Abstract:
This research aimed to investigate the content of Thai films reflecting nostalgia
and the construction of nostalgia. This qualitative research was conducted based on
textual analysis. The samples were three Thai films: Fan Chan (My Girl), Sing Lek Lek Thi
Riak Wa Rak (A Little Thing Called Love), and Phuean Sa Nit (Dear Dakanda), which
embraced nostalgia in three different age ranges: primary school age, high school age,
and university age. The analysis was based on related theories including
postmodernism, nostalgia, semiotics, and technical visual language.
The result revealed that nostalgia was presented through five forms: past
memory, past experience, local wisdom and traditions, time change, and past
communities. Nostalgia was constructed through nine techniques: the use of retro
places and props, the use of retro clothing, the presentation of binary oppositions, the
use of synecdoche, semiotics in lighting, semiotics in distance, the presentation of the
relationship of retro music and films, and the use of editing techniques in telling past
stories.