HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej turns 87 in December, and the number of sources detailing aspects of his 68-year reign has never been greater. 'Soul of a Nation,' a two-part 1979 documentary about the royal family produced by the BBC, nevertheless remains a crucial piece of history -- even though it was screened only once in the UK.
Coming four years after a brutal crackdown on student protesters at Bangkok's Thammasat University, the film stood as "an effort to repair the damage", according to Craig J. Reynolds, a historian and Adjunct Professor in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University writing in an article for 'Inside Story'.
The documentary reflects a time when Thailand was a bulwark against the much feared spread of communism that had already swept away the Laotian monarchy in 1975, and reduced Cambodia to a charnel house under the merciless and doctrinaire rule of the Khmer Rouge's Democratic Kampuchea regime. The US had pulled out of Southeast Asia in disarray, and Thailand was coping with a tsunami of refugees flowing in from neighbouring countries.
The documentary contains some rare interviews with King Bhumibol in which he explains his role as monarch, and answers a number of questions that were clearly not all welcome.
The BBC's reporter, David Lomax, recalled this assignment to Thailand as one of his most memorable in a distinguished broadcasting career spanning many decades. "I made four trips to Thailand and found that the royals could not have been more welcoming and friendly", he told the editors of 'King Bhumibol Adulyadej: A Life's Work' in 2011.
The FCCT is screening 'Soul of a Nation' to honour Lomax who died recently in the UK at 75 in retirement from a long and distinguished career in broadcasting. The full transcription of his 1978 interviews with King Bhumibol appears only in the third and fourth editions of the FCCT's 'King of Thailand in World Focus'.