Editor’s Notes: Cemetery of Splendour is currently playing in Toronto at TIFF Bell Lightbox.
For a humble critic like myself, there are few tasks as daunting than describing, let alone critiquing, an Apichatpong Weerasethakul film. His incredible body of work represents a deceptively simple bounty of riches, situated on an indistinct divide between woozy dreamscape and unfettered, at times brutal reality. Cemetery of Splendour is Weerasethakul’s latest exercise in cinematic perfection, whose wealth of pleasures come so naturally that its gentle ebbs and flows sometimes fail to register. It’s a stunningly beautiful and wholly compelling collection of minor triumphs building towards a more overtly brilliant whole. You’ll certainly be hard-pressed to find a more sumptuous masterstroke this year.
It’s a stunningly beautiful and wholly compelling collection of minor triumphs building towards a more overtly brilliant whole.
Cemetery of Splendour is set in a makeshift hospital in rural Thailand, where a group of soldiers rest undisturbed in a collective coma, tended to by volunteer nurses. Among them is Jen (Jenjira Pongpas, a frequent Weerasethakul collaborator and quietly empathetic presence) is one such volunteer. One of her legs is shorter than the other, inhibiting physical activity and providing foil for an unforgettable sequence late in proceedings. The hospital is built over a cemetery for ancient kings, who continue to rage war in another realm, supposedly sourcing the life-force of our modern-day warriors. One day, this understated ecosystem is disrupted when one of the soldiers (Itt, the faintly melancholic Banlop Lomnoi) awakens from his slumber. Under Jen’s charge, he abruptly drifts in and out of consciousness, seemingly tearing down the barrier between spiritual and earthly realities in the process.
Debate over any one specific meaning could last a lifetime, such is the gentle grace with which Weerasethakul presents his work that a concrete explanation would only come to dilute the piece’s undeniable staying power.
Little time passes until Jen experiences visitations of an otherworldly resemblance, in the form of two mystical goddesses, among others. This sets the general tone for this fascinating picture, either waking dream or wistful actuality, or perhaps both. Weerasethakul delivers on his gorgeous sumptuous style; long takes and unobtrusive editing create an unmistakeable, lucid hypnosis. Scenes often consist of a single, static shot as the director allows each image to slowly sink its rapturous beauty in. This allows room for moments of heart-breaking human interaction, from a semi-erotic bath allowing Jen a rare chance for collective emotional clarity to the aforementioned leg therapy.
Debate over any one specific meaning could last a lifetime, such is the gentle grace with which Weerasethakul presents his work that a concrete explanation would only come to dilute the piece’s undeniable staying power. One interpretation could be a portrait of mankind’s cyclical bastardisation of its natural surroundings. The kings of yore, soldiers of the present and construction crew working on nearby turf all represent a nexus of human fallibility: their exploitation and tarnishing of the world around them. As children observe the builders dig a gaping hole in the locals’ luscious fields, Weerasethakul seems to lament our shared environmental neglect. The gorgeous cinematography, courtesy of Diego García, only accentuates the rich beauty at risk of devastation.
Cemetery of Splendour may not be a heart-stopping thriller, but it retains a vice-like grip throughout, as if the director has burrowed himself into our own subconscious, captured the mind’s impenetrable logic and harnessed it into an expertly crafted masterwork. Even in the year’s early stages, this is a clear contender for the best film of 2016.
Cemetery of Splendour may not be a heart-stopping thriller, but it retains a vice-like grip throughout, as if the director has burrowed himself into our own subconscious, captured the mind’s impenetrable logic and harnessed it into an expertly crafted masterwork.
