Decoding Thai Historical Film

Abstract

Film has been one of the means that narrate story of the past, in the manner of history primers. The study on Thai historical films reveals that they narrate three different forms of history : nationalist history ; social history; and history as an experiment. Furthermore, these films also convey a variety of ideologies, ranging from patriotism ; everyday-life ideology (e.g. heterosexual love, patriarchal society, violence, struggle and tolerance) ; to ideology that is against the meaning of history (e.g. history of leftists, history of marginal groups and nostalgic past). These ideologies have been constructed by the middle-classes, but then have been disseminated to all classes in Thai society. They deeply dominate the ideas of the audience. In addition, they have forsaken the history that is of little importance to the majority of people, for example colonial history and minority-group history.