Timeline 2 (2016)

Blast from the past

After the first, rather impressive Timeline movie where the plot actually justified the title, the three directors made a second one. This time it is just a simple omnibus movie featuring four stories. I watched it on youtube in appalling quality but since it had never been officially released, it is better than nothing!

The first story: Mind Reader is a typical early thai bl which takes place in high school and where pretty boys are followed around by fujoshis, girls and trans fans screaming. Amidst that noise, is Sun attracted by Boss's popularity and almost unaware that there is Kit, a boy with a crush on him. It is very cringy but the romance is cute and sweet behind the superfluous cringe. I almost dropped the movie because of it.
It stars Kritsana Boonroth as Sun and Phattaparong Chaibal as Kit.

I liked the second story the best: The Memory on Page 53. Nan is giddy with delight to go on a trip with Phu who had just broken up with his boyfriend. But this trip reveals the memories they are both trying to avoid remembering. They actually dated and broke up 5 years earlier.
This was a beautifully filmed story. The director Artistaya Bangpao filmed nature, their feeling and memories with sensitivity. The actors have great chemistry. The editing is amazing: the past and the present trips mixed together showing that nothing had changed in their feeling. The only issue I have is with the story itself: we never find out why they broke up since they were and obviously still are in love! I would love to see a longer version of this story by the same director with the story expanded and more details given.

The third story, Non-Verbal features a deaf character Ohm who meets the eyes of Tan (Chinoros Duangrat) and their gazes lock. But a misunderstanding almost ruins the beginning of a love story.
This is the shortest story in the movie. Fortunately they did not drag out too long the misunderstanding. The novelty is a deaf character who is on his guard because of his handicap and is quick to jump to wrong conclusion. Tan clears the issue quickly with the help of his doting, no nonsense mother.
Directed by Jitthinund Yodwongsakull

The fourth story circles back to school from the first one. Nine, a boy from that school, gets attached to Nong, a middle aged trans woman who holds a stand selling fried bananas Nine likes. Nong is affected by Nine's attention since he reminds her of her sister's son. Man, a boy from school who has a crush on Nine, finds this relationship suspicious and does everything in his power to ruin it. We eventually find out that Nine is the long lost nephew but the damage has been done and Nong moves away.
This was a good and a bad story at the same time. The good was having a trans main character (when in 2016 trans were just used as screaming over the top comic relief in bls). The very bad is the possible romance innuendo which was never really cleared and the conclusion we get to draw from her reactions in the last part is that there was more in her feelings that met the eye!
Cast: Jennifer Panot Ruangratanachinda as Nong and Natthaphong Charoenchaisombat as Nine. Directed by Passapong Throngprasit

The film was written by Passapong Throngprasit and Artistaya Bangpao. The stories are of different quality and each director's style is obvious. I definitely want to see more of Artistaya Bangpao: his direction is the most accomplished. The music is unremarkable pop songs which have the merit of talking about each story.

Unlike the first movie where the stories ended up being connected on a few levels here only the first and the last stories are loosely connected with the same highschool. As for the timeline, from the title, there is the influence of the past in present in the three stories (not the 1st one which is firmly anchored in the present)!

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