Book Review: The Motion Picture Teller by Colin Cotterill

The Motion Picture Teller

by Colin Cotterill (Cotterill)

I was fortunate enough to luck into an Advance Readers Copy of this title several months ago, prior to its official January 2023 release. Having enjoyed the Colin Cotterill “series” titles I’ve previously read (see review link below), I was excited to dive into this stand-alone novel.

 

The Motion Picture Teller is set in 1996 in Bangkok, Thailand. Supot is a somewhat lackadaisical postal delivery man, just going through the motions of life. The one bright spot in an otherwise bland world, is the time he spends with his friend Ali, who runs a video rental store (and tinkers with being a screenwriter). The two men are obsessed with films — especially foreign films, and the exotic women who star in them. They have a small viewing area at the back of the store, where they regularly spend hours upon hours viewing videotapes. When they discover a previously unknown film, entitled “Bangkok 2010”, mixed in with a box of VHS tapes they purchased from a scrounger, they watch it and and are stunned to realize it is a masterpiece — perhaps the greatest Thai-made movie of all time — but nobody has ever heard of it and it was apparently never released.

 

Supot becomes obsessed with finding the makers of this film, and with meeting the beautiful female star of the film, Siriluk, whom he develops a crush on. The majority of this novel features Supot’s efforts to uncover the film’s mysterious origins, which takes him to the backwoods of Thailand, and a commune full of people that have many secrets to hide.

 

This book was absolutely charming — it is a mystery novel, without a crime having been committed, and Supot and Ali are fabulous characters. But they’re not the only ones — every single supporting character is fully realized, colorful and intriguing. The dialog is humorous, sharp and snappy. The plot is complex. And the setting, in various different parts of Thailand is exotic and distinct. I really enjoyed this one, and strongly recommend it for fellow cinephiles! And I love what the title of the book refers to — Supot verbally telling the stories of motion pictures, from memory, to a rapt audience — an intriguing twist on the traditional “storyteller”.

 

(Author Colin Cotterill has lived in Thailand for many years, and has had two long-running mystery series set there — those featuring Dr. Siri Paiboun (a series which ended with a 15th entry in 2020), and those featuring Jimm Juree (2011-2019). Those are all worth sampling if you can track them down! I’ve particularly enjoyed the three Jimm Juree entries the libraries have as audiobooks.

 

I also recommend the film Be Kind Rewind, which also features somewhat quirky characters who inhabit a video rental store.)

 

( publisher’s official The Motion Picture Teller web page ) | ( official Colin Cotterill web site )

 

See Scott C.’s review of the audiobook of Killed at the Whim of a Hat by Cotterill, in the June 2020 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!