Video & On Demand - Cemetery of Splendour (DVD, Blu-ray, online)
Soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness are transferred to a temporary clinic in a former school. The memory-filled space becomes a revelatory world for housewife and volunteer Jenjira, as she watches over Itt, a handsome soldier with no family visitors. Jen befriends young medium Keng who uses her psychic powers to help loved ones communicate with the comatose men. Doctors explore ways, including coloured light therapy, to ease the mens’ troubled dreams. Jen discovers Itt’s cryptic notebook of strange writings and blueprint sketches. There may be a connection between the soldiers’ enigmatic syndrome and the mythic ancient site that lies beneath the clinic. Magic, healing, romance and dreams are all part of Jen’s tender path to a deeper awareness of herself and the world around her.
Cemetery of Splendour (Rak ti Khon Kaen) is Apichatpong Weerasethakul's latest film, after the Palme d'or winner Uncle Boonmee who can Recall his Past Lives.
The Blu-ray and DVD includes a Making-of Featurette and deleted scenes.
Cannes Film Festival, Official Selection, Un Certain Regard
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is recognised as one of the most original voices in contemporary cinema. His previous six feature films, short films and installations have won him widespread international recognition and numerous awards, including the Cannes Palme d’Or in 2010 with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Tropical Malady won the Cannes Competition Jury Prize in 2004 and Blissfully Yours won the Cannes Un Certain Regard Award in 2002. Syndromes and a Century (2006) was recognised as one of the best films of the last decade in several 2010 polls. Mysterious Object at Noon (2000) his first feature has been recently restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation. Born in Bangkok, Apichatpong grew up in Khon Kaen in north-eastern Thailand. He began making films and video shorts in 1994 and completed his first feature in 2000. He has also mounted exhibitions and installations in many countries since 1998 and is now recognised as a major international visual artist. His art prizes include the Sharjah Biennial Prize (2013) and the prestigious Yanghyun Art Prize (2014) in South Korea. Lyrical and often fascinatingly mysterious, his film works are non-linear, dealing with memory and in subtle ways invoking personal politics and social issues. Working independently of the Thai commercial film industry, he devotes himself to promoting experimental and independent filmmaking through his company Kick the Machine Films, founded in 1999, which also produces all his films. His installations have included the multi-screen project Primitive (2009), acquired for major museum collections (including Tate Modern and Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris), a major installation for the 2012 Kassel Documenta and most recently the film installations Dilbar (2013) and Fireworks (Archive) (2014).
Cemetery of Splendour is his new film, presented at the Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard) in 2015.
Apichatpong lives and works in Chiangmai, Thailand.
Selected Filmography
2015 CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR (RAK TI KHON KAEN)
2012 MEKONG HOTEL (MEDIUM LENGTH)
2010 UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES
2006 SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY
2004 TROPICAL MALADY
2003 THE ADVENTURE OF IRON PUSSY
2002 BLISSFULLY YOURS
2000 MYSTERIOUS OBJECT AT NOON
CAST |
|
Jen |
Jenjira Pongpas Widner |
Itt |
Banlop Lomnoi |
Keng |
Jarinpattra Rueangram |
Nurse Tet |
Petcharat Chaiburi |
Meditation Instructor |
Tawatchai Buawat |
Goddess # 1 |
Sujittraporn Wongsrikeaw |
Goddess # 2 |
Bhattaratorn Senkraigul |
Tong |
Sakda Kaewbuadee |
Library Director |
Pongsadhorn Lertsukon |
Cream Hostess |
Sasipim Piwansenee |
Singing Woman |
Apinya Unphanlam |
Richard |
Richard Abramson |
Parasite Doctor |
Kammanit Sansuklerd |
Doctor Prasan |
Boonyarak Bodlakorn |
Soldier’s Wife |
Wacharee Nagvichien |
CREW |
|
Written, directed and produced by |
Apichatpong Weerasethakul |
Director of Photography |
Diego Garcia |
Production Designer |
Akekarat Homlaor |
Art Director |
Pichan Muangdoung |
Costume |
Phim U-mari |
Sound Design |
Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr |
Editor |
Lee Chatametikool |
Line Producer |
Suchada Sirithanawuddhi |
1st Assistant Director |
Sompot Chidgasornpongse |
produced by |
Keith Griffiths, Simon Field, |
Charles de Meaux, Michael Weber, |
|
Hans Geißendörfer |
Format: DCP / 1:1.85 / 7.1 and 5.1 surround sound
Length: 122 min.
Original language: Thai
A Kick the Machine Films (Thailand) and |
Illuminations Films (Past Lives) Production (United Kingdom) |
In co-production with Anna Sanders Films (France), Geißendörfer Film- und |
Fernsehproduktion (Germany), Match Factory Productions (Germany), |
ZDF/arte (Germany) |
and |
Astro Shaw (Malaysia), Asia Culture Center-Asian Arts Theatre (South Korea), |
Detalle Films (Mexico), Louverture Films (USA), Tordenfilm (Norway). |
Co-producers: Viola Fügen, Najwa Abu Bakar, Moisés Cosio Espinosa, |
Eric Vogel, Ingunn Sundelin, Joslyn Barnes, Caroleen Feeney, Danny Glover. |
Associate Producers: Georges Schoucair, Susan Rockefeller, Holger Stern (ZDF/arte). |
With the participation of |
L‘Aide aux Cinéma du Monde |
Centre national du cinéma et de l‘image animée – Ministère des Affaires |
étrangères et du Developpement international – Institute Français |
With the support of |
Sørfond |
World Cinema Fund |
Hubert Bals Fund |
Hong Kong – Asia Film Financing Forum |
FILM OF THE WEEK
‘Things to do in Thailand when you’re in purgatory: Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s latest takes the pulse of a sleep-sick nation.’
Tony Rayns, Sight & Sound
★★★★
'It is another example of this director’s insistence on a spiritual realm which overlaps with our own: a realm from which ghosts and spirits will appear, and be just as ordinary as anyone else. And in this context, Jen’s own loneliness and gentle spirituality are deeply affecting... there is something sublime in it.Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
★★★★
'This is slow cinema wound all the way down to a purr, but it’s transporting, profound and unshakeable. Like those escalator people, you feel yourself sliding inwards and downwards, to a place where the rhythms of everyday life become hallowed and mythic.'
Robbie Collin, The Daily Telegraph
★★★★
'Cemetery of Splendour does, however, really seem to be seeking a connection with the “spiritual” world. It strives for that conduit with subtlety, wit and quiet bloody-mindedness. There’s nobody quite like him.'
Donald Clarke, The Irish Times
★★★★
'Mind-boggling, magically real drama...don't miss the final orgy of leg-licking.'
Charlotte O'Sullivan, Evening Standard
★★★★
'A strange, swooning dream.'
Kate Muir, The Times
★★★★
‘Here’s the latest dreamy wonder from Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul (he shortens his name to Joe). A gentle whisper of a film, this is the work of a master.’
David Erlich, Time Out
★★★★
'Apichatpong Weerasethakul ruminates on Thailand in his most accessible film to date.
‘There is even a quiet sense of hope in what almost amounts to a musical finale…Perhaps the message is that any individual or country can awaken from the darkness of its past.’
Allan Hunter, The List
★★★★
'It’s like visiting a kaleidoscopic Buddhist retreat designed by a hip, self-aware 21st century artist. Like most Weerasethakul films, it’s both deeply rooted, and transcendent.'
Nick Hasted, The ArtsDesk
'Apichatpong’s first feature since Palme d’or-winner Uncle Boonmee... is as imaginative, sensuous and enigmatic as anything the Thai artist has made... Typically witty, lyrical and languorous, not to mention inflected with political undertones (that disease is doubtless metaphorical), Apichatpong’s gentle meditation on memory, myth, magic, history and the mesmerising power of dreams is seductively strange and serene.'
Geoff Andrew, BFI Southbank
★★★★
'Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s films should be available on prescription. The Thai director of the 2004 masterpiece Tropical Malady and 2010’s Palme d’Or-winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives has come to the Un Certain Regard sidebar at Cannes with another hushed fable about the lingering ghosts of his country’s past – and its cooling, elliptical poetry immediately outshone most of the films in this year’s official competition strand.'
Robbie Collin, The Daily Telegraph
Number 5, Best Films of 2015, Sight and Sound
'...remarkable and mysterious film...Like many of 'Apichatpong’s previous films, it conjures a present haunted by the past and did so with some of the festival’s most enchanting imagery; hypnotic, neon-tinged nocturnal landscapes in particular.'
Isabel Stevens, Sight and Sound
'Once again Weerasethakul merges the magical and the mundane beautifully, turning everyday normality into something weird and wonderful.'
Rob Aldam, Backseat Mafia
★★★★★
'If Cemetery of Splendour is to be the last film the director makes in Thailand, he is saying goodbye with a masterpiece.'
Philip Concannon, The Skinny
'A theme central to Apichatpong’s work is that of the secret world hidden behind the visible one, whether historical, political, or metaphysical. What Apichatpong gives us in Cemetery is the sense of an immediate magic that dispenses with special effects (as used in 2004’s Tropical Malady and 2010’s Uncle Boonmee…) to more directly address the imagination—to make us re-imagine what’s in front of our eyes.'
Jonathan Romney, Film Comment
'Its final scene, in which the director moves his heretofore respectfully distant camera in for a couple of devastating medium close-ups, also features the most galvanic melding of pop music and cinematic imagery since the finale of Lynne Ramsay’s 2002 “Morvern Callar.” The mysterious universality that Mr. Weerasethakul achieves in this sequence, and in other moments throughout “Cemetery of Splendour,” is among the greatest of cinema’s many glories.'
Glenn Kenny, The New York Times
'He makes 3D movies which don’t require glasses, as they elegantly shift on three axis, up, down, left, right, forwards, backwards, untroubled about his mischievous desire to take the audience on a trans-dimensional road-trip at a moment’s notice.'
David Jenkins, Little White Lies
★★★★
'Visionary Thai director returns with a haunted, lovely drama about connecting souls.'
David Erlich, Time Out New York
'A haunting reverie on time and history in the shape of a sci-fi fantasy — defiantly non-linear — from Thailand’s ever innovative Apichatpong Weerasethakul.'
Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times
'But if you are susceptible and trusting enough to let the film gently occupy you, you will have something glorious and quiet to keep for yourself. Just please, for the love of all things holy, of which this film may very well be one, see it in a cinema.'
Jessica Kiang, The Playlist
'Cemetery of Splendor is a lovely, beguiling picture.'
Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice
'Yes, Apichatpong made “another” Apichatpong film—which is probably, alongside the Hou, the most beautiful film of the year—but never before has his vision with regards to Thai politics been so unblinkingly clear.'
Mark Peranson, Cinema Scope
Reviews round-up from Fandor/Keyframe Daily
Download Press Book
Download quad poster hi-res jpeg
Trailer on Vimeo (can be downloaded)
Read interview with Apichatpong Weersathakul in Dazed
Interview in Reverse Shot
Read an interview with the director in Film Comment
Read an interview in Hollywood Reporter
New interview in Indiewire
Interview in Little White Lies
Clip - In the Temple
Clip - Hospital
Cannes Pressbook
Short interview from Cannes
Article from Nigel Andrews in The Financial Times