Well, Pop Aye was the sweetest ending to the Athens International Film Festival that I could ever hope for. Pop Aye is a comical drama, filled with surreal scenes which have been filmed in such a realistic way that make you laugh out loud, out of joyful surprise. Singaporian director Kristen Tan won the screenwriting award at 2017 Sundance for her film that tells us the story of Thana and his elephant who both make a trip around Thailand to find their roots and naturally themselves. Being a road trip kind of movie, Pop Aye gives us a glimpse into life in Thailand and allows us to accompany our protagonists in their search for peace and quiet. 
The movie starts off with Thana (Thaneth Warakulnukroh) and his elephant walking along a country road and trying to hitch a ride with any truck that could have them. They quickly find one, but Thana ends up fighting with the driver and they soon are left on the road again. Pop Aye is full of this type of short interactions. Some of them are funnier and some of them are more serious but each and every one indirectly teaches a small lesson to our hero.
Thana is an architect who is sick of being replaced with the newest staff in his company; things at home are no better as he feels neglected by his wife - who, as we find out in a rather comical scene, has hidden a vibrator in the closet. When he suddenly eyes an elephant on the street, an animal that is being used as a tourist attraction for people to take photos with, he realises that it is Pop Eye, the elephant he had as a child, so he buys him and decides to travel with him and bring him to his childhood home in Loei.
Thana is an architect who is sick of being replaced with the newest staff in his company; things at home are no better as he feels neglected by his wife - who, as we find out in a rather comical scene, has hidden a vibrator in the closet. When he suddenly eyes an elephant on the street, an animal that is being used as a tourist attraction for people to take photos with, he realises that it is Pop Eye, the elephant he had as a child, so he buys him and decides to travel with him and bring him to his childhood home in Loei.
Thus begins a rather sweet and amusing journey for our two heroes. Pop Eye, with his freckles, his constatly moving cute ears and his watery eyes full of emotions, is as a protagonist as Thana and sometimes he seems like a metaphor for the architect himself. They are both two creatures who have lived so much and have been treated badly and unfairly by many, so all they want to do is leave everything and everyone behind and just move on with their lives. Along their trip, however, they cannot help meeting many people - good, bad, crazy, generous, strict and exploitative even - and as they go on from adventure to adventure, they learn a bit more about themselves.
Pop Eye is a film that pleasantly surprised me. It was full of beautiful pictures of rural Thailand and it also featured many funnily awkward moments, making it an enjoyable 2-hour movie. Naturally, as with any road trip, it also offered some touching scenes and of course, if you are an animal lover you will most likely shed a tear or two and that is always a plus in my book. An open-hearted, feel-good (or most likely think-first-then-feel-good) film, Pop Aye was the best way to end the AIFF and it will surely be a film that I will remember for a long time.
Pop Eye is a film that pleasantly surprised me. It was full of beautiful pictures of rural Thailand and it also featured many funnily awkward moments, making it an enjoyable 2-hour movie. Naturally, as with any road trip, it also offered some touching scenes and of course, if you are an animal lover you will most likely shed a tear or two and that is always a plus in my book. An open-hearted, feel-good (or most likely think-first-then-feel-good) film, Pop Aye was the best way to end the AIFF and it will surely be a film that I will remember for a long time.
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