Cemetery Of Splendour
In the gorgeous, mysterious, and gently humorous new film by Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the filmmaker returns to his home in Thailand’s troubled northeast region of Isan to search for the spirits of the past and explore the world of his personal memories…
Cemetery of Splendour is set in an improvised hospital where a group of soldiers, seized by an unknown illness during an excavation project nearby, have fallen into a blissful yet seemingly perpetual slumber. The good-hearted local Jen volunteers to help care for the sleeping soldiers, and becomes particularly attached to one of them, the handsome young Itt. Also working at the hospital is Keng, a young medium who helps family members make psychic contact with the comatose men. As Keng continues to probe their minds, Itt’s notebook is found to be dense with strange writing and sketches, and it begins to seem that the soldiers’ enigmatic affliction might be related to the ancient archeological site that lies beneath the clinic.
A sublime fusion of history, memory, socio-political allegory, and mysticism, Cemetery of Splendour creates an enchanted world where the present coexists with the past, dreams are real, and magic emerges from the mundane. Seen in the sanctity of a darkened theatre, this is a truly awesome experience that is never to be forgotten.
-Giovanna Fulvi
122'
2015
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Diego Garcia
Lee Chatametikool
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Banlop Lomnoi
Jarinpattra Rueangram
Jenjira Pongpas Widner
Petcharat Chaiburi
Tawatchai Buawat
1. World Cinema
21st Festival on Wheels