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Not A Movie Review
I just watched the HBO/BBC short miniseries/long movie Tsunami: The Aftermath. It is a fictional account of events in Thailand in the first few days after the tsunami, "based on real events". Here are some thoughts.
Why Is This Not A Review?
Two reasons. First of all, I had already read too many reviews before watching the show, so I didn't come into it with the fresh mind you need to write a good review. It's fair to say that it got a very mixed response from the critics: some finding it gripping, others finding it boring; some praising its realism; others finding the script wooden; and so forth. I can see where some of the criticisms are coming from, but I don't know if I would have had such responses without reading the reviews. More importantly, I'm too near to the events. I didn't live through the tsunami in Thailand, but it is just too close to me in too many other ways. I know people who did live this, who ran with their children, who clung to trees for their life, who saw the bodies, who lost their children. I can't judge this movie dispassionately; I have no idea -- really, no idea -- of how it would look to someone who had no emotional connection to December 26, 2004. I can tell you how it made me feel. I can't tell you if it was any good.
What Else Are You Not Going To Talk About?
There are some criticisms out there about the making of the movie. They filmed a great deal in Khao Lak, and apparently some Thais found this insensitive while others welcomed the opportunity to play a part. They also did not cast a Thai actor in the main Thai role, which again provoked some debate. I have no particular insight into either of these issues.
Anything Else?
Yes. There are several controversial matters within the film. One is the allegation that Buddhist monks started cremating bodies, including bodies of non-Thais, before they had been identified. I don't know if this happened (and I haven't gone looking for google-evidence), but it sounds plausible. Another is the claim that a Thai scientist had predicted some of the catastrophic effects of a tsunami, and he was largely silenced by the government. Again, I don't know and I haven't gone googling. A third is the allegation that the British consular office was incompetent and bureaucratic in its handling of events. That's plausible enough, but I don't know if it is true.
A fourth is the claim that some big corporations were involved in a landgrab in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, trying to take over beach property that had, de facto, previously belonged to Thai villagers. I do know a little bit about this, but not much. I believe it is based on events that took place in Laem Pom, which is very near to Ban Nam Kem. The landgrab is described in a book I mentioned here a long time ago (Wave of Destruction, by Eric Krauss, which I do still plan to review someday). I also heard a few more details about this landgrab from some other sources. But I'm not really that well informed, and I don't feel that I have any particular insight into how accurately any of these events are portrayed in the movie.
Complaints?
Well, there were many moments where I found myself thinking things like "that road's not where they say it is", or "that's not Phuket airport" or "that view isn't right". But that is just irrelevant nitpicking. There is no reason why the movie should hew to those standards of realism. Other more important things jarred, though. They had Thai television showing dramatic pictures of the waves within a few hours of the event. Maybe they had that footage, but I doubt it. I certainly don't remember such film appearing in the West until several days later. They showed a board filled with "Missing" posters (in a temple near Khao Lak) on the evening of the 26th. I seriously doubt that such posters actually showed up until a few days later, for I can't imagine where people would have found the resources to make, print, and copy them -- particularly up in Khao Lak. They showed characters making the trip from Phuket Town to Takua Pa Hospital as if it were a trivial matter. That trip takes the best part of three hours under normal conditions. I have to think that, the second or third day after the tsunami, using public transportation, you would have been lucky to get up there in five or six hours. I could be wrong about any or all of these, but I don't think so.
What Did They Get Right?
A lot. The debris and the devastation looked like what we saw. Watching the movie, it really felt like I was back there, among the crumpled cars and shattered buildings. Likewise, their recreation of the room in Phuket City Hall where the embassies had set up was stunningly accurate.
In an otherwise fairly positive review, the New York Times critic complained that "[b]y way of dialogue, the characters one by one survey the wreckage and whisper, horror-struck, 'Jesus Christ'.” Well, you know what? That's what happened. That's what we did. Over and over again.
So, How Did It Make You Feel?
One thing the movie brought home to me, once again, is how out of place my story is in all of this. The tsunami is a tale of loss, and above all of the loss of children. Yet here am I, someone who found a child because of it.
I've written more than once here about the experience of becoming a parent. Here is one thing that has changed for me: I empathize much more than I used to with stories of parents whose children are in danger, be those stories from reality or from fiction. More than anything else, my response to this movie centered around one of the main storylines, in which a father loses his six-year old daughter in the tsunami. He tries to hold on to her, but she is pulled from him by the wave.
With that, the movie reached down to the terrible, essential, lie that we tell our children all the time. "I'll keep you safe," we say, but we can't. We just can't. The wave tears into the coastline. The soldiers kick your door down at three in the morning. The virus invades the bloodstream. And we watch, helpless, for there is nothing we can do.
That's how it made me feel.
26/10/2007
Achievements
At the start of this school year we switched Neung to a new school. This was not because we were unhappy with her previous school; quite the contrary. It was simply because her old school lacked the facilities (particularly sporting, music, and art facilities) that are available at her new school. Add to that the fact that every child we know who goes to the school seems to love it, and we felt like she would benefit from the switch.
Neung found the first couple of weeks a bit tough, mainly because her new school is so much bigger than she was used to, and also because she had become something of a central figure among her friends at her old school. But she settled in very quickly and now seems to be loving it. She also is doing very well there, if recent achievements are any guide.
First, she won a "Master Musician" award for her work in her first grade music class. They do not hand out very many of these, so we were very proud of her. Second, she had one of her pieces of art selected for an art exchange with another school here in Singapore. We've been aware for some time that Neung has artistic talent, but this piece simply blew me away.
26/10/2007
The Kindergarten
A few months ago, on one of our visits to Ban Nem Kem, we met a woman named Ivy. She is Burmese, married to a Thai, and she has been doing a lot of work with the Burmese villagers there. There are a lot of migrant Burmese workers there, working on the fishing boats; they have few resources and fewer rights. In particular, the Burmese children cannot attend the Thai schools, so Ivy has set up a school for them. But then the kids started showing up with their younger siblings, so Ivy realized there was a need for a kindergarten as well.
We've now helped with the funding -- or more precisely, been a conduit for other people's generosity -- in a few ways. First, Neung's 7th birthday was at the start of this month and -- like last year -- she asked some of the people who came to her birthday party to make a donation instead of giving her a gift. As a result of their generosity, she was able to go shopping for a lot of educational toys that we delivered to Ivy when we went to Thailand the following week.
Second, Jill's cousin's son, Zach, recently had his bar mitzvah, and very generously gave several hundred dollars for us to pass on to Ivy so she could purchase a computer for the school. Third, our friend Kratik had raised some money through a small writing venture, and we also passed this on to Ivy to allow her to purchase a TV and DVD player for the school. Originally, we had intended these resources to go to the Ban Nam Kem school. Because of the recent troubles in Burma, however, there has recently been an influx of Burmese refugees to Northern Thailand, and Ivy has now gone up there to establish another school. She has handed over control of the Ban Nam Kem school to a local Christian group. Since we have not yet had a chance to meet the "new management", we decided that we would prefer for these supplies to go to Ivy's new school in the north. Next time we go to Ban Nam Kem we'll try to meet with the people running the kindergarten, and decide whether we want to provide any further support to them
26/10/2007
Nothing but the Tooth
In some early posts here, back in 2005, I explained that Neung had major dental decay when we met her. She had to have five teeth removed because they were too decayed even to be filled. Yet, at the age of seven, she has not yet lost a single tooth naturally. But the big news in the seven-year old world, as she informed me excitedly on the phone a few hours ago, is that even though she has yet to lose a tooth, she does now have her first adult tooth coming in.
28/10/2007