*Slice is a part of CUEAFS's Udine Far East Film Festival 12 coverage. The review has been produced for CUEAFS and our partners Cine-Vue
 Alternative title: Cheun
Written and directed by: Kongkiat Khomsiri
Starring Arak Amornsupasiri, Jessica Pasaphan and Chatchai Plengpanich
The violent and gory murder thriller Slice by Thai director Kongkiat Khomsiri, delivers more drama and problematic social ideology than thriller suspense and leaves audiences speechless and disturbed. A perfect balance between violent murder scenes and dramatic moments is achieved by the well-known Khomsiri, director of Art of the Devil, whilst the story, adapted from Wisit Sasanatieng’s story by the same name, is able to inconvenience everyone with the difficult truths it deals with.
Slice is not so much a murder thriller, as it is an almost biographical look into the lives of two boys and the consequences of the way society treated them. After a red suitcase, full of body parts, is found, detective Papa Chin (Chatchai Plengpanich) heads the investigation into what seems to be a serial killing episode. When his investigation is going towards a dead end, he decides to use a former officer from his force, Tai (Arak ‘Pae’ Amornsupasiri), who is now serving a sentence in prison, relying on the connection between what happens in real life and Tai’s dreams about the same red suitcase. As Tai is convinced that the clues, left by the killer, are a message to him by his childhood friend Nut, he tries to solve the mystery, only to find a disturbing truth lying underneath.
Kongkiat Khomsiri’s director’s touch in the film’s cinematography is quite obvious, as the scenes sharply shift in tone and visual impression and the use of colours and sounds makes the experience even more powerful. The murder scenes, filled with bright red (the colour of the killer’s hood, the red suitcase, the excess of blood) are submerged into the dark atmosphere of colour stillness and complete blackness everywhere, but where is red. The flashbacks to childhood, on the other hand, transmit a softer tone, using pale warm colours, and somehow deliver the understanding of pain and suffering, whilst playing with the viewers’ capacity to handle difficult imagery.
Although Slice deals with perhaps the issue of homosexuality, this doesn’t become the main thread of importance in the film, whereby the most difficult issue is the social transformation of a young boy into a disturbed and tortured person. As the end unravels the true story behind, the audience is left to decide who is ‘good’ and who is ‘bad’, as all characters are not black and white, but come with a shade of grey.
There is no mystery in the film, no suspense – the audience knows who the killer is from the beginning. But that is not its main message or purpose. Slice could serve more easily as a drama, rather than a murder thriller, as the thrill is missing from the plot. And if it weren’t for the violence and gory slasher scenes, which could so easily be attributed to the film’s country of origin, it is a deeply dramatic story about social ideology, peer pressure and the consequences of a terrible childhood. And on the side, a story of inexplicable love and connection between two people and the pain of the incapability to explain, to justify or to understand. A story, which leaves the audience disturbed and uncomfortable, as the final scene delivers the ultimate good vs. bad ending, but in a plot where good and bad have merged into one another and the most difficult decisions are to be regretted.
*Image source:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkra4pARdtqtN2wcmXU5I9Yid6fTw72bUQZuUKZ2cj6VdpXdB7yxmQEWpiAiPQKSgJFAfIKeDdR6WpnYQUsrsIPDn2FqdZo7LIxyJYNkan403gdHksHoDQ0vJDllvVHTZ1-tz36a_G8ZJX/s1600/slice.jpgLabels: cueafs, east asian film, far east film, feff, festival, movie reviews, udine |
