Apichatpong Weerasethakul

this movie is unbelievably strange, i couldn't make heads or tails of it tonally and otherwise..

[SPOILER, to the extent a movie like this can have a SPOILER]

The whole dying sequence, where they go into the cave, I think is one of my favorite sections of any film of recent years. Almost no dialogue, and for a while almost no anything, but so carefully and almost perfectly made.

I saw his short - Phantoms of Nabua last year at BFI and it was great, loved it. I watched Uncle Boonmee just recently and it was completely lost on me.

I took it partly as a meditation on dying from something closer to a Buddhist perspective. I thought it was kind of funny that in the theater at the same time Biutiful was playing -- which appears to be a meditation on dying from an exceedingly vain and non-Buddhist perspective. I do think there were cultural and political references that were lost on me. E.g. I sort of gleaned that Tong became a monk temporarily as part of some kind of mourning tradition but I wasn't entirely clear on that.

There were certainly parts that I had no idea what to make of -- e.g. Tong and Auntee Jen going out and staying in at the same time. The princess sequence was sort of confusing, although I guess that was something of a "past life."

I assumed the still photo part was a Chris Marker homage, and the dream sort of foreshadowed the end, in which Uncle Boonmee does become a kind of "past person" and is forgotten. Definitely seemed like there was something in there about modernity and tradition, but I didn't take it as a standard lament of the former overtaking the latter.

I took it partly as a meditation on dying from something closer to a Buddhist perspective.

well yes, but that doesn't explain, say, the really, really odd final 10 minutes--the stuff in the karaoke bar, in the horribly-lit hotel room, etc.

the princess thing seemed like a tangent, which i guess is ok with me.

it's the still photo part that i found both bewildering and kind of annoying, for reasons i can't explain.

really--a chris marker homage? i'm not sure weerasethakul is really that much of a cinephile, honestly. he doesn't seem to go in for "homages." i think that's one thing that's sort of refreshing about his films.

I dunno, narrated still photograph montage about the future seems pretty Jetee to me. He did get a film MFA at Art Institute of Chicago, btw.

I thought there was something about afterlife as a part of memory and consciousness rather than a separate realm -- the wife says that ghosts aren't attached to places but to people. When he asks her where he'll go when he dies, she's silent. Maybe saying "from a buddhist perspective" is unfair, but more like using that as a jumping-off point.

I also thought there was something going on in the last ten minutes about technological "ghosts" -- disembodied images on the TV and disembodied voices/music in the bar. The relatively rudimentary technology is very jarring after the rest of the film (although there is one other scene with a television). Also something about the indifference of the young people to the death and to tradition.

i'm not sure weerasethakul is really that much of a cinephile, honestly. he doesn't seem to go in for "homages." i think that's one thing that's sort of refreshing about his films.

He has said that each reel of Boonmee was conceived as a pastiche of a particular genre or tradition, most of them, I think, Thai. This is easy to parse in a few of the segments -- the photomontage (which is adapted from 'Phantoms of Nabua'), the princess sequence, the cave, but, having only seen it twice anyway, it's hard to tell where some of the other reels end. I don't think this is really essential to the film, but it's silly to say that he's not a cinephille or that he doesn't do homage. He also made Adventures of Iron Pussy.

I don't really know that there's much to explain, plot-wise. As corny as it sounds, it is a kind of "meditation on dying", set within a particular religious tradition (which, if I understand correctly, isn't just 'Buddhist', but an Isaan-specific mystical Buddhism) made by a non-religious person. Apichatpong adapted the premise from a Buddhist tract, and I think the movie is an attempt to enact such accounts of ecstatic spiritual experience without really making claims about their truth or import either way. The hotel room/restaurant scene takes place outside of linear time -- he shows us parallel sequences involving the same sets of bodies, and you can accept what you're watching or not. The filmmaking is so fluid, and the formal textures so consistent, that I found it very easy to do so. If it didn't work for you experientially, though, I'm not sure there is much to argue about.

I was sorta thinking each segment of the movie was more or less a recall of a previous "Joe" film. I think maybe I saw a critic say about as much some time ago and never really got it out of the back of my head while watching it. Certainly didn't hurt to have some of the actors show up again, even with some of the same names ... ?

I think it has to be a lament on the passing of tradition. We see all these stunning images of the forest and the life they lead in the countryside and after Boonme dies that final room is just so sad and depressing. They only care about TV and computers but Tong decides to go back to the temple after some fast food so there might be some hope. I was as surprised as the lady. Notice how in Tropical Malady they definitely have fun at the karaoke bar and in Syndromes and a Century the dancing suggests a shared positive experience between people in the city. But now they stay indoors and also go out and it's all the same?

ok, well he likes old movies, but i'm not sure he's the sort of person to make an homage to art cinema in his films? i dunno, i won't pursue this much further.

it worked for me "experientially" off and on...

it seems like marker is one of the people he would make reference or even homage to though. fwiw it seemed like the "black hole"/air con scene in syndromes was a nod to kubrick but it can definitely stand on its own.

This guy.

Like the rest of his movies, Uncle Boonmee has dead spots and moments where whimsy, mystery, quietness, and erotics intermingle like nothing else -- maybe ever.

boonmee

man I really gotta see Boonmee

its on netflix streaming. i loved it.

gotta see it again. have a p dope poster of it in my dining room

love it so much. this guy's the greatest.

I thought it was boring, I'm obviously a philistine.

gotta see it again. have a p dope poster of it in my dining room

― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Saturday, 7 July 2012 06:42 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is it the chris ware one y/n

I thought it was boring, I'm obviously a philistine.

― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Saturday, 7 July 2012 15:59 (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

aw!, this is him at his most diverting, i think; the vignette structure, the oscillation between recognisable, familiar present and less specific, unfamiliar (to me) other places. there is that funny line about each segment being shot in the cinematographic style of a different decade. i've still got around to catching that mysterious object & probably a bunch of non-feature-length worthy small things before rewatching this, but it was great. weird remembering & reading the discussion of the cave scenes upthread; the images still exist like dark sacred tableaux in my head.

^otm about the cave scenes!

this movie rules

ooooh i didn't know there was a chris ware poster - love that ozu poster that ware did

i think blissfully yours, of the ones i've seen, is still my favourite - captures languid heat lust better than p much any other movie.

http://images.nymag.com/images/2/daily/2011/02/08_uncleboonmee_560x824.jpg

& wow, that ozu's nice, sure. the criterion art too.

co-sign on blissfully yours, even as a more restrained example of the thing-he-does. so patient and tender. tropical malady's probably an easier catch-all because it has a little of that & a little of his out there side.

Yeah I really treasure these movies because they really capture a specific mood--reminds me of late summer afternoons in Houston. Beautiful and oppressively hot and humid and very still. The air hums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGVXnvgxseE

report from set of his latest

The 44-year-old director expects the film to represent a turning point in his oeuvre. “I’m at a stage where I doubt a lot about career and country. This movie is like a farewell. I have to make a movie to get away from old memories and try to build anew, maybe in a different country, maybe in a different form of filmmaking,” he said. “I’m sick of this place and this movie is a manifestation of this thinking.”

http://www.filmcomment.com/article/on-set-with-apichatpong-weerasethakul

can't wait

Me too.

Saw this last night... a "spiritual" movie with an expected element of political allegory. Due to my awful sleep-deprivation-related drug regimen i did nod off some in the last third, but Dennis Lim read a note from Joe before the beginning of the film which said that was OK.

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-nyff-2015-apichatpong-weerasethakuls-cemetery-of-splendour

Interview in last month's Cahiers is excellent and includes lots of making-of stuff for his latest.

will check that out.

Cemetery of Splendour showing at MIFF in a month.

showing at NYC IFC in March

they appear to be doing a retrospect too
http://www.ifccenter.com/series/mysterious-splendors-the-films-of-apichatpong-weerasethakul/

Saw it last saturday. Boy is it strange. I almost dozed off myself, might be the most tiring film I've ever seen. The soundscape could be from a sleep box at times. Looking forward to seeing it again, think it might work a lot better once you know what's coming.

Oh, in case it isn't clear, it's pretty unique and a must-see.

love me some joe

Frederik with another balanced "narcotizing" / "must-see" review!

love me some joe

― Cornelius Pardew (jim in glasgow), Monday, February 1, 2016 12:38 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Frederik's mini-review makes me want to avoid this one like the plague ("I fell asleep! Five Stars!"). Is there any "slow cinema" you dont like?

It's quite literally a film about falling asleep, so I think it's warranted here.

is it a film I can mop the floor to?

;)

mopping allowed. no vacuuming, please.

i absolutely have slept at least partially through every apichatpong film i've ever seen and I still would call him one of my favorite filmmakers

That's happened once with Tsai.

I'll admit I closed my eyes once to the new Akerman one today. I caught when a new scene came on, as the sound changed, and opened them back up.

In general I like 'slow cinema'. I dislike plenty of films for being too slow though. But when an image is particularly stunning, or a soundscape meticulously constructed, I don't mind having time to take it all in. And the imagery in Cemetery of Splendour is stunning, as is the soundscape.

but methinks you needed coffee time.

hearing about how sleepy something is. but stunning and meticulous. from a laptop in fred's mom's apartment. kill me now.