Biography for
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

Mini Biography

Pen-Ek studied from 1977 to 1985 in New York at the Pratt Institute and worked as freelance illustrator and designer with Designframe Incorporate. In Thailand he worked for five years as art director, before making his début with Fun Bar Karaoke, that was screened at many festivals after its première in Berlin.

Trivia

All Thai names have meanings. 'Pen-ek' literally means 'is the best'. 'Pen' is the verb 'to be' but since Thai has no conjugations, it can mean anything from the present singular 'is' to 'are' to 'being'. 'Ek' is 'first' or 'the best'.

In each of the first five films he directed, he included a character named Noi. The word "noi" in Thai means "few" or "less.".

Personal Quotes

New York is where I caught the cinema virus. Living there made me aware of art cinema and world cinema and personal cinema. It introduced me to the cinema of Fellini, Bergman, Woody Allen. And Jim Jarmusch cinema, of course.

It was the most charming thing I had ever seen. I couldn't believe cinema could be about something so small, so unimportant, so lazy and yet so funny and moving and so unpretentious. It was a very special feeling. I didn't want to go anywhere after the film finished. I just wanted to go sit somewhere and smoke cigarettes. It was magical for me. Every scene involving the character Aunt Lotte is great. She's superbly natural. When I was watching the film for the first time I was wondering whether she knew there was a camera recording her and that she was in a movie. I'm sure it must have had some sort of influence on my own film-making, but I don't know what exactly. And that's not very important. What's important for me is that Stranger Than Paradise introduced me to another kind of mentality and taste; a taste very natural to me but which I didn't know. After that film, I started reading about Jarmusch and following his later films, got to know and love the cinematography of Robbie Muller, got to watch and enter into the films and universe of Aki Kaurismaki, got to know Ozu's films, got to listen to Tom Waits.

In Last Life In The Universe we wanted the audience not to notice when the music comes in or when it goes out. It's there to create atmosphere. I'm drawn to any style of music as long as it's sad. I'm very fond of depressing music. I think it's beautiful. My favourite musicians are Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Marianne Faithfull.