The life of a rock-and-roller-turned-executioner would be a good story for any filmmaker to transform into a film, but is even more fascinating due to the fact that he was the last executioner in the land of Buddhism. Thai-English director Tom Waller has crafted this plot of duality into a bag of cinematic conflicts in his latest pic The Last Executioner. Reality and subconscious, presence and flashback, foreign and Thai imaginations mutually encounter one another in this hybrid biopic.
Chavaret Jaruboon enjoys his fun-filled young life. He loves Elvis Presley and rock-and-roll, and can even earn some pennies by entertaining G.I.s. If only his girlfriend wasn’t pregnant, the young Chavaret might not need to find a secure job to support his family. He ends up becoming the state’s executioner. The fingers that previously strummed guitar strings are now used to pull a trigger instead. In his ensuing 19 years of mortal relations, fifty-five lives are ended with over 500 bullets. What happens beyond the executions is framed by the man’s encounter with his guilt and his attempts at karmic reconcilement. Ultimately, The Last Executioner dramatises everyone’s self-questioning in the face of death and life.
Jaruboon’s world of morbidity is illustrated both realistically and through his subconscious. From the very first scene, his walk through life is accompanied and challenged by the god of death who mocks him and chases him like a partner in a game of life and death. Actor David Asavanond (Countdown) seems to be born for this kind of nagging role as the representative of Jaruboon’s destiny. He convinces us that we all share the same fate: we are all destined to be executed either by the laws of world or society.
Waller reaches this paradox by breaking the narrative into three parts: the boy Jaruboon, whose rock-and-roll dreams are shadowed by a fortune-teller’s premonition of death; the young Jaruboon as a rock star and executioner; and the aged Jaruboon’s encounter with his own karma. These parts are weaved into a single narrative, underpinned by masterly cinematography and art direction. Most impressive of all is his superb portrayal of Thai beliefs about the afterlife and superstition – the connections between amulets and death, merit and karma, this life and the next, and the transfer of karma to one’s family. The system of justice is also questioned by the director in relation to the execution of the female inmate Duangjai, who was believed to be innocent. In these ways The Last Executioner encourages us to rethink the system of Thai justice and Buddhist beliefs.