A tour de force of poignant social commentary and deliciously rich camera work, “Y/Our Music” paints a powerful portrait of modern Thailand through music.
The film charts a course from the hectic streets of Bangkok to the bucolic paddy fields of the northeast and back again, taking the audience on a fascinating journey through the lives of Thai musicians and aficionados for whom music is an extension of their very identity.
Clearly stating their preference, directors Waraluck “Art” Every and David Reeve relegate commercial music to the shadows. In the opening of the documentary, the thud of electronica echo in the dark streets of Bangkok, merging with the cacophony of the city; but we are never introduced to musicians who could be described as anything other than artists. Y/Our Music is about music with meaning rather than music for the market.
At times the documentary takes on an almost musical rhythm such is the melodic feel of both editing and camerawork. It moves us seamlessly between dreamy rural scenes and the harsh rain-slicked streets of Bangkok. Contented-looking buffaloes lounging in muddy pools are juxtaposed with sprawling traffic jams and the awful crunch of a car skidding into a motorcycle.
Despite its title, Y/Our Music is perhaps not so much a documentary about music as a film which uses music as a vector for describing broader social and cultural realities.
Though we are introduced to a patchwork of characters ranging from quirky urban artists who use music to make a calculated avant garde statement to singers for whom music has become a medium for engaged social commentary, the undisputed star of Y/Our Music is Mor Lam, the traditional musical form that emerged from the rice fields of the Northeast.
With its bewitching, almost plaintive, tremolo singing style Mor Lam is the true soul music of Thailand. Yet we understand from the portrayal of its ageing and socially marginalised stars that Mor Lam has become a little appreciated cultural gem.
It is cinematically enchanting, if a little sad, to see such deep and emotionally authentic musical talent relegated to dusty yards in forgotten corners of the rural Northeast. It is also entirely charming, awe inspiring even, to see how such talents live their lives in humble appreciation of their surrondings and their lot. Seeing these musicians reminds one of how Thailand came to be known as “The Land of Smiles.”
Yet as beautiful, seductive and charming as Mor Lam may be, Y/Our Music makes it clear it is an art form that has no place in modern, read urban, Thailand. One Mor Lam musician describes how he felt ashamed to carry his Khaen (a traditional bamboo flute) into the city and another complains of how his fellow Northeasterners have too often been the victims of discrimination.
Indeed by the end of Y/Our Music one understands that it is Mor Lam’s rural identity more than its musical merits which have sealed its fate. Bangkok DJ, promoter and Mor Lam afficianado Maftsai bemoans the fact that his fellow Thais are sometimes more concerned by the Mor Lam’s roots than its intrinsic qualities. Indeed as the film ebbs and flows between countryside and city, we become increasingly aware of the chasm that separates these two worlds.
Y/Our Music feels in every sense like a world class documentary. The quality of its sound production, clearly a labor of love, allows its to play to great effect on the big screen in a large theatre. Such a gem as this, rich both visually and in meaning, is rare in Thai cinemas and even rarer when it’s are homegrown.
Indeed, there is some irony in the fact that just as Art describes the marginalization of a rural musical form, her own work of art has found distribution to be a struggle in an industry obsessed only with commercial potential.
“Y/Our Music” premiered at SXSW in Austin, Texas, and makes its next stop on the festival circuit is New York at the Sound + Vision, Film Society of Lincoln Center. In Bangkok, it’s showing daily through July 22 at 6:45pm at Lido theater in Siam Square.
