Search for your voice, against the trembling wall
By Kathleen Bu

In the expected society, every citizen takes on a different role- a specific
voice. We are accustomed to take on a certain conventional thinking based on
our role in society. The rebels speak up for change, the authorities try to
suppress the chaos, and the people in between, the silent majority: follow
the crowd. In Red Aninsri; Or Tiptoeing on the Still Trembling Berlin Wall,
we are presented with the difficult truth of it all: is some sort of harmony
between these groups possible?
The streets of Thailand are dark and silent. We see a figure, wrapped in a
trench coat, face covered by sunglasses and a blonde wig. “That girl looks
like a spy”, a cat on the street narrates. The figure follows a lady and
pulls out a gun, in true detective film form, as we see three flashes of
red. This figure, whose face we finally get a glimpse of in the next scene,
is Ang, a transgender sex worker leading a double life as a government spy.
The ominous voice of the government, represented directly by Ang’s boss,
assigns her to investigate Jit, a student activist who is suspected of
hiding a Hong Kong-Uyghur activist and has been labelled an “enemy of the
nation”. Not given much choice by her boss, who we only hear through an open
radio, Ang is forced to dress up as a ‘masculine gay man’ to seduce Jit.
With a written script, Ang practices what to say when first meeting Jit.
This is immediately interrupted by the angry ghost of her ex-lover John, who
accuses Ang of lying to him saying “Love is probably an accident but trust
isn’t. You fooled me. You lied to me. Our love is a lie.” Insecurity and
loneliness clearly lie deep within Ang. With jobs that require her to take
on different identities, at times a spy, other times a sex worker, the
chances of having a genuine relationship with another human being, other
than the ghost of her ex-lover, seems low. It then seemed almost expected,
yet necessary, that Ang would fall in love with Jit. A forbidden love is
always more desirable, but it is also equally fateful, and its outcomes
inescapable – a love that forces you to grow in some way. This sort of love
is exactly what Ang experiences with Jit.
Following this character arc, the filmmaker cleverly plays with sound design
using hilarious dubbed dialogue for all the characters, with an overarching
message to, almost literally, find your own voice. Referencing Thai cinema
in the Cold War era, it also critiques a past where every actor was dubbed
by the voice that suited their roles. “The hero sounds heroic and the
villain sounds villainous.” Every character speaks the way we think they
would: Ang has a sweet tender voice, Jit is an enemy of the nation and
therefore has a nasal, almost pathetic voice, and the voice of Ang’s boss
booms and threatens.
A bulk of the film dwells on scenes where Ang and Jit are alone in the
bedroom, simply holding hands or talking to each other. This is also when
the behavior of Ang and Jit starts to become more naturalistic, free of
highly stylistic blocking or awkward movements. In one of the later bedroom
scenes, Ang’s character seems to grow more confident of himself, a step
closer to finding her own voice: “I have many things to do in my life than
being with someone I don’t like”, she says. Jit looks at Ang trustingly as
they take their relationship to the next level of intimacy. Their bodies
intertwine as the camera pans to the ominous figure of Ang’s boss, a
reminder that the authorities are always watching. After this, Jit reveals
to Ang his true voice – the dialogue of Jit turns to a diegetic one as he
tells him “This is my voice. I’ve played the bad guy role for a long time. I
know it isn’t my own voice. It takes time to stop using other’s voices and
use your own. You can do it too Inn. One day, you will no longer use that
artificial voice… not this dubbed voice from old films.” The film then is
split into two parts, one that is extremely staged in its blocking, camera
angles and acting, the other after Ang ‘finds his voice’ and more
naturalistic in its stance.
Hidden by the guise of humor, lies a deeper and urgent social criticism: it
is one challenge to find our own voices, but another to be smothered by the
power of authorities before we can break the Still Trembling Berlin Wall.
There is a moment where Ang lies with Jit in bed and asks him out of the
blue, “I’m wondering. You read. You know a lot. You know about the past. But
what are you gonna do with this knowledge?” In a moment of self-reflection,
I found myself questioning my power in society and whether the
responsibility to make change does fall on my shoulders as well.