This lively doco portrait of a marriage broker in a small Thai village challenges PC prejudices about arranged marriages in which emotional comfort is frankly bartered for economic security.
A Thai woman's path to success begins in the sex bars of Pattaya.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2009
Ticket to Paradise 2008
Fra Thy til Thailand
In a small village in the north east of Thailand there are two kinds of families: those who have a daughter married to a Dane, and those who don't. The first mentioned live in concrete buildings, the latter in small wooden cottages. The follow-up to Love on Delivery follows marriage broker Sommai and her niece Kae back to Thailand, where Sommai is surrounded by young girls who dream of escaping from the village. Sommai advises experience first. The place for that is Pattaya where Sommai started out. Her veiled encouragement to enter the sex trade may startle some, but for the women in the film it seems a way to take control of their lives and, with any luck, encounter a man who can offer financial security for themselves and their families. Such a beginning led Sommai to achieve fine things for her community, of which she is justly proud. The harmonious, transformative relationships we see arising from these love-for-sale arrangements quietly challenge pc notions about First-World exploitation of Third-World disadvantage. — SR