|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
For a writer who did not publish his first novel until he was almost fifty, Colin Cotterill has been remarkably productive ever since. His first series, featuring Dr Siri Paiboun and set in Laos shortly after the monarchy was displaced and the Pathet Lao took over, eventually ran to fifteen volumes. His second series, featuring female journalist Jimm Juree, is set in contemporary Thailand, where Cotterill has been living for a number of years. It runs to three volumes and numerous novellas.
The author is himself a dual British and Australian citizen, born in London though he has spent most of his working career in Asia. It may be that this life experience is reflected in his fiction, which characteristically plays with the idea of different worlds impinging on the characters' lives. In the case of Dr Siri, there are at least three different lives affecting the ageing protagonist. There is Siri's own history - an education in France, a medical career in times of considerable turmoil, a lengthy civil war ending in the communist Pathet Lao forming a government. If that is not sufficient uncertainty, there is also the unpredictable interference of the world of the spirits that show up now and then to influence Siri. As for Jimm Juree, she has been uprooted by her slightly mad mother from her promising career as a big city crime writer to a live in a rural village on the coast of southern Thailand.
This theme expresses itself in THE MOTION PICTURE TELLER in the conflict between the daily existence of a Royal Thai Mail postman, Supot Yongjaiyut, and "the intended world–one that beckoned from a cruel distance." This is the world of the movies, which he shares with his best friend Ali. Ali owns a video rental shop (the time is 1996) where he and Supot binge on classic movies from abroad. None of them are dubbed into Thai and neither of the two young men speak or understand any language but their native Thai. Nevertheless, they frequently ignore even the subtitles to immerse themselves in the sheer visual pleasure of the film itself. He feels that the "truly great films could keep a person engrossed whether they were in Thai or Icelandic or Mauritian Creole. Language was superfluous, a supplementary bonus to a man who loved film."
With a passion for film of this intensity it is no surprise that when a mysterious movie comes their way, it is a life-changer. The film is Bangkok 2010 and it is neither dubbed nor subtitled - it is in Thai. It takes Supot only minutes to fall madly in love with the female lead in what appears to be the rough cut of a futuristic and tragic movie, the greatest Thai movie ever made in both Supot's and Ali's opinion. It is, however, one that has never been released and Supot makes it his mission to find out who made it and, more importantly, to meet the actress who has won his undying love.
Indeed, it becomes an obsession, one that will lead Supot to abandon his job, make every effort to meet the star, and finally travel deep into the countryside to visit a mysterious commune that knows something about the film and has threatened Supot with death if he shows it to anyone. It becomes, as Supot says, "a detective story without a crime." It will also in the end transform Ali's life into something else altogether.
Strictly speaking, THE MOTION PICTURE TELLER is hardly a crime novel at all. But is certainly a charming book and one that any reader who has enjoyed the author's previous works, one who is willing to allow the limits of reality to be stretched just a little bit and who doesn't mind a good laugh now and then should be delighted with this Cotterill standalone. I certainly was.
§ Yvonne Klein is a writer, translator, and retired college English professor who lives in Montreal. She's been editing RTE since 2008.
Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, December 2022
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
