Asia Society continues its ongoing monthly series titled Films to See Before You Die featuring classic films and underseen gems from across Asia and the Asian diaspora with introductions by Asia Society's Curator of Film. 

Country Hotel
R.D. Pestonji, Thailand, 1957, 35mm, 138 min.
In Thai with English subtitles.

If Jim Jarmusch attempted an adaptation of Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit, it might turn out something like R.D. Pestonji’s surreal, freewheeling comedy Country Hotel (1957).  

Often referred to as the “Father of Thai cinema” in what woefully little English-language commentary exists on his work, Pestonji began his career as a photographer and then film salesman before co-founding his own production company called Hanuman Films, working as a cinematographer on Khru Marut’s Santi-Vina (1954) and then writing and directing a total of four features, the first of which was Country Hotel (Pestonji also made a short film called Tang in 1937, which was awarded by a film festival jury that included Alfred Hitchckock). Pestonji’s life was cut short in bizarrely poetic fashion— he dropped dead of a heart attack while giving a speech on the challenges facing the Thai film industry.

In Country Hotel, the curious and easily vexed bartender and self-proclaimed “arm wrestling world champion” at a ramshackle outpost called “Paradise Hotel” encounters a revolving cast of eccentric visitors who test his patience in confounding ways over the course of a single night. When a young woman who claims to be a divorced 65-year-old opium trader enters the picture, her desire to occupy the hotel’s only room sets off a skirmish with the handsome but surly gun-toting man who’s already claimed it. Meanwhile, a brass band, a Chinese opera troupe, and a rowdy bunch of “buffalo boxers” make merry in the hotel lobby. Imported 35mm Print from the Thai Film Archive.

Followed by a discussion with film scholar Palita Chunsaengchan.

A limited amount of complimentary tickets will be available to NYC college students with ID at the box office on the day of the screening.

Palita Chunsaengchan is an assistant professor of Southeast Asian cinema and media cultures at the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Minnesota. Currently under review with university presses, her monograph Chimeric Cinema: The Formation of Thai Film Culture traces the history of Thai cinema, from its debut in 1897 in the royal court through its uses in the aftermath of the Siamese Revolution of 1932. Her publications appear in various international journals such as Asian Cinema, SOJOURN, Journal of Modern Periodical Studies and Journal of Asian Studies. She is also one of the contributors of The Films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Liverpool UP, 2024) and the anthology Contemporary Thai Cinema: New Movements and Social Change forthcoming with Edinburgh UP. In the Twin Cities, she launched and curated a film program, “Southeast Asian Cinema and Its Diaspora,” and co-curated “Feminist Fragments” for last year’s Pordenone Silent Film Festival.

This presentation at Asia Society is generously funded by the Pratt Foundation.

Special Thanks to the Royal Thai Consulate-General, New York.