Apichatpong Weerasethakul

i dont think the movie is as plainly symbolic as you'd like it to be. like the whole "country bad, city good" thing - apichatpong doesnt go for such literal metaphors. he's basically a surrealist.

Ok, but for a surrealist he seems to be quite interested in very mundane activities - like Tong washing himself with soap, Boonmee going through dialysis, etc. And I don't think the images of soldiers hold much surreal power: they're not impressive as such, they mostly just serve to illustrate Boonmee's story. So if there's no symbolism in the story + images, I don't see why they are in the movie, as the whole scene is audiovisually rather boring.

saw blissfully yours a few weeks ago and it's stuck with me. who doesn't want to pick wild berries and make out in a jungle?

I'm not reading this til I see it at NYFF, but G Kenny's take:

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2010/09/nyff-2010-some-brief-notes-toward-constructing-a-users-manual-for-uncle-boonmee-who-can-recall-his-p.html

I gotta disagree with his point #4: to me the "clunky handheld camerawork" didn't translate into a "breathtaking, [...] head-spinning sequence". It just felt clunky and amateurish. I'm sure that was a deliberate choice on Weerasethakul's part, but there would've been many ways one could've shot a breathtaking sequence in an environment like that (the shot with the fireflies in the dark hinted at those possibilities), so why he chose not to, I simply don't understand. If it was, as he suggests, to emphasize Boonmee's mortality, I don't think it was very effective in that. The scenes with the dialysis tubes worked much better to that effect.

Just surfaced:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kemr-3n_Hcs

that yours adam

No! It's Apichatpong's trailer for the festival my movie is showing in. He didn't get in, he's not good enough.

sad

saw him speak and present clips from all his movies (and anthem) at tiff

pretty awesome

I like the way he talks, it relaxes me

saw Unc, still absorbing the aftertaste, esp after it goes into the cave. Looked and sounded great.

He took a pic of the audience at the start of the Q&A and was wearing a t-shirt they made to raise funds for flying the crew to the NYFF.

apichatpalme?

and now I know it's a-PICH-at-pong

the t-shirts i mean, were they the apichtpalme ones with the monkeys on em?

I didn't get a close look. I think they shoulda made a catfish vibrator.

haha

a roundup of reactions:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2345

fuckin need to see it again tbh

I saw Uncle Boonmee last night...I'm reluctant to say anything negative, because I know people will jump all over me. There are many slow, contemplative films I like and love; I didn't love this one. Music often helps me get into such films (e.g., the Arvo Part opening to Gerry). Uncle Boonmee has none, unless I drifted for a minute or two and missed it. (The quiet nature sounds were nice, and reminded me of the park scenes in Blow-Up.) I giggled at the still shot of the futuristic monkey-creature surrounded by all those people in fatigues, like it was some kind of vacation photo--I think it was meant to be funny, but no one else in the theatre seemed to think so. Some nice cinematography. I saw it at Toronto's new Lightbox theatre, so unlike Syndromes and a Century last year, I was allowed to drink coffee and eat a chocolate bar. That was good.

its ok to say u didnt like it if u didnt like it, don't worry, we're not going to beat u up.

Yeah – I have a blind spot for Tsai films.

I will not be able to see this until November, unless I get a chance to see it in Vienna.

Trying to avoid "spoilers"

don't worry, we're not going to beat u up

Still recovering from my traumatic defense of Up in the Air.

Haha

around here that's like admitting you ate babies ;)

this film didn't blow me away, but I like his stuff more on second viewings.

but he's never really reached "great" level in my head.

Mysterious Object is definitely "great" for me but it is sort of a perfect storm of "elements adam would like"

the monk in this was same one as in Syndromes and a Century, yes? and he was in Tropical Malady? I recognized his teeth.

I hate those critics who "luxuriate" in a film's imagery, but I opened my shirt and luxuriated in Tropical Malady.

I giggled at the still shot of the futuristic monkey-creature surrounded by all those people in fatigues, like it was some kind of vacation photo--I think it was meant to be funny, but no one else in the theatre seemed to think so.

The same thing happened when I saw the movie. Me and my friend and a handful of other people laughed, but most of the theatre was dead silent.

watched Tropical Malady a few hours ago. was really into it through the first half, started fading during the second. paused it and took a half hour nap (was operating on little sleep). woke up a bit out of sorts and finished it.

basically FUCKING WOW. it's one that will haunt me. dude's onto something. i'm sure the groggy sleep state helped, but still...

Nobody laughed in the theatre I saw it in. Then again, there were like maximum 10 of us at the beginning of the movie and only 6-7 left by the time that picture came up.
Circa1916, everytime I've seen one of this guy's films I either fell asleep during the movie or was in a half asleep state as the movie went on. I find that that is one the things I enjoy most about his films, this tranquility that lulls you to sleep. Well that and the fact that there are some beautiful images that I remember long after I've seen the movie. Except for this last one, which left me a bit cold.

Just watched Uncle Boonmee - it was SPECTACULAR. I have honestly never seen anything like it before. Perhaps this is an overenthusiastic post-cinema reaction, and I'll realise that the film isn't really any good, but I'm coasting on good energy for now!

Funny, creepy, atmospheric and above all beautiful. Enter the Void meets Pandora from Avatar?

I watched Tropical Malady a couple of days ago. The first half was splendid, I really liked how joyful and light it was. I think it's my favorite depiction of courtship I remember seeing on film. We get to see them abstracted into myth on the second part. The forest looks incredible. The tiger. The opening credits with the soldier. I want to see everything by this man.

Mark Kermode asked the BBC Pronunciation dept about this (first reaction: 'Pronunciation unit?!' *googles* oh ok...) and the guy was all like: "you know they call him 'joe'".

Anyway kind of want to watch w/anything reincarnation related I want to bring more knowledge to this.

http://www.monologueaudition.com/image/red-dot.gifhttp://www.monologueaudition.com/image/red-dot.gif

Loved Uncle Boonmee, I can't think of another filmmaker doing anything similar at the moment, or ever really. Is there anyone? Really glad to see him getting more and more international acclaim these days.

really enjoyed Tropical Malady despite having to pause it halfway through to take a nap.

oh man, i didn't love this, i just liked it. parts of it anyway. the opening half hour is so seductive and resonant and strange and mysterious. i hated the princess and the catfish segment and i don't think it full recovered from there on although the cave section pulled it back to an extent before letting go again. pretty disappointed.

Was thinking of Stalker when that cave scene came on. Think it was trying to do a lot w/Buddhism and modernity and then the whole 'are they mad ghosts or are they dead commies' piece. Lots of stuff that was hinted at but not allowed to grow, even if its filmed with all the spatial stuff in mind.

Quite interested in the book it was based on.

oh man, i didn't love this, i just liked it. parts of it anyway. the opening half hour is so seductive and resonant and strange and mysterious. i hated the princess and the catfish segment and i don't think it full recovered from there on although the cave section pulled it back to an extent before letting go again. pretty disappointed.

― jed_, Wednesday, 24 November 2010 23:32 (5 days ago) Bookmark

wow, really? i don't really feel ready to totally cover all of it yet, but the catfish segment was next level, for me, and sat so nicely. like the gold/river part in tropical malady (or was it blissfully yours?).

cave section was pretty special - kinda reminded me more of the magic of the jungle content in his other films more than the jungle content in this one did.

I was disappointed by just how visually uninteresting I found this film. I was prepared for something slow, meditative and non-narrative like (or at least non-linear), but not for how underwhelming I found a lot of the direction and photography.

Yeah, I don't understand people who compliment the cave scene, because to me it looked only like amateurish, shaky handheld shots of... a cave. Someone compared it to Stalker, but Stalker at least made its nature scenes feel incredibly hypnotic and beautiful.

there's a very arresting image of the ghost/wife emptying boonmee's catheter while the nephew tries to avoid the stream of the waste. it's almost like a religious painting. i thought that was very beautiful. arresting. that single scene is more interesting than the whole of most films.

but i just couldn't get with the catfish segment. it seemed too obviously mythical or meaningful or something. whereas i almost died of wonderment when boonsong showed up at the table. it was so strange but the way he describes his "journey" toward becoming a monkey ghost spirit makes it seem even more mysterious. e.g. his specific reference to his mother's PENTAX camera, which seems to ground it in modern reality and therefore makes it, somehow, ever stranger than it already is.

also the aunt, the first thing she asks boonsong is "why did you grow your hair so long?" !!!

I agree that the table scene was wonderful and mysterious, but I was let down by the final third of the movie (the cave scene and everything that followed it). I just couldn't figure out why it was so lifeless and grey and boring compared to the beginning of the movie. Even the weird and potentially interesting segment with the soldiers and human apes was made boring by having it look like a Powerpoint slideshow. If final third was supposed to contrast with the mystical mood of the first third, I'm not sure why.

Just saw Syndromes and a Century and I don't know what happened but it felt good.

It reminded me of Stalker as in it had a similar idea of people going to a place that feels end of the world to find themselves. But yes it was filmed differently.

It was often funny, including the powerpoint slide, couldn't figure out if some of the laughs were intentional or not.

Also liked how it often grounded the events in an everyday world - soap operas, karaoke, guerrilla warfare, cameras, etc. - the scene at the end where the monk to be can't wait to come back to a world of computers from his retreat.

It had the Buddhist thing where you actually did want to find out more about it.