Find a new perspective on the world in Apichatpong's films

Reporter Liu Qing

"Uncle Bhumi who can recall his past life" won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010, 13 years later, Apichabang's film belatedly appeared on the big screen in China. "Memory", which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, will be released in China from June 22, with a three-day Dragon Boat holiday, and this film, which is not favored because of "non-mainstream" and "artistic", has just exceeded 1 million yuan at the box office. Compared with mainstream commercial productions, this box office data is low, and even the promotion of the film is to "break the circle" to attract the audience, reverse marketing self-deprecation "Apichatpong let the audience sleep peacefully in the theater". Aesthetic barriers are difficult to remove in a short period of time, but "Memory" has an excellent reputation among the audience after the screening, and it is inevitable that people will look forward to how long can it last with a low but stable box office?

"The Matrix: The Matrix Reboot" has a line that mocks the entire film industry under Hollywood's monopoly: telling old stories the old way repeatedly. Apichatpong is one of the few creators who can escape the clichés of the film industry. The film "Memory" gazes at the cityscape of Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, the sound of wind and rain, and hears the polyphony of the director's previous works, whether it is the dense forests of northern Thailand or the rainforests of South America, even if Apichatpong repeats Apichattabang, but does not adhere to the "old way" of mainstream films, he is unique "this one".

Reflecting on the filming of "Memory", Apichatpong said that because of the language barrier, he could not communicate smoothly in either English or Spanish, which instead allowed him to focus on the "sound" itself. Sound, which became the clue of "Memory". The film begins with a muffled sound that awakens the sleeping Jessica, and then irregularly irregularly irritates her heart and eardrums while she is awake. In the process of pursuing this mysterious voice, Jessica encounters a series of "bizarre" that cannot be explained by reason and logic in daily life, just when she thinks that life is out of control and on the verge of collapse, she accidentally finds herself able to enter the memories of others in a remote village in Colombia, and the search for "loud noise" allows Jessica, an outsider living in Colombia, to enter the traumatic history of Colombia's silence.

Prior to the filming of Memory, all nine of Apichatpong's feature films were completed in his native Thailand. He left his hometown and chose South America because "I was interested in jungle temptation, and going to South America was like going back to the source of everything, and when I saw those ruins, it was like seeing time going backwards." "What is whispered in "Memory" is the migration of time, both the migration of the parties in the fictional story to the passing of time, and the more subtle, the migration of Apichatpong to his past creations. "Memory", which roams the unspeakable history of Colombia, is also a work that roams the director's previous work.

The first image of "Memory" is the silhouette of a woman, and as the camera pans, the audience discovers that her silhouette is a reflection in the mirror, in which she gets up and enters another room, a room surrounded by windows, and she collapses into a chair and looks out the window at the unbroken sky. This is a suspenseful, but completely de-episodic opening. Apichatpong has emphasized many times that his films create dreams for the viewer, in an almost frozen silent space, images are introduced into dreams, and the concept of time disappears.

The attitude to "time", and the way "time" is presented, determines that Apichatbang's films are completely different from the texture of ordinary drama films. In various types of films familiar to the audience, the director's editing of linear dramatic time determines the "plot" that the audience can see from a limited perspective. Apichatbang's film is a subversion of all aspects of the default rules of mainstream cinema. He borrows the subjective perspective of the characters to transition from the natural passage of physical time to the changing psychological time, and enter the atmosphere of virtual and real penetration.

Jessica is awakened by a loud noise, and sits in the pre-dawn darkness to listen to the birds, and the alternation of morning and dusk seems to be the intersection of consciousness and reality. In "Tropical Diseases", the mother takes her son through an underground tunnel to worship the Buddha, they go to the junction of darkness and light, and step into the South Asian jungle where man and all creatures are transformed, and this tunnel becomes a passage between "things" and "spirits". "Syndrome and One Hundred Years" is as the title suggests, and 100 years of time flows in the memory of female doctors like a wind blowing away. "Uncle Boomey Who Can Recall His Past Life" opens with the inscription: Facing the jungle, hills and valleys, I have appeared before me for the past life of animals and other living beings. Apichatpong repeatedly creates circuitous time, broken time, overlapping time, and even a time of complete disintegration and exit, allowing the audience to enter an atmosphere that cannot be understood by reason and logic, surrounded by fragments that are broken and difficult to fathom. Audiences who are relaxed enough to let go of habitual expectations of melodrama will obey the breath of the image and enter the world of character consciousness, which has no exact shape and is not limited. This is a movie that summons sensibility.

There is a passage in "Memory" in which Jessica suddenly discovers that Hernan, the sound engineer who helped her find the "sound", is missing, to be exact, as if this person does not exist, and she passes by the rehearsal room of the recording studio in a trance, where many people are watching a band rehearsal. In this modern space with clean lines and glass mirrors, a confused woman listens aimlessly to the music and sees the faces of many, she leaves to the sound of music, and outside, the bustling crowd flows in the twilight. As the music joins and disappears, the scene changes, and this image that seems to have nothing happened, there is a steady rhythm flowing inside, like an undercurrent in the depths, flowing with potential energy to the promised end. Most audiences have become accustomed to the "dramatic composition" of sound films, misinterpreting Apichatpong's films as "long shots with black lights and blinding fire", in fact, his creation is attributed to the essence of "pure film", very completely abandoning the burden of "story", summoning the inner rhythm of the image, and turning to the exploration of the details of picture and sound.

The mysterious sound Jessica had been looking for, "a rumble, like coming from the center of the earth, then disappearing, like metal, but deeper." Practically, Jessica's "symptoms" are real disorders — "explosive head syndrome," a serious sleep disorder. This setting is a simile for disease. "It's not a very painful illness, you long for others to understand your feelings, but the feelings are hard to describe. This disorder makes people lonely, because this voice exists only in your mind and only you hear. This passage of Apichatpong can be regarded as the "key" to open "Memory" and all his works, these films are private outpouring, struggle for discourse and weak resistance.

When Jessica drives to the remote countryside, she is unaware of her consciousness and the memories of others, and she is guided by people who are alive or dead and forgotten. The corners of the rainforest are littered with the bones of nameless people who have been violently destroyed, as is the case in Thailand and Colombia. The shape of history is always outlined by a part of the population, many of whom are incompetent or powerless to speak while alive, and as they die, the "other story" becomes part of the land along with the flesh. The "loud noise" Jessica heard, was the whimper of the other side of history deep in the soil. An outsider, a man who knows nothing, enters the ghostly roaring rainforest and, in the howling rain, listens to the "memories" that have been deliberately erased.

Jessica thought she was crazy for a while, but in the end, she realized that she had gained a new perspective on the world. There are many truths that can neither be revealed nor reproduced, and in Apichatpong's film, "memories are grafted and a new generation will absorb history and build new stories and new memories".

Source: Wen Wei Po