Agrarian Utopia October 22, 2010

Boston premiere.
Thai with English subtitles.
Oct. 22 @ 7PM; Oct. 23 @ 9PM

Among lushly verdant paddy fields children play in the rain and buffalo are trained to plough in Uruphong’s acclaimed portrait of two families farming rice in northern Thailand.

Uruphong is the son of farmers whose land was taken by banks; his film, born of a deep respect for agriculture and anger at the conditions that drive hard-working people into crippling debt (encapsulated in the film's bookend scenes at political rallies) is a paean to traditional lifestyles and to nature. Its gentle rhythms build to an astonishing monsoon sequence that startles with its quiet, elegiac and tenuous beauty.

Crafted using documentary and scripted material, Agrarian Utopia mixes intimate family scenes, the work of harvesting crops and finding sustenance (in frogs, snakes and honeycomb) from the land and stunning images of the Thai countryside with the grave realities of the country’s troubled economy and unstable political climate.