Cemetery of Splendor (2016)

I got fooled again by the high ratings on IMDb. It was my mistake though, didn't see there were only thirteen reviews before mine. So it's obvious that the positive reviewers are or paid to do so or are related to someone playing in the movie or crew. I already saw a lot of really bad movies but this one must be in the top three of worse movies I ever saw. It's because I took a very long nap in the afternoon that I didn't fall asleep watching this garbage. Cinicly the movie is about sleep, while you will literally fight to not fall asleep watching this. I don't even want to say anything about the story line because there is just none. The only thing I can say about that is it's extremely boring. I didn't think it was even possible to make something so boring and doing it for more then two hours. Now if you are like the thirteen other morons that wrote a positive review you will probably like the complete absurd scenes like a shot of a book that goes on for several minutes, a scene where people change seats on benches in a park for several minutes, shots of a wall for several minutes, shots of a tree for several minutes and so on. I see this movie is categorized as fantasy also. Don't get fooled by that either, there is no fantasy at all. You can't even rate the actors because I don't think they are actually real actors. They're probably some random people they took out of the jungle there and gave a couple of dollars to just sit around and look depressed. In conclusion, if you are like me and always finish a movie you started to watch, even though it's absolute garbage, do not start watching this one. It will be two hours of your life you will never get back. You could pay me 10000 euros to watch it again and I won't do it. If you're not like me just start watching it and I will guarantee you that you will give up before half of the movie. Do something useful instead. Paint a wall or so and watch it dry. That will be more pleasant to watch then this.

Every moment of this film is enjoyable. For much of the movie, it struck me as no more or less than a solid example of the cinema of auteur Arichitapong Weerasthakul. He is, perhaps, the most sincerely and successfully magical-realist artist that cinema has known. The social rhythms seem utterly naturalistic, even when the main character, an old, recently handicapped hospital worker, is having a pleasant chat with ancient deities. As with early Peter Weir, Weerasthakul's natural landscapes are utterly, well, natural yet they seem to suggest a haunting, an otherworldly force that's face is the world, one which may or may not be benevolent. History, for Weerasthakul, is the haunting of the present and future by past lives and past worlds, spectral- beings that traverse and are traversed by the present. During Cemetery's last scenes I came to think this may be Weerasthakul's most fully realized work. The penultimate shot is extraordinary. The main character stares out at a central square of the village where the film has taken place, which the current government is digging up, presumably to make way for some "modern convenience". Children play over the new ruins like spirits of the future levitating over a present fading into the past. Our lives, our worlds, can only exist atop the ruins and amid the ghosts of the past. Destruction is therefore creation. But that doesn't make destruction, perhaps especially in its contemporary, mechanized form, any less terrifying.

Without having known before, 20 minutes into the film I guessed that it was from the same director of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Weirdly, I didn't take to that film much. I appreciated it greatly, and I did get more out of it on my second viewing of it, but it still left me feeling very distant. I found this much more fixating and engrossing, even if the pace does get to me at times. It's amazingly directed and I think that carries it a long way, but it also benefited from being more grounded on a simple thematic level than Boonmee. Not for everyone, but definitely a film to watch out for. Not recommended for everyone, just for those who know exactly what they're getting into.

A young woman sings to her lover in public, ancient kings use the energy of sleeping soldiers to fight battles and figurine princesses come to life and discuss things like skin-tone and how much they appreciate offerings. Such characters and scenes are not brought about through computer animation, elaborate costumes or thrilling action sequences, but mundane and leisurely compositions.The film follows Jen and Keng, local women who voluntarily visit and help care for soldiers in a remote and tiny hospital. The soldiers seem to be under the sway of a spell or perhaps dreams and thoughts of their own making. Keng is a psychic and has the ability to communicate to the soldiers in their sleep. The whole film is something of a meandering daydream or series of magic spells, which is both good and bad. It is cerebral, loosely organized and full of depth. It is a kaleidoscope of Thai culture, lawn ornaments, colored lights, dreams and figures from the past, present and future, among other things. According to the TIFF catalog the film blends "neuroscience, Khmer animism, meditations on war and death, and the quotidian details of everyday life in a small village." They mention this, of course, just in case you caught too much Khmer animism and neuroscience in previous films. Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival 2015.