The Elephant King Seth Grossman USA 2006
Buying an elephant in the street for cash is an alien concept to most Europeans but the sheer titillation of actually being able to do so, adds a novel spin to this tale of Westerners carousing in foreign climes. Unlike a stolen bollard or street sign, hiding the evidence of a rootless pachyderm on the morning after is clearly of a magnitude greater than most drunken nights out. Dealing with the consequences of such behaviour is partly what The Elephant King, Seth Grossman’s feature debut, is about.
Concerning two contrary brothers who become reacquainted in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the film contrasts them given their sudden affluence due to the favourable exchange rate between the Dollar and the Baht. The older Jake has defrauded a college anthropology grant, spent the proceeds and not come back; the younger Oliver mopes depressively in New York before being given the chance to cut loose a little with his brother. An excess of booze, drugs and sex soon cheer Oliver up but he appears to be paying for it all.
Given the prominence of Thailand on the more hedonistically minded backpackers over the last few decades it’s odd that not more films have been set there. The Beach was but that pandered more to the traveller’s fantasy of finding the perfect unspoilt location, seemingly throwing in the locals for good measure to provide a price for such a paradise.
Grossman’s film is more concerned with the relationship between tourists and locals and repeatedly, depressingly, has the local Thais acquiescing to Jake’s behaviour when offered sufficient money. Upon greeting his brother at the airport Jake does the first thing any expatriate might do and whisks his brother off to a catalogue style brothel, where the customers take their pick from a coterie of bored looking women. The deadness of their eyes is blamed on the fact they are all watching television to pass the time but a pile of shoes at the corner of the viewing room suggests otherwise. Pivotally when Lek’s (the girl Oliver falls for) Thai boyfriend won’t play his guitar for the Americans however much money is thrown his way, the scene is set for a different outcome beyond a focus solely on selfish foreigners.
At its best The Elephant King captures shabbily a cheap side of Thailand, full of cheap hotels, brothels, bars and empty bottles of Johnnie Walker. One glorious moment has Jake passing out after being knocked unconscious. As he fades he gazes upwards to see a star shaped fluorescent light slowly flicker out. This also carries resonance as cheap flights continue to open up Eastern Europe to the delight of the tourist industry but dismay of the residents unused to continual vomit strewn streets and stag parties. Prague for example may not have elephants but still has its parade of ceramic cows.
