Among all the defenses for art (as if art ever needed defending), the “timeless and universal” argument has the biggest currency. In this argument, human nature and emotions are constant regardless of the differences in societies, cultures, and histories, and the art which captures the essential emotional core while adapting the aesthetic of its environment is the most valued. Approaches to emotions might change, but the emotion remains the same. This concept, despite being prevalent across all the art forms, appears to be the most abused in cinema because of its sheer ubiquity and mass reproducibility in our economy of images. The world-weary fatalism of noir, for instance, itself a cinephilic conjuration, is an aspirational emotional mode for filmmakers born even after the ‘50s, with aesthetic and environmental questions serving as mere molds to shape this mood into the film’s structure.
Though one could understand where this argument is coming from, as our ability to empathize does allow us to bridge works across eras and cultures, there’s always the danger of smoothing out specificity for universality. The limitations of this argument are especially pronounced when we look at emotions arising exclusively from particular societies (information overload in our times, for instance), or when we approach the past to understand our present, like Chartchai Ketnust, in his film Phra Ruang: Rise of Empire (premiering outside Thailand at IFFR). Taking on a rather charged figure whose mythic narrative almost forms one of the nationalistic myths in modern-day Thailand, Phra Ruang follows the journey of the legendary eponymous ruler’s sons, the younger but worldly-wise Khun Bang (Thanavate Siriwattanagul), and the older and belligerent Phraya Pha Mueang (Pongsakorn Mettarikanon), who must put their differences aside to reclaim the “Thai kingdom” from the devious “Khmer” nobleman Khom Sabad Khon Lampong. Ketnust, however, complicates this narrative by deliberately foregrounding the period he’s approaching the myths from. The colorful, mythic past is tugged by the rather drab, black-and-white present, as a theatre troupe reimagines a 20th-century shadow play describing the consolidation of the Thai kingdom.
Auditioners for the play question the propagandistic nature of the source text, but the theatre director (Pongsakorn Mettarikanon again), dismisses their questions with the usual hackneyed drivel of telling it as it is without any nationalistic sentiments. At first, it appears that Ketnust confirms their sentiments, going for the coveted universality with minor differences. Phra Ruang reaches for the mythos of epic storytelling by retaining the plot of the text, but does so with elements more familiar to modern audiences. The theatre director asks his actors to imagine the past, snaps his fingers, and the film dutifully switches. Music is injected to inspire awe in many of the period sequences, but instead of employing “traditional” Thai music that is deemed respectable for historical dramas, Phra Ruang’s score features a rather unique blend of Thai Pop, prog rock. and metal, with the occasional intrusion of non-Western instruments. The mechanics of adaptation initially come across as an elegant hand-holding strategy asking the audience not to shy away from a period unknown to them, and Ketsnut is unafraid to inter-cut between the “re-imagination” and theatrical process. Martial arts glides in the past are shown to be meticulously mounted sets in present, and this self-reflexivity doesn’t deflate the myth but only adds to its majesty, with Ketnust’s theatrical constructions as elegantly orchestrated as his battles and martial-arts bouts.
Adaptation here appears as a modernist method to reinforce the allure of timeless texts, but Ketsnut slowly problematizes the nationalistic mythopoesis. Events in modern life start mimicking the events of the play, with the actors becoming entangled with their respective pair in the play. The stirrings of romance themselves emerge from the colored lenses of the mythic past, where even fond memories are inextricably intertwined with scenes from the Phra Ruang story. A yearning for the myths of a shrouded past clouds the actions of all the characters, until the differences start catching up to them. The theatre director even, rather unexpectedly, questions the resemblance of early Buddha statues to the Buddha. The past can only be apprehended through found objects and texts, all of which are projected as myth through the lens of our anxieties and longings. Phra Ruang frankly admits the impossibility of deciphering any truth, so, like its predecessors, it strives for the realization of a mythic ideal. In doing so, Ketnust does diminish the radicality of his questions, but not without introducing frictions between his various layers that remind us how appeals to universality in art can be easily assimilated into nationalistic and even fascistic myths, leaving behind mildly disaffected citizens at best disappointed with reality not living up to the impossible, yet simplistic, dream.
Published as part of IFFR 2026 — Dispatch 3.
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