„Fáir leikstjórar utan David Lynch sýna jafnmikla leikni og næmni við að túlka tungumál drauma og Apichatpong Weerasethakul“ segir gagnrýnandi Variety.

Myndin fjallar um Jenjiru, sjálfboðaliða á sjúkrahúsi sem annast hermenn sem þjást af dularfullri svefnsýki. Jen heillast af Itt, ungum og myndarlegum sjúklingi, og fær hina ófresku Keng til að skyggnast inn í furðulegan draumaheim hans. Af miklu listfengi er tælenskri sögu, minni og dulspeki fléttað saman í mynd þar sem framtíðin og fortíðin verða sem ein heild, draumar eru raunverulegir og hversdagslegir hlutir verða töfrum líkastir.

Myndin var sýnd í hinum virta Un Certain Regard flokki á Cannes en fyrri mynd leikstjórans, hlaut aðalverðlaun hátíðarinnar, Gullpálmann, árið 2010.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul er tælenskur leikstjóri fæddur 1970 í Bangkok en hann ól manninn í Kohn Kaen í Norður-Tælandi. Hann lauk námi í arkitektúr við Háskólann í Kohn Kaen árið 1994 en hafði þá þegar leikstýrt sinni fyrstu stuttmynd, BULLET, ári áður. Árið 1997 lauk hann meistaraprófi frá Listahálskólanum í Chicago í kvikmyndagerð. Apichatpong hefur átt afar farsælan feril en fyrsta frásagnarmynd hans í fullri lengd, BLISSFULLY YOURS (2002), hlaut Un Certain Regard verðlaunin á Cannes og tveimur árum síðar hreppti TROPICAL MALADY (2004) dómnefndarverðlaun á sömu hátíðar. Árið 2010 hlaut Apichatpong aðalverðlaun Cannes hátíðarinnar, Gullpálmann, fyrir meistaraverkið UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES. Kvikmyndin er hans áttunda kvikmynd í fullri lengd.

English

‘Few filmmakers this side of David Lynch are as adept or intuitive as Apichatpong Weerasethakul when it comes to appropriating the language of dreams’ says a Variety critic. CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR tells the story of Jenjira, a volunteer at a small clinic that cares for soldiers suffering from a mysterious sleeping illness. Jen becomes especially drawn to a certain patient, the handsome young Itt, and with the help of Keng, the hospital psychic, she attempts to probe his strange world of dreams. A sublime fusion of history, memory, socio-political allegory, and mysticism, this film creates an enchanted world where the present coexists with the past, dreams are real, and magic emerges from the mundane. CEMETARY OF SPLENDOUR was shown at the Un Certain Regard program at Cannes and Weerasethakul’s earlier film, UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES, received the Palme d’Or, the festivals main prize in 2010.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a Thai indie director, born in 1970 in Bangkok and raised in Kohn Kaen in North-Thailand. He got his BA in architecture from Kohn Kaen Univesity in 1994 but a year earlier he directed his first short BULLET. He then attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received a master’s degree in filmmaking in 1997. Weerasethakul has since celebrated a very successful directing career. His first feature, BLISSFULLY YOURS (2002) received the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes and two years later TROPICAL MALADY (2004) got the festival’s Jury Prize. In 2010, Weerasathakul received the Cannes main prize, Palme d’Or, for the masterpiece UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES. CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR is his eight feature film.