Wonderful Town
Wonderful Town • 1h 32m
Aditya Assarat • Thailand • 2007 • A romance unfurls amid unhealed wounds of the 2004 tsunami.
Na works as an inn-keeper in Takua Pa, a seaside town in southern Thailand. She is young and pretty, and soon catches the eye of one of her guests, a young architect from Bangkok named Ton. Theirs is a love that unfolds subtly, slowly, in small gestures and glances. Yet amid this picturesque landscape are unhealed wounds, which the young couple must learn to navigate.
Filming a deceptively tranquil romance with formal restraint, Wonderful Town evokes the latent traumas of a community devastated by natural disaster, when a tsunami hit Takua Pa in 2004. Aditya Assarat’s narrative debut premiered at Berlin, New Directors/New Films, and IFFR - International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it won Best Film. Wonderful Town is a New York Times Critic’s Pick.