Jan Dara (2001)

Wonderful Movie

Sadly Over-hyped

Beautiful, moving film.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Jan Dara is movie about a person,who was raised in an immoral household, that never had a chance to escape his destiny. The main character, Jan Dara, played magnificently by Eakarat Sarsukh, never got a chance to experience true love but instead lived life having a different beliefs and outlook about sex and relationships. You feel sad for the him as he was raised differently due to the complicated people that he lived with and he never get to experience happiness and fulfillment in life. The movie is worth-watching. It has a mix of drama and eroticism. The acting was good but especial mention must be given to Sarsukh as he was able to get the sympathy of the viewer. The only thing about this film is that people can get confused easily especially to those who doesn't speak Thai to keep up with the complexities of the story and the character. It really requires 100% attention to fully appreciate the highly recommended film.

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

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.

I had really been looking forward to seeing this film. I had seen several enthusiastic reviews of it, and I had never, as far as I can recall, seen a Thai film before. I even made a wok of Pad Thai to eat while watching it.However, what I got was this confusing little stinker. The main character is a young man who lives in what appears to be a family compound, with includes several large houses. The family members apparently move from one of these houses to another, or from one room to another, for no apparent reason. Most of these members, along with some acquaintances, are a group of attractive women who resemble each other quite a bit, and spend most of their time listlessly having sex with the male characters, or, at least once, each other. Even a World War II air raid doesn't stop them.Neither the male nor the female characters seem to have much else to do, except for the protagonist's father, whose main interest in life appears to be abusing his son.The sex scenes seem to have been filmed by an experienced soft-core pornographer – plenty of backs and thighs, with the just the occasional breast, nothing else. Nothing much here, or in the rest of the action as well, to hold one's interest, once one stops trying to figure out who is doing what to whom.Furthermore, the Pad Thai didn't turn out too well. The author of the cookbook said that, in place of the fresh shrimp, chicken and pork usually used in the West, it would be more authentic to use dried shrimp and very firm tofu, both of which turned out, for my taste, anyway, to be too chewy and somewhat unpleasant. Next time I make Pad Thai, I won't try to be so authentic.Oh, well, perhaps if I had read the original novel, or could have understood the Thai dialog, the film might have seemed less confusing and more interesting.