Contemporary Cinema and the Logic of the Building The Case of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s "Loong Boonmee raleuk chat (original) (raw)
2020, Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts
This paper problematizes the use of the concept of contemporary to describe a specific modus operandi of a group of directors and films that no longer identify with the characteristics of modern cinema. Using the symbolic date of 9/11 as an historical decisive moment, we take as an example of this cinema, Loong Boonmee raleuk chat, winner of 2010’s Palme D’Or at Cannes Film Festival. In analysing Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s film, we aim at proposing, as a metaphor, a different approach – a logic of the building – in order to describe the specific creative processes in contemporary cinema. In order to describe the Thai filmmaker’s method, we will recuperate Giorgio Agamben’s ideas about what it means to be contemporary, and also the ethical responsibility of cinema in helping to recover the lost gestures of humanity.
Related papers
Националната идея в съвременното тайландско кино: образи, сюжети, персонажи.
http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/authordetails.aspx?authorid=62d130ef-f98e-46d4-b197-0e7d00c8261f "The text presented here emphasizes on those contemporary films which represent the history of Siam/Thailand and manifest the typical for the country triad “King – religion – nation”. This research focuses on the confrontation between the traumatic and the triumphant memory of historicity and its mission is to construct the image of “self” (the image of the greatness of Siam/Thailand) and to promote a public, controlled image of the nation. The cinema presents the extraordinary opportunity to actualize the aesthetic distance of the events which took place back in time. The film has two perspectives – on one hand, it represents the past, and on the other hand it projects “once” in the present “now”. In this train of thoughts the epic genre takes over once more characters from history in order to construct and represent collective national memory in a quest for (and also creation of) these places of memory. The text also focuses on the establishment of Thai cultural memory through plots which represent the ordinary human and the super-hero (who has once been also an ordinary human), who is not part of the Crown or the religious community sangha, but who manifests the national identity and idea strongly enough. Lastly, the text touches upon those images and plots, which point to an alternative direction of expressing national identity: through specific characters, some of which remind of Michael Herzfeld’s ideas and his thesis for cultural intimacy.""
Itinerant Cinema: The Social Surrealism of Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Commentary on Apichatpong Weerasethakul's work to date leaves much to be desired. At best, it affords a survey of his feature filmography in terms of Western art cinema aesthetics, and sometimes of a ‘New Asian Cinema’; at worst, it descends into exoticism. Despite his experimental leanings, and constant appearance in galleries and biennials, engagements from the side of contemporary art have done little to deepen the ahistorical contemplation of his work. This article seeks to contextualise Apichatpong's practice with reference to Thai political and cultural histories, as well as some touchstones in Western modernism. Taking as a starting point his first feature-length film (Mysterious Object at Noon, 2000), the author begins by establishing an ethno-political background for his practice, and follows this with two detours: the first, art historical, explores Apichatpong's putative alignment with a certain Surrealism; the second is psycho-geographic, and brings into relief a poetics of itinerancy in his work. At issue is the question of the moving image's amplitude as a social historical channel; and of what critical purchase an ‘itinerant cinema’ may have on Thailand's fractious political present.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.