Just Add Water: Documentary Shorts (Franck and Luc Janin, 2012): France

Reviewed by Lynn Montgomery. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival.

Michael Albright, Programming Director of the SBIFF has a quote on his website: “Reality breaks all the rules as can be discovered if you walk out with a camera to meet it.” – Cesare Zavattini

French filmmaker brothers, Franck  and Luc Janin walked out with a camera onto the streets of Thailand and met crushing skulls and water balloons. They met laughing children carrying buckets of freshly pumped water to fill up their toy water cannons, and two blocks away, they met black helmeted military attack squads pummeling anti-government protesters.

Thus was the reality one day in the life of  Thailand, April 2010. The Janins’ experience in music videos is evident in this chilling portrait of gaiety juxtaposed with violence. The Songkran festival is an annual explosion of happiness on the streets of Thailand. Young and old prepare for an epic water fight. They pump water into buckets, fill water pistols and patrol the streets for the perfect vantage point to douse their opponent. The festival is held throughout the country during  the New Year’s day festivities, April 13 to 15. This is the hottest time of year. Traditionally the water was gathered after it had been poured over the Buddhas. This blessed water was then poured on the people as a way to bless and cleanse them for the New Year. And from there it grew into the world’s largest water fight.

But in 2010, another more deadly battle was brewing in the streets.  The camera was there to capture the ominous pad de deux. The images are crisp, haunting. A military helicopter hovers overhead, a keen eyed child reinforces his plastic gun with duct tape. A sense of dread builds as Luc and Franck Janin cut between the two scenes. Are these water splashing children preparing for an encounter with the machine toting soldiers?

There is no dialogue in the riveting five minute documentary.  But there is a song. A perfect song. Here again, the Janins’ experience with music serves them well. They chose Micah P. Hinson’s, “Beneath The Rose.”

It is said
that you cannot be found
under rocks or broken skull
I will lay down
I will lay down
I can be found beneath the rose
beneath the rose
alone

Just Add Water is a passionate and deadly dance of two forces. The adagio, or slow dance is the preparation for battle, the marching of the soldiers, the chanting of the protesters.  Both dancers seem unaware of their partners. No explanation is given as we advance toward the crescendo. It is at times beautiful, intermidably moving toward the conclusion.

Perhaps one criticism of the film could be this lack of explanation. I knew nothing of the annual Songkran Festival water fight.  But if the filmmakers had resorted to expository benchmarks, might it have diminished the experience? I don’t know. I believe it was a brave decision to leave the film in the realm of the unknowing.