Love over the Borderline

THIS HYPNOTIC, ENIGMATIC FILM BY PHUTTIPHONG AROONPHENG CONTAINS NOT JUST HINTS OF FAMED CINEASTE APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL’S WORK, BUT ALSO SUBTLE COMMENTARY ON THE PLIGHT OF THE STATELESS ROHINGYA PEOPLE SEEKING REFUGE IN THE DIRECTOR’S THAI HOMELAND. NICHOLAS GODFREY EXAMINES THE DEPICTIONS OF DOUBLING, DISPLACEMENT AND COMMON HUMANITY IN THIS IMPRESSIVE FEATURE DEBUT.

This jungle becomes the central location of the film, accruing the significance of the Athenian forest from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, offering the twin promise of transformation and grave peril.

Phuttiphong Aroonpheng’s feature directorial debut, Manta Ray (2018), is a mysterious and elliptical tale of life on the borderlands of his native Thailand. The film begins with a title card stating, ‘For the Rohingyas’ – referring to Myanmar’s stateless people who are nonetheless confined by the country’s national borders. After that opening contextualising statement, the film keeps its activist cards close to its chest, regarding the region’s broader humanitarian crisis with sidelong glances rather than expansive didacticism. By limiting its scope to the personal, Manta Ray individuates its political themes, allowing them to resonate beyond the film’s immediate surroundings. It is a sparse work about finding the light in dark circumstances, visualised in its signature image of flashing coloured lights, which adorn the central locations of forest,