Movie Details
| Title: | Kiss My Snake | |
| Director: | Tom Tavee | |
| Year: | 2006 | |
| Genre: | Documentary | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 10.08.06 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 10.08.06 | Alamo Downtown | This is a doc about a small village in Thailand known for king cobra boxing, where these guys get up on stage and taunt venomous snakes so they can dodge their strikes. they also put the snakes' heads in their mouths, put their hands right under the snakes' chins or on their heads, and little kids dance around with pythons stuffed down their pants. Basically, it's a story of a crazy place where crazy people do crazy things with dangerous animals... I guess for fun. This is an instance where no matter how good or bad the actual movie is, the subject and snake boxing footage alone is worth watching. Did I mention that these people are crazy? these king cobras are BIG and mean and loud and these people put on these shows basically for free every day of the year. So watching that stuff takes care of itself... it's crazy. it freaked me out. The director and composer were there to give a little Q&A afterward and several subjects were brought up that really should've been in the film. As it is, the movie's kind of like a snapshot of the village and three or four people are profiled. There's a lot going on with the "sport" itself though that's grown out of this little village. For one, there is now snake boxing in several locations and a lot of these local village guys travel around to various events. For another though, there's a group of kids that seem to be working their way up with rat snakes and pythons before boxing poisonous snakes... and one of the main things presented by the village's mayor (and son to the founder of snake boxing) is his hope that the sport continues, but what the director said during the Q&A was that he doesn't see it continuing on very long because none of the kids are interested. In the film he interviews one kid who seems hesitantly positive of the sport (sitting right next to his somewhat crazy father) but the director said he had a whole line of kids interviewed all saying that they don't like it at all, but couldn't use it because their parents weren't there to sign releases. So... I don't want to come off as a robber baron or exploiter of child labor or whatever, but are these kids and parents really gonna see this no-budget DV doc and think to sue? I think it would've represented a major point in the film that's just not there otherwise. Also, according to the composer, all these snake boxers who go on about how much they love their cobras also said that they HATE working in the rice paddies all day and, given a choice between the two, would rather tempt fate on a daily basis than stand out there in the hot sun. I dunno, I just felt like I didn't get a very complete picture with the film itself, and thought that all of this stuff coming up in the Q&A should've been in the film to begin with. BUT, that doesn't mean the movie sucked. Like I said, the boxing (they don't actually punch back and forth, a little head-slapping and venom injection is as close as it gets) footage itself is incredible, the music's actually really good, and the characters featured in the film are all pretty interesting. plus i got in free because of the snakes on a day thing, which is sweet. |
