Apichatpong Weerasethakul

by James Quandt (Editor)

Thai filmmaker Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul is widely praised as a central figure in contemporary cinema. Trained in the United States as a visual artist, Weerasethakul stunned the film world with five innovative and dreamlike features made since 2000, including such award-winning films as Blissfully Yours , Tropical Malady , and Syndromes and a Century . James Quandt, one of the foremost film critics and curators working in North America today, has edited the first English-language book on Weerasethakul. Along with his essays, contributors include Benedict Anderson, Tony Rayns, Kong Rithdee, and the British actress Tilda Swinton.

Genres: Film

200 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2009

Reviews

[Gabriel Bath]

Oscillates between the profound/informative and the dull/tedious just because of how much is just critics reiterating the same biographical factoids and how hard it can be to engage with the work from a western standpoint (In one article its fine in many its a editorial oversight). Still very good! Apitchapong and Bennedict Anderson articles are the best.

[Oskar]

Would recommend to anyone with interest in the director. First half of the book is an analysis of Weerasethakul’s feature films until 2009. Quite interesting that the book was released in a pre-Boonmee world because today that would probably be considered his main work and the one that cemented his art-house stardom. In one sense it’s great to have in depth analyses on all the earlier work but also leaves you hungry for an updated version.

The other bits in the book are well chosen with endearing introductory letters from Mark Cousins and Tilda Swinton and a selection of essays from people associated with both Thai film culture and the international film world. Perhaps most importantly there are interviews given and essays written by Joe himself.

The book is great in expanding on some of the main themes of his films, although in parts it almost gets funny how often someone mentions either the binary structure of his films or that the filmmaker’s parents were doctors. One of the fun tidbits tucked away towards the end of the book was how Weerasethakul counts a quite random(?) John Boorman film The Emerald Forest among his favourites ever because it has stunning green imagery of the jungle.

But yeah
Keep on rocking in the free world and watch Weerasethakul films!

[Horacio Muñoz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lo interesante del libro: las dos entrevistas de James Quandt al cineasta tailandés, los tres textos del propio Apichatpong Weerasethakul y la detallada filmografía anotada con críticas de prensa y revistas, fragmentos y comentarios del propio cineasta.