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Peter Mantello on telling the tale of tak, the thai transsexual smokin’ mirrors 1st Edition September 2009

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Peter Mantelloon telling the tale of tak, the thai transsexual

smokin’ mirrorssmokin’ mirrors1st Edition September 2009

Square Circle Magazine2

Peter MantelloPeter Mantelloon telling the tale of tak, the thai transsexual

Peter MantelloS

itting in the front room of his old-style Japanese house, Peter Mantello watches as gritty images

of a Bangkok street flick across an enormous TV screen. For this Canadian-born filmmaker, his latest documentary, Cinema of Desire, has been a complex and compelling journey into the heart of Thailand’s notorious sex industry.

“One of the obvious things you see in Thailand – one of the major concerns about that part of the world – is the sex industry, tourism. I became interested in that polarity between what happens in the upper and lower halves of the body in human nature. Why this sort of industry exists, what compels people to be a part of that industry, whether it’s the person who goes to seek sex or the person who sells sex.”

words & pictures by willhemina wahlin

September 2009 3

But when it came time to write the script, Peter realised that it would more challenging than he had first anticipated.

“I wanted to make something more from the eyes of the actual sex worker, so I decided I would try to make a film that tells their story. But when I started writing the script, they were really my stories, not theirs. I had got caught in that very problematic, orientalist track, where I started creating my own fictions of their lives, and I could see that they wouldn’t be successful.

“I wanted to work with people who were really involved in the industry, who were selling sex on a daily basis. To do that on my own or with a small crew, and to try to randomly select people like that would be very difficult.”

So, making the most of his contacts inside a Bangkok-based NGO, Peter’s search for the right person – and the right story – finally bore fruit.

“I WANT THEM TO SEE TAK AS A HUMAN, AS AN INDIVIDUAL WHO IS LOOKING FOR THE SAME

THINGS THAT ALL OF US ARE LOOKING FOR IN OUR LIFE.”

Reflected in Peter’s distinctive horn-rimmed glasses is Tak, a Thai katoy, or transsexual sex worker. Finally in Tak, Peter had an outgoing person with a fascinating story to tell. As it turned out, she also had an unexpected surprise up her sleeve that would radically change the direction of the film.

“When we were doing the casting downtown, Tak couldn’t really be there in the day time because she said she had to work. So, she asked if I would go to her. I found myself walking into an old cinema in a very working class area of Bangkok. It was only katoys selling sex in what was a very broken down old cinema, and I thought that this was a very interesting story.

“I fell in love with the cinema. It was very baroque, and you could see it had a history of being something quite fantastic a long time ago. As it turns out, this is the fate of all old cinemas in Bangkok, thanks to the rise of the shopping mall cinemaplex. There are all these huge, wonderful old buildings that have been reconfigured to a different form of entertainment: a cinema for the other senses, as I call a ‘Cinema of Desire.’”

Peter hopes the film will show people a different side to the world of the katoy, and that it helps to break the stigmas that surround sex workers.

“I want them to see Tak as a human, as an individual who is looking for the same things that all of us are looking for in our life. We’re all looking for love, we’re all searching for security, and I think that’s what I’m trying to say in this film.” sm

and along came tak

- Cinema of Desire is due for release later this year.

Published by Braenchild MediaBeppu City, Japan

Editor & Contributor: Willhemina Wahlin

SMstories to keep your brain healthy.

http://www.smokinmirrors.blogspot.com