Nontawat：我很惊讶，他们没有任何梦想

我是一位纪录片、剧情片导演，我常沿着泰国边境拍摄影片。这些影片曾在世界各地广泛放映。

过去的四五年里，我在泰国北部边境地区进行调研。我开始对跨越边境到泰国北部居住的少数民族感兴趣。在那之前，我去过泰北很多次，但一直不知道有少数民族从缅甸来到泰北。因为其实很难将他们与泰国人作出区分。不过他们在泰国没有合法的身份文件，他们只有护照和泰国政府不承认的其它文件，有时这些文件已经过期很久了。

当我开始了解和拍摄他们时，我有幸进入了泰缅边境的一个掸族军营（那里行政上不被泰国和缅甸政府管辖）。我花了三年多的时间关注那里，拍摄了一部叫《无土之地》的电影。

这部电影的故事是关于一个掸族年轻士兵的，讲述了他们的日常生活。期间我曾有机会和在那里的掸族青年谈论他们的梦想，然后我很惊讶他们没有梦想，原因是他们没有身份证，不能搬到其它地方，只能一辈子呆在那里。但他们梦想着一件事，就是住在泰国，尤其是清迈。因为清迈是泰国的一个大城市。

于是我又从那里去到清迈，去了解居住在清迈的掸族。我很惊讶地发现，实际上有很多掸族人生活在清迈。在每个城镇，到处都有掸族人。

但那时候要在清迈拍摄是相当困难的。跨境而来的掸族人常常因为没有合法身份而很难在清迈生存。他们找不到好工作。对他们来说，一份好工作通常是在其它城镇的“夜生活”工作，这意味着卖淫。我很想在我的纪录片里拍这个，但在那个地方拍摄真的很难。所以我开始写剧本。就是我的第一部故事片，《Doi Boy》，现在正在筹集制作资金的阶段。这个剧本的故事就是关于一个掸族男孩搬到清迈生活的经历。

然后，我开始为剧本写作做更多的研究。这个研究过程中，我开始做视频装置和图片的展览。拍摄视频的时候，我采访了30位住在清迈的掸族年轻人，我获得了很多信息，但是有的采访会比较敏感，我决定只保留他们的声音，视频则只采用绿色。这些视频被安装在柏林和曼谷的一个绿色房间里。我之所以选择绿色，是因为他们觉得在泰国时自己是不可见的。绿色对我来说有一些无形的含义，所以我选择了这个颜色。我从那30个采访中选择了一个，来展现这一代人的生活细节。最后，这个视频装置是关于一个在清迈居住了7年的人，他一直没有再回过缅甸掸邦的故乡，然后打算回去一趟。我问他是否可以拍摄，是否可以谈论这一切，他说可以。

我用两周时间和他一起回去，因为我不知道在缅甸中部以及泰国边境的掸族人是怎么生活的。之后，这些视频在画廊里以四个屏幕展出。我之所以选择以四个屏幕同时放映四个视频片段，是因为我希望观众可以自己感受这些故事，而不是一部只出现在一个屏幕上的电影。当只有一个屏幕时，一切都是由导演预先编辑和决定的。在四个屏幕上，观众可以在某种意义上进行选择编辑。四个屏幕中，一个屏幕显示广角镜头，另外几个屏幕同时显示中景和特写镜头。从这个意义上说，观众就像编辑。他们可以选择他们想看什么，无论他们想看广角镜头还是特写镜头。就像他们和我一起去到了现场一样。

四个屏幕上的声音是分开的，但我把声音编辑在一起。它们是同步的。在左边的屏幕上，有更多的环境声。另一个屏幕混合了环境声和人的声音，这样声音更环绕立体。

今年我加入“澜湄之眼”计划时，一开始，我计划对在COVID-19事件期间居住在清迈的缅甸少数民族做更多的研究，因为他们得不到泰国或缅甸政府的支持。没人关心他们。他们很难生存，因为有很多商店关门了。他们赚不到钱，也没有存款。这是第一件我想从他们那里了解更多的事。我计划采访很多人。我和我的“澜湄之眼”的评论员张海谈过这个计划，他对我的采访表现出兴趣，想了解更多他们的生活。当我听说这件事时，我开始考虑它。

所以我就这些建筑工人的工作采访了他们。我问他们，你为什么决定来这里住，你的生活怎么样，你的工作怎么样，为什么你这样工作……我还问了他们的梦想、未来、家庭以及如何生存。当我制作纪录片的时候，我总是敞开心扉，因为我总能找到一些出乎意料的有趣的东西。我还采访了酒吧里玩桌球的人。我也是先从采访开始。

在这拍摄和采访期间，我遇到了这位年轻的僧人。我从未采访过僧人。他已经在清迈住了六七年了。当僧人让他的生活更容易一些。我问他为什么选择出家，他告诉我每个掸邦的男孩都要出家至少7天，这是他们的文化。如果小时候没有出过加，就不是一个完整的男人。所以他出家了。他有一个亲戚从泰国回来，也是个僧人。那个亲戚让他也住到泰国去。于是他跟着他去泰国开始了新的生活。

他过境到泰国生活，最后留在了这里。实际上，他比其他掸族人更容易过境，因为他是个僧人。他的过境许可证有效期是七天，但他逗留的时间不止这些。多年来，他觉得自己没有任何权利，因为他在这里没有任何官方证件。他觉得自己是隐形的。这就是为什么他开始做一些能让他感觉到在那里更有意义的事情。

我问他他的未来。他不知道自己是否要一辈子当和尚。他也开始研究世俗人学的东西。也许在将来，他将不再是一个和尚，而是一个普通人。但是如果他现在还俗，他就不知道如何生存。他没有工作。

这个主题对我来说很有趣。所以我问他，你的日常生活是怎样的。于是我从早上开始跟着他，从洗漱、到集市、到打扫庙宇，然后学习。这就像是他的微观历史。

在这部纪录片的拍摄过程中，我采取观察式的风格。我拍摄他们的生活。但在剪辑时，我不是百分之百地按照拍摄时间表来铺设时间线的。

水灯节的时候我也去拍摄了。那是一个佛教节日，每个人会折叠纸船到河边祈祷，表达对河流的感恩。现在，很多泰国人不再喜欢过这个节日了，因为它在河里留下了太多垃圾。但对我来说，这个场景还是很美的，所以我决定拍摄。当我剪辑时，我非常喜欢他在河边的那个镜头。它很美，也能相观众展示出他的处境。如果这是一个持续一两年的项目，我会有更多的拍摄时间。但这次我没有那么多时间，所以我不得不把更多的采访内容塞进镜头，一边观众在短时间内更多地了解他。

在剪辑时，我试图找到一些能把视觉和听觉联系起来的时刻。当他谈到他与当地人的差异时（包括身份证的事），那时候我觉得有一些东西和我（作为泰国人）有很大的反差。我觉得这些采访内容和我在水灯节时拍摄的镜头很贴切。在完成剪辑之后，我开始打磨声音并进行调色。这就是我制作《僧侣生活》的过程。

我总是在我的纪录片中尝试不同的风格。比如，我在曼谷拍的另一部电影叫做BKKY，它是将纪录片和剧情片结合在一起的。在我采访了曼谷的100名青少年并将他们的信息剪辑在一起后，我还插入了一些剧情。因为每次看一部无聊的纪录片，我都会想怎么让它不无聊。

I am a documentary and feature filmmaker. I shot films at the border along with Thailand. These films were widely shown in the world. For the past four or five years, I also began to conduct research around northern Thailand, the border area. I am interested in ethnic groups who cross the border to live in northern Thailand. There are ethnic people from Myanmar coming into Thailand, it was something I had no idea before even though I’ve been to northern Thailand many times. Because you can’t tell these people from Thai. They don’t have any legal identification in Thailand. They only have their passport and other documents that are not recognized by the Thai government, sometimes those documents are expired already a long time.

When I started to learn and film about them, I was lucky enough to get access to an army camp at the border with Myanmar (that belongs to neither Thailand nor Myanmar, but an autonomous armed force), where I have worked for more than three years. The film I made there is called “Soil without Land.” The story of this film is about a young soldier who is working for the Shan ethnic minority. The film is about their daily life.

I got a chance to talk with the young Shan boys there about their dreams during my work there, I was so surprised that they didn’t have any dreams, since they don’t have ID cards, they can’t move to other places. They have to be in one place for their whole life. But they dreamed of one thing, that is to live in Thailand, specifically in Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a big city in Thailand.

I followed him for two weeks because I don’t know how Shan people living in the center of Myanmar as well as the border of Thailand. After that, The videos are displayed on four screens in the gallery. The reason why I show it on a four-screen channel is that I hope the audiences can perception the story by themselves. I was not aiming to make a film on only one screen. When there is only one screen, everything is pre-edited and decided by the director. On four screens, On four screens, the audience could choose in some sense editing. One screen is showing the wide-angle, another screen show medium and close-up shots at the same time. In that sense, the audiences are like editors. They can choose what they want to watch, whether they want to watch wide shots or close-up shots. It is like they can stay at a real location like they are coming with me.

The four screens have separated sounds as you can see. But I edited the sound together. They are synchronized. On the left screen, there has more atmosphere sound. The other screen is mixed with environmental sound and his voice so that the sound is more surround and stereo.

This year when I joined the Lancang-Mekong Vision program, At first I was planing to do more research about the ethnic minority from Myanmar who lives in Chiang Mai during the COVID-19 situation because they can’t get any support from any government, non of Myanmar or Thailand. Nobody cares about them. They have a very hard time surviving because there are a lot of shops closed down. They can’t earn any money and they don’t have any deposit. That is the first thing I want to know more about them. I am planning to interview a lot of people. And I talked to my commentator Dr. Zhang about my plans, he showed interest in my interviews and wanted to know more about their lives. When I heard about it, I began to think about it.

So I interviewed the construction workers about their job. I asked them why you decided to come to live here, how your life is, how your work is, why you can work like this… I also asked about their dreams, futures, family, and how to survive. When I am making documentaries, I always open up my mind because I can always find something interesting that I didn’t expect. I also interviewed people in the pub playing pool. I started with an interview first, too.

As I am still shooting and interviewing, finally I met this guy, who is a young monk. I have never interviewed monks before. He has been living in Chiang Mai for more than six, seven years. Being a monk makes his life easier. I asked him why he chose to be a monk for at least 7 days. He told me every Shan boy needs to go to the temple to be a monk. It is their culture. If you didn’t go to the temple to be a monk (when you were a child), then you are not a complete man. So he went to the temple to be a monk. And one of his relatives who came back home from Thailand is a monk, too. That relative asked him to live in Thailand, too. So he started to follow him to start a new life in Thailand.

He crossed the border to live in Thailand, and finally stay here. It was actually easier for him than other Shan people to cross the border because he is a monk. The duration of his border crossing permission is seven days but he stayed more than that. For many years, he didn’t feel like he has any rights since he didn’t have any official visas here. He felt like he was invisible. That’s why he started to do something that could make him feel more sense of being there.

I asked him about his future. He doesn’t know if he is going to be a monk his whole life. He began to study what normal people study too. Maybe in the future, he will not be a monk but a normal person. But if he quits monk now, he doesn’t know how to survive. He doesn’t have a job.

The topic is very interesting to me. So I asked him how his daily life is, what his routine is. I followed him in the morning from dressing up to the market for food, then, cleaning the temple, after which he went to study. It is like a micro-history of him.

For this documentary, I follow the observational style. I shoot as their life is going about. But for the editing, it is not one hundred percent according to my shooting timeline.

I also went to shoot during the Loy Krathong festival. It was a Buddhist festival. It is when everyone going to the river to pray with a folded paper boat to thank the river. But now, many Thai people don’t like the festival anymore because it leaves too much trash on the river. But for me, the scene is still very beautiful, so I decided to shoot. When I was editing, I like the scene of him by the river a lot. It is beautiful and also telling the audience who he is. If it is an observational film made in one or two years, I will have more time to shoot. But this time, I didn’t have that time, so I have to fill more interviews into the scenes, in order to let the audience understand more about him in a short time.

For the editing, I tried to find moments to link the visual and audio together. When he was talking about his differences with the local people, including the ID card thing, that’s when I feel like there is something very contrasting for me. I feel like that interview goes well with the footage I have at the festival.

After I finished the editing, I started to polish the sound and do the color grading. That’s the process of how I made this documentary” The Monkhood.”

I’m always trying to do different styles in my documentaries. For example, another film I made in Bangkok called BKKY, which mixes documentary and fiction. After I interviewed one hundred teenagers in Bangkok and edited them together, I inserted some fictions in it as well. Because every time I watch a boring documentary, I will think about how to make it not boring.