Cinema and Media Studies Apichatpong Weerasethakul
by
Chairat Polmuk
  • LAST REVIEWED: 15 August 2022
  • LAST MODIFIED: 11 January 2018
  • DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0281

Introduction

Apichatpong Weerasethakul (b. 1970) is an independent Thai filmmaker whose Palme d’Or winning film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Loong Boonmee Raluek Chat), at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival affirmed his status as an emergent Asian auteur in contemporary global art cinema. Prior to Uncle Boonmee, his feature films, Blissfully Yours (Sud Saneha) and Tropical Malady (Sat Pralat), won the Un Certain Regard award and the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2002 and 2004 respectively, denoting the filmmaker’s transnational trajectory in the processes of film production and reception. Indeed, cultural exchange and geopolitical dialectic between the local and the global are notable characteristics of Weerasethakul’s cinematic practices and aesthetics. Born in Bangkok and raised in the city of Khon Khaen in northeast Thailand, Weerasethakul often weaves his personal memories of this rural area with the country’s political histories in his film and video art. Drawing heavily from local supernatural beliefs, folk performances, and vernacular Buddhism, Weerasethakul’s films offer poetic and radically defamiliarized accounts of Thailand’s historical trauma, ethnic minoritization, and queer sexual desire. After his graduation from Khon Kaen University’s architecture school, Weerasethakul studied filmmaking at the Art Institute of Chicago, during which he encountered European and postwar American avant-garde cinema and began making experimental short films in 1994. His first feature film, Mysterious Object at Noon (Dokfar Nai Mue Man, 2000), uses a surrealist technique of exquisite corpse, the shifting of narrative voice from one narrator to another, to document fragmented experiences of narrators from different parts of Thailand. Celebrated for his talent at blending diverse aesthetic sensibilities and styles, Weerasethakul’s films challenge cinematic generic convention, blurring a boundary between documentary and fiction, realism and fantasy, high art and low art. Weerasethakul’s preoccupation with slow-paced, non-linear narrative, visual stasis, and sonic ambience has also been praised by critics for its potential to create a sensorial experience for viewers. Working alternatively for the Thai commercial film industry, Weerasethakul founded his own company, Kick the Machine, in 1999 and has been actively involved in promoting independent filmmaking. Weerasethakul is also acclaimed as a video artist. His solo exhibitions have been shown at Haus der Kunst in Munich, New Museum in New York, Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Musée d’Art Modern de la Ville de Paris, Stenersen Museum in Oslo, Kurimanzutto Gallery in Mexico City, Kyoto City University of Arts Art Gallery, Maiiam Contemporary Art Museum in Chiangmai, Tate Modern in London, and Para Site in Hong Kong.

Writings By Weerasethakul and Exhibition Catalogues

Most of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s writings appear in anthologies and exhibitions catalogues, offering us glimpses into artistic aspirations and political contexts of his works. Bjerkem 2013 and Butler and O’Raw 2011 are collections of excerpts from Weerasethakul’s diaries and film scripts, paired with photographs, drawings, and video stills from his exhibitions. Weerasethakul 2009a, Weerasethakul 2009b, and Weerasethakul 2009c appear in Quandt 2009a (cited under Overviews and Historical Background) and center on recurring topics of memory, cinema, and censorship. Weerasethakul 2016 is an epistolary exchange between the director and the late historian Benedict Anderson, whom Weerasethakul regards as a mentor.

  • Bjerkem, Brynjar, ed. Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Photophobia. Oslo, Norway: Transnational Arts Production, 2013.

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    This book includes excerpts from Weerasethakul’s diary and film scripts for his solo exhibition, Photophobia, a meditation on light, memory, and political violence. Texts and photographs are mostly taken from his 2015 film, Cemetery of Splendour, which shares similar themes and was then under development.

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  • Butler, Maeve, and Eimear O’ Raw, eds. Apichatpong Weerasethakul: For Tomorrow For Tonight. Dublin: Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2011.

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    This collection contains excerpts from Weerasethakul’s diary for his solo exhibition, For Tomorrow For Tonight. The dated diary which spans from 2005 to 2011 focuses on Weerasethakul’s relationship with his long-time actor and collaborator, Jenjira Pongpas, whose photographs are the main features of the exhibition.

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  • Weerasethakul, Apichatpong. “Jogging Around the Swamp.” Gagarin: The Artists in Their Own Words 9.1 (2008): 54–67.

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    A meditative reflection on the director’s keen sense of place and his fascination with light. The prose is referred to as a tribute to Weerasethakul’s hometown in Khon Kaen.

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  • Weerasethakul, Apichatpong. “Ghosts in the Darkness.” In Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Edited by James Quandt, 104–117. Vienna: Synema, 2009a.

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    A cinephile’s autobiographical account, this essay recounts Weerasethakul’s lasting impressions of Thai cinema in the 1970s and 1980s, during which he spent his childhood in the rural town of Khon Kaen. In this nostalgic reflection, Weerasethakul’s personal memories are interwoven with a history of the Thai film industry during the Cold War, which revealed both American filmic influences and Thai nationalist and traditionalist sentiments.

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  • Weerasethakul, Apichatpong. “The Folly and Future of Thai Cinema Under Military Dictatorship.” In Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Edited by James Quandt, 178–181. Vienna: Synema, 2009b.

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    Following a controversy regarding a partial censorship of his 2006 film Syndromes and a Century (Saeng Satawat) by Thailand’s Film Censorship Board, Weerasethakul wrote this critical commentary to reflect on film censorship and cultural surveillance after the 2006 coup d’état in Thailand.

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  • Weerasethakul, Apichatpong. “The Memory of Nabua: A Note on the Primitive Project.” In Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Edited by James Quandt, 192–205. Vienna: Synema, 2009c.

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    This expository writing delineates Weerasethakul’s encounter with a history of anti-communist suppression in northeast Thailand during the Cold War and his artistic mediation of this traumatic event. His collaboration with teenagers in the village called Nabua to revisit this marginalized history culminated in a multimedia exhibition, Primitive, and a feature film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

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  • Weerasethakul, Apichatpong. “Anomalies and Curiosities.” In Dreamworld. Edited by Leo Fabrizio. Zurich: JRP/Ringier, 2010.

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    Written in a satirical tone, this essay expresses Weerasethakul’s critical view on military culture, media censorship, nationalism, and religious commercialism in Thailand, especially in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian economic crisis. The writing serves as a preface to a photography book by Swiss photographer Leo Fabrizio, which explores the landscape and architecture in suburban Bangkok.

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  • Weerasethakul, Apichatpong. “Dear Khroo.” In Apichatpong Weerasethakul Sourcebook: The Serenity of Madness. 27–42 and 249–260. New York and Chiang Mai: Independent Curators International and MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, 2016.

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    An intimate epistolary exchange between Weerasethakul and the renowned historian Benedict Anderson from 2008 to 2015. Topics of discussion include the making of the Primitive project, Thai politics, and contemporary cinema. The publication is a tribute to Anderson following his death in December 2015.

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Interviews

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s phenomenal entrance into the global art scene sparked curiosity and excitement for critics and cinephiles. The term “mysterious,” a reference to Weerasethakul’s first feature film, Mysterious Object at Noon, has been often used to describe his unanticipated emergence in contemporary art cinema and his enigmatic cinematic styles. Interviews with the director provide insights into his personal life and cinematic practices. Weerasethakul is articulate, outspoken, and self-reflexive in his discussions on personal memories, filmmaking career, and politics. In the wake of Weerasethakul’s winning of the Cannes Palme d’Or in 2010, there have been an increasing number of in-depth interviews on his films as the director’s works have become more internationally recognized and accessible.

Early Years

In Curtin 2006, Weerasethakul discusses an influence of American experimental cinema on his early work. Pansittivorakul 2006 and Quandt 2005 delve into the director’s biographical background and social context of his filmmaking career.

  • Curtin, Brian. “Master Poet: An Interview with Apichatpong Weerasethakul.” Contemporary (2006): 40–41.

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    Weerasethakul gives a brief reflection on his early films such as Mysterious Object at Noon and Tropical Malady. He cites the American experimental filmmakers Bruce Baillie and Andy Warhol as a source of his inspiration. The interview also includes Weerasethakul’s comments on his position as both the “local” and “international” figure in a contemporary art scene and his role as a promoter of Thai independent film and video art.

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  • Pansittivorakul, Thunska. “A Conversation with Apichatpong Weerasethakul.” Criticine (April 2006).

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    A discussion on Weerasethakul’s careers that includes his reflections on a shift from his formal training in architecture to filmmaking, the Thai film industry, and his role as a film producer.

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  • Quandt, James. “Exquisite Corpus: The Films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul.” Artforum 43.9 (May 2005): 226–232.

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    One of the earliest interviews with the director, this conversation offers a glimpse into Weerasethakul’s aspirations and influences: his childhood memories about his parents’ career as doctors, which partly explain his preoccupation with illness; his admiration for Taiwanese new-wave filmmakers Tsai Ming-liang and Hou Hsaio-hsien; his reference to Alfred Hitchcock; and his keen interest in Buddhism after his father’s death.

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After the Palme d’Or

In Carrion-Murayari 2011, Weerasethakul discusses his keen interest in a marginal history of northeast Thailand that culminates in the Primitive project. Gaweewong 2010 offers a broad overview of Weerasethakul’s political approach to art and cinema while Kim 2011, Chua 2011, and Ingawanij, et al 2012 provide more thematically focused accounts of recurring elements in Weerasethakul’s films such as Buddhism, haunting, forest landscape, and human-animal relations. Kasman 2012 and Dallas 2015 contain Weerasethakul’s reflections on his short films and video art such as Mekong Hotel, Ashes, and Fireworks (Archive). “Cemetery of Silence” is an in-depth look at the director’s 2015 feature titled, Cemetery of Splendour.

  • Carrion-Murayari, Gary. “Interview with Apichatpong Weerasethakul.” In Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Primitive. Edited by Gary Carrion-Murayari and Massimiliano Gioni, 10–14. New York: New Museum, 2011.

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    The interview focuses on the making of a video installation, Primitive, which was first shown at the New Museum in New York in 2011. Weerasethakul explains his method of improvisation in filming rural landscapes and recording oral histories of Nabua, a village where the first armed confrontation between the royal Thai army and farmer communists transpired in the 1960s.

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  • “Cemetery of Silence–In Conversation with Apichatpong Weerasethakul.” Four By Three Magazine 6 (2016).

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    Weerasethakul discusses an intricate relationship between Buddhism, the filmic medium, and a conception of time. His reflection on an increasing practice of self-censorship in the contemporary Thai art scene is included with reference to his 2015 feature film, Cemetery of Splendour.

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  • Chua, Lawrence. “Apichatpong Weerasethakul–Interview.” Bomb 114 (Winter 2011).

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    With an excellent introduction by Lawrence Chua, this interview centers on Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Weerasethakul discusses how old Thai television dramas and folktales inspire his magical and allegorical configurations of the violent past. He also comments, with a dark humor, on his role as a “symbol of national reconciliation and hope” and a “representative of Thai national cinema.”

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  • Dallas, Paul. “Apichatpong Weerasethakul–Interview.” Bomb (October 2015).

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    The interview focuses on Weerasethakul’s video installation, Fireworks (Archives), following its screening at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2015. Weerasethakul reflects on the interplay between light and darkness and between commemoration and destruction in the video. His explanation about archival images used in the video and a historical significance of a shooting location offers an insight into the video’s political meanings, especially its evocation of Cold War memories in Thailand.

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  • Gaweewong, Gridthiya. “Apichatpong Weerasethakul: From the Forest to the Bangkok Streets.” ART iT (August 2010).

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    Conducted by Weerasethakul’s classmate at the Art Institute of Chicago and a Bangkok-based curator, the interview covers many recurrent themes in the director’s works. This includes the boundary-crossing between the gallery space and the cinema, a preference of nonprofessional actors, an advocacy of marginalized communities, the relationship between art and politics, and an equivocal reception of his works in his home country.

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  • Ingawanij, May Adadol, Ben Slater, and David Teh. “Only Light and Memory.” Criticine (May 2012).

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    Focusing on Primitive and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, the interview includes Weerasethakul’s discussion on haunting, marginality, and Thailand’s political history. His notes on a concept of “play” in Thai culture in relation to an improvisatory and performative nature of his cinematic practice are illuminating in grasping ethical implications of both works.

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  • Kasman, Daniel. “Keep It Mysterious: A Conversation with Apichatpong Weerasethakul.” Notebook (June 2012).

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    Weerasethakul’s semi-feature film, Mekong Hotel, and short film, Ashes, which premiered at Cannes in 2012, are focuses of the interview. Weerasethakul describes the processes of directing and sound designing for both films. Notably, Ashes was shot with the LomoKino camera with a digitally shot finale, and thus a combination of the analog and the digital.

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  • Kim, Ji-Hoon. “Learning about Time: An Interview with Apichatpong Weerasethakul.” Film Quarterly 64.4 (Summer 2011): 48–52.

    DOI: 10.1525/FQ.2011.64.4.48Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The interview centers on the links between an installation, Primitive, and a feature film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Weerasethakul discusses the relationship between video art and feature film, his fascination with a jungle landscape, a blurry distinction between humans and animals, and a Buddhist-informed trope of reincarnation in his works.

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Overviews and Historical Background

Quandt 2009a is the first and foremost edited volume dedicated to the director. In the volume’s introduction, Quandt 2009b offers an analytical account of Weerasethakul’s personal life and professional careers.

  • Quandt, James, ed. Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Vienna: Synema, 2009a.

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    Brings together scholarly essays, interviews, and biographical accounts that offer insights into Weerasethakul’s life and earlier works. It also includes a comprehensive annotated filmography that provides information about the director’s short films, feature-length films, installations, and video art from 1994 to 2009.

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  • Quandt, James. “Resistance to Bliss: Describing Apichatpong.” In Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Edited by James Quandt, 13–100. Vienna: Synema, 2009b.

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    The most comprehensive introduction to Weerasethakul’s life and works to date. An overview of predominant thematic and aesthetic features of Weerasethakul’s films up to 2006 is followed by an analysis of each film.

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Contemporary Thai Cinema

Chaiworaporn and Knee 2006 provides a cultural background of Weerasethakul’s films by situating his cinematic oeuvre alongside a cultural revival movement in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian economic crisis. Similarly, Rithdee 2011 discusses this phenomenon in terms of the political economy of nostalgia and its appeal to international audiences. Ingawanij 2012 and Uabumrungjit 2012 link Weerasethakul’s filmic practices to the rise of independent cinema in Southeast Asia. In all of these essays, Weerasethakul is generally recognized as a leading figure in the domain of cultural activism whose films are not only alternative to mainstream cinema but also critical of nationalist and regressive politics.

  • Chaiworaporn, Anchalee, and Adam Knee. “Thailand: Revival in an Age of Globalization.” In Contemporary Asian Cinema: Popular Culture in a Global Frame. Edited by Anne Tereska Ciecko, 58–70. Oxford: Berg, 2006.

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    A study of the Thai film industry after the 1997 economic crisis in Asia with a focus on an emergence of a “new Thai cinema.” Weerasethakul’s films are briefly discussed as examples of emerging experimental cinema alongside works by another prominent filmmaker, Pimpaka Towira.

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  • Ingawanij, May Adadol. “Dialectics of Independence.” In Glimpses of Freedom: Independent Cinema in Southeast Asia. Edited by May Adadol Ingawanij and Benjamin McKay, 1–14. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 2012.

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    A concise introduction to Southeast Asian independent cinema that includes a discussion on transitional networks and digital culture in the proliferation of an amateur and artisanal mode of filmmaking in the region. The author cites Weerasethakul to demonstrate how transnational funding allows the director to gain freedom from restrictive and repressive rules in his home country.

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  • Rithdee, Kong. “Filming Locally, Thinking Globally: The Search for Roots in Contemporary Thai Cinema.” Cineaste 36.4 (Fall 2011): 16–19.

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    A compelling observation of a “cultural identity crisis” in Thailand in the late 1990s as seen through contemporary films. Rithdee keenly points out a shared sense of nostalgia among Thai filmmakers including Weerasethakul in their incorporation of rural and traditional elements into their films while targeting international film markets.

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  • Uabumrungjit, Chalida. “The Age of Thai Independence: Looking Back on the First Decade of the Short Film.” In Glimpses of Freedom: Independent Cinema in Southeast Asia. Edited by May Adadol Ingawanij and Benjamin McKay, 47–61. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 2012.

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    Tracing a history of Thai independent cinema from the late 1940s, this essay offers an outline of important shifts in technology and politics in shaping independent film production and distribution. Weerasethakul’s films are discussed in a section on censorship and related issues of sexuality, public morality, and monarchy.

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Thailand’s Political History and Sexual Politics

Chanrochanakit 2011 and Khumsupa and Musikawong 2016 give a brief contour of Thailand’s political history with reference to Weerasethakul’s films. Ünaldi 2011 provides a background for queer sexual politics in Thailand in which Weerasethakul’s films are often regarded as alternative to mainstream representations of homosexual desire.

  • Chanrochanakit, Pandit. “Deforming Thai Politics as Read through Thai Contemporary Art.” Third Text 25.4 (July 2011): 419–429.

    DOI: 10.1080/09528822.2011.587687Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    An analysis of Thai contemporary art and cinema in the context of domestic political conflicts since 2006 which were followed by the military crackdown in May 2010. The author links Weerasethakul’s keen interest in primitivism and ghosts in the Primitive installation with the “deformation of democracy” in Thailand, arguing that ghosts represent the victims of military dictatorship insofar as they have been rendered unknown and invisible in state-sanctioned narratives.

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  • Khumsupa, Malinee, and Sudarat Musikawong. “Counter-memory: Replaying Political Violence in Thai Digital Cinema.” Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia 20 (September 2016).

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    An overview of the “culture of counter-publics” in Thai experimental films in the context of military authoritarianism. Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is briefly discussed in terms of its intertextual references that link the military suppression of communism in the 1960s with political violence in the present.

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  • Ünaldi, Serhat. “Back in the Spotlight: The Cinematic Regime of Representation of Kathoeys and Gay Men in Thailand.” In Queer Bangkok: Twenty-First-Century Markets, Media, and Rights. Edited by Peter A. Jackson, 59–80. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011.

    DOI: 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083046.003.0004Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A study of queer sexual politics in contemporary Thailand through filmic representations of gay men and transgender characters. The author cites Weerasethakul’s Tropical Malady and his co-directed film, The Adventure of Iron Pussy (Hua Chai Tor Ra Nong, 2003) as instances of independent and art-house gay movies.

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Film Production and Reception

Ingawanij and MacDonald 2010 and Promkhuntong 2016 offer excellent analyses of ways in which Weerasethakul negotiates his position and agency within the Eurocentric notion of auteur cinema, as the director has relied heavily on transnational financial supports, especially from European organizations and film festivals. Anderson 2012, Boehler 2016, and Ingawanij 2006 shed light on a stark contrast between Weerasethakul’s international reputation and his equivocal reception in his home country through their investigations of class, colonialism, and cultural identity. Musikawong 2007 focuses on a role of digital technology in the circulation of Weerasethakul’s early work. O’Hara 2012 and Owen and Dissanayake 2011 provide broad overviews of Weerashethakul’s film reception in relation to notions of transnational cinema and the public sphere.

  • Anderson, Benedict. “The Strange Story of a Strange Beast: Receptions in Thailand of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Sat Pralaat.” In Glimpses of Freedom: Independent Cinema in Southeast Asia. Edited by May Adadol Ingawanij and Benjamin McKay, 149–163. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 2012.

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    A compelling account of receptions of Weerasethakul’s Tropical Malady in Thailand with special attention to ambiguous attitudes toward the film among urban elites. The author perceptively notes the anxiety among middle-class moviegoers who claim to admire Weerasethakul’s film but openly admit to be confounded by his “enigmatic” aesthetics. Anderson argues that this anxiety reveals bourgeois spectators’ desire to be part of the global art world by describing Weerasethakul’s film aesthetics, however locally grounded, in an abstract manner.

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  • Boehler, Natalie. “Globalized Haunting: The Transnational Spectral in Apichatpong’s Syndromes and a Century and its Reception.” In Ghost Movies in Southeast Asia and Beyond: Narratives, Cultural Contexts, Audiences. Edited by Peter J. Bräunlein and Andrea Lauser, 221–236. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2016.

    DOI: 10.1163/9789004323643_011Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Focusing on the trope of haunting in Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century, the author argues that the film attracts transnational audiences not simply because of its seemingly orientalist spiritualism but its potentials to transcend national boundaries. In line with his transnational filmmaking, Weerasethakul uses haunting to unsettle the coherence of time and space as well as a strict notion of national belonging.

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  • Ingawanij, May Adadol. “Hyperbolic Heritage: Bourgeois Spectatorship and Contemporary Thai Cinema.” PhD diss., University of London, 2006.

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    A thorough study of emergent Thai heritage films in the late 1990s which is marked by a nostalgic longing for cultural traditions on the one hand and a desire for global ascendancy on the other hand. With particular attention to the way in which heritage films shape the Thai bourgeois public sphere, the author uses Weerasethakul’s films as instances of counter-hegemonic forces that destabilize the bourgeois strict notions of national cinema and cultural heritage.

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  • Ingawanij, May Adadol, and Richard MacDonald. “Blissfully Whose? Jungle Pleasure, Ultra-modernist Cinema and the Cosmopolitan Thai Auteur.” In The Ambiguous Allure of the West: Traces of the Colonial in Thailand. Edited by Rachel Harrison and Peter A. Jackson, 119–134. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010.

    DOI: 10.5790/hongkong/9789622091214.003.0006Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A brilliant analysis of Weerasethakul’s trajectory and status as a “cosmopolitan auteur.” Through a careful investigation of Weerasethakul’s cinematic practices and aesthetics, the authors identify a strong sense of self-reflexivity and performativity as the director’s strategy to negotiate both the pressures of the globalized mass market and the domestic culture industry.

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  • Musikawong, Sudarat. “Working Practices in Thai Independent Film Production and Distribution.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 8.2 (June 2007): 248–261.

    DOI: 10.1080/14649370701238722Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A discussion of independent filmmaking that offers a detailed account of the production and distribution of Weerasethakul’s Mysterious Object at Noon with a focus on the help of digital format in the process of film distribution.

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  • O’Hara, Angela. “Mysterious Object of Desire: The Haunted Cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul.” In Transnational Asian Identities in Pan-Pacific Cinemas: The Reel Asian Exchange. Edited by Philippa Gates and Lisa Funnell, 177–190. New York: Routledge, 2012.

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    An overview of Weerasethakul’s mode of filmmaking through the concepts of “transnational” and “hybrid” cinema.

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  • Owen, Williams, and Wimal Dissanayake. “Projecting Thailand: Thai Cinema and the Public Sphere.” Asian Cinema 22.2 (2011): 139–159.

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    An overview of contemporary Thai cinema and the public sphere which includes a brief discussion of Weerasethakul’s film in terms of its reception.

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  • Promkhuntong, Wikanda. “The East Asian Auteur Phenomenon: Context, Discourse and Agency Surrounding the Transnational Reputations of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Kim Ki-duk and Wong Kar-wai.” PhD diss., Aberystwyth University, 2016.

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    To date, the most comprehensive study of European film festival funding of Weerasethakul’s works and its impact on the director’s reputation as an Asian auteur. Through archival research at the International Film Festival (IFFR) and the Herbert Bals Fund (HBF), two main sources for financial support of Weerasethakul’s works, the author offers a compelling analysis of geopolitics and cultural politics in his cinematic practices.

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Film Analyses

Scholarly writings on Apichatpong Weerasethakul highlight important thematic focuses in his films: memory, political violence, ethnic minoritization, and homosexual desire. His distinctive film aesthetic also receives critical attention from critics and scholars.

History, Memory, and the Supernatural

Chung 2012 and Ingawanij 2013 are reflections on the centrality of supernatural elements in Weerasethakul’s films and its defamiliarizing effects on cinematic configurations of historical memory. Bergstrom 2015 directs a notion of spirituality in Weerasethakul’s cinema to critique a Western idea of modernity. Szczepaniak-Gillece 2013 and Lovatt 2013 explore the topic of memory in Weerasethakul’s films by offering phenomenological analyses of the director’s uses of sound and color to create temporal and material layers of memory.

  • Bergstrom, Anders. “Cinematic Past Lives: Memory, Modernity, and Cinematic Reincarnation in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 48.4 (December 2015): 1–16.

    DOI: 10.1353/mos.2015.0046Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Discusses the relationship between modernity and spirituality in Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives with special attention to its representation of “human subjectivity beyond death.”

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  • Chung, Una. “Crossing over Horror: Reincarnation and Transformation in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Primitive.” WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly 40.1 (Spring/Summer 2012): 211–222.

    DOI: 10.1353/wsq.2012.0009Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A thought-provoking essay on Weerasethakul’s multimedia installation, Primitive, and its mediations of political history and collective trauma. The author pays close attention to the way in which casual and playful reenactments of historical memory in Weerasethakul’s works open up the possibility to experience the past in the present.

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  • Ingawanij, May Adadol. “Animism and the Performative Realist Cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul.” In Screening Nature: Cinema Beyond the Human. Edited by Anat Pick and Guinevere Narraway, 91–109. New York: Berghahn, 2013.

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    An in-depth analysis of animist elements in Weerasethakul’s films in relation to the questions of cinematic realism, human-nonhuman relations, and the allegorical configurations of political violence.

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  • Lovatt, Philippa. “‘Every Drop of My Blood Sings Our Song. There, Can You Hear It?’: Haptic Sound and Embodied Memory in the Films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul.” The New Soundtrack 3.1 (2013): 61–79.

    DOI: 10.3366/sound.2013.0036Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A compelling analysis of Weerasethakul’s use of ambient and environmental sounds to create a “feeling of sensory immersion” for film viewers. The author highlights the way that the haptic soundscapes in Weerasethakul’s films allow for the intersubjective experience in the act of remembering.

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  • Szczepaniak-Gillece, Jocelyn. “The Hues of Memory, the Shades of Experience: Color and Time in Syndromes and a Century.” In Color and the Moving Image: History, Theory, Aesthetics, Archive. Edited by Simon Brown, Sarah Street, and Liz Watkins, 104–113. New York: Routledge, 2013.

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    Discusses how color is used in Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century to foreground a “sensory understanding of temporal consciousness” in the evocation of personal and collective memories.

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Queer Sexuality

Fuhrmann 2016 is an in-depth study of queer sexuality and aesthetics in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s cinema. Chulphongsathorn 2006 and Rithdee 2005 offer critical as well as impressionistic reviews of the director’s gay-themed film, Tropical Malady. Rich 2013 includes Weerasethakul’s film in her discussion of a “new queer cinema,” and provides a brief biographical background of the director. Bergen-Aurand 2015 extends Weerasethakul’s keen interest in non-normative sexuality and desire to an analysis of disabled bodies.

  • Bergen-Aurand, Brian. “The ‘Strange’ Dis/ability Affects and Sexual Politics of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Transient Bodies.” Cineaction 96 (2015): 26–35.

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    An analysis of filmic representations of disabled bodies in Weerasethakul’s works with particular attention to the relationship between non-normative corporeality and queer desire. The author notes the director’s de-stigmatized depictions of disabled bodies by linking disability with desire instead of disgust.

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  • Chulphongsathorn, Graiwoot. “Monster!: I Survive Through Other People’s Memories.” Criticine (2006).

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    A reflection on Weerasethakul’s Tropical Malady which offers an outline of the film’s narrative structure and its meditation on homosexual desire, suffering, and memory.

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  • Fuhrmann, Arnika. Ghostly Desires: Queer Sexuality and Vernacular Buddhism in Contemporary Thai Cinema. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.

    DOI: 10.1215/9780822374251Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A brilliant and thorough study of queer sexuality in Weerasethakul’s films within a broader context of feminist and queer sexual politics in contemporary Thailand and globally. The author carefully investigates how the director deploys an aesthetics of casualness and the Buddhist doctrine of impermanence to reconfigure the notions of same-sex desire and queer negativity.

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  • Rich, B. Ruby. New Queer Cinema: The Director’s Cut. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013.

    DOI: 10.1215/9780822399698Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Includes a chapter on Weerasethakul’s Tropical Malady in which the author offers an anecdotal account on the director’s life as a gay male filmmaker and a brief discussion about his works.

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  • Rithdee, Kong. “Jungle Fever.” Film Comment 41.3 (May/June 2005): 44–47.

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    With a focus on a dual narrative structure of Tropical Malady, the author points out the interplay between the worldly and the spiritual, the corporeal and the mythological, and death and rebirth in this Buddhist tale of homosexual desire.

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Geopolitics, Ethnicity, Migration

Boehler 2011 and Boehler 2014 focus on representations of a liminal space in Weerasethakul’s films in relation to a history of ethnic minoritization in Thailand. Farmer 2006 outlines a dynamic relationship between the rural and the global in Weerasethakul’s hybrid aesthetics. Ferrari 2012 discusses Weerasethakul’s depiction of rural Thailand in the context of economic inequality and repressive immigration policy. Mercer 2012 tackles an issue of geopolitics in the director’s work at the level of local-global interactions. Owen 2013 offers a comparative perspective on Weerasethakul’s filmic meditation on migration and labor by situating him alongside Andy Warhol and Chantal Akerman. Teh 2011 and Viernes 2013 analyze the use of surrealist aesthetics in Weerasethakul’s film to challenge conventional representations of ethnic culture.

  • Boehler, Natalie. “The Jungle as Border Zone: The Aesthetics of Nature in the Work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul.” Austrian Journal of South - East Asian Studies 4.2 (2011): 290–304.

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    Discusses cinematic representations of the jungle landscape in Weerasethakul’s films in relation to a critique of ethnic minoritization and an urban-rural divide. The author juxtaposes the representations of a liminal, rural space as idealized, domesticated, and exotic in mainstream cinema with Weerasethakul’s depiction of the marginalized space as fluid and transgressive.

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  • Boehler, Natalie. “Staging the Spectral: The Border, Haunting, and Politics in Mekong Hotel.” Horror Studies 5. 2 (2014): 197–210.

    DOI: 10.1386/host.5.2.197_1Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Through a close reading of the setting in Weerasethakul’s Mekong Hotel, that is, a border space between Thailand and Laos, the author highlights the notions of fluidity and transgression in the film’s meditation on a history of ethnic minoritization in the Lao-speaking region of northeast Thailand.

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  • Farmer, Brett. “Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Transnational Poet of the New Thai Cinema: Blissfully Yours/Sud Saneha.” Senses of Cinema (2006).

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    A critical review of Weerasethakul’s Blissfully Yours with a focus on an issue of border crossing and dynamism between localism and transnational cosmopolitanism.

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  • Ferrari, Matthew. “Primitive Gazing: Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Sensational Inaction Cinema.” In Storytelling in World Cinema. Edited by Lina Khatib, 165–176. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.

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    Includes a discussion on Weerasethakul’s portrayal of rural landscape and nature as a space for marginalized people to escape from oppressive forces of economic development and state immigration policies.

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  • Mercer, Nicholas. “Between the Global and the Local: The Cultural Geopolitics of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Film Aesthetics.” In Linguistics, Literature and Culture: Millennium Realities and Innovative Practices in Asia. Edited by Shakila Abdul Manan and Hajar Abdul Rahim, 191–216. New Castle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2012.

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    A study of the dialectic between the global and the local in Weerasethakul’s transnational mode of filmmaking and film aesthetics. The author examines an aesthetic blend of the formal styles of experimental filmmaking with indigenous elements and Buddhist philosophy in three feature films: Blissfully Yours, Tropical Malady, and Syndromes and a Century.

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  • Owen, Jonathan. “The Migration of Factory Style: Work, Play, and Work-as-Play in Andy Warhol, Chantal Akerman, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.” In Work in Cinema: Labor and the Human Condition. Edited by Ewa Mazierska, 227–248. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

    DOI: 10.1057/9781137370860_12Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    An analysis of a Warholian aesthetics of playfulness and camp theatricality in Weerasethakul’s filmic representations of labor, migration, and alienation. The author also briefly discusses how the director resists commodity fetishism in his own methods of film production.

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  • Teh, David. “Itinerant Cinema: The Social Surrealism of Apichatpong Weerasethakul.” Third Text 25.5 (2011): 595–609.

    DOI: 10.1080/09528822.2011.608973Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Includes an analysis of Weerasethakul’s artistic and ethnographic treatments of the peripheral cultural landscapes of Northeast Thailand through a surrealist mode of representation and experimental filmmaking.

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  • Viernes, Noah. “The Geo-Body of Contemporary Thai Film.” South East Asia Research 21.2 (2013): 237–255.

    DOI: 10.5367/sear.2013.0158Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Discusses Weerasethakul’s Mysterious Object at Noon in terms of its reconfiguration of national space through a surrealist technique of storytelling. Through fragmented narratives, the film foregrounds voices of marginalized people from different regions of Thailand who take turns telling their stories.

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Intermediality

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s professional experiences in architecture, film, video art, and photography inform his experiment with mixed media in his films and installations. Kim 2010 offers an analysis of a dynamic exchange between cinema and video art in his works while Suter 2013 discusses the deployment of photography in his films. Utterson 2017 focuses on the intersection between cinema history and political history in Weerasethakul’s use of Super 16 mm film.

  • Kim, Jihoon. “Between Auditorium and Gallery: Perception in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Films and Installations.” In Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories. Edited by Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover, 125–141. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

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    With special attention to time and space, the author analyzes how cinema and video art of Weerasethakul mutually inform each other in terms of temporal duration and spatial arrangement. The author identifies the “elongated duration of shots” and “spatial gap” within the narrative structure as shared formal and technical characteristics of Weerasethakul’s films and video installations.

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  • Suter, Jacquelyn. “Apichatpong: Staging the Photo Session.” Asian Cinema 24.1 (2013): 5–67.

    DOI: 10.1386/ac.24.1.51_1Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Discusses the use of photography and the technique of photomontage in Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives in relation to the filmic rendering of political violence.

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  • Utterson, Andrew. “Water Buffalo, Catfish, and Monkey Ghosts: The Transmigratory Materialities of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.” New Review of Film and Television Studies 15.2 (2017): 231–249.

    DOI: 10.1080/17400309.2017.1311088Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Links the use of Super 16 mm film in Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives to the film’s configurations of historical transformations of cinema and politics.

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Aesthetics of Slowness

Davis 2016 introduces the photographic stillness in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s cinema as an important element of slow cinema. Wada-Marciano 2015 links Weerasethakul’s aesthetics of slowness with Buddhism and ecological criticism.

  • Davis, Glyn. “Stills and Stillness in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cinema.” In Slow Cinema. Edited by Tiago de Luca and Nuno Barradas Jorge, 99–111. Edinburgh: Universiry of Edinburgh Press, 2016.

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    Discusses Weerasethakul’s contribution to theoretical debates on slow cinema. The author focuses on the use of photography to create the dynamics of stillness and movement in Weerasethakul’s films.

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  • Wada-Marciano, Mitsuyo. “Showing the Unknowable: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.” In Cinematic Ghosts: Haunting and Spectrality from Silent Cinema to the Digital Era. Edited by Murray Leeder, 271–289. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.

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    Investigates supernatural elements in Weerasethakul’s film through the lens of slow cinema, deep ecology, and Buddhism.

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