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In Thai folklore, there is a ghost called Krahang. He is a teenage boy who only flies at night. His spirit is young and wild, hedonistic yet liberated, as he flies above the weight of the social and political world below. It’s fitting then that this ghost is used to title London-based filmmaker Joshua Gordon’s latest short, which delves deep into the life of a young group of Thai boys who find freedom through biking amongst the crime and poverty of Bangkok.
The spirit of Krahang persists throughout Gordon’s film, which starts with the sound of two piercing gunshots, followed by a scene where the viewer becomes the subject who is running, fast. The film’s opening intensity sets the pace for the next 23 minutes, as Gordon uses his lens to delve intimately into the lives of four boys aged 17-21 who are united by their love for biking. From guns to cigarettes, drinking, partying, and drugs, its clear there’s an intensified need for escapism as the boys live in the reality of poverty-stricken Bangkok. But, as Krahang establishes, the strongest form of escapism for these young men is their bikes, as the film dips in and out of scenes where the boys soar through Bangkok on their motorcycles, evading their realities, and creating a new world of liberation.
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