staged them in such public places as shopping malls and canal boats. Using split screens, the Gob Squad scenes were shown alongside the originals. The end credits thanked all the security guards who turned a blind eye to their stunts.

More split-screen shenanigans came from UK filmmaker Richard DeDomenici, who took a page from the Gob Squad’s book and in just three days filmed a shot-for-shot remake of six minutes of GTH’s 2009 hit romantic comedy “Bangkok Traffic Love Story”. The director himself took the role of the lovelorn career gal Li, portrayed in the original by Cris Horwang. The bearded, hairy-chested filmmaker admitted he lacked Cris’ appealing femininity, but he made up for that with his own comic touches.

 

WATCH IT

Richard DeDomenici’s “Bangkok Traffic Love Story: Redux” is online at Youtu.be/V70EV3xlflo. Find out more at DeDomenici.com.