I treasure the unique films of Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. They’re unlike anything else. They could only come from him. Their profundity explodes the second the screen goes black.
I reviewed his latest, Cemetery of Splendour, over at Rogerebert.com.
Sheila Well, this one had me hooked with that title and the poster, but what a great review and stuff I think a lot about.
“We all live near mystery and mortality but everyday life keeps that fact from us.”
And I especially love your last gorgeous paragraph from this review. Yes. Yes. Yes.
I was reading recently that there had been numerous reports from taxi drivers in Japan picking up “ghost passengers” after the tsunami. One said he picked up a woman who wanted to go to a place that was now empty. He told her and she said worriedly, “Have I died?”
This was reminding me of Murakami’s 1Q84, a book I couldn’t put down.
Another great artist, a writer, thinking about mysteries like this.
The dead are with us, in all kinds of ways, I like to honor them too.
Also thanks for the tip, I never heard of this director!
// I was reading recently that there had been numerous reports from taxi drivers in Japan picking up “ghost passengers” after the tsunami. One said he picked up a woman who wanted to go to a place that was now empty. He told her and she said worriedly, “Have I died?” //
I just got goosebumps. Where were you reading this? I’d love to check it out.
Weerasethakul is a really interesting guy – young, too! Sometimes his themes feel like the themes of an old man – until I remember that James Joyce wrote “The Dead” about the approach of mortality when he was 25, so some young men are just “touched” that way.
Uncle Boonmee got some attention here in the States – and I saw it as almost a companion piece to Cemetery – especially because of the presence of the lead actress who appears in both, whose name is “Jen” both times.
It’s fascinating to watch a director NOT feel pressure at all to present a neat and conventional narrative – and do so in a way that still feels clear. You know, he’s not TRYING to bind you up in loops, or make you “figure it out” – that’s not what he’s about.
His work is haunting – I’d love to hear what you thought of it!
That one scene I mentioned – the series of shots of billboards and escalators – where colored light suddenly floods the scene …
I hesitated to even mention it because it moved me so much and yet I can’t at all say and almost don’t want to say why!
But it hasn’t left my mind!!
Oh, hahaha! forgot to say then that woman vanished!
Sheila Though I haven’t read a lot of Joyce, only, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, Dubliners, and The Dead.
Somehow I immediately thought of him with this review.
Maybe because it’s snowing and every time I pass a cemetery I can’t help thinking about that beautiful quote that makes me feel good about being alive! (that you too write about, and I certainly know you love Joyce!)
I overheard someone say it at a party, I got goosebumps too and went home and goggled it!
Totally gonna google the heck out of that!!
I love how Joyce uses the old Greek term “shades” for “the dead” – “they were all becoming shades” – so eerie, and yet so gentle.
In Cemetery of Splendour too – shades are all around them.
HEY. By the way – just got a press release from Film Forum – they’re running Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman from April 1 to 7. I’ve never seen it on the big screen – so just FYI!!
Sheila Oh one other thing. At the end of the article on one of the ghost passengers a psychiatrist tries to explain these events as “grief hallucinations.” I wasn’t fully understanding. Which one was in grief then, the taxi driver?
And if this is true, that our minds can do this, isn’t that a kind of great mystery too anyway?
It’s all so fascinating. And it makes total sense that collective trauma at that magnitude would do all KINDS of things to people’s brains and perceptions.