FUNERAL CASINO BLUES: PRESS
︎︎︎ Back
"Funeral Casino Blues translates the social upheavals in the Thai metropolis of Bangkok into an atmospheric, drifting night and ghost film that increasingly slips into the uncanny."
Filmstarts (DE), 09/2025
"A visually stunning film set in the neon-lit night of Bangkok."
Deutschlandfunk Kultur (DE), 09/2025
"Night life, neon lights, the big city – everything screams "noir" in Roderick Warich’s classy Funeral Casino Blues, shown in Venice’s Orizzonti strand. Let it scream, but there’s much more to this Bangkok-set story that jumps from one genre to another, evading easy definitions and faceless villains. [...] Cinematographer Roland Stuprich shows a universe that goes from instantly recognisable to nightmarish, with ominous signs on every street corner, hiding even more secrets. The same goes for the unsettling text messages or security footage that no one dares to look at. This stylish mystery takes its time to unravel, but it’s pleasantly dense – and disturbing."
Cineuropa (BE), 09/2025
"Funeral Casino Blues is engulfed by a Thailand that is as modern as it is connected to the spiritual dimension, leaving us suspended, trying to understand whether, deep down, we have always been inside a ghost movie." Cinematografo (IT), 09/2025
"The aspects most closely related to horror and thriller are never fully revealed, leaving an aura of mystery intact that adds to the viewer's excitement. This is also made possible by the presence of actors capable of moving deftly between very different emotions, and a script that creates a strong foundation for each character." Nonsolocinema (IT), 09/2025
"A Bangkok far from glossy postcards: that of the underprivileged, of debt and of those who dream of a lottery ticket to escape a suffocating present."
Lospettatorerepagante (IT), 09/2025
"The biggest surprise of the festival: A marvellous film! [...] A film about the impossibility of building relationships in a truly limited world where the protagonists are fighting for survival." Bande à part (IT), 09/2025
"Bangkok as a whole is no longer just a nocturnal and socially dangerous city, but also a space haunted by presences, real or metaphorical, poised between worlds: a shroud of stories, mysteries, relics, unconsummated loves, manifest and hidden figures, floating between the visible and the invisible, traversed by shadows and memories that persist beyond life and death." Fatam Morgana (IT), 09/2025
"A noir-tinged thriller in which love is stronger than life."
Cineuropa (BE), 09/2025
"Warich masterfully visualises poverty and misery, creating an image of Bangkok at night whose mystical appeal is difficult for cinema-goers to resist."
Film-Rezensionen (DE), 09/2025
"An aching portrait of lives moored to the helpless shores of capitalism. [...] As cinematographer Roland Stuprich dabs each frame in electric hues of golden brown and blue, the city slowly metamorphoses into a thrilling, throbbing mass of sex, vice, and surveillance, mediated by an equally amorphous interplay of genres. [...] Funeral Casino Blues proffers an unsettling and dark reality tinged with lonely romanticism. With it, Thailand becomes a nocturne, and its ghosts the reveries within." In Review Online (US), 09/2025
"This 153-minute long-form melodrama, noir, and love story is a visual poem that stretches from the neon-drenched nights of Bangkok to the isolated villages of the Cambodian border. The film is not just a tale of loss; it’s also an allegory of neglected lives, quietly erased identities, and a fragile love amidst the shadows of social injustice. [...] Even as the lights dim and the night deepens, a resonant feeling remains: a powerful reminder of how fragile yet necessary human bonds and love remain in the shadow of social injustice. The film is poised to be one of the most unforgettable cinematic experiences of 2025." No 26 (TR), 09/2025
"The impossible meeting of Michael Mann and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Very, very beautiful. The suprise of the Festival!"
Salotto Monogatari (IT), 09/2025