Interview Apichatpong Weerasethakul (‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’)

Amsterdam, The College Hotel, Friday September 3, 2010

The internationally acclaimed director and artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand, 1970) won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 with his film ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’. A surprise to many, but when you see the film you can only understand the statement of jury chairman Tim Burton. “You always want to be surprised by films and this film did that for most of us.” ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’ is about an old man dying of a kidney disease, who during his last days on this earth is visited by the ghost of his previously deceased wife. His son, who disappeared years ago, also makes an appearance again. Like monkey. Apichatpong was recently in the Netherlands. It is a great honor to talk to this Golden Palm winner. “It’s nice to live in Thailand, because the country is always developing. Sometimes you see violence, sometimes you see beauty. The fact that there is corruption means that it is not perfect. That motivates you to think about life. I don’t like perfection. Not even in art.”

Reincarnation

The filmmaker grew up with a belief in reincarnation, but does not believe in it wholeheartedly. “It is a possibility that death is not the end. We transform into dust, into trees, always remain part of nature.” Dying itself is what Apichatpong fears most. “As Derek Jarman has said, ‘I’m not scared of death, I’m scared of dying.’ Despite this, the main character in his film doesn’t seem exactly afraid of dying. “So he’s not a real person, it’s more surreal. I want to make it clear that it’s an illusion, like in Godard’s ‘Breathless’ when Jean Paul Belmondo just keeps walking while he’s been shot.”

First look, then google

“It’s best to start watching my film with as little knowledge as possible,” continues Apichatpong. “’Uncle Boonmee’ is a film about wonder, you have to be open to it. I don’t want people to have a certain framework in which to place their film experience. If they’re interested, they can google it afterwards.”

Headache

It is clear that his audience must have an open mind. But fortunately the filmmaker himself has that too. There is hardly one aspect of filmmaking that the director dislikes. “I like to try new things.” The director would not refuse the offer to make a fully European or American production. “As long as I feel connected to the project, it feels good. Then I am happy and the producers are happy too.” About the film industry in general, the artist wants to say the following: “I think a more hybrid form of cinema is gradually emerging. Thanks to digital distribution, there is more choice, and we will see more mixes of talents: a Western director in Asia, or the other way around. There is less and less distance. For example, ‘Uncle Boonmee’ is also made by five countries.” Whether the filmmaker thinks that is a positive change? “It does give me a headache,” he laughs, “but it’s a way of surviving in the mainstream movie climate.”

The Back Up Plan

Apichatpong studied architecture, but decided to do nothing with that study. “It was a buffer. If I didn’t succeed as a director, I could always fall back on my studies as an architect,” he says. Whether he still benefits from that study in his current profession? “Of course. It helps me think about time and space, apart from the fact that it makes me appreciate architecture. Making a film is like designing a space, where you also have to take the time to experience it.”

No concessions

The Golden Palm winner usually has in mind what a scene should look like. The scene in the Cannes 2010 favorite where they turn off the lights is one such example where the director was unwilling to compromise. “It had to be exactly that darkness. And the light, when the woman walks in, had to be exactly that color white. It provides a clear contrast between the human world and the spirit world.” He continues: “In my previous film, ‘Blissfully Yours’, I insisted on a certain kind of light in a scene in a car. We waited two days for it. In the meantime, we just played card games or chatted.” However, sometimes it is difficult to get what you want. One of the factors that Apichatpong has to take into account with such a low budget film like this is that many technicians are not always available when it suits him. “My DOP, for example, is such a problematic man. I should really get rid of him,” Apichatpong says jokingly.

acting coach

The filmmaker likes to give his actors the feeling that they have room to improvise. He likes to be in control of his movie, but not too much. “If they don’t succeed, that’s okay too. That’s the great thing about cinema, I could never work in the theater.” For ‘Uncle Boonmee’ Apichatpong used an acting coach to guide his – mostly amateur – cast. “I’m only good at letting them act naturally, that was not what I wanted with this film.”

Diary

The idiosyncratic director indicates that he basically makes his films for himself. “I never have in mind what ‘the public’ thinks of what I do. And then there’s the fact that I’m already a very critical audience myself.” He notes: “I document my feelings. My movies are like a diary.” The filmmaker has never kept a real diary (as in ‘writing in a booklet’). “No, but a photo diary.”

A virgin cave

Part of the location scouting for ‘Uncle Boonmee’ was done by the director himself, but finding the right places was not easy. Apichatpong: “We drove around a lot, a lot. From the photos of all the houses we saw, I made a sort of collection of what appealed to me: it varied from the color of a mosquito net to a balcony.” Apichatpong found the enchantingly beautiful cave, which plays an important role in part of the film. “There are so many caves in the northeast of Thailand. We have visited almost all of them. This one was almost virgin, nobody knows about it. The large opening gave us the opportunity to shoot with natural light, although we have also worked with artificial light at times.” The whole process took a year, and while that sounds like a long time to prepare for a movie, Apichatpong also used this time to work on the multimedia project, which includes ‘Uncle Boonmee’.

“It feels good that people laugh at my films.”

Because Apichatpong knows his own work so through and through, he doesn’t really experience anything when he re-watches his films (“I even fell asleep once! No, just kidding, I was jet-lagged at the time.”), but he prefers to watch how the public receives their films. “It’s great when they smile.” A scene that Apichatpong himself finds very funny in ‘Uncle Boonmee’, but which is not well understood by non-compatriots, is the scene in which the elderly lady tells the gorilla that he can eat leftovers. “It’s like she treats him like a dog.” Another comedic scene is where a princess is sexually gratified by a catfish. That scene turned out to be very difficult to film, Apichatpong says. “It was very cold and the actress had to appear very content and happy. She was shivering continuously. So every time I yelled ‘cut’, they threw hot water on her.”

It was only during the editing and mixing of the sound that the filmmaker realized that the film consisted of six different parts. “I felt like I was mixing six movies instead of one.” The part with the princess is an ode to a royal costume drama, there is a documentary-like part in it, as well as an adventure film (in the cave).

Utopia

The financial side of making movies is the least fun. “It is also very difficult to get this done. However, it is a matter of trust and honesty. I would never say I’m going to make a million for them. I sometimes even ask them if they’re sure they want this,” he says. We would like to know what kind of movie Apichatpong would make if money were not a limitation. He jumps up enthusiastically. “I would immediately continue with my project ‘Utopia’!” (Utopia is a science fiction story the Thai filmmaker wrote with Jane Fonda or Brigitte Bardot in mind for the lead role, MM). What Apichatpong will really be doing in the near future is creating a portrait of Donald Richie, an American who moved to Japan after World War II and who is responsible for introducing Japanese film to the West, such as that of Kurosawa and Ozu. “He is an icon. He is very old so I would like to record his memoirs. It will be a poetic project.” We are curious!