credit photo By the Time It Gets Dark, Anocha Suwichakornpong (2016)

Darker chapters of Thailand’s history

Anocha Suwichakornpong’s second feature is an enigmatic account of one of the darker chapters of Thailand’s history, told via the story a film director researching the 1976 massacre of Thai student demonstrators at Thamassat University in Bangkok.

As the film director seeks answers, parallel surrealistic worlds are invoked— stories form within stories; characters frequently change identities; the contours of a traumatic historical past reveal themselves in the present.

Within the overwhelming variety of narratives, perennial themes such as love, desire, memory, and of cinema and its power emerge.

By The Time It Gets Dark premiered at Locarno, Hamburg, Toronto and Rotterdam, and is screening from April 14th through April 20th at Lincoln Center.