‘Arnold is a Model Student’ REVIEW: Bad students, worse governments
‘Arnold is a Model Student’ REVIEW: Bad students, worse governments
Arnold is a Model Student is Sorayos Prapapan’s feature debut.
“School is where dictatorship begins,” said Benjamaporn Nivas, part of the ‘Bad Student’ movement in Thailand. And this holds true when you hear about the other draconian rules of the country’s education system. No earrings, hair must be of a certain length, and anything that deviates from the robotic uniformity that they have established a long time ago will be considered an act of rebellion that merits a punishment through humiliation. They triggered the time bomb, and now the classroom revolts.
Sorayos Prapapan’s feature debut is a depiction of that one phase we either want to go back to or want to bury forever. He mixes the beautiful shared experiences in high school and highlights the inner rebel of the youth, a coming of age for our once naive, and now radical minds. It is an eye-opener to the injustices that are being overlooked and downplayed, and we get to see all of it through Arnold’s eyes.
Set during the pandemic, 12th-grader Arnold van Heiken is a model student and receives an award from his school. He goes to the U.S. for 15 months under an exchange program and wins a Math Olympiad gold medal. When he returns, he becomes quite the opposite. He goes to class late, he talks back to his teacher, and he even drinks and smokes on campus. This unruly behavior is dismissed and swept under the rug because he is Arnold. He becomes untouchable since the school benefits from him.
This is one of the many instances where Prapapan shows how unfair the school system is. You don’t get to have Arnold’s privilege if you do not give something in return to the school. Otherwise, you are seen as a mere subject that the administrators can just punish and mock. “This is how the country works, you need connections,” said Mr. Bee, the owner of a cram school, who invites Arnold to be a bad genius to earn money. It has always been this way, a never-ending give-and-take.
The students are commanded to know their place to be successful, and so they reply, “We are brainwashed… as students we are taught not to ask questions, but to study and memorize facts for exams.” They burden students with homework on top of homework to the point where they no longer have time to assess the rotten system they are forced to be a part of.
Arnold is a Model Student is inspired by the ‘Bad Student’ movement.
Although the movie deals with serious issues such as school violence, Arnold is a Model Student takes cues from the Student Survival Manual and builds upon its pages, resulting in a satirical comedy that shows what schools ought to be and how the current system is far from it. Prapapan’s work is full of heart and spirit, hoping for a brighter future for the young ones and a more progressive mindset from the powers that be.
Cultural change, curriculum overhaul, and equality for all. These are the calls of the ‘Bad Student’ movement mainly led by young girls who got tired of the administrators dictating what they ought to look like. Arnold is a Model Student shows rallying students and activists side by side to make everyone realize how oppression exists in all forms, a subtle jab at the current Thai administration that curtails its people’s basic right to free speech. The school is indeed a microcosm of the community, where the principal and the head of the country both boil down to a single, authoritarian evil.
‘Arnold is a Model Student’ is part of the ‘Asian Next Wave’ competition section of this year’s QCinema film festival.
