Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.
The greatest year in cinema since the monumental offerings of 2007––a transformative year that set the seeds for this very site to come into existence––2023 offered a resounding affirmative that indeed the medium is alive and well: auteurs flexing what they do best, newcomers providing a hopeful voice for the future of filmmaking, along with a plethora of worthwhile offers. Along with my personal favorites when it came to U.S. releases, two films also premiered that would’ve topped this list had they come out in 2023: Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast and Víctor Erice’s still-shockingly-undistributed Close Your Eyes.
While they didn’t make the top 15 cut below, I must make mention for the most essential, one-and-done viewing of the year with De Humani Corporis...
The greatest year in cinema since the monumental offerings of 2007––a transformative year that set the seeds for this very site to come into existence––2023 offered a resounding affirmative that indeed the medium is alive and well: auteurs flexing what they do best, newcomers providing a hopeful voice for the future of filmmaking, along with a plethora of worthwhile offers. Along with my personal favorites when it came to U.S. releases, two films also premiered that would’ve topped this list had they come out in 2023: Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast and Víctor Erice’s still-shockingly-undistributed Close Your Eyes.
While they didn’t make the top 15 cut below, I must make mention for the most essential, one-and-done viewing of the year with De Humani Corporis...
- 12/25/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria is showing exclusively on Mubi in many countries starting August 5, 2022, in the series Luminaries.“It’s all about feeling,” Thai cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom told me several times whenever I tried to frame the nuances of his methodology with conceptual notions. His words, however filled with ambiguity and elusiveness, might in fact seem to be the key to describe the general premise of the films he has worked on as a cameraman—it is, indeed, all about the feelings, participation, and intuition. After all, the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Luca Guadagnino, Miguel Gomes, whose films Sayombhu has shot, revolve around a certain reciprocity—the images link with the tactile, offering a space for the audience to immerse themselves in the images: just as real as imagined. A meditative gaze floats with Sayombhu’s camera in carefully designed master shots, following the characters in a tender rhythm, accompanying them from a safe distance,...
- 8/3/2022
- MUBI
The presence or absence of sound in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s films is a fundamental element, as is its timing. Sound is a character alluding to memory, touch, the erotic, the urban and natural world. At just under two hours, this mix is a dreamscape journey into Apichatpong’s cinema sonics. From the opening edit, we’re surrounded by the luscious sounds of Syndromes and a Century (2006), traveling through the Thai director’s singular vision of place, love, desire, family, the body, history, and the conscious versus unconscious. Moments of song or dialogue tend to break the chapters. A jolt of song at the titles (not necessarily approaching at the presumed moment) making way for the next act, a motorcycle ride, or a much-favored exercise class, music bursts out momentarily relieving ambient trance. Here there's a focus on several films, Syndromes and a Century, Blissfully Yours (2002), Tropical Malady (2004) and Mysterious Object at Noon...
- 1/26/2022
- MUBI
Forced online once again – this time due to the Omicron wave – International Film Festival Rotterdam is still going to surprise the audience, assures festival director Vanja Kaludjercic, ready to celebrate its 51st edition. The event will open with Amanda Kramer’s “Please Baby Please” on Jan. 26.
“That’s the idea. To surprise, but not just for the sake of surprising,” she says. “When I first started coming here, IFFR could always blow my mind like that; show me what cinema can be. Something that can feel like an unexpected choice for IFFR is, in fact, inspired by its freedom.”
Remembering the past is crucial for Kaludjercic, as she already pointed out when announcing this year’s streamlined lineup. “This is what these last three editions were very much about,” she notes, also mentioning “25 Encounters”: a new initiative comprising a selection of films, which will be available to the audience from Feb.
“That’s the idea. To surprise, but not just for the sake of surprising,” she says. “When I first started coming here, IFFR could always blow my mind like that; show me what cinema can be. Something that can feel like an unexpected choice for IFFR is, in fact, inspired by its freedom.”
Remembering the past is crucial for Kaludjercic, as she already pointed out when announcing this year’s streamlined lineup. “This is what these last three editions were very much about,” she notes, also mentioning “25 Encounters”: a new initiative comprising a selection of films, which will be available to the audience from Feb.
- 1/25/2022
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
The fact that many countries have, unfortunately, strict policies when it comes to immigration is a sad truth. However, the way a culture deals with people from other countries wanting to live with them, is a totally different matter, with many nations exercising rather rough measures such as arrests or jail time when an undocumented immigrant is caught by the authorities. During the shooting of his first feature “Mysterious Object at Noon” Thai director Apichatpong Weeraseathkul witnessed how his country deals with immigrants, as he saw a young couple, Burmese immigrants, being arrested by the police in broad daylight. The couple was visiting a zoo when the incident occurred and made the director think about happy events and the possibility of those in an overall oppressive environment. Eventually his thoughts became the premise for his next project “Blissfully Yours” which won the Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes Film Festival...
- 1/6/2022
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Over the course of his career, the name of Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul has become a synonym for a special kind of storytelling and an aesthetic combining his home culture, geography and themes such as sexuality and dreams. There is no doubt that watching one of his features is quite a unique experience, but while “Blissfully Yours” and “Cemetery of Splendor” are well-known among cinephiles, Weerasethakul’s first project is one that many have yet to discover. From 1997 to 1998, the director and a small crew shot “Mysterious Object at Noon”, a feature-documentary hybrid, on no budget at all. The movie premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and later on won the Grand Prize at Jeonju International Film Festival and has been restored as well as preserved by the Austrian Film Museum and the Film Foundation, resulting in releases by companies such as Criterion or Second Run.
- 1/3/2022
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Offering the Croisette not one but two films this year — The Year of the Everlasting Storm is a rare anthology film that is actually next level. His latest brought him to the country of Colombia with Tilda Swinton in tow. No stranger to Cannes, Blissfully Yours won the A Certain Regard Prize in 2002, Tropical Malady won the Official Competition Jury Prize in 2004, and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives won him his first Palme in 2010. Memoria is his third film in Comp.
A change of scenery appears to have worked wonders for the Thai filmmaker as Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria drum beat thumped Cannes yesterday challenging the top rated film on our grid (Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car) with a 3.7 overall grade and still some votes to be counted for.…...
A change of scenery appears to have worked wonders for the Thai filmmaker as Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria drum beat thumped Cannes yesterday challenging the top rated film on our grid (Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car) with a 3.7 overall grade and still some votes to be counted for.…...
- 7/16/2021
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Considering we are no longer getting a James Bond film this spring, those seeking slick espionage thrills will get a healthy dose (and much more of the unexpected) with The Whistlers, the latest work from Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu, which is now in theaters. Clearly inspired by a number of noir films, today we’re taking a more general look at his favorite movies of all-time.
As voted on in the latest Sight & Sound poll, as well as a recent feature from our friends at Le Cinéma Club, his picks range include a healthy range of world cinema, from Apichatpong Weerasethakul to Michelangelo Antonioni to Éric Rohmer to Yasujirô Ozu. “All of them influenced my way of making movies and also my way of seeing world,” he said of the majority of the selections. Speaking about La Dolce Vita, he added, “I watched it by chance when I was 18 years old.
As voted on in the latest Sight & Sound poll, as well as a recent feature from our friends at Le Cinéma Club, his picks range include a healthy range of world cinema, from Apichatpong Weerasethakul to Michelangelo Antonioni to Éric Rohmer to Yasujirô Ozu. “All of them influenced my way of making movies and also my way of seeing world,” he said of the majority of the selections. Speaking about La Dolce Vita, he added, “I watched it by chance when I was 18 years old.
- 3/11/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
In the years since his 2015 feature “Cemetery of Splendour,” Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul has traveled a lot, presenting shorts and installation pieces around the world. These days, he’s plotting his first movie outside of Thailand, the Colombia-set “Memoria,” with Tilda Swinton and Jean Balibar attached to star. On November 19, he will receive the annual Fiaf prize from the Federation of Film Archives. In the midst of all this activity, Weerasethakul was also invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in 2016 — but voting for the Oscars has little appeal to poetic auteur, who won the Palme d’Or for “Uncle Boomnee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” in 2010.
“They’ve been sending me these DVDs and movies. A lot of them,” Weerasethakul said in a Skype interview from a shorts festival in Europe. “I confess that I don’t watch many.” Last year, he tried voting using AMPAS’ online system,...
“They’ve been sending me these DVDs and movies. A lot of them,” Weerasethakul said in a Skype interview from a shorts festival in Europe. “I confess that I don’t watch many.” Last year, he tried voting using AMPAS’ online system,...
- 11/15/2018
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
“Facing the jungle, the hills and the vales, my past lives as an animal and other beings rise up before me.”
Even though he had been gaining a reputation over the years, it was not until “Uncle Boonmee…” won the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethaul received wider recognition. While his other five features including “Mysterious Object at Noon” (2000), “Blissfully Yours” (2002) or “Tropical Malady” (2004) had come from a similar foundation, to be honored for a work like “Uncle Boonmee…” must have been very special to the filmmaker given the amount of time and energy he had spent on the project long before he worked on most of his other films.
In his notes on the so-called “Primitive Project”, a video installation by the director which, for example, is part of an exhibition at the Tate Modern, Weerasethakul recalls some of the most important inspirations for the film.
Even though he had been gaining a reputation over the years, it was not until “Uncle Boonmee…” won the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethaul received wider recognition. While his other five features including “Mysterious Object at Noon” (2000), “Blissfully Yours” (2002) or “Tropical Malady” (2004) had come from a similar foundation, to be honored for a work like “Uncle Boonmee…” must have been very special to the filmmaker given the amount of time and energy he had spent on the project long before he worked on most of his other films.
In his notes on the so-called “Primitive Project”, a video installation by the director which, for example, is part of an exhibition at the Tate Modern, Weerasethakul recalls some of the most important inspirations for the film.
- 9/1/2018
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul has seen his acclaim in the international film community rise steadily since his feature filmmaking debut in 2000, winning awards for a filmography that includes Sud Malad, aka Tropical Malady, Sang Sattawat, aka Syndromes and a Century, and Sud Sanaeha, aka Blissfully Yours. This culminated in Weerasethakul winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 for Loong Boonmee raleuk chat, aka Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Having not made a feature film since 2012, Weeresathakul emerged once again at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year with a brand new feature. Titled Rak ti Khon Kaen, or Cemetery of Splendour, the film’s synopsis is as follows.
Soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness are transferred to a temporary clinic in a former school. The memory-filled space becomes a revelatory world for housewife and volunteer Jenjira, as she watches over Itt, a handsome soldier with no family visitors.
Soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness are transferred to a temporary clinic in a former school. The memory-filled space becomes a revelatory world for housewife and volunteer Jenjira, as she watches over Itt, a handsome soldier with no family visitors.
- 7/29/2015
- by Deepayan Sengupta
- SoundOnSight
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