| Overview: | Inspired by the life of maestro Luang Pradith Phairao, the storied master of the ranard-ek - Thailand's traditional wooden xylophone. "The Overture" is a boldly conceived, stunningly beautiful story bursting with color, energy and music.
Sorn, a spectacularly gifted musical prodigy, longs to compete in the ecstatic musical competitions pitting Thailand's late 19th century ranard-ek players against one another. But when rival musicians murder his older brother, Sornıs family forbids the young performer from ever playing again. Beseeching his parents to let him carry on for his fallen brother while surreptitiously studying on his own, Sorn fights to balance his all-consuming need to win with his responsibility to the traditions and loyalties he has promised to uphold. The Overture deftly braids parallel narratives, documenting Sorn's musical rebirth and coming of age in turn of the century Siam with his adult struggle against the Thai government's ban of the art he masters in post-WWII Bangkok. Though decades apart, Young Sorn's reckless ambition and Old Sornıs courageous resistance seamlessly combine into a single life in which arrogant youth becomes defiant maturity, and into a cinematic journey that "skillfully creates emotional depth"(Variety).
Director Itthisoontorn Vichailak, "lenses both city and country scenes with lush depth" (SF Bay Guardian), bringing the cut-throat competition and seething ambitions behind the golden age of Thailandıs native music traditions to vivid life. Dynamic, sentimental, heroic, earthy, triumphant, brawling and lyrical, The Overture is a victoriously entertaining saga and a passionate historical biography as exotic, engaging and nimbly performed as the music that drives it.
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