On The Evolution Of Thai Film Aesthetics (1950s)

Thailand cinema has been flourshing in recent years and become the new representative of Asian cinema worldwide after Japan, Inida, China’s mainland, Hong Kong SAR, the Taiwan region, Iran, South Korea etc. This paper tries to go over the development of film creation and aesthetic evolution of Thai cinema since 1950’s, and to draw some preliminary conclusions of the art features of Thai cinema and its underlying social cultural content, combined with historical context, and think about the role of Thai national cinema in the pattern of overall building of world cinema.Focusing on the fundamental issue of artistic creativity——how to express our real life, this article divided the history of Thai cinema since 1950’s into three stages to explore artistic character and concept through analysis of narration, visual-audio style and cultural connotation of important Thai films, and to trace the route of esthetic development of Thai cinema.The first stage is from 1950’s to 1970 while 16 mm film domins Thai film market and on-site dubbing is the primary method of film screening which linked to the low-budget production and defined in aesthetic taste of rural fairy tale. The second stage is from 1970 to mid 1990’s. Experienced political instability and economic take-off, Thai society partly finished transition from entirely agricultural society to urbanization. Social reflection and aesthetic pursuits that reveal from Thai cinema has a leap in quality. The exellent integration with modern film thinking and Thai classical aesthetic paradigm has been achieved. Nostalgic complex’sad but not hurt’became sort of symbol of the rise of Thai national cinema in the world. The third stage is from 1997 to present. With the successful transition of urban middle class ideology, innovation of mainstream cinema took advangtes in terms of film genre. Genre of youth, terror, history and crime keep broking down into sub-genres, particularly in combining the comedy element with ghost film and youth film that received the most successful feedback. The distinctive audio-visual style, unique aesthetic experience, ethnic cultural meanings of Thai film appears to be a model of integration of local culture and contemporary film spirits. While Thai alternative cinema keeps creating its bold concept experiment, exploring different types and profound cultural reflection, and gradually laid and expanded influence in leading film critic circles both domestic and international.The rise of Thai cinema looks like finish at one stroke, but its continous and steady development in terms of industry, artistic and cultural aspects strongly implies this is no accident, but is founded on a solid footing. It is not the hardware facilities, domestic or foreign investment, but that the commitment to finding a cultural values shared space, the constant quest for the ultimate in audio-visual style and leading concept of expression while respecting the genre regulations are to be probably one of the most important building block of the maintaining good momentum of sustainable development of Thai cinema. It should come from an internal power. This might be able to play a positive role in enlightening future development of Chinese cinema.