About the Book
This book is the first in English to trace the history of Thai cinema from its beginnings at the Siamese royal court in 1896 through the aftermath of the 1932 Siamese Revolution. Examining cinema’s entanglement with political modernity and the formation of a distinct polity in Siam—one that was neither fully colonized nor completely untethered from global colonial networks—Palita Chunsaengchan theorizes this national cinematic culture as having a chimeric form, mediating monarchical images and popular desires for political enfranchisement. Drawing on a rich and previously neglected archive of cinematic texts and media, Chimeric Cinema proposes a new theory of cinema and sovereignty grounded in both global media history and local archival complexity.