The spirit of Edward Wood is alive, well, and working in Thailand.  Wood is often cited as the worst director ever, making some of the worst films ever.  But those films have a certain campiness about them that attracts many people who watch them for the sheer joy of seeing how bad the films are.

Tears of the Black Tiger falls into this category.  It bounced around various international film festivals for a couple years before getting distribution. 

I don’t know enough about Thai cinema or director Wisit Sasanatieng to fully appreciate everything he’s doing here, but it is obvious that he is playing with the viewer as he shares this film with us.  He has, it seems, intentionally made a film that we will revel in saying how bad it is compared to all that we are used to.  It goes so far as to become a parody.  That may sound like I didn’t like the film, but it’s the kind of film you like in spite of its glaring flaws. 

To start with, this is a Thai Western—that’s right, cowboys and gunfights.  It is also a romantic melodrama about crossing social boundaries, and a few other kinds of stories all blended together.  It is designed to blend various genres—not often a good idea.  But here it just adds to the joy of bad filmmakng.  Add to this how out of place everything is.  Cowboys wear beautiful pastel clothing.  Gone are the desolate plains; instead the screen is filled with lively color.

But the key word for this film is cheesy.  Wood’s films were known for cheesy special effects and acting.  We find the same in things in Tears.  A cowboy’s mustache looks like it’s drawn on with a marker.  Chunks of bloody meat fly through the air when someone is shot.  One scene is shot in front of an obviously painted backdrop.

Then comes the battle scenes as the army of police takes on the army of outlaws.  Six-shooters get boring after a while, so before long the cowboys dig out their bazooka and start launching rocket-propelled grenades.  Both sides also make use of automatic rifles.  This is nothing like the OK Corral.

You get the idea.

The story focuses on Dum and Rampoey, who meet as children (Dum is the son of a peasant; Rampoey is the daughter of the district governor).  They fall in love, but Rampoey goes back to the city.  In time Dum goes to college in the city and they meet again.  When Dum’s father is killed by bandits, he joins with an outlaw gang to kill his father’s killers.  He becomes the best gunslinger in the gang—the Black Tiger.

Meanwhile, Rampoey is about to be engaged to the local police captain.  She really loves Dum, but he was busy in a gunfight when he was supposed to meet her at their special spot.  The captain is dispatched to wipe out the outlaws, including the Black Tiger.  Obviously it will mean death for one.

Just because something is campy and cheesy doesn’t mean it is without meaning.  Tears operates in a Buddhist worldview.  That worldview is summed up in one of Dum’s lines that he speaks while walking the beach with Rampoey, and is spoken in voiceover in the final scene: “It seems that life is just a long and terrible sadness. And so we must hunger and chase after happiness, the smallest hope of reprieve until the very end of our days.”  In some ways this echoes parts of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. 

Many forms of Buddhism do indeed view life as “a long and terrible sadness.”  It is easy to understand that attitude when we see so much suffering in the world and in our lives.  For many, the search for an escape from suffering and sadness is what propels their spiritual quests.  In Tears, we see how difficult it can be to find an elusive happiness.

Perhaps that is how we need to look at this film that seems to be so bad.  The terrible sadness of its cheesiness provides us just enough happiness to have the smallest hope.