Wonderful Town
Directed by Aditya Assarat
Wonderful Town, writer-director Aditya Assarat's "delicate, delightful, and nearly note-perfect debut feature" (Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com), follows Ton, a young Bangkok architect dispatched to oversee a building site in a seaside Thai resort town. There, he meets and gradually falls for Na, a shy and pretty inn-keeper who is equally drawn to Ton. The couple's deceptively tranquil romance takes root and grows, but it is in the aftermath of appalling tragedy.
The sleepy tempos and empty streets of Na's picturesque village are the result of devastation from the 2004 tsunami: a tidal wave that swept away 8,000 people in a single day and left a ghost town in its wake. As the young couple's relationship flourishes amidst the ruins, the true toll of the catastrophe that brought them together comes to the surface, and Wonderful Town evolves from a "dreamy and oddly disturbing" (Time Out New York) romance to a "touching thriller" (NY Post).
Employing "surpassingly lovely filmmaking"; that lets each emotion, thought and subtle effect flower, then fade away" (Nathan Lee, New York Times), Assarat depicts Ton and Na's increasingly fragile and ultimately tragic idyll with a graceful acuity and focused subtlety that parallels survival with loss and love with rage.
Reviews
"Aditya Assarat's attention to minute detail and ravaged architecture screams Antonioni... but his ability to switch from dreamy to ugly in a heartbeat suggests A SINGULAR VOICE IN THE MAKING..." David Fear, TIME OUT NY
"An elegant combo of... romance and social realism." Richard Kuipers, VARIETY
"AN AFFECTIONATE LOVE STORY." Aaron Hillis, THE VILLAGE VOICE
Awards
WINNER NEW CURRENTS AWARD PUSAN
WINNER
TIGER AWARD
BEST FILM
ROTTERDAM
Official Selection
New Directors/
New Films
New York