Stringed up several of his films and talked about it. When
Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) left Bangkok, the situation in the city was out of control. Red shirts and government forces began tossing incendiary bombs at each other on the streets, staged scenes like Sodom’s "Flaming Burning City". And in the black smoke, in order to get a visa to Cannes, he tossed between the frightened European embassies with their doors closed, just wanting to get a piece of official paper.
Obstacles came one after another. Finally, on the night before the flight, there was a curfew in the whole city, and he had to stay in the airport hotel and waited for a long and tormenting time. In short, at first, this helplessness" Going to the trip" seemed like an extremely embarrassing "adventure". At that time, no one could foretell that this "running risk" would actually be the starting point for "to the unreachable Palme d'Or".
On May 23 this year, a Thai movie won the championship in Cannes. Once the results were announced, it caused an uproar-Apichatpong Vilashagu, who is it, why did it win the "first name"? On the one hand, this result is an Asian "dark horse" that many people have not anticipated. However, in fact, it was already anticipated by many discerning people.
After all, the creator is really unique and extraordinary, and he became famous very early in the Western world. Every work will inevitably trigger a big storm in the art circle; on the other hand, whether the smoke of gunpowder in Thailand also brings new things Is it possible? For Thai filmmakers who have been silent for a long time, perhaps, along with the artillery fire, there is also a "eternal light" to pilot the "Golden Palm Leaf".
There is no time to talk about it. No one cares whether this statement is fair to a movie itself.
At almost the same time, several major Western media expressed their views that this year's Cannes was-"again, the victory of politics over art" (The Guardian). Whether it’s The New York Times, Variety Show, The Hollywood Reporter, or Oasis, which focuses mainly on Asia, in interviews and questions, they repeatedly mentioned the increasingly fierce atrocities on the land of Thailand, as well as the redwoods. The endless battle between the two factions of the yellow jersey. For a while, it seemed that the talk was not a movie at all, but the "mobs" who lost their lives on the streets of Bangkok.
In any case, in the acknowledgment of "for the motherland in war", after the outspoken "Thailand is a violent country controlled by the Mafia", under "in the name of politics"-Apica Bang Vilashagu, this stubborn Thai name, together with his obscure movies, will be remembered quite deeply by the world cinema from now on.
1. [Going to the Dark Jungle]
Almost all the works of Apichatpong contain a barren to suffocating Southeast Asian jungle, which is extremely vast, humid and dark, and extends infinitely, which can always reach the deepest shore of human nature.
And he once said: "I am not a living creature in the flesh, I am a ghost hidden in the jungle." And, "My love and fear of the dark, vague, mysterious primitive jungle, along with the movie, gradually became Drug addiction.”
Many people have photographed the jungle, and in the deep exploration of the characteristics of the jungle and the gorgeous presentation of the landscape, there are only a handful of really good shots. At first glance, Coppola’s "Apocalypse Now" , François Ozon’s "Criminal Lover" and even Kawase Naomi’s "Funeral Forest" are very impressive "Forest Works".
However, unlike these "outsiders" who accidentally intervened in this new area, for Apichat State, the entire Southeast Asian jungle is a dark green zone stretching across the borders of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. It exudes heat and dampness and dampness all the year round, and everything is magnificent and majestic fertile soil-a place where I grew up, and it is also an indelible memory.
In the middle section of "Your Blessings", the camera follows the hero and the hero in the dangling car, silently sneaking into the deep forest in the afternoon. For a moment, the dazzling sun shines and the background music plays suddenly, until this time, the screen The film titles and the names of the cast and crew on the film only surfaced one by one. At that time, the film had been screened for nearly fifty minutes! It seems to be telling the world-"If I didn't enter the jungle, my movie wouldn't even start at all."
What I have to say is that the film is also translated as "Elysium Forest", which is undoubtedly more appropriate, because in the jungle, the lens is like a "psychic", crossing into an unknown realm, and the one shot in the jungle As soon as the poster appeared, it was a bit "stunned by the four"-the actor was almost naked, covered by a cloth, lying on the dirt in the forest, on the side of a deep green lake, under the full of light and shadow. The flesh is beautiful and beautiful, like an oil painting, showing unforgettable bliss and strange scenes-a combination of desire, fantasy, realism, and taboos. It was even hailed as the "wonderful flower" in the poster.
The most intuitive and most frightening, awe-inspiring and shocking "jungle experience" brought by Apichatpong, undoubtedly took place in the second half of his famous film "Tropical Disease": a border soldier in the deep jungle Hunt down a legendary tiger spirit, and at a moment no one knows, a naked boy with totem tattoos shuttles in the vast jungle panorama (in the first half of the story, the boy is a soldier’s lover, and the boy The image echoes another legend: "A man's soul will become a tiger").
In this passage, the camera followed the soldiers through the ancient jungle, the lengthy and unbearable pursuit process, the repressive, dim original appearance, almost let time stagnate and nerves collapsed. The most amazing thing is that there is no deliberate stylization in the audiovisual. In the final analysis, no means are useful at all, just enter the jungle, and then survive by intuition like a beast.
Sometimes the camera is blatantly "peeping", sometimes wandering aimlessly, sometimes walking slowly with the shoulders of the soldiers, and sometimes patiently standing in front of people waiting... and the real "everything to die for" is all around. ——The intricately rooted old vines and old trees spread to the sky, only to hear the sounds of birds and insects in the deadly silence.
The pictures are extremely realistic, but the content is absurd ancient myths. In the end, the tiger spirit appeared on the tree and uttered in the boundless darkness: "I will give you my spirit, my flesh, and my memory. I miss you very much." The
soldier shed tears-a picture In the mural, one person and one beast completed the soul exchange ceremony-inadvertently, the boundary between the record and the plot was suddenly broken!
Perhaps, for Apichatpong, only the "important and powerful role" of the jungle can trigger this miracle, and the dazzling and constantly emerging spirituality-metaphors, totems, myths and symbols can only escape in Only after the primordial jungle will you be able to do so well.
And this trait also runs through "Can Recall Uncle Bumi from the Past Life"-after stripping away the images of curiousness, the jungle is a dark and desperate place, and it is also the true source of life.
2. [Out of the political realm] It is
undeniable that at first glance, the themes and keywords of all Apichatpong films are extremely "sensitive" and very "political"—for
example, "Your Blessing" involves The most acute "illegal immigration" at the moment is about the "special" experience of a Myanmar youth residing illegally in Thailand.
And in 2003, "The Adventures of the Iron Cat", which was so weird and jaw-dropping, was also a "local interpretation" of "transnational politics"-the transvestite agent "Iron Cat" undercover investigation into an international drug trafficking organization , Finally found a drug raw material processing factory in Thailand-extremely keenly traced the root cause of the problem of globalization.
When it came to "Tropical Diseases", the intention was even more open. What I wanted to challenge was "sexual politics"-the binary division of gay men, their social identities, and natural attributes. Sexuality is pushed into the realm of wild, non-social "beasts".
Then to the next "Syndrome and a Hundred Years", because there are several passages that let Buddhist monks play guitars and throw frisbees, they were ordered to be cut (edited) and executed (screening banned) by the government. This matter itself is not a big deal, but "the director is very angry, and the consequences are very serious." The political influence of the "follow-up incident" that followed was full-Apichatpong "rised up" in a rage, not only He became an active figure in openly confronting the government, and also launched the Thai New Freedom Film Movement along the way.
Until the first ten years of the millennium, the latest "Uncle Bumi Who Can Recall the Past Life", which has a stronger "Escape from the World", is also scattered, clever, and frequently inserted. More and more starkly politicized concepts-for example, Uncle Bumi confessed that he had killed many Communists in his early years, thinking that kidney cancer was a retribution; another example, in an old yellowed photo, the presence of a soldier, It implies a large number of missing persons in military conflicts.
In fact, if the surface fog is cleared away, if you don't talk about the clever strategy of topic selection, is Apichatpong's film itself really connected to "politics" so deeply?
The clamor from the outside is so high that we have to think independently-is it a political metaphor, or is it just talking about irrelevant things under a fictitious shell? Or is it just a kind of personal expression that opens up new frontiers and solitary people?
The most ironic thing is that once Apichatpong’s work is stripped of politics, the content is not only not damaged at all, but it appears more appropriate-in "Your Blessings", the actor is the fact that the actor is a "Myanmar smuggler" Gradually faded, everyone is running for his absurd skin disease, and there is no time to take care of him, and the two women always want to touch the male protagonist’s naked skin (for healing reasons), one The inexplicable man also "wiped a handful of oil" (touched the male protagonist's thigh, fell asleep with one of the heroines).
When several people collide in the jungle again and again in weird, chaotic, and unreasonable, instinctive, touching communication between people, it just shows that there is no politics, no history, and no social relations." At the same time, the internal concealed expressions of "male sex", "desire circulation" or "transparent body" can also be exposed.
The most important thing is that the imagery provided by Apichatpong is too "random", the semantics are ambiguous, and the meaning is completely lost. In the course of time, the "purpose" of political films actually disappears.
Whether it’s "Tropical Diseases", "Syndromes and a Hundred Years" or "Uncle Bumi", every paragraph is idle to close to "doing nothing"-the lens is fixed indoors, country roads, jungles, and In the silence between people, the pictures show the absent-mindedness of daily life, leaving only subtle sensory experiences.
As the director said: "My work is just to dig out my life experience. If it is related to politics, it is only because a part of politics has intervened in my life." As for whether "intervention in life politics" is politics The nature of it is a matter of opinion.
3. [Wandering in the extreme experiment]
Back then, after the filming of "Tropical Diseases", Apichatpong suddenly decided to shoot in pure darkness, the black without impurities, pinch out all the light, and let the passage of time rely solely on It may be instinctively felt that the sounds inside the jungle can be completed by the lingering natural sounds of the jungle itself, which can bring about the meditation of "the body is dead and the soul is immortal".
However, this idea finally made the last string of investors "collapse", and finally, because it was technically impossible to achieve the "not fake" picture, I had to give up.
However, it can be seen that Apichatpong’s "ambition" in expression is endless, and his pursuit of "extreme" is also bottomless. Sometimes, you may feel that he is not trying to make a movie, but chasing an "impossibility" and completing an audio-visual expression of "unfinished".
This path is similar to the "old path" he admired by Abbas, Maya Delun and Yang Dechang-through the reorganization and delay of space, and by drifting in the gap of time, new meanings can be presented. However, to a certain extent, Apichatpong played cards more unreasonably, relied more on intuition, and "goed farther."
In "Noon Development", he made a documentary into the most absurd fairy tale and fable; in "Tropical Diseases", he tried his best to transform a totem fable into the most crude documentary language. Whether it’s "Iron Cat", "Syndrome" or "Uncle Boumi", you will find that almost all the subtleties are permeated with the "differences" in structure (dual), images, sounds or narratives A kind of wide open, "breaking ground" temperament-this kind of boldness, "overwhelmed your imagination, shocked your eyes (David Bodwell)".
Probably because the original world behind Apichatpong is extremely complex and expansive, and he is also devoted to cultivate deeply in this soil. This makes him repeatedly ask himself, keep recalling the past, and enter private thoughts layer by layer. , Has produced the "original and completeness" that has always been talked about by others, and as a result, it is easier to have a thorough "insight" triggered by "accidental things in life".
If it weren’t for his father’s constant chatter about reincarnation before his death, there would be no final return for Uncle Bumi; if it hadn’t happened to see the deported immigrants in the zoo in the afternoon, there would be no suffering in "Your Blessing". Mixed moments in the jungle; if it were not for the edge of sexuality or growing up near the jungle since childhood, there would be no "forest weather" in "Tropical Diseases"; and "Syndrome and a Hundred Years" is a pure parent "The story of the year".
Never think too much, and never fall into chaos. Even if the internal storm is turbulent, the external is calm, abandoning scattered editing, imagery collages, and abandoning the "obstacle" of constructing vision-the real "understanding" "The creation of ", no extra explanation is needed. And in almost all interviews in Apichatpong, he would have no shame in saying "I am filming for myself", because once a certain "critical point" of self-identification is broken, an absolutely private expression, It is no different from the creation of the “majority” of the connection; also because, at this time, watching becomes a process of relaxation, and life becomes a kind of listening.
Four [Access to the west radius]
However, it is worth mentioning that Apichatpong's name, which is so slurred that "man and god are angry", has never been silent. Since it emerged from the Western perspective eight years ago, it has been attracting attention. Not only has the international film community favored it, and countless awards have come in; Western critics have also poured a zeal that is almost "perverted". , After repeated speculation, the various texts are dazzling.
As early as 2002, Apichatpong's first "Your Blessing", which made its first appearance at the Cannes Film Festival, won the grand prize in the "A Kind of Concern" unit. People have to take a closer look.
In 2004, "Tropical Diseases", as a strange and overly beautiful song of love and vagueness "dedicated to the dark jungle", won the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes, and was presented at Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Toronto and other film festivals. Fold the crown in multiple places.
The critics even regarded it as an "amazing work" that can find secret connections in mythology, anthropology, and Southeast Asian genealogy, expressing their solemn admiration and unspeakable emotion.
In 2006, "Syndrome and a Hundred Years" was shortlisted in Venice and won the Asian Film Festival Grand Prix. Later, it was selected as one of the top ten films of the French "Cinema Manual". Although it is slightly weaker than the previous film, it is also It is an exquisite and profound expression that cannot be underestimated.
However, the most unexpected "honor" occurred in May of this year. It was a new work with pantheism, mysticism, oriental inclination and Zen meaning-"Can Recall Uncle Bumi", which was actually a Thai movie excerpt. Take the first Golden Palm in history.
In fact, looking at it from another angle, a creator like this is very "appetizing" for the Western world and film critics from the original "attribute".
His background in the Third World and Southeast Asian countries, his homosexuality, his Buddhist, transcendental, and animistic expressions, his wild and de-urbanized jungle intuition, and even his film studies at the University of Chicago Master's degree, as well as the fame and experience gained in visual experimentation and installation art circles for a long time, coincidentally coincided with the intensification of local political turmoil in Thailand at this time-all elements deeply stimulated the selection of films by the jury Shaking hands at times.
As an extremely stubborn creator, Apichatbang always insists on personal expression, insists on uncompromising, insists on using his compassion through life and death, the everlasting silent jungle, insists on the ancient signs of life, insists on using the usual The dual structure that continues the inheritance, adopts the experimental form that is bold, rough, and challenging the limits of tolerance, adheres to the extremely slow and frozen personal epic narrative, adheres to the interspersed intervention of political metaphors and folklore...
There is no doubt that, in the final analysis, it is This kind of "persistence" is this kind of special thing, which deeply moved this world that is becoming more and more accustomed to compromise, more and more repulsive of aliens, and more and more lost of "true personalization".
In fact, it is difficult for many Western audiences to understand Apichatpong’s films from the bones, and even less understand what is in the blood of a native Southeast Asian author. However, they still feel that what they see is a more boundless world, and they all say Great respect.
When watching "Uncle Boumi", they didn't understand why a man suffering from cancer can have no sorrow or joy. Why did he re-encounter his dead wife and his son in the form of a monkey spirit, but he chose to walk through the world under their accompaniment and walk towards a wild tropical jungle. And why Uncle Bumi went from life to death and returned to the cave where he was originally born, becoming a kind of existence that "is neither a human being nor an animal; neither a man nor a woman".
In fact, at this moment, the true meaning of Apichatpong’s works can be revealed, because it transmits the most original local folk customs, myths, legends and discourses, and in an unfamiliar way, it tries to reconstruct the global audience’s perception of Southeast Asia. History and civilization imagination. This is something that other third world creators who are in collective anxiety and cannot find a position are unable to do so. They remain immobile. Therefore, "He is as important as Kurosawa Akira's "Rashomon". "(Donald Rich)" is not an exaggeration.
The most rare thing is that this process actually seems so ordinary, as if life is just a return to silence and rotation from the beginning, like death, just a "home" journey.
Finish
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