Abstract
Primitive is a multi-screen video installation created by the independent filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The multi-platform project presents strong ties to Thai culture and consists of a video installation with simultaneous interrelated screens, two short films, a book of art that includes a series of photographs, a journal, a draft text, and its final product, one of his most recognized films, Uncle Boonmee, Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), which was awarded the Palme D'Or at the Cannes film festival. The project aims to convey is a unified idea and achieves this through stimulating the spectator in various formats. Apichatpong's films use non-conventional narrative structures which explore the juxtapositions between man and nature; rural life and city life; and personal memories alongside political ones. The film maker creates his own universe, which is a recurring theme throughout his filmography. Primitive is destined to be experienced as a dream of “reincarnation and transformation.”
TopIntroduction
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is one of the most influential directors within contemporary independent Thai cinema. After completing a degree in Architecture at the Khon Kaen University, in northeast Thailand, he took a master’s degree in Fine Arts in Filmmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Afterwards, he decided to return to Thailand to develop his artistic side. His first projects were shown at local art exhibitions and festivals such as the Thai Short Film and Video Festival, organised by the Thai Film Foundation and from which have emerged a large number of the country’s current independent filmmakers.
To understand the audiovisual work of this director-creator, it is defined by Promkhuntong as “uniquely combining Western avant-garde traditions and documentary filmmaking with stories of working-class people across Thailand and the fantasy worlds they construct” (2019, p. 21). His style is highly personal and immersive, it could be stated that it is a type of paracosm (Silvey and Mackeith, 1988), although in this case it does not come from the mind of a child but that of an adult. His films are like a fantasy that is defined by having a complete structure, he creates an almost imaginary universe in parallel with the real world that he develops throughout his filmography. One of the most accurate definitions of Apichatpong’s work is that established by Sicinski:
The films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul are dense, multilayered, often poetically organized rather than driven by narrative, and they tend to emphatize visual and sonic motifs rather than affording primacy to the spoken word. In terms of both pacing and organization, the films can at times feel oneiric, even seeming to induce a kind of drift of consciousness, as though they were bypassing the viewer´s usual capacities for “making sense” out of cinematic stimuli. (2018, p. 195).
Films such as Blissfully Yours (2002)Tropical Malady (2004) or Syndromes and a Century (2006) have references to Apichatpong’s personal world; he has always stated that his works are based on family memories. However, in the case of Uncle Boonmee, Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), as he could not know the real Boonmee, the film is closer to Apichatpong than to the book by which it was inspired and he does so through the memory of a town, that of Nabua.
In all the aforementioned films, its director leaves a signature: the jungle, a jungle that is shown as the work of a dream and through which he develops a very individual view of his personal universe: “This motif was established from memories of growing up with his doctor parents in Khon Kaen city in the Thai Northeast, a region and people who have been politically and historically marginalized by the Thai state.” (Promkhuntong, 2019, p. 21).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Paracosm: A detailed imaginary world. It is thought that paracosms generally originate in childhood and have one or numerous creators.
Monkey Ghost (ling phi): Ghost invented by Apichatpong inspired by the popular legends and tales of northeast Thailand.
Widow Ghost (lai thai): Belief in spirits and ghosts is very common in Thailand. One of these spirits is that of the widow ghost. According to the Thai people, this ghost takes the life of young, healthy men from the town while they sleep (Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome).