!SPOILER ALERT!
The memories are amalgamated in dreams. Each time I close my eyes when I sleep, all those memories from my forgotten childhood to present day, my deepest fear, my subconscious need, they all merge together and in many forms from simple to weird morphologies. The same thing happens when I watched Apichatpong’s latest film, Cemetery of Splendour, even though I opened my eyes.
I knew some of Apichatpong’s memories from his books and interviews, he’s a son of doctors in Khon Kaen Hospital (where I have studied in medicine), so in his film, the school which represents the childhood life and the hospital were mixed together. The way he made this film is like to recall his past life as well as Jen (the main character) visited her primary school in the film. She is a friend with whom nowadays became a nurse and worked in the school transformed into a hospital for number of soldiers who came down with mysterious disease, sleeping sickness.
Aunt Jen loves knitting, she married to a foreigner as some of Thai people, especially Isan women do, she had a problem with her leg, these characters are in real life of Aunt Jen, so some parts of what we saw in this film are also the life of her. This film is like a dream of Apichatpong, people that he knows, the same casts from his previous films, and also the conflict in his mind about this country, his memories blend together, and reflect in dreamlike events.
Aunt Jen, in this Apichatpong’s dream, spent her leisure in middle-aged life as a volunteer in her past school, she chose to take care of, Itt, a soldier who slept where she used to sit in the back of the classroom. The desks and chairs were changed with hospital beds, therapeutic light, and airway pressure machine to soothe soldiers from nightmare.
Colours and light in Joe’s dream comprise of red, blue, white (Thailand’s flag), and green (on the soldier’s hospital gown and their uniform). Thai people were tranquilized unconsciously by the ray of these colours. We can see the scenes that lights shines on Thai people, in the scene Aunt Jen and Itt in the market in blue atmosphere, in Fairy Shopping Mall (which Itt suddenly fell into sleep) and almost the colours of clothing of casts were in shades of these lights.
Itt slept all day, his friends as well, under the blue blanket. Aunt Jen took care of Itt in the way that volunteers not normally do, as she use her special herbal cream as in Sud sanaeha (2002) fondling Itt, later we knew that she didn’t have either a son or a daughter, and she imagined that Itt were her son.
Aunt Jen loved army men, so I began to be confused if she still thought that Itt were her son or her love affair (she told Itt in Keng’s body that she’s still confused about love). This film shows the adult side of Thai as we cannot see from other medias which regularly present the beauty of this land, such as the Aunt Jen’s appreciation of Keng’s cream and Aunt Jen was attracted by the librarian.
Sleeping sickness have contacted soldiers and made them become feeble, as they cannot void normally, cannot communicate with women relatives (with Keng’s help, they can tell what they want magically), women played one’s penis. These men cannot sustain their major role, even Itt was trying to tell Aunt jen about his weird super-sense-to-surrounding ability. All they can do is sleep under the blue blankets.
In Apichatpong’s dream, we can observe Thai, especially Isan custom, through their dialects, parasitic infestation problems, paying homage with statues, Thai movie with erotic and occultism theme, herbal medication with incredible properties. Aunt Jen’s Isan accent was changed to formal language when she talked with Itt, it was strange that she did this with a man she wanted him as a son.
In this school hall, there was a picture of Sarit Thanarat, former Thai notorious dictator prime minister, there also a statue of him in Khon Kaen, people still worship him with flowers, Thai love to be under green and other lights even now.
The Two Princesses Shrine is also the landmark of Khon Kaen, they were Laotian princesses and came to reside in Khon Kaen because their uncle was a ruler of this town once when Thailand and Lao were the same country. They lived and died here, local people love them and made them a shrine and worship. It was very easy to worship something in Thailand, you can see the worship of pigs, cats, trees or even dinosaurs. This land is full of beliefs, some are fixed false beliefs, the bright light.
Aunt Jen payed respect to two girls who told her that she is the Two Princesses and there was a cemetery of old kings corroding soldiers’ wakefulness for battling in the past war, beneath her school. After she heard of this story, she was dumbfounded, but still ate her longans along with the girls. Even if this big story, Keng, the media, could not perceive, and believed what Aunt Jen heard from the Two Princesses.
Sleepiness in Apichatpong’s dream was present with match cut of soldiers with real picture of vagrant persons in Khon Kaen sleeping in the background of the dictatorship mural wallart and middle-class people in shopping mall, as if it tells me that this disease affects all the people with the awareness or not.
After that we saw the dream of Aunt Jen in her classroom is now dark, damped, and tarnished, like her incomplete remembrance. She found a teaching poster about the sublime person is a man who was well trained. She talked to her lover that she was the only one who awak
, forgotten homework, and mysterious being in the lake which we previously saw, dysmorphic male-genital-organ-like monster, with men surrounding around, trying to push it to the earth.
Itt talked to Aunt Jen near the lake about the inferiority in military, he was planning to end his soldier career, suddenly he became somnolent, as if he was insight but then again there was a unknown power over him.
Keng, now was a customer assistance, changed her soul with Itt, from his eyes he can see the another world overlapping to our sight and Aunt Jen’s. Again, Aunt Jen did not seem to believe what Itt told her about the palace with mirror room and golden bathroom closed to the lake. She focused on the real world befor
ye, let her orchid breathed, told her memory about the Laotian civil war once when USA involvement on controlling the communism, and took a photo.
They both went to the shrine, now they behaved like a lover (Aunt Jen previously came with her real lover). Aunt Jen felt the emptiness in her life, she wanted to wake up from this nightmare, she was alert that this was just a dream, Itt told her to opened eyes wider, that would wake her up. Itt told the most picturesque place of the superimposed dimension, it was just a scene of greenery landscape, no gold, no treasures, the dainty authentic power of this land.
Aunt Jen suggested Itt was better to sleep, to save energy for pleasing future. She thought that sleep was a rest, because was just in her dream. The we saw floaters in the blue sky reflecting the water of the lake. The micro-organism, paramecium, moved in the sky like a giant spaceship.
Apichatpong used to tell about his memory in the lab room of his mother office, there was a microscope, and he loved to watch these being under the lens,he could change the background, like this paramecium, it did not have a colours of its own, like us, being shined on, like a filmscreen.
Then Aunt Jen showed her deformed leg, from surgery. Itt healed her by licking, she used to call him as a little puppy, this scene also remind me of Tong and Keng in Sud pralad (2004) and L'Age d'Or (1930). They may be reincarnated in another life, found each other, and have to confront the recurring doom.
Aunt Jen woke up, yet only she was alert, but then we realised that she did not wake up yet. Itt was waked, took off the respiratory assistance, they both shared the dream, they loved to sleep here. She told about the confidential project, digging the land.
But then we saw she looked to the piles of dirt, with widen eyes, the widest eyes she ever did, she may be wide awake that dream was not the alleviation, they stuck in the repeated loop. Ceiling fans made a cool air in a hot atmosphere, hydraulic turbines made an oxygen aeration to micro-organism, theses things are like a dream that was calm and assuaged, but covering the real horror.
The most notable scene for me is the musical chair, happening twice in the film. The people, wearing shirt in “major colours” like puppets, started to moving after the man with blue shirt rode a bicycle across the scene. Those people are playing around nearby the lake over the most beautiful scenery of this land. Or we are just those microbe, we do not have colours of our own.
We have enjoyed our life, like aerobic dancing, do what others tell us. We neither did what for our own, nor being a pile of brick which made from dirt. Only piling up, and even crumbling down at last, It was still the beauty.
The lethargy is from the ignorance, or what is the determinant, and what have put a spell on, radiated those beam and changed our transparency.
Tempy Movies Review Cemetery of Splendor {Apichatpong Weerasethakul}, 2015
The memories are amalgamated in dreams. Each time I close my eyes when I sleep, all those memories from my forgotten childhood to present day, my deepest fear, my subconscious need, they all merge together and in many forms from simple to weird morphologies. The same thing happens when I watched Apichatpong’s latest film, Cemetery of Splendour, even though I opened my eyes.
I knew some of Apichatpong’s memories from his books and interviews, he’s a son of doctors in Khon Kaen Hospital (where I have studied in medicine), so in his film, the school which represents the childhood life and the hospital were mixed together. The way he made this film is like to recall his past life as well as Jen (the main character) visited her primary school in the film. She is a friend with whom nowadays became a nurse and worked in the school transformed into a hospital for number of soldiers who came down with mysterious disease, sleeping sickness.
Aunt Jen loves knitting, she married to a foreigner as some of Thai people, especially Isan women do, she had a problem with her leg, these characters are in real life of Aunt Jen, so some parts of what we saw in this film are also the life of her. This film is like a dream of Apichatpong, people that he knows, the same casts from his previous films, and also the conflict in his mind about this country, his memories blend together, and reflect in dreamlike events.
Aunt Jen, in this Apichatpong’s dream, spent her leisure in middle-aged life as a volunteer in her past school, she chose to take care of, Itt, a soldier who slept where she used to sit in the back of the classroom. The desks and chairs were changed with hospital beds, therapeutic light, and airway pressure machine to soothe soldiers from nightmare.
Colours and light in Joe’s dream comprise of red, blue, white (Thailand’s flag), and green (on the soldier’s hospital gown and their uniform). Thai people were tranquilized unconsciously by the ray of these colours. We can see the scenes that lights shines on Thai people, in the scene Aunt Jen and Itt in the market in blue atmosphere, in Fairy Shopping Mall (which Itt suddenly fell into sleep) and almost the colours of clothing of casts were in shades of these lights.
Itt slept all day, his friends as well, under the blue blanket. Aunt Jen took care of Itt in the way that volunteers not normally do, as she use her special herbal cream as in Sud sanaeha (2002) fondling Itt, later we knew that she didn’t have either a son or a daughter, and she imagined that Itt were her son.
Aunt Jen loved army men, so I began to be confused if she still thought that Itt were her son or her love affair (she told Itt in Keng’s body that she’s still confused about love). This film shows the adult side of Thai as we cannot see from other medias which regularly present the beauty of this land, such as the Aunt Jen’s appreciation of Keng’s cream and Aunt Jen was attracted by the librarian.
Sleeping sickness have contacted soldiers and made them become feeble, as they cannot void normally, cannot communicate with women relatives (with Keng’s help, they can tell what they want magically), women played one’s penis. These men cannot sustain their major role, even Itt was trying to tell Aunt jen about his weird super-sense-to-surrounding ability. All they can do is sleep under the blue blankets.
In Apichatpong’s dream, we can observe Thai, especially Isan custom, through their dialects, parasitic infestation problems, paying homage with statues, Thai movie with erotic and occultism theme, herbal medication with incredible properties. Aunt Jen’s Isan accent was changed to formal language when she talked with Itt, it was strange that she did this with a man she wanted him as a son.
In this school hall, there was a picture of Sarit Thanarat, former Thai notorious dictator prime minister, there also a statue of him in Khon Kaen, people still worship him with flowers, Thai love to be under green and other lights even now.
The Two Princesses Shrine is also the landmark of Khon Kaen, they were Laotian princesses and came to reside in Khon Kaen because their uncle was a ruler of this town once when Thailand and Lao were the same country. They lived and died here, local people love them and made them a shrine and worship. It was very easy to worship something in Thailand, you can see the worship of pigs, cats, trees or even dinosaurs. This land is full of beliefs, some are fixed false beliefs, the bright light.
Aunt Jen payed respect to two girls who told her that she is the Two Princesses and there was a cemetery of old kings corroding soldiers’ wakefulness for battling in the past war, beneath her school. After she heard of this story, she was dumbfounded, but still ate her longans along with the girls. Even if this big story, Keng, the media, could not perceive, and believed what Aunt Jen heard from the Two Princesses.
Sleepiness in Apichatpong’s dream was present with match cut of soldiers with real picture of vagrant persons in Khon Kaen sleeping in the background of the dictatorship mural wallart and middle-class people in shopping mall, as if it tells me that this disease affects all the people with the awareness or not.
After that we saw the dream of Aunt Jen in her classroom is now dark, damped, and tarnished, like her incomplete remembrance. She found a teaching poster about the sublime person is a man who was well trained. She talked to her lover that she was the only one who awak
Itt talked to Aunt Jen near the lake about the inferiority in military, he was planning to end his soldier career, suddenly he became somnolent, as if he was insight but then again there was a unknown power over him.
Keng, now was a customer assistance, changed her soul with Itt, from his eyes he can see the another world overlapping to our sight and Aunt Jen’s. Again, Aunt Jen did not seem to believe what Itt told her about the palace with mirror room and golden bathroom closed to the lake. She focused on the real world befor
They both went to the shrine, now they behaved like a lover (Aunt Jen previously came with her real lover). Aunt Jen felt the emptiness in her life, she wanted to wake up from this nightmare, she was alert that this was just a dream, Itt told her to opened eyes wider, that would wake her up. Itt told the most picturesque place of the superimposed dimension, it was just a scene of greenery landscape, no gold, no treasures, the dainty authentic power of this land.
Aunt Jen suggested Itt was better to sleep, to save energy for pleasing future. She thought that sleep was a rest, because was just in her dream. The we saw floaters in the blue sky reflecting the water of the lake. The micro-organism, paramecium, moved in the sky like a giant spaceship.
Apichatpong used to tell about his memory in the lab room of his mother office, there was a microscope, and he loved to watch these being under the lens,he could change the background, like this paramecium, it did not have a colours of its own, like us, being shined on, like a filmscreen.
Then Aunt Jen showed her deformed leg, from surgery. Itt healed her by licking, she used to call him as a little puppy, this scene also remind me of Tong and Keng in Sud pralad (2004) and L'Age d'Or (1930). They may be reincarnated in another life, found each other, and have to confront the recurring doom.
Aunt Jen woke up, yet only she was alert, but then we realised that she did not wake up yet. Itt was waked, took off the respiratory assistance, they both shared the dream, they loved to sleep here. She told about the confidential project, digging the land.
But then we saw she looked to the piles of dirt, with widen eyes, the widest eyes she ever did, she may be wide awake that dream was not the alleviation, they stuck in the repeated loop. Ceiling fans made a cool air in a hot atmosphere, hydraulic turbines made an oxygen aeration to micro-organism, theses things are like a dream that was calm and assuaged, but covering the real horror.
The most notable scene for me is the musical chair, happening twice in the film. The people, wearing shirt in “major colours” like puppets, started to moving after the man with blue shirt rode a bicycle across the scene. Those people are playing around nearby the lake over the most beautiful scenery of this land. Or we are just those microbe, we do not have colours of our own.
We have enjoyed our life, like aerobic dancing, do what others tell us. We neither did what for our own, nor being a pile of brick which made from dirt. Only piling up, and even crumbling down at last, It was still the beauty.
The lethargy is from the ignorance, or what is the determinant, and what have put a spell on, radiated those beam and changed our transparency.