Jan Dara (2001) Reviews

• Is tragic erotica a new genre?

  simon_booth2002-07-21

  Whilst the prospect of Christy Chung getting kitless wasn't exactly horrible to me, it was rather the fact that JAN DARA was directed by the consistently excellent Nonzee Nimibutr that landed the DVD in my shopping cart. Poor Jan Dara has a bad start in life - his mother dies in childbirth, and his father hates him thereafter as a result (or maybe just because he's an unpleasant person at heart). Not a great household to be growing up in in the 1920/30/40-ish years in which Jan is a young boy. But as he reaches young man age, the affluent household seemingly full to the brim of luscious females does turn out to have some benefits. The movie is about Jan's early life, and particularly about his early sexual experiences - and the sexual experiences of everyone around him for that matter. This is one of those movies that makes me feel that everybody in the world is having more sex than me (admittedly, every movie from Mary Poppins up has that effect - it's just the movies, right?). The characters here hop into and out of each others beds with such frequency and complexity that it's like they're the pieces in a game of sex-chess or something. Former Miss Hong Kong Christy Chung is just one of a bevy of pretty ladies who end up on their backs for half the movie. But JAN DARA is far from a bedroom farce - Nonzee Nimibutr is a film maker with much more skill, class and brains than that. Actually it's taken from a Thai novel, and it does feel very novelistic - quite high brow (though down-beat). The characters are very well developed and explored, and the period setting is loving realised with great cinematography. Totally excellent soundtrack too. Ultimately JAN DARA is not a happy movie - there's a viciousness in his family environment that leads to basically unhappy people all round most of the time. One can hardly blame them for trying to screw themselves into a coma in search of a little respite from the gloom. Though not happy, it is very enjoyable however - because it's a well written, well directed, well acted and generally very well made piece of film. That and all the sex :))

• A Visually Stunning, Bold, and Intensely Moving Film

  gradyharp2005-05-19

  JAN DARA is one of those rare films that succeeds on many levels: the story as adapted from a famous Thai novel 'The Story of Jan Dara' by Utsana Phleungtham is one of intrigue and exploration of lust, revenge, and thwarted passion; the cinematography by Nattawut Kittikhun is incredibly atmospheric while at the same time pausing for some of the most beautiful studies of nature on film; the musical score by Chartchai Pongprapapan and Pakawat Waiwitaya mixes the exotic pentatonic Oriental melodies with quaint excerpts from early recordings of Richard Strauss and Puccini operas; the direction by Nonzee Nimibutr is so sensuously elegant that this film firmly establishes him as an important figure in international film-making. Simply stated, the story is about Jan Dara, the son of a woman who died giving birth to him, his life as an abused and unwanted child in the house of his 'father' spent searching for the love of his lost mother, his first encounters with passion and love, his adaptation to the realities of surviving in a family fraught with conflicts and bizarrely tangled interrelationships, and the disillusionment that comes with the discovery of his true family history and how the way his life comes full circle. It is a period piece and includes the outside effects of WW II in an otherwise sequestered house of strange isolation. While JAN DARA includes many sensuous scenes (the 'first memory' of Jan Dara is watching his 'father' in an indiscretion with his beloved aunt), these scenes are photographed so sensitively that they become studies like Kama Sutra paintings rather than being vulgar. The story makes many flashbacks and flash-forwards and keeping the various actors at the different ages of these sequences straight can be problematic. The cast is uniformly excellent and credible, even when they may be too evil to watch! Here is an example of Oriental films that don't rely on choreographic martial arts to sustain interest. In that way it is similar to the beautiful SPRING, SUMER, AUTUMN, WINTER, SPRING, and for those who enjoy the subtle arts of Asia this film is a must. Highly recommended. Grady Harp

• twists of fate, plot and limbs...all worth untangling

  ThurstonHunger2006-02-18

  You know Chatterley almost sounds like a Thai word. This film offers both the sensual and certainly the sexual; smoke and ice intertwined with darker aspects of sex, dark as in vengeance and darker as in violence. The women are separated pretty strictly into madonnas and whores, and Jun Dara, the product of the most brutal sex act in the film, seems to struggle against his fate. His adoration of his mother, his pure rapture with Hyacinth, and hist relationship with the most interesting character in the film, Aunt Waad. Waad is portrayed amazingly by Wipawee Charoenpura, although I fear she is lost somewhat in the bevy of beauties in the film. All of them with gorgeous great Gatsby hairdos, kudos to the coiffeuse! Charoenpura is attractive, but shows more of her heart than merely her bosom (although a scene with that in it is key to the film). Christy Chung is breathtaking, and while you do see her in flagrante, really the visual and thematic foreplay is even more arousing. Interesting that she is seen as a specifically Western wind blowing through this film, I suspect the book makes more of that. People seem to get hung up on the coitus in this film, but I think the exploitation here that the director wants to explore is equally emotional in nature. Is Jun Dara a sympathetic character or an unsympathetic one. Seeing as we start with him as a child, one could argue for the former, but then the nature of his birth is that supposed to push us towards the latter. Khun Luang is another one that could have been seen more favorably, as the story unravels...but he is not. In a way he nobly rescued a woman in trouble, and he seems to be truly grief-stricken early in the film... Ultimately that's what makes this a fascinating film for me, a sort of shattering of easy good|bad divisions, but as the story revolves so much around the fleshy throes and peccadilloes, the film feels more sordid than I think it wants to be? Plus all the "good" women die or become nuns? The short monologue at the end, trying to paint Jun Dara as an everyman was interesting, but it doesn't work well since we've not seen much of his everyness. Instead innocence comes across as an illusion, or maybe for the characters in this an impossibility. Still a compelling watch, and more than the Asian bodice-ripper it appears to some as. I should say the camera-work was as delicate and teased out as the tresses of the fetching though fatally flawed femmes... I look forward to seeing other films by Nimibutr. I bet they also involve twists of fate...that's a four-letter word that's trickier than a lot of others. 6/10

• sex, lesbian, thai, rape, jan dara, bastard,

  bernard_sinai2010-12-01

  This Thai film tells the story of a young boy named Jan whose mother dies in childbirth. The boy's 'father' seems to hold a very strong hatred for the child and does not pass an opportunity to mistreat him. As he becomes of age, he starts to learn about life and sexuality. His view of sex becomes more like a sport. And as he continues his life he starts to become more and more like the person he despises the most – his 'father'. This film is told as a narrative and explores the customs, taboos and traditions that many societies bare. As we get deeper into the film, we begin to understand the pressures Jan is faced with and consequences of his actions. In the end as he begins to understand his origins, we also understand why his 'father' hates him so much and why his aunt Waad seems to love him as he were her own. Overall, this film is a dark melodrama filled with high sexual tension, depravity and moral decay and is definitely not for the conservative and religious zealots.

• best movie so far...

  im_your_cuddler82004-09-14

  The movie is about Jan Dara, telling his childhood to manhood experiences under the roof of his own home. The cruelty of his father that lead him to hate him more as he grows old. Jan Dara's sexual experiences from her sister's nanny, mistress of his father who taught him well as the story progress. This movie is well told, superb cinematography!, excellent performance from the main characters in the movie. I must say that the flow of the story is well defined unlike the usual foreign movies I've seen. The so-called "erotic scenes" are subtle yet the passion is can be seen and felt. Gonna give this rate of 10 as the highest! worth it! never mind those critics who keep on saying that this movie is a crap! Well...I beg to disagree! Watch this, and find out for yourself... Bye.