THE REFLECTED CITY THROUGH FILMS : A STUDY OF BANGKOK

Abstract

The close relationship between cities and the camera’s ability to represent the “real” has rendered film as a potential urban study tool to be explored when researching the “character” or “meaning” of the city. Being a medium that transcends the global arena, the identities and meanings of “place” found in the city can be recognised through the themes and ideas presented in films. In addition, the haptic quality of films can be used to complement and mitigate any lack of literature about a city.

This paper proposes that a meaningful “image” of the city can be more effectively expressed when films are used to complement information from literature, in the field of urban research. Hence, the hypothesis of this paper is that film can be used as an effective tool to analyze Bangkok’s dialectic nature. While acknowledging the complexity and novelty of the topic in question, the objective of the paper is aimed at using Bangkok to illustrate the effectiveness of using films to complement literature studies and mitigate its limitations to form character qualities of the city. The paper does not seek to exhaustively explore every aspect of the city due to the complexity of Bangkok. However, qualities of Bangkok that relate to its dialectic nature, which is evidently observed in films, will be used in the discussion.