Editor’s Note: Vanyaland’s Nick Johnston is down in Austin all week long for Fantastic Fest 2019; click here for our continued coverage from the fest and also check out our full Fantastic Fest archives of past coverage.
One of the benefits of attending an internationally-focused genre festival like Fantastic Fest is that you get a chance to see the wildest aspects of world cinema, free from the normal “propriety” that so often defines a normal festival programming slate. Case in point: the choice to program Ping Lumpraploeng’s The Pool, a Thai high-concept thriller that is so out there that it must be seen in order to be believed, which probably won’t ever be seen on an American screen again (unless we do something about it!), single-handedly proves the necessity of events like these. If it hadn’t been selected to be shown in Austin, I wouldn’t have had one of the best times I’ve had in a theater all year, an hour and a half that I spent hooting and hollering along with a captivated crowd as Lumpraploeng’s wacky-ass movie went through its motions.
Here’s the elevator pitch: Day (Theeradej Wongpuapan), a set designer, assigned to clean out the area around and inside an draining Olympic-sized pool after his project’s last day of shooting, decides to take a brief nap in the pool on an inflatable float in the heat of the day. He oversleeps, and wakes up fifteen-or-so feet below where he dozed off, and discovers that he’s trapped. Day’s adorable shaggy dog (chained to one of the diving boards), his phone, his glasses and his insulin (did I mention he’s a diabetic?) are all on the surface, and no one is around for miles. Panicked, he tries to climb out and only manages to rip one of his fingernails out in the process, and so he tries to accept his fate, strategizing different ways he might escape when all of the water finally drains. His girlfriend, Koi (Ratnamon Ratchiratham), shows up, and dives, without thinking, into the shallow pool of water, nearly killing herself in the process. And, finally, an escaped crocodile from a local zoo has made its way to the pool and begins to stalk Day and Koi at across the tile at the bottom. Few decks are stacked as heavily as this one is for our leads, and it’s a pleasure to watch them figure their way out of this tremendously goofy circumstances.
Yet, merely describing the plot alone isn’t enough to stress how weird this project really is: for one, the film is sponsored by Pizza Hut, who is given a production logo shout-out at the start of the movie, and a surprisingly large amount of time in The Pool itself is devoted to spotlighting just how delicious and tasty the offerings of a Thai Pizza Hut really are. Our characters, after a few days of starving in the bottom of this pool, are given a tasty treat thanks to the lead’s doggo, and spend a few minutes rhapsodizing about how days-old pizza still “tastes fresh” (Apparently this practice — sponsorship, as opposed to mere product placement — is pretty common in some Thai films, and is done just as blatantly elsewhere). The other truly bizarre attribute of this film is its pro-life messaging, as it’s soon revealed to us that Koi is pregnant and Day kind of wants her to get an abortion, given that he can’t really afford to give the child a good enough upbringing. Koi retreats with horror away from Day’s touch when he mentions his fears, and it’s implied by Lumpraploeng that the trials and tribulations that the couple are facing are directly influenced by their wavering about aborting their child. Not that that stops them from snacking on the crocodile’s fertilized eggs at one point in the film, but whatever! You do you, The Pool.
But these two seeming-bugs prove themselves to be weirdly charming features overall, underscoring the film’s baseline competence with an interesting texture. Lumpraploeng’s so willing to put his protagonists cruelly through the ringer that the film becomes overwhelmingly stressful and genuinely funny at points in its darkness (every single thing involving Day’s dog in the climax is absolutely hysterical). The croc effects are surprisingly well-done for what must have been a micro-budget endeavor, and their flaws are ultimately endearing as well, only adding to the generally genial vibe that the film gives off. It’s remarkable how well this works as theatrically, where it’s good-natured stupidity, willingness to go there, and Lumpraploeng’s skill makes it a captivating and unique experience with a crowd. If there is any justice in this world, The Pool will be playing midnight shows across the nation for curious audiences to experience this ridiculously fun mash-up of conflicting impulses.