Jenjira Pongpas Widner as volunteer Jen sits with a sleeping soldier in Cemetery of Splendour.
Jenjira Pongpas Widner as volunteer Jen sits with a sleeping soldier in Cemetery of Splendour.
Whanganui Film Society's Monday night screening is 2015 Thai film Cemetery of Splendour (Rak Ti Khon Kaen).
A hospital full of sleeping soldiers is haunted by matters both historical and intensely personal in this gentle and entrancingly beautiful enigma from Palme d'Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
"No one weaves past andpresent, the spiritual and the animal, the mundane and the divine, with the serene dream logic of Thai filmmaker and artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul," wrote New Zealand International Film Festival reviewer Bill Gosden.
"His first feature-length film since Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (which won Cannes in 2010) unfolds its enigmas in a hospital where soldiers succumbing to a sleeping sickness are tended by a benevolent volunteer.
"Volunteer Jen's strong sense of spiritual affinity with one soldier is explored amidst manifestations of the location's past - as a schoolhouse, and a cemetery of kings.
"But in Apichatpong's world no one is surprised by the uncanny: goddesses may desert their shrine to head off for a spot of shopping."
Jen befriends young medium Keng who uses her psychic powers to help loved ones communicate with the comatose men while doctors explore ways, including coloured light therapy, to ease the men's troubled dreams.
Film Society half-year memberships are available to purchase online at whanganuifilmsociety.org.nz at $45 or $40 discounted (for students, GoldCard holders and Community Service Card holders).
