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Blue Hour (The)

Country: Thailand, Language: Thai, 97 mins

Gay | Drama | 2015

Original Title

Onthakan

Director: Anucha Boonyawatana
Writer: Waasuthep Ketpetch; Anucha Boonyawatana
Producer: Waasuthep Ketpetch; Anucha Boonyawatana

CGiii Comment

Technically...this one damn fine film.

The colour palette is an inspiration. The framing is precise and the cinematography is - in places - stunning.

Unfortunately...that's it for the good points.

A murderous rubbish dump, a haunted swimming pool...interfere with the blossoming, on-screen romance.

Obviously, Boonyawatana couldn't make his mind up...as to what kind of film he wanted to make. Part love-story, part horror...neither realise their potential.

It's a film - albeit atmospheric - that limps and loiters down so many blind alleys without anything really happening...there's a dead body here, there's a dead dog there...and, it all means nothing.

Every scene is protracted and so subdued that the very life has been sucked out of the actors (who do the best with what they've been given)...alas...the film works best as a sedative.

Shame...all that technical competence wasted on a lousy idea, script and story. Hook, line and sinker.

Trailer...

The(ir) Blurb...

Tam, a timid loner, is bullied regularly by his fellow pupils at school. He is met with similar rejection and suspicion within the narrow confines of his parents' dingy home, where his father beats him. One day Tam arranges online to meet Phum at a derelict swimming pool. They are both looking for sex, but their encounter leaves them with a feeling of comfort and security. A close bond develops between the two boys and, before long, they are roaming the rubbish heaps and dark corners of the city together, day and night. Phum opens a door for Tam, revealing a fantastical parallel universe full of spirits and dangerous encounters. Although he feels safe and loved for the first time in his life, Tam can no longer tell dream from reality and finds himself increasingly drawn into a spiral of paranoia and violence.