Monks in the movies

Teng Terdterng plays the leading role in Nong Teng Jeewon Bin.

Bangkok Post, 9/02/2011

Whether saints or sinners, tough guys or buffoons, the men in saffron remain a staple of siamese cinema

Tonsured men in saffron robes are a force to be reckoned with—in temples, in life, and in the tricky terrain of Thai cinema.

Buddhist monks have long been cast as characters in local movies, initially as the spiritual force that vanquishes all evils, and later as something more colourful, amusing, disputable and sociologically fascinating. On the screen monks have supplied laughter, tattoos, exorcism, diversion, sermons, morals, manners, even menace, as Siamese filmmakers continue to offer their disparate views of this social figure so inseparable from the fabric of Thai life.

Let’s begin with laughter. Playing in the cinemas now is Nong Teng Jeewon Bin (the last three syllables mean ‘‘the flying monk’s robe’’). True to promise, it features a clownish monk who at one point parachutes from an aeroplane, his robes flapping ingloriously in the high-alt wind. In another setpiece His Reverence, played by comedian Teng Terdterng, is forced to pilot the plane as it nose-dives into a bandit-infested jungle. A skydiving monk has so far raised no objections, and the film has received a comfortable 15-plus rating.

Funny monks have become a profitable conceit. Teng Terdterng himself set the trend in 2005 with the whopping hit Luang Pee Teng, in which he played a bumbling rascal who finds his calling as a monk; it became the fifth highest grossing Thai film of all time. In the sequel, rap star Joey Boy plays, guess what, a monk who peppers his homilies with rap-like cadence, earning respect and awe from the congregation. Meanwhile in many horror flicks, scenes of comically panic-stricken abbots running away from pursuing ghosts (they often end up hiding in a water jar) are as familiar as the scenes of monks valiantly repelling demons with sacred rice, blessed ropes and godly chanting.

If, to a degree, art manifests the temperament of society, the depiction of monks in films has increasingly shown a complicated perception of Thais towards the institution once untouchable. Likewise, the unpredictable decisions of the censors highlights an even more complicated dynamics between art and Buddhism — one of the pillars of the nation that cannot be undermined.

‘‘If a film has a moral lesson, we won’t object to it,’’ says Dr Amnaj Buasiri, director of the Sangha Supreme Council. ‘‘Monks can be portrayed as funny, but if it’s too disrespectful, we’ll ask the director to cut certain things. In general we look at the whole film and see if it means to spread a good message or not.’’

A scene from Nak Prok.

Last year the envelope was pushed: the film Nak Prok (In the Shadow of Naga) featured a contentious setup in which a gang of robbers disguised themselves as monks and ran the temple as if it was a mafia den. The film, almost miraculously, passed the censors without a cut — the Sangha Supreme Council contended that the bad guys are fake monks, not real ones. It had a quibble, though, over a scene showing a (real) monk tattooing a man, and the film was required to add a warning caption that such practice is against the monkhood’s rules.

Still, the lenient attitude towards Nak Prok was a stark contrast to the highprofile ruckus in 2007 when the censorship board demanded an innocuous scene of a monk strumming a guitar and two monks playing with a radiocontrolled toy be axed from the awardwinning film Syndromes and a Century. When the director, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, refused to comply, a longrunning protest from the film community and media experts took place. That case exemplified how an attempt to tease and portray monks based on reality is an issue of dire sensitivity, if not exactly a taboo.

In Mindfulness and Murder, slated for release in April, a monk becomes a homicide detective when a dead body turns up in his temple. It transpires that the monk is an ex-cop; so now he preaches impermanence as well as forensic investigation. Last year, in Apichatpong’s Cannes-winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, a young monk sneaks out of his quarters, takes a shower, changes into layman’s clothes, and ends up at a karaoke joint in one of the year’s most mind-warping cinematic melancholia. Observers had expected a ballyhoo, yet the film passed the rating committee without any fuss.

Monking around, it seems, remains an act of tiptoeing a thin line.

Amid the various roles monks inspire, slapstick clergymen have acquired a nearpermanent space in Thai comedy films. ‘‘I’m aware of the sensitive nature of playing a monk,’’ says Teng Terdterng, the director/actor of the robe-fluttering Teng Nong Jeewon Bin.

‘‘I was ordained once, so I know the limits of what I should do or shouldn’t. It’s tough playing a monk, because I’m a comedian and I want to give it all I’ve got to makepeople laugh. But in a monk’s robe, I have to be careful; I can’t be completely crazy and irreverent.

‘‘I still have to present the character as respectable. Funny, yes, but respectable. ‘‘Should a monk fly an airplane? Well, even a monk driving a car is not really acceptable. But in the script,mycharacter has no choice but to replace the dead pilot. If the monk doesn’t do it, he’ll put other passengers in jeopardy. It’s his duty to save lives and he has to fly that plane — and then to jump out of the plane to plug a fuel leak. It’s part of the story and the morals of it.’’

Whether the sight of a monk piloting an airplane is more objectionable than other sights, like a monk playing a guitar or tattooing, will remain arguable among Buddhist scholars and censorship critics. Yet even before Teng and his buffoonmonk persona, it is evident that monks have acquired a unique status in the psychological landscape of Thai cinema.

In the movies from the 1960s and ’70s, monks were always depicted as the ultimate moral force. They’re the pillars in the village community, they mediate, end violence and find resolutions, and of course they purge demons and restore order. In various versions of Mae Nak Phrakanong—the legendary Thai ghost story—the revered monk defeated the wrathful banshee and drove home the Buddhist/superstitious hegemony. In the film Pai Daeng (1979), adapted fromMRKukrit Pramoj’s satirical novel, a monk debates communism with a man drawn toward the Left. Even a political battle finds its way into the leafy compounds of a rural temple.

In those days, monks also offered humour, but not the absurd, farcical hilarity that we often see today. Rather, monks in old films had the personality of odd uncles and wise old men with an adorable eccentricity—most famously in the Luang Ta (‘‘grandfather abbot’’) series from 1980, in which director Permpol Choei-arun directed National Artist Lor Tok in the lead role. Usually, the narrative concerns a ‘‘temple boy’’ and the kind, funny abbot, a narrative that drew on the experience ofmanyordinary men in rural areas.

‘‘While Chinese monks just battle it out, like in all the Shaolin films, Thai monks are usually portrayed as mild and respectful,’’ says Manat Kingjan, film historian at the Thai Film Archive. ‘‘Directors couldn’t portray monks in a bad light because of censorship—that has always been the case. In the past, even scenes of monks running away from ghosts wouldn’t pass the cut. If a film shows a monk who’s frightened of a ghost, then it must show another monk who’s braver and more powerful who’ll eventually defeat the ghost and bring back peace. That’s the rule.

‘‘And funny monks in old movies weren’t as crazy or funny as they are today. The concept of monks as principle entertainment is fairly new.’’

Not that Thai filmmakers didn’t feel the urge to throw monks in unsuitable situations. In 1991, Permpol Choearun directed Luang Ta Sika Khang Wat (‘‘the abbot at the woman next door’’) by borrowing from a real-life story of a playboy monk who had an affair with a woman. It ran into opposition, predictably, and the director was forced to cut many scenes from the finished film.

During the height of the action-film craze, a movie called Maha Hin (‘‘the tough ex-monk’’, 1978) cast Sombat Metanee as an ex-thug who, as the film opens, has had a change of heart and become a monk. Five minutes into the story, he has another change of heart, quickly disrobes, becomes an ex-monk, and launches himself into the bad guys like there’s no tomorrow. Still accustomed to the code of the temple, every time he’s about to attack his enemy, the man would wai and apologise before letting his fists of fury fly, a monkish gag that the audience found endearing.

Sombat Metanee—and another major star, Sorapong Chatree—would star in another well-known film about monks called Ka Ma Kab Phra (‘‘I come with a monk’’, 1984), a comedy that relies on the temple jokes and the monk mannerism. And Sorapong Chatree would go on to play a historical monk who educated King Naresuan, like Dumbledore to Harry Potter, in the 2007 epic Legend of King Naresuan.

Possibly, one of the films that started the trend of ‘‘entertaining monks’’ was 1985’s Samanen Jai Singh (‘‘A bravehearted novice monk’’), which was adaptedfromthe life story of PhraPayom Kalayano, a popular abbot known for his humorous, down-to-earth sermons. After that, monks who possess the ability to spew one-liners and bold gags grew increasingly familiar. ‘‘But at the end, it’s always safe to show that the monk is a good and sacred man,’’ says Manat.

‘‘That’s the role of monks we’re comfortable seeing in films.’’

Monking around in the grey zone seems acceptable, or at least that’s the extent of artistic freedom when it comes to this ‘‘holy’’ institution. The Film Law of 2007 clearly forbids films that disrupt national security or damage the monarchy, the religion and the nation —meaning that in the foreseeable future, it’s unlikely that filmmakers will be allowed to make films that directly criticise or question Buddhist monks.

Unless a filmmaker can find a way to say what he wants without saying it directly, like Nak Prok, the film about bad fake monks and worse real monks, did in 2009. In an interview with the Bangkok Post, Pawat Pawangkasiri summed up his thoughts about Buddhism and the freedom of cinema to depict holy men: ‘‘If someone wraps himself in Buddhist robes, we’re ready to believe that he’s a good man. But as we all know, it’s not always the case. I never set out to criticise Buddhism. I simply want to show in my movie that there are actually bad men who’re exploiting our religion.’’

Or if you still can’t show that, just make films about funny monks. In the wayward Thai cinema screen, that has always been, and will continue to be, very okay.

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