Blissfully Yours by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Sometimes...something disturbing, or disturbingly beautiful jolts you out of your hibernation. I have not blogged for so long, that it almost seemed alien.

Today I watched a movie by a Thai director I had not heard of, a name that meant nothing to me. Yet this profoundly bold and luscious film made me come out of my stupor. It almost seemed choppy and destined to be ordinary, till the time the main characters in the movie go to the woods for a day's escape. It is sheer magic from there on.

Apichatpong uses the gorgeous greenery of the woods and later the gurgling of a stream to lend a paradisaical effect to the movie. But there is also his sense of dilatory time...the lingering infiniteness of time, drawn out to real life lengths that test the audience. I later found out that many well known (and experimental) directors did this, including the famous Andy Warhol. Apichatpong acknowledged the influence of Warhol..tho' he said he had never seen a Warhol movie.

At any rate, as he said after the movie, "his time" is different -- and that clearly comes across. To him the process matters, the journey. So if there is a scene in which there is travel, then Apichatpong will show you almost the entire journey. You can even start feeling queasy after a while as you follow the twists and turns a car takes across some beautiful Thai countryside.

A simple story in which a Burmese boy (Min), an illegal immigrant in Thailand, is trying to find a foothold in the Thai society, trying to find a job. He is being helped in this endeavor by his Thai girlfriend (Roong) and their landlady (? Orn). Any job requires some sort of a medical certification, but the boy does not have any documents to obtain that certificate. A visit to the doctor's office on account of this yields no result. Later, the boy takes his girlfriend to an out-of-the-place spot in the jungle because he knows she worked overtime the day before (she works in some kind of a toy factory).

What follows is a lovely account of sun, some sand, dappled sunshine, a gurgling brook, a languorous time together and some very frank passions that arise as slowly and naturally as they naturally might. Apichatpong's camera lingers, stalls, searches, caresses...all the time strangely merciless in its quest to convey some meaning about togetherness, some sorrow (Orn), happiness...