By the Time It Gets Dark
Asian Cinema
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1h 46m
Directed by Anocha Suwichakornpong | 106 mins | 2016
Suwichakornpong’s second feature presents itself as a straightforward arthouse film about a young director, Ann (Visra Vichit-Vadakan), preparing a project about the 1976 massacre of student activists at Thammasat University. As its protagonist faces a creative crisis, however, it suddenly splinters into a plethora of different styles—documentary, pop musical, melodrama, “post-internet” digital meltdown finale—whose frustration of audience expectations mirrors Ann’s own frustration at trying to understand an unknowable history.
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