It’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s birthday today.
This Thai director is doing some of the most challenging, provocative, and hard-to-classify work in contemporary cinema. He’s only 50 years old, and has already directed 9 films (and two more in the process as we speak). The first film of his I saw was his award-winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), and I remember thinking, “I legit have never seen anything like this before.” It was so exciting!
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
In his films, the past – ancient and recent – courses alongside the present. There is overlap. The borderline is porous. The past bleeds through. Ancestors show up at the dinner table. His films don’t move at a fast pace (in fact, it’s the opposite). They don’t explain themselves. You, the audience, are forced to grapple with the mystery he presents. Or, to accept it, to accept that mystery has a place in our world, and it works on us whether we admit its existence or not. In the gorgeous Cemetery of Splendor, an ancient burial ground works on the contemporary world in strange surreal ways.
Cemetery of Splendor
In an interview, Weerasethakul responded to questions about Uncle Boonmee, and it’s good to keep in mind with all of his films:
This is open cinema. I have my own take, but sometimes that spoils the audience’s imagination. I can say, in short, it’s a movie about a dying man. It talks about death and at the same time life and dreams, and also the memory of how I grew up with this landscape.
Weerasethakul has had many run-ins with the Thai censors. He’s pushed back. He’s refused to remove scenes when requested to do so. He’s broken away from official sources and helped create the independent Thai cinema. Here’s an interesting interview with him at the time of Uncle Boonmee release.
I’ve only reviewed one of his films, A Cemetery of Spendor, but the review gave me a chance to write about his unique vision and style and sensibility.
Weerasethakul continues to make fascinating dreamy films, and I look forward to hearing from him for a long time to come.
“I always say a film should have a personality. And like a person, if he or she is very popular, I would feel very suspicious. Maybe my good film is not your good film. It’s very subjective. But if I make a film that divides the audience, I feel like that’s a certain level of success. Film should divide people.”–Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.
