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Apichatpong Weerasethakul (1970 - )



"It's as simple as showing the places I like, the people I admire, the landscape, architecture, sound. This is the root of filmmaking."

Filmography

Features
Mysterious Object at Noon AKA Dokfa nau meuman [documentary] (2000)
Blissfully Yours AKA S̄ud s̄aǹeh̄ā (2002)
The Adventures of Iron Pussy AKA Hua jai tor ra nong (2003)
Tropical Malady AKA Satpralat (2004)
Syndromes and a Century AKA S̄æng ṣ̄atawǎat (2006)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives AKA Lung Bunmi raluek chat (2010)
Mekong Hotel (2012)
Cemetery of Splendor AKA Rak Ti Khon Kaen (2015)
Memoria (2021)

Shorts/Installations
"Bullet" (1993)
"Kitchen and Bedroom" (1994)
"0016643225059" (1994)
"Like the Relentless Fury of the Pounding Waves" [documentary] (1996)
"Thirdworld" (1998)
"Malee and the Boy" [documentary] (1999)
"Windows" (1999)
"Boys at Noon" (2000)
"Masumi Is a PC Operator" (2001)
"This and a Million More Lights" (2003)
"Worldly Desires" (2005)
"Ghost of Asia" (2005)
"The Anthem" (2006)
Faith [video installation] (2006)
"Nimit" (2007)
"My Mother's Garden" (2007)
"Meteorites" (2007)
"Luminous People" [segment from L'etat du monde AKA State of the World] (2007)
"Teem" [documentary] (2007)
"Sud Vikal" (2008)
"Emerald" [documentary] (2008)
"Mobile Men" [segment from Stories on Human Rights] (2008)
"Haiku" (2009)
"A Letter to Uncle Boonmee" (2009)
"Phantoms of Nabua" (2009)
"Empire (2010)
"M Hotel" (2011)
"For Tomorrow For Tonight" (2011)
"Ashes" (2012)
"Cactus River" [documentary] (2012)
"Sakda" [documentary] (2012)
"Thailand" [segment from Short Plays] (2014)
"Vapour" (2015)
"Ablaze" [segment from "Art Through Our Eyes"] (2016)
"Song of the City" [segment from Ten Years Thailand] (2018)
"Blue" (2018)
"Night Colonies" [segment from The Year of the Everlasting Storm]

Books
Apichatpong Weerasethakul by James Quandt (2009)
Nocturnal Fabulations: Ecology, Vitality and Opacity in the Cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul by Toni Pape, Erik Bordelau, Ronald Rose-Antoinette, and Adam Szymanski (2017)
Apichatpong Weerasethakul by Dana Linssen, Jaap Guldemond, and Marente Bloemheuvel, eds. (2018)

Web Resources
Kick the Machine, home of independent film studio Weerasethakul co-founded
2006 interview with Thunska Pansittivorakul, Crtiti Cine
"Introducing Apichatpong Weerasethakul" by Dan Hoffman, Thought Catalog (2010)
2011 interview with Lawrence Chua, BOMB Magazine
2012 interview with Marc Menichini, IndieWire
2015 interview with Amir Ganjavie, Senses of Cinema
2015 interview with Nicolas Rapold, Film Comment
2015 interview with Paul Dallas, BOMB Magazine
2016 interview with Matt Thrift, Little White Lies
2016 interview with Andrew Pulver, The Guardian
"Dreams of Cinema with Apichatpong Weerasethakul at Qumra" by Adam Cook, Filmmaker

Forum Discussion
107 / BD 2 Mysterious Object at Noon
13 Blissfully Yours
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
34 Tropical Malady
Faith (Weerasethakul, 2006)
Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2006)
Syndromes and a Century
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
Cemetery of Splendour (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2015)
Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2021)

solaris72 wrote: Wed Aug 23, 2006 10:08 pm

Twitchfilm wrote:Beautifully kitsch, surreal and saucy; Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the director behind Tropical Malady (2004) and The Adventures of Iron Pussy ( 2003) is presenting his latest work FAITH (2006) at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) as part of the Liverpool Biennial 2006

Hailed as the Godfather of Thai cinema and dedicated to building a new chapter of film-making in his home country, Apichatpong Weerasethakul makes movies which are ecstatic and mysterious stories of love, ghosts and Buddhist fables

Weerasethakul's new two-screen video installation FAITH (2006) commissioned by Liverpool Biennial International 06 is a tender portrait of lost love and transformation. Moving between the genres of romance and sci-fi, early stills of the film illustrate the critically acclaimed director is continuing his tradition of cinematography which acts as a beautiful feast for the eyes and is gorgeously seductive.

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/6815/faith4as3.jpg

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/3207/faith5ut6.jpg

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/7605/faith6vh8.jpg

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/2551/faith7ht6.jpg

Article at Twitch
Biennial website
Foundation for Art and Creative Technology

The trouble with this (the only trouble) is that we may never see it--or Worldly Desires, for that matter--outside a museum installation space and frankly that sucks.

Worldly Desires was a theatrical short, not an installation. I had hoped Strand would include it on their Tropical Malady DVD but that was probably expecting too much from them.

John Cope wrote:The trouble with this (the only trouble) is that we may never see it--or Worldly Desires, for that matter--outside a museum installation space and frankly that sucks.

Come on down to the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago this October -- see Worldly Desires and meet Weerasethakul in person!

-Toilet Dcuk

Syndromes and a Century r1us.

PS. Not sure if this is the place to post this info. What's the protocol? Should I post in the Syndromes thread (though that's movie discussion) or the New Crown Hope thread (ditto) or here or the Strand thread in Boutiques or start a new thread in DVD and then another in International for the r2uk release or ...

Small Correction: it's The Adventure of Iron Pussy, not Adventures - at least on my disc.

If you're a Weerasethakul fan and haven't seen this film, you're in for a big surprise.

It's just a shot in the dark, but there may be Apichatpong fans around here diehard enough to pick up the 46664 concert DVD for his one-minute short on disc two. (The other contributors: Matthew Barney, Matali Crasset, A.K. Dolven, Alfredo Jaar, Seydou Keita, William Kentridge, David Krippendorff, Tere Recarens, Berni Searle, Santeri Tuori and Bill Viola.) No idea what it's about, but there are some stills at Kick the Machine's site.

zedz wrote:If you're a Weerasethakul fan and haven't seen this film, you're in for a big surprise.

I took your advice, zedz, and this cheap, splashy genre pastiche certainly was a surprise! It's practically impossible to detect an authorial through line from Blissfully Yours to this (then of course the sublime Tropical Malady and Syndromes). I suspect that it was considerably more fun to make than watch.

the Syndromes and a Century DVD is now reviewed by DVDBeaver.

And as a big A.W. fan i'm tempted to buy it, but the dvd (i own all his other featurefilms on DVD) but the DVD-presentation is not the best. Do anyone know of another DVD of the movie comming? hopefully with some extras like early A.W. shorts. If not do anyone know of any collection of his shorts comming (or released)?

alfons416 wrote:the Syndromes and a Century DVD is now reviewed by DVDBeaver.

And as a big A.W. fan i'm tempted to buy it, but the dvd (i own all his other featurefilms on DVD) but the DVD-presentation is not the best. Do anyone know of another DVD of the movie comming? hopefully with some extras like early A.W. shorts. If not do anyone know of any collection of his shorts comming (or released)?

Not too sure about "Syndromes...", but I heard that Second Run are going to release "Tropical Malady" (i think with some shorts / a short as extra/s) from a friend who liaises with DVD companies for a shop

And Anthology Film Archives here in NYC is going to be screening two nights of AW's shorts, with Weerasethakul in person on the first night: Program One / Program Two

They're also screening Tropical Malady and Syndromes and a Century.

foggy eyes wrote:

zedz wrote:If you're a Weerasethakul fan and haven't seen this film, you're in for a big surprise.

I took your advice, zedz, and this cheap, splashy genre pastiche certainly was a surprise! It's practically impossible to detect an authorial through line from Blissfully Yours to this (then of course the sublime Tropical Malady and Syndromes). I suspect that it was considerably more fun to make than watch.

I'm sure that's the case, but I still find it more fun to watch than the better received but tedious Tears of the Black Tiger. Not much help for an auteurist appraisal of Weerasethakul, but very useful as an antidote to overweening auteurism, and an interesting reminder that major directors are not (merely) their films and that the authorial voice is a constructed persona.

Apichatpong has made a little New Year's short (Prosperity for 2008) for web distribution. Here it is on YouTube. It's not much, but there are worse ways to spend sixty seconds on YouTube.

These shorts should be added to the filmography:

Windows (1999)
The Anthem (2006)
My Mother's Garden (2007)
Emerald (2007)

Saw all these last night during the evening of short films. Apparently these ten shorts are traveling to a few cities around North America.

'The Anthem' is interesting in that he made it as a blessing for the theater in which his films are being shown; it preceded both programs of short films. It's really interesting in that it's a five-minute encapsulation of many of the themes/motifs/techniques in his longer work: wise older women, teenagers, country vs. city, jarring narrative juxtaposition, upbeat keyboardy electronic pop music, groups doing calisthenics, etc, all in one static shot and then one long tracking shot. Really beautiful.

But the new short 'Emerald' may be the most gorgeous thing he's filmed--computer-generated snowy/feathery/angelic somethings spiral around in a disused hotel while actors improvise stories over the images.

A DVD compilation of all the shorts from the mid-nineties to the present would be really wonderful.

A fascinating article by Keith Griffiths (executive producer of Syndromes and a Century) detailing the battle with Thai censors, complete with what I assume are surreptitious phone-camera photographs. Quick summary: the appeal not only failed but provoked additional censorship, and the censored version is being released in Thailand with black leader replacing the missing segments. The contempt expressed by the censors ("The filmmaker’s parents should feel ashamed") is genuinely stunning -- these people must have calloused knuckles from dragging them along the ground all the time.

Update: A Variety story on the subject, which notes that the additional censorship involved "another shot that shows statues of Prince Songkhla, known as the father of the Thai medical profession, and the Princess Mother."

Thanks, FN - a very interesting article which offers an addendum of sorts to Apichatpong's statement in The Guardian last September. If you haven't seen it, there's another excellent piece about censorship and the Thai Film Act in the latest issue of Vertigo.

all those who think that Haneke has contempt for his audience, just look at what the Thai government thinks of its people:

The government's justification is that the Thai people aren't educated enough to deal with serious issues. The Ministry of Culture says the average Thai is educated to the level of a sixth-grader [11-year-old] in a US school, and isn't ready for art-house or political movies.

that's from the guardian article in the previous post.

The NW Film Center here in Portland Oregon will be showing Apichatpong Weerasethakul's short films spread over two dates.
Tuesday, April 1st 7:30
Wednesday, April 2nd 7:30

the films include:
0116643225059 (1994)
Like the Relentless Fury of the Pounding Waves (1995)
Thirdworld (1997)
Malee and the Boy (1999)
Worldly Desires (2005)
The Anthem (2006)
My Mother's Garden (2007)

I can't wait.

I caught half of the shorts in Toronto. The Anthem and Like the Relentless Fury of the Pounding Waves were my favourites (didn't see the newer ones). Syndromes and a Century is one of my favourites of all time, but I have yet to see any of his other feature films. I'll wait to see them as they're meant to be seen.

Apichatpong is a great guy. I emailed kick the machine asking where to find the poster for Syndromes, and I got a reply from Apichatpong himself, he sent me the poster through Fed Ex free of charge, and even signed it to me. Awesome poster too, comes on a kind of vellum-like material instead of the usual paper.

Weerasethakul just got some funding for his new project.

http://www.lifepr.de/pressemeldungen/in ... 71930.html

Primitive: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand), producer: Kick The Machine Films, Bangkok. Feature film, funding: 60,000 EUR

The Hubert Bals Fund has also kicked in some funding for Primitive:

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Primitive – Uncle Boonmee is a multimedia project to be developed into a feature film, an arts installation as well as two short films.

It looks like the installation phase of the project will be showing up at FACT in September '09:

Primitive is a new installation, harmonizing Weerasethakul’s talent as a filmmaker and video artist. According to Hindu-influenced Buddhism, humanity is moving towards a period when civilization completes its fourth cycle and starts its fifth, the Sri-Arn or Utopia, when a human, or ruling, being’s lifespan is 80,000 years.

However, this belief adds that there is a transitional ‘Kali Yuga’ or ‘Age of Decadence’ between these two periods that will eventually eradicate current civilization. Weerasethakul hypothesizes that maybe we are not far from this apocalypse with the extinction of language, species, landscape, rituals, memories and gods occurring everywhere. The Primitive project is an attempt to imagine chaos in this transitional period.

This will probably be the best film ever, but I hope he figures out a better name!

A 10 minute section of Primitive, Phantoms of Nabua, is currently available for viewing online. Watch it before it disappears.

Another (great) short: Mobile Men.