{"id":4768,"date":"2023-01-10T09:35:52","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T17:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=4768"},"modified":"2023-01-10T09:35:52","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T17:35:52","slug":"colin-cotterill-the-motion-picture-teller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/colin-cotterill-the-motion-picture-teller\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Cotterill: The Motion Picture Teller"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This charming mystery from Colin Cotterill\u2019s innovative pen is not a murder mystery, but it is<\/em> a mystery.\u00a0 Set slightly in the past \u2013 1996 \u2013 the action takes place mostly in a corner of Bangkok where postman Supot hangs out whenever he can at his buddy Ali\u2019s video store.\u00a0 This book will bring back a wave of memories of old video rental places and the pleasures of browsing the shelves and discovering a treasure.<\/p>\n

While neither Ali or Supot make much money, they are united in their love of cinema, and their happiest hours are spent in the back of the store watching an old film like Casablanca. <\/em>At one point, Supot thinks to himself: \u201cHe wondered if anyone had ever starved to death from enthrallment, dazzled to malnutrition by cinematic magic, not realizing they hadn\u2019t eaten for a week.\u201d\u00a0 One night Ali and Supot\u2019s viewing is interrupted by an old wino named Woot, who brings in a box of video tapes to sell.\u00a0 Ali gives him a little bit of money, and as he and Supot go through the tapes, they discover an unknown (to them) movie called Bangkok 2010.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>The two men are completely entranced by the movie, which is set in a slightly dystopian future, and they watch it several times before attempting to discover who made it and why it hasn\u2019t been released to the public.\u00a0 They feel it\u2019s a masterpiece.\u00a0 The mystery is that the more the two \u2013 but especially Supot \u2013 look into it they discover more and more dead ends.\u00a0 The film came from no studio, and has no known actors, writers or directors.\u00a0 It has no footprint. Eventually, Supot decides the only thing to do is to write to the gorgeous star of the film.\u00a0 To his shock, she writes him back, cautioning him to make sure no one else sees or gets ahold of the movie.<\/p>\n

This is a beautifully written story, full of unexpected vignettes, characters, and the kind of plot twists at which Colin Cotterill excels.\u00a0 It ultimately becomes Supot\u2019s journey.\u00a0 He becomes disenchanted with his job, and not hearing from the actress for a while, he decides to go and find her.\u00a0 This takes him into the Thai jungle, and to reveal much more would be to give away some of the delights of this novel.<\/p>\n

The book is salted with the movie\u2019s narrative and dialogue, so you, as a reader, get a feel for the film and the reason Supot is so obsessed with it. \u00a0Like Supot\u2019s story, the movie draws you in.\u00a0 \u201cReading\u201d a movie is a different experience, of course, from watching one, but as we readers know, there\u2019s a lot of imagination involved in reading.\u00a0 You create a world in your head as you read, and Cotterill helps with this process, in his imaginative, witty and profound way.\u00a0 This is the work of a master of storytelling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This charming mystery from Colin Cotterill\u2019s innovative pen is not a murder mystery, but it is a mystery.\u00a0 Set slightly in the past \u2013 1996 \u2013 the action takes place mostly in a corner of Bangkok where postman Supot hangs out whenever he can at his buddy Ali\u2019s video store.\u00a0 This book will bring back … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[403,1036,1035,1037,664],"class_list":["post-4768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-adventure","tag-bangkok","tag-colin-cotterill","tag-movies","tag-soho-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4770,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768\/revisions\/4770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}