A still from Cemetery of Splendour.
PICTURE / SUPPLIED
A still from Cemetery of Splendour.
PICTURE / SUPPLIED
An enigmatic offering from the SE Asian line-up is featured on Monday at Whanganui Film Society's latest screening. From Palme d'Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul comes 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 andentrancingly beautiful enigma from Thailand.
CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR (Rak ti Khon Kaen) Monday, September 18, 7pm Davis Theatre, Whanganui Regional Museum Apichatpong Weerasethakul • Thailand • 2015 • 122 mins • M adult themes • In Thai with English subtitles. Memberships available at the venue or online at www.whanganuifilmsociety.org.nz
Review "No one weaves past and present, the spiritual and the animal, the mundane and the divine, with the serene dream logic of Thai film-maker and artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul. 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. Her 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." - Bill Gosden, NZIFF
