A pretentious, unoriginal rip off of Herzog, Kubrick + Haneke

I really don't think Clay is in any kind of position to critique Weerasethakul; perhaps if Weerasethakul had made a film as empty and self-satisfied as The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael then there would be some grounds for a debate. Also, I should point out that when I said, somewhat hyperbolically and perhaps unfairly, that the film was a "rip-off" of Weerasethakul, I wasn't necessarily referring to the social background or the setting of the film (although I don't see anything particularly middle-class about the characters in Tropical Malady or Phantoms of Nabua, or indeed how Weerasethakul portrays them), but was instead referring to the general structure of the film, and in particular the mid-narrative split.

As you probably know, Weerasethakul is generally noted for this approach to storytelling, having used the device several times in his work over the course of the decade - most notably in Tropical Malady - and the appropriation of it from Clay seems incredibly shameless given how obviously Robert Carmichael drew on its own cinematic influences, which have seemingly been rejected in Soi Cowboy (you would never imagine for a second that both films were directed by the same man).

The film itself may have some important things to say about the politics or economic structure of contemporary Thailand, or even in critiquing the way someone like Weerasethakul tells his stories, but that doesn't necessarily relate to the success of the film as a whole. However, seeing any of this as meaningful to Clay as an artist or as a human being is quite difficult when so far his work seems to be of the level of a highbrow Tarantino; desperately trying on different styles until he finds something that works. Maybe I've misjudged him, but for now it seems like the idea comes first and any kind of feeling for his subject or intellectual understanding of when to cut, when not to cut, where to use colour, where to use monochrome, etc, is given secondary importance to how the idea might be received on a purely academic level.