LEMONGRASS GIRL
DIRECTED BY POM BUNSERMVICHA
THAILAND // 2021
18 MINS
According to Thai superstition, a virgin can ward off rain by planting lemongrass upside-down underneath an open sky. A young production manager on a film set is tasked to carry out this tradition.
Reflective Encounters
“Stillness dictates the mood in Pom Bunsermvicha’s Lemongrass Girl. which is no surprise considering it was conceived and shot on the set of Thai master Anocha Suwichakornpong’s contemplative latest film, Come Here. From the pause of prayer to a scrunched face lost in thought, to the frozen bodies on a film set during a take, the pressure of an unchanging landscape behind them threatens to burst.
That’s why Thai crews have the tradition of sending a virginal girl to bury lemongrass upside down in the open sky, to ward off rain. The ‘lemongrass girl’ is a role of subjugation, receiving the brunt of abuse and flippancy from her colleagues. “Sure, a man can do it. If he wears a skirt!’ scoffs one crew member, leaving a young production manager to enact this superstition alone. But Lemongrass Girl is not an example of ‘Slow Cinema’. Instead, like all good social realism, the character has one objective that shines a light on an entire culture. As her quest is intercut with footage from the film set, Bunsermvicha presents the audience with a problem: if the filmmaking practices that produce skillful and arresting work continually rob workers of agency, then is the cinema ritual itself inherently harmful?”
— Ben Flanagan
Filmmaker Q&A
A Q&A with filmmakers from the Rituals programme at Encounters Film Festival 2021.
Filmmakers - Elpida Stathatou (Umbilical), Suzannah Mirghani (Al Sit) and Pom Bunsermvicha (Lemongrass Girl)
Hosted by Ren Scateni, Head of Programme.
Director’s Statement
Lemongrass Girl explores the complex process of putting myth-making into practice, through a fictional depiction of an age-old superstition unfolding on the stage of a film set. The cast and crew play themselves, performing their own realities and mimicking the idiosyncrasies of Thai film set culture, including the nomination of a lemongrass girl.
Being the lemongrass girl on a film set means being put in a position devoid of any agency or power. Your perception hinges upon fundamentally implacable forces of nature. You become an object of routine ridicule and light-hearted humiliation, whether or not it rains.
Lemongrass Girl is set within the making of another fiction film. It presents two intertwining narratives: on the one hand, it is a fictional telling of the story of the lemongrass girl, but on the other, it is a factual documentation of Anocha Suwichakornpong’s film set during the making of Come Here. As Lemongrass Girl unfolds, the two narratives begin to peel away from one another.
At one point in the film, filmmaking overtakes myth-making almost entirely. The lemongrass girl disappears from view, referred to only by the cast and crew as they continue their work on set. It becomes apparent that her own belief in the superstition does not matter. The show must go on, regardless of whether she acts the part and plants the lemongrass. The act of filmmaking must continue, with or without her. Lemongrass Girl is a story about losing control of one’s own narrative.
It explores how harassment and subjugation are built into the most mundane aspects of Thai society, and how its effects have the power to push women to the point of self-exclusion and self-erasure. In a culture where the concept of virginity is constantly and casually put to the test, truth becomes subjective and stories, including our story of the lemongrass girl, become indistinguishable from reality.
Filmmaker Bio
Pom Bunsermvicha (b.1993, Thailand) graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Modern Culture & Media Studies.
During her semester abroad in Prague, she attended the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) and directed her first short film 10:10.
Her documentary E-po is her first work from Thailand. Her shorts have been shown at several festivals, including BFI Flare, LAAPFF, Inside Out Toronto, Hamburg International Short Film Festival and SeaShorts.
Her work combines documentary elements with fiction and is driven by her interest in queer and female characters. Pom is an alumna of Tribeca Film Institute and Berlinale Talents.