Tam, a bullied loner, finds solace in the arms of Phum, a boy he meets at a haunted swimming pool. Phum reveals that his family's land has been stolen and the new found lovers imagine a perfect life together on the disputed land. Haunted by a ghostly presence, Tam struggles to stay connected to reality.
Areeya Cheeweewat Puchong Tuntisungwaragul Kaneenut Ruengrujira Donsaron Kovitvanitcha Jutamas Khawchat
Onthakan, Tužni čas, Miedzy noca i dniem, A Hora Azul, 蓝色时分, The blue hour, 더 블루 아워
Germany
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USA
Taiwan
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Japan
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Serbia
USA
Canada
China
Germany
Japan
Serbia
Sweden
Taiwan
Thailand
USA
What. The. Bleeding. Hell. Was. That?!
So, there's Tam, a cute high school boy whom we meet after he's had a beating. In an abandoned pool, he meets Phum. They exchange handies. Phum tells Tam to exhale all the air and submerge himself in the pool. This is the last normal thing to happen.
Eventually the story swirls into a Lynchian hellscape at half speed. You're bored to tears by the lethargic pace, but simultaneously there's nothing but entertainment. The two boys make out in a garbage dump. There's a body count. Mold is involved. It's all dream logic-y and maybe not even in chronological order. Somebody may have schizophrenia.
And that's not even all of it.
I don't know whether I hated it or loved it; whether it meant nothing or everything; whether it was truthy or bullshit. This is truly the What the Fuck?! film of SIFF 2015.
Yup. I still don't know what this movie is. It's creepy. It's frustrating. Time moves independently of the film. You'll think you watched three minutes of a really slow movie and 15 minutes will have passed. At other times, you'll insist that time has stopped altogether. I'm not sure what this movie is, but it is fascinating.
I've been waiting for a barn-burner like this all spooky season.
'THE BLUE HOUR' gave me the full throttle experience and somehow did it with opaque, playful reality-agnostic originality. This does not go at all the way I expected it to. One minute steamy, angsty romance commands the story and the next it wildly veers into supernatural thrill. All of it is illustrated with gorgeous visuals, often doing so while capturing the full spectrum of its titular color. Its stunning cinematography is paired with strong performances and a clear dedication to conveying themes both queer and universal through a surreal prism guided by the naked frankness of true experience. It's certainly not for everyone and taken at face value, it's…
when you're stuck in someone's nightmare; i wonder if the spirits will ever find us there?
to experience this better, i feel like a second or third watch is much needed, though i wouldn't do it anytime soon. lots of symbolism and ambiguity in the film and it's very hard to interpret it on a single watch. nonetheless, cool stuff.
s/o 2 this film for showing me that true romance is taking ur BF to a haunted abandoned public pool on the first date and a garbage dump on the second one. and they say chivalry is dead!
There are so many elements in this film that it's sometimes hard to tell what to focus on. There is, for starters, what one believes to be the traditional gay coming-of-age/coming out story, set somewhere (we presume) in urban Thailand and there are also creeping aspects of the horror and crime drama genres. It's pleasing to see a film that calls into question the simplistic renderings of queer identity formation that posit it occurs solely or primarily through family/social abandonment, ignoring other factors, but it's difficult to say whether this is the aim of director Anucha Boonyawatana's The Blue Hour and whether this is managed competently.
When we are first introduced to the full-lipped and meek Tam (Attaphan Poonsawas), it…
2021 Queer Film Challenge #27: a gay/MLM film directed by a woman.
The Blue Hour might be the wettest movie I've ever seen. An swimming pool full of dead leaves, a wide dark river, an outgassing mud puddle, rain on thick foliage, insistent knocking dreamily distorted by water, and life teeming absolutely everywhere: crickets, frogs, birds, mold. Thailand does have a very high precipitation rate, so maybe that's just what it's like there, but the film also consistently highlights watery places as sites of both sexual exploration and mortal danger.
That dichotomy between sex and death defines the film. In a way it feels like two different movies interleaved: a pretty standard-issue drama about a young gay couple evading the…
Regional issues meant that the only version I could track down of The Blue Hours were without subtitles, and while the atmosphere is rich and compelling – this is definitely something I will have to watch again in better circumstances. At the same time, there was a real sense that the more I could understand, the less I would understand.
A coming of age romance between two teenagers with all the sinister twists I have come to expect from Thai ghost stories. I am not rating The Blue Hours to reflect my own partial experience, but if you can see this, Anucha Boonyawatana is an interesting filmmaker and haunted swimming pools are worth wading into. Mainly logging to let billshu…
I have no idea what the hell happened in this film, but it's certainly going to haunt me for a while. A gay romance that feels like it takes place inside someone else's nightmare.
Pride Watch Challenge 2021 #14
The Blue Hour is a supernatural psychodrama horror film that blends the ridden melancholy and titillating vibes through surrealism and a mixture of a whole lot of hysteria and ambiguity.
The film is not your everyday coming-of-age story, it is about a boy who's constantly bullied and beaten up in school and feels secluded from his own home and family all because of his homosexuality. He finds solace in the arms of a boy that he has presumingly been talking to online, they form a sexual/romantic bond in a haunted and abandoned pool that's been known for many young people to have drowned from.
Although the slow-burn nature of the development of the story bothered…
This is so motherfucking smart and beautiful and none of you are appreciating it properly.
Pride: 42/30
